October 2021 - January 2022
The New Zealand A Upgrade blowout
TRANSPORT
Projects in the New Zealand Upgrade Programme announced last year have now been scaled back or axed entirely, Greater Auckland's Matt Lowrie investigates
t the start of last year the government announced the NZ Upgrade Programme, a massive infrastructure programme which included $6.8 billion in transport projects around the country with around half of that being in Auckland. The package contained some really good and much needed projects, such as the Northern Pathway, the third main between Otahuhu and Wiri, electrification from Papakura to Pukekohe along with new train stations along that section. But the vast majority of the package, over $5 billion (75%) was for massive road upgrades, including to continue the National Party's Roads of National Significance. It was bizarre and many of the projects completely contradicted the Government Policy Statement (GPS) which is meant to guide transport priorities across the country. There have been rumours circling for some time about
Biggest blowouts Otaki to North of Levin $817m to $1,500m (+$683m) It’s really hard to see how the government can justify continuing to fund this project. While traffic volumes have been increasing at the telemetry site at Ohau south of Levin and the current Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) is about 18,000, the business case suggested that by 2041 it is only expected to reach around 22,600. This is important as in the business case for the proposed Warkworth to Wellsford expressway, Waka Kotahi suggested the trigger for four-laning is when “Forecast traffic volumes are predicted to exceed 25,000 AADT“. I wonder what could have been achieved by instead putting that 22 infrastructurenews.co.nz
money into some safety upgrades, better connections between SH1 and SH57 to create a proper bypass of Levin and the rest into track upgrades and/or extension of electrification combined with improved rail services? Penlink $411m to $830m (+$419m) Penlink is a planned 7km toll road in Auckland between SH1 near Dairy Flat through to the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. It has been pushed for by locals for decades. The $411m when announced last year was already up significantly on the $280m previously estimated by Auckland Transport. One of the main problems with Penlink has been
there are just not that many people on the peninsula to use it. That and they’ll still face the same motorway bottleneck on SH1 – though I wonder if some of the extra cost could be widening SH1 too. Auckland Transport have long term (unfunded) plans to extend the NX2 to Whangaparaoa via Penlink. Perhaps that needs to be combined with more general upzoning of the peninsula to help justify the cost. The cost should hopefully put to bed the push for the road to be four lanes and not tolled – the toll will help in managing demand but even in 2046 only around 16,800 vehicles a day are expected to use it, so toll revenue would barely cover the interest on that construction cost.
