New Motorway Plan Sparks Controversy
August 28th, 2008
Govt transport officials are considering four-lane motorway and expressway links north of Auckland to Warkworth and Wellsford as part of upgrades costing up to $1.8bn. The NZ Land Transport Agency wants to start investigating a potential new route for a 34km motorway extension between Puhoi and Warkworth and eventually Wellsford roughly following the alignment of SH1. It says SH1 is the preferred route for serving travel demand between Auckland and Wellsford rather than encouraging more traffic to use SH16.
Two Stage Project. A draft report proposes building a four-lane motorway on a new alignment between Puhoi and Warkworth over 15kms, and then an expressway of similar capacity over the 19km section to Wellsford. The report also proposes pressing ahead with a realignment of the difficult Schedewys Hill section north of Puhoi, upgrading an extension of the Northwestern Motorway to a four-lane expressway to Brigham Creek Rd, and extending the Northern Busway to Silverdale.
Plan Faces Opposition. However, the Auckland Regional Council is unimpressed with the plan believing it will run counter to its wish to contain urban sprawl within designated parts of the region rather than further decentralise patterns of settlement. In addition, a Council officers’ report says the environmental costs of such a motorway through difficult terrain are likely to be just as challenging as those which confronted the $365m Orewa to Puhoi toll road. As a result, the road building plan “may well be unaffordable in the foreseeable future.”
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