Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — New Zealand Transport Agency

The New Zealand Transport Agency in many ways has done a good job, but it is handicapped by two things. Firstly, the Government—particularly the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce—has set very strong policy guidelines, and has laid down the seven roads of national significance that the New Zealand Transport Agency now has to fund. The most controversial of these is the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, sometimes called the Holiday Highway. It is not really essential to have that road turned into a motorway at this stage with the low density of traffic on it, and it would be at the huge cost of a couple of billion dollars over some years. The benefit-cost ratio for that would clearly be at the bottom of the heap in terms of priorities for the expenditure of Government money on transport, when in the broader Auckland region it is quite clear that the priority should be public transport.

If members look at the expenditure of the New Zealand Transport Agency across the country—it has a 3-year planning horizon from 2009-2012—they will see that the total expenditure is to be $8.7 billion over 3 years, with only $900 million of that for public transport, and only $51 million for walking and cycling. So members can see that public transport, and walking and cycling, are sort of afterthoughts; the New Zealand Transport Agency still sees itself largely as a roading agency.

The agency does mention in its list of national projects a few good public transport projects, like the New Lynn transit developments, integrated ticketing for Auckland—which is very important and should be hurried up; some progress is being made there—and railway station improvements in Auckland and Wellington. It also mentions the development of public transport along the important artery of Dominion Road in Auckland, and the Dominion Road priority lanes. The problem there is that the Auckland City Council, which has some control over things, is cutting back on all of that and putting things other than buses on the bus priority lanes, which is not a very good development.

In the area of cycleways, of course, the Green Party is working with the National Government on a national cycleway. Unfortunately, that has not been translated too much into the urban setting yet; the New Zealand Transport Agency is not really helping very much there. But members can see that the idea of a walkway and cycleway over the Auckland Harbour Bridge is very popular. Piles of people went over the bridge when there was a big protest in that direction a year or so ago, which I was on. Even though that walkway-cycleway over the Harbour Bridge has had various estimates of $20 million to $40 million in cost, which is minute in the scale of the overall New Zealand Transport Agency budget, the agency has not gone along with that. Although the cycling and walking advocates have said they would do a public-private partnership, and would charge people per ride or per walk and virtually pay for it themselves, the agency is very reluctant to go along with it, so that is not terribly good.

One of the good projects—and it is mentioned somewhere in the broader New Zealand Transport Agency documents, particularly in the Auckland documents—is the idea of an underground extension of the Britomart terminus to connect with the western line around the Mount Eden train station. It is mentioned in the transport agency documents, at least, that $6 million has been given to look at the route for that rail tunnel, but in terms of longer-term projections it is in the never-never whether it will ever be built, and when it would be built. The tunnel would cost a lot less to build than the Pūhoi to Wellsford extensions. It would cost roughly $1.5 billion, although it is not fully costed out at this point. The Green Party says that we should get on with critical public transport infrastructure in Auckland, particularly the loop beyond Britomart to connect with the western line. Thank you.

Report noted.

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