KEY POINTS:
Ambitions of extending a $70 million branch railway line into the centre of Manukau City have been cooled by steep tunnelling costs for an underground station.
Officials will recommend to city councillors today that the proposed link from Puhinui on the main trunk railway line should stop under
the western side of Davies Cres, short of the civic centre.
That follows advice that extending the line just 60 metres to the east, and therefore closer to offices and shops, would add $10 million to the cost of the project.
Although the council included $6.5 million for that purpose in its draft annual plan, with an indication that $3.5 million more would be needed in 2009-10, a staff report concludes that the "general mood" of a recent non-voting forum of councillors "was not of a mind to provide the additional funds required".
Government rail agency Ontrack said it would not be able to extend the branch line east of Davies Ave within its own budget of about $50 million for the 2.5km link, which would include duplicate tracks to Wiri and a single set between there and a new platform at Puhinui station.
Ted Calvert, project director for the Government's $600 million upgrade of Auckland's core rail network, said his budget would extend to a basic underpass beneath Davies Cres, for passengers to walk to the civic centre from an underground railway station to be built by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.
Although the branch line would cater initially just for trains arriving from the north, a road bridge being built by Transit NZ as part of its $210 million Manukau motorway extension would allow for a future south-facing rail link, he said.
Although the city council wants the line ready in 2010, he said it might be more efficient to build it with Auckland's rail electrification project, which is expected to be completed from 2011 to 2013.
Manukau City transport manager Chris Freke disagreed, saying he believed the electrification timetable was too ambitious, resulting in a long delay to build a branch line needed to serve a large catchment of potential public transport users through a bus interchange above the railway station.
His council is paying Transit about $12 million for its motorway contractors to provide enabling earthworks for the railway line, of which $6.4 million was granted from regional funds by the former Infrastructure Auckland.
Mr Freke believed the railway station would cost the regional transport authority between about $8 million and $10 million.
Councillor David Collings, in charge of the council's transport portfolio, said the annual cost of borrowing the money would amount to a rates rise close to 1 per cent.