Govt buries Waterview tunnel option
May 14th, 2009
The Govt has put the kybosh on the previous administration’s $2.77bn proposal for a twin-tunnel Waterview Connection saying it is too expensive, shaving more than $1bn off the cost of completing Auckland’s Western Ring Route. It will also shorten the construction timeframe by 12 months. The 5km motorway should be completed by 2015.
NZ Transport Agency has been directed to build a lower cost mostly above ground alternative expected to cost up to $1.4bn, with the price tag including an upgraded section of the northwestern motorway where it connects with the new Waterview link. Some of the savings will come from the NZTA being able to fund the motorway through the National Land Transport Fund, rather than borrowing. Construction time will also be cut, with Transport Minister, Steven Joyce, indicating Waterview will be a beneficiary of moves to streamline the Resource Management Act.
By scuttling Labour’s version of the link, National is signing up to a more flexible version of Waterview able to cope with the predicted 53% increase in Auckland’s population to more than 2m by 2031. Shoulders on the preferred route are wide enough to allow three lanes in each direction, when traffic volumes deem this necessary.
However, the surface road option still faces many hurdles not least of which is the fallout from the need to demolish several hundred houses to make way for the motorway. Avondale Community Board Chairman, Don McDonald, says feelings are running very high in the area. “They won’t get a motorway. The people will lay down in front of the bulldozers.”
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