Highway threat upsets business leaders

By GARETH VAUGHAN

Business leaders have warned Auckland City councillors to come up with a viable alternative if they are serious about scrapping the $1 billion eastern highway.

City Vision leader Dr Bruce Hucker is likely to be deputy to new Mayor Dick Hubbard.

On Sunday, Hucker said 12 of the 20 councillors wanted to dump the planned motorway between the city and the eastern suburbs.

But Michael Barnett, chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, said millions of dollars of ratepayers' money had been spent on the project over five years and no one had yet come up with an alternative.

"Any threat to the eastern corridor is going to be a threat to the ability of business to move around the region and to my mind would be a misinterpretation of the mandate they have got."

Alasdair Thompson, chief executive of the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern), said buses, a more efficient form of public transport than trains and ferries, needed roads and therefore the motorway.

Russell Sinclair, the New Zealand Retailers Association's Auckland regional manager, said it was important roading bottlenecks were fixed, otherwise the cost of gridlock would continue to hit everyone.

The Government says Auckland's congestion costs the national economy nearly $1 billion a year.

Yesterday Hucker said the new council would develop a sustainable transport policy.

This would encompass moving people, goods and services in ways least damaging to the environment.

Although the council would support completing key strategic roading links, the eastern motorway was not essential. But Hucker said there would be public debate on the issue.

Barnett said he did not believe the new council would have the luxury of turning the eastern corridor into a "dead duck" without finding another solution.