Local board seeks mayoral help over Lake Rd defunding

From page 1 said: “It’s quite unfathomable to me”.

Even if funding was included in long-term transport plans now under review, already completed public consultation would have to be repeated due to the time lag, at further cost to ratepayers.

He wondered if AT had developed cold feet over the project as early as last year, without elected members being told.

AT’s defunding of the project follows its cancellation of the Bayswater Rd cycleway, which was meant to have been the first stage of the wider project.

Construction work on the Lake Rd corridor was expected to be staged over several years.

AT said its budget crunch and expected cost blowouts on the City Rail Link were reasons for dropping Lake Rd and several other significant road-corridor improvement projects, including Lincoln Rd in Henderson and Glenvar Rd, Torbay. Funding pinch points created uncertainty around AT’s ability to award contracts that extended beyond June 2024, it added. Without more government funding, less work would be delivered.

Waka Kotahi has queried whether the Lake Rd project delivers sufficient ‘mode-shift’ away from private cars.

AT previously told the board it could not afford to build a planned Francis St-to-Esmonde

Rd walking and cycling path, which the local board and its predecessors had funded initial design work for. It has estimated the cost at $7-9 million.

“The loss of Lake Rd makes the Francis St-Esmonde Rd corridor even more important,” van Tonder said.

The board has called for an urgent workshop with AT officials, looking at “the potential for Auckland Transport to directly fund the Francis-Esmonde link as an alternative walking and cycling route to Lake Rd”.

Van Tonder has also written to Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown about the Lake Rd decision telling him the shelved upgrade is “not a nice-to-have, but a must-have” for 30,000 daily users. The mayor has previously told AT to prioritise works in progress and have a no-surprises policy, she noted.

Van Tonder wants his support in getting an- swers and in backing the Hauraki connection.

Decisions about Lake Rd may also have become caught up in delays in deciding a preferred Harbour Connections project, and how this will connect to local routes. On a long list of AT’s planned bus-service improvements, Lake Rd is notably left blank.

The allocation of funds is complicated by the board telling AT last month that it wanted to switch its accumulated local funding from the stymied Francis-Esmonde link to building a boardwalk through the Milford Estuary.

AT has told the board that building the Milford boardwalk for around $3 million would be for the council’s community-services section, not AT, to deliver.

It has urged the board to put its current Local Board Transport Capital Fund allocation of $1.5 million into a range of smaller local projects, rather than seeking to combine it with last year’s unspent allocation of $1.2 million to come near the boardwalk price.

The board refused to sign off on this, saying it wanted a clear answer, in writing, on whether it was able to carry over the previous year’s allocations.

Van Tonder said the board had been previously advised it was possible to squirrel away money for a strategic project. AT staff have now indicated informally this is not likely. This should have been conveyed years ago, van Tonder said.