Bullshit about the Waterview Connection

There is so much so I thought I'd clear up some myths:

1. First the easy one to get out of the way, the one spread by some friends on the right - the route for this motorway has NOT been designated at ALL, the motorway designation for SH20 starts at Manukau and ended at Richardson Road. There is a gap thanks to Auckland local authorities dithering and abandoning the Avondale peninsula route option in the 1970s. So please don't believe private property rights for those on the route can be ignored - they did NOT buy land on a motorway route.

2. Idiot Savant says the announcement by the NZTA on the preferred route for the Waterview connection is “an affront to democracy”. Complete bollocks. When did people vote for the route of ANY road? It never happened for any other section of the Western Ring Route, nor the Northern Gateway, nor the Waikato Expressway, nor the Christchurch Southern Motorway. The system is designed to be a rational appraisal based on statutory criteria, not on counting the heads of the loudest. The USA has that, and you see bridges collapse due to lack of political interest. It is entirely within the role of NZTA to decide on its preferred route as the government wont be borrowing to pay for a greenplated route.

3. He also talks nonsense in claiming “the plan centres on using an existing rail designation for a motorway. So, Auckland won't be getting a proper rail-based public transport network because National will have already built a stinking great road there.” Funnily enough there remains room for the motorway there (the map he links to shows this) and even ARTA has no plans to built the Avondale-Southdown railway till 2030. The project isn’t worth it, so to claim Auckland “wont be getting a proper rail-based public transport network” because one line that would be barely used isn’t to be built, is extreme hyperbole.

4. Bomber at Tumeke thinks it is a conspiracy with National favouring its big business mates at Macquaries and hating public transport. For starters, Labour’s plans would have benefited Macquaries far more as it would have been a bigger scheme and a PPP. On top of that, the Waterview connection wont be tolled, nor will it be a PPP, Macquaries provides finance for PPP toll roads, it isn’t in the road construction business in New Zealand. The company can't benefit from this decision at all. So that makes this conspiracy theory totally fatuous. Tim Selwyn posts more intelligently on the issue to be fair.

5. The Standard tries to spin that the government is misleading on costs, something that NZTA clears up quite quickly. It also makes some of the same mistakes as others do.

All options require work at SH16 worth $242 million.

Labour wanted a four lane bored tunnel. $1.974 billion. National is now proposing a four lane mix of surface, bored tunnel and cut and cover tunnel at $1.165 billion, with provision for six laning built in (Labour’s option did not allow for that). That’s over $800 million difference. To put that in context, Transit’s total budget last year for ALL state highways activities was $1.2 billion. So National's proposal saves a lot of money, AND allows for future growth.

Labour had proposed a PPP for the motorway, so financing costs (interest) of $554 million had been included for its option. However, Labour had NO budgetary provision for the motorway at all. Financing costs are the costs of paying a PPP operator to borrow, build and operate the road. The money to pay the PPP operator would still need to come from somewhere

It did not know whether it would pay it back through general taxes or the National Land Transport Fund, or even some contribution from tolls. So the money for this motorway had to come from somewhere as yet unidentified. National is taking the money from road users, through the National Land Transport Fund. There isn’t enough revenue from road users to fund Labour’s proposal, so general taxpayers would have had to subsidise it.

In short, there was never money to build this motorway before (there was money for investigation and design), National has chosen one option (the most fair one, as it means road users pay for a road). Labour either would have to have chosen the same option, and take money from general taxation (from other spending like health), or take all the money from general taxation.

What National DOES need to answer is what the National Land Transport Programme looks like for the next few years. That will come out in June. Then we will all know how projects have been reprioritised to help fund this strategic section of motorway, although it will be a couple of years before construction can commence.

Finally, doesn’t this all show you how utterly inept arguments about things become when they are political? There is an alternative – it has been done in Australia – it means telling the private sector it can build, own and operate the road, and toll it, pick the route and do it all itself. It can even be paid a share of roading taxes collected from using the new road. Decisions like this should not be up to politicians – because they spend money like teenagers given dad’s credit card.

Mt Albert and that motorway

One issue that both Labour and the Greens are making a big deal for the by-election is the Waterview motorway extension to SH20, which will link the soon to be finished Mt Roskill extension to the North Western motorway, effectively completing the Western Ring Road.

The bottom line is this:

Labour wants to bore a tunnel for the route (it isn't through a hill). This would come to around $2.8 billion. Note all the other sections of the Western Ring Road are open cut trenched motorways, note the total cost for the other six sections that have been built since 2000 is less than half this. In other words, you might wonder why the motorway through the former PM's electorate was to be a goldplated (but narrow) tunnel, but the other sections were left to be open motorways?

National is reviewing the alternatives, including a cut and cover tunnel, or an open cut road, like the other sections, on the ground it could save between $0.5 and $0.8 billion. It doesn't have Helen Clark on the end of the phone demanding her precious ex.electorate be protected from the big bad road.

The Greens don't want the road built at all, they want a railway line to connect west to south Auckland, and presumably prefer the roads between the two motorways to be congested. I guess they hope think road transport will become hienously expensive, and so everyone will use trains shooting past empty road.

Of course the decision will be made by this government. So which candidate is likely to make a difference to this?

Not Russel Norman. The government will ignore a local MP who says no road. Besides the Greens should be happy, they are getting their big electric train set.

Not David Shearer. He can jump up and down as much as he likes, but he wont have access to the government. Besides, there isn't enough money in the National Land Transport Fund to pay for more greenplated tunnels that aren't going under hills (the Victoria Park Tunnel will take enough money as it is thank you).

Melissa Lee? Well yes she will have access to Bill English and Steven Joyce, who will decide on the availability of extra money to the New Zealand Transport Agency, which in effect will determine the option selected. She is best placed to influence it.

On my part, I think it should be built when the private sector thinks it will be worth it, or at least when it is a better spend than paying for all the other roads that can be funded from road taxes.

Of course, Mt Albert voters might want to make a different choice. A choice about whether they want to vote for more government or less government.

It might be better to just wait to see who all the candidates will be, before making a choice.

UPDATE: ACT candidate John Boscawen has sensibly argued that the Waterview extension should be a surface level motorway, he isn't wanting to pillage taxpayers to placate local interests. He says "no more Buy election" which is quite clever, and in fact making it a surface motorway (like all the other sections) will make it far more affordable. Good for him, by contrast Labour was rolling out the pork for Mt Albert on this issue before the general election, and is doing the same now. (and credit to Gooner for his comment as I was typing this!).