Anti-highway group turns up heat

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Millions of dollars being spent on the eastern highway should go to improving rail services to the new Britomart station, say opponents of the $460 million road project.

Instead of spending $30 million in planning costs on a "road that will never happen", the Stop the Eastern Motorway (Stem) lobby group says Auckland should look at Perth where rail services are experiencing phenomenal growth.

SteM is turning up the heat on politicians and pro-roading groups with the appointment of an executive officer, Richard Lewis, and signalling it has the financial resources to mount a long battle against the proposed highway.

"It's a fight capable of being won," said Mr Lewis, a business consultant whose Remuera home overlooks Hobson Bay, where the highway would run.

"This is not a destructive or negative process. We just happen to think there are better alternatives."

Mr Lewis said Auckland and Manukau councils would fail to secure full funding for a $13 million study on the eastern highway, making funding the road itself "pie in the sky".

Auckland City Mayor John Banks said Stem was poorly informed because the councils had secured funding for the study.

The councils estimate the total cost of getting the eastern highway to the building stage at $30 million, including $13.3 million for the latest detailed study and assessment of environmental effects.

The costs of this study are being shared between the councils (75 per cent) and Transit NZ (25 per cent). The councils sought a 75 per cent subsidy from Transfund for their share, which agreed to a 48 per cent subsidy. This means ratepayers will pay $5.2 million towards the study - money which was budgeted last October and will be spent over the next two financial years.

Mr Lewis said the eastern corridor, with an existing rail line, was the perfect opportunity for the councils to get a return on the $211 million Britomart project.

"It's the low-cost option, the environmentally responsible option, and Britomart opens in July bringing commuters by rail to a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of the city," he said.

In seven years, patronage on Perth's rail system has grown from six million trips a year to 30 million and the construction of a new southern line is expected to add another 30 million journeys. Annual rail trips in Auckland stand at 2.3 million.

Mr Banks said he would be "over the moon" if Auckland could follow the success story of Perth with rail but people had to recognise that within the next 20 years car numbers in Auckland were projected to double and the city desperately needed to complete the western and eastern motorway links.

"The eastern corridor is proceeding as planned," he said. "I'm totally committed to moving it forward incrementally day by day, week by week, month by month until the people of Auckland decide they don't want me as mayor."