North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Downscaled bridge to be for the wealthy
The new downscaled, two-lane Penlink road will be tolled indefinitely and pricing will be used to deter low-income earners from using it.
When downgrading the project, officials looked at ways to reduce costs and increase revenue, the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board were told in an update on the project at their August business meeting.
The four-lane, $380 million design would have seen users tolled for 25 years to finance 25 per cent of the road, with the rest being picked up by council rates and government taxes, Auckland Transport (AT) group manager strategic projects Theunis Van Schalkwyk said.
The 25-year point, when the toll was to be removed, was when it was expected two-lanes wouldn’t cope anymore and four-lanes would be required.
The toll would now most likely never be removed, and pricing on the $240 million, twolane version would be adjusted as demand increased to dissuade people from using it, to keep traffic flowing at roughly 10,500 vehicles per day,
AT’s modelling for the fourlane version expected to attract 16,600 vehicles per day.
‘‘Under this [two-lane] scenario, because we demand manage the flow, we expect it could operate as two-lane road for a lot longer than 25-years,’’ Van Schalkwyk said.
Van Schalkwyk also put Penlink back on the table as a political hot potato for Rodney Electorate candidates.
While it had been brought forward in the updated Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP), this was just a recommendation, not a statutory position, he said.
‘‘There will be a prioritisation of what we can afford, given our funding, and what will be made available to Auckland Transport.’’
Without knowledge of what the funding was, a date for when the project could start couldn’t be given, Van Schalkwyk said.
‘‘The next step would be to go through our normal [Regional Land Transport Plan] consultation process and some of this would be again tested through that ... That process will go through the end of this year, or next year,’’ he said.
In his councillor’s update to the board, Councillor John Watson said the project being forward was great news. Watson didn’t believe reducing the project to two-lanes was a less desirable outcome, as it increased the project’s cost benefit ratio and pushed it up the priority list.