Muller to Waikato: I’m your highway star
National would spend $570 million extending a section of the Waikato Expressway if elected, leader Todd Muller says.
Muller yesterday revealed National’s transport plan at Piarere, one of the Waikato’s most notorious intersections and a section of road earmarked by National in the extension of the Waikato Expressway.
The extension from Cambridge to Piarere was axed by Ardern’s government when it took power in 2017.
But Transport Minister Phil Twyford questioned how Muller would pay for it, given his proposed $2 billion cut to the transport budget.
Under Muller’s plan, the section of State Highway 1 between Cambridge and State Highway 29 at Piarere would be 16km long with two lanes in each direction.
It was on the plans to be built by the last National Government.
“This Government took $5 billion out of the state highway budget for a light rail project that two weeks ago they announced [would be axed] and in the meantime, the community of Waikato have been left without clarity in terms of the next step.
“Well they have the clarity today; the National government will build the Cambridge to Piarere expressway.
“It will start the next term and it will be part of a nationwide approach of building really strong infrastructure that will underpin economy, growth and a recovery in this country that we all need.”
Muller labelled the road “extraordinarily dangerous” and said the corridor between Hamilton, Tauranga and Auckland was extremely important and “the beating heart of the country”.
Asked about whether National would extend the expressway to Tirau, Muller said the Cambridge to Piarere stretch was the most important at the moment but they would look at “ongoing safety improvements” for that area.
Twyford labelled Muller’s announcement nothing but a “ghost road”, with “no funding, no timeframe, and no telling what they will cut to try and pay for it”.
The current government had funded over $5b of new roads and increased maintenance budget after years of National neglect, Twyford said.
Further, the Government had already built safety upgrades along SH1 at Piarere with more to come.
National’s Hamilton East MP David Bennett has been critical of the Government’s handling of the expressway, earlier labelling the axing of the extension as “shortsighted”.