Mother of two, Tamsyn Parker, spends 12-and-a-half hours a week stuck behind the wheel on the Northwestern Motorway between Kumeū and the CBD. Photo / Corey Fleming
Mother of two, Tamsyn Parker, spends 12-and-a-half hours a week stuck behind the wheel on the Northwestern Motorway between Kumeū and the CBD. Photo / Corey Fleming
Tamsyn Parker has a 90-minute commute from Kumeu to the CBD, worsened post-Covid.
The Government plans to introduce congestion charging to reduce traffic and improve travel times.
Concerns include the impact on low-income earners and the need for better public transport.
Mother of two, Tamsyn Parker, spends 90 minutes driving to work from Kumeū to the CBD on weekdays and an hour heading home.
Most weeks, she spends about 12-and-a-half hours stuck behind the wheel.
“Before Covid, it had got quite bad, and during Covid, with fewer people coming to town, it got a lot better. But now it is much worse.”
Data from the Automobile Association (AA) says the section of her journey along the Northwestern Motorway from Westgate to the CBD in morning rush hour has risen from 26 minutes in 2017 to 31 minutes last year.
To ease travel times, the Government and Auckland Council have been designing a time-of-use charging system, often called congestion charging, to encourage motorists to travel at different times or take other forms of transport.
Congesiton on the Northwestern Motorway.
Parker said the AA’s 31-minute figure doesn’t square with the hour-long crawl it takes her from Westgate to the CBD, leaving her stressed and exhausted.
She was also unsure about charging motorists on sections of the city’s choked roads.
“If charges reduced the traffic and made it faster to get to work, I would pay a congestion charge.”
But she said a congestion charge would penalise people twice – not being able to afford a house closer to the city and paying more to get to work.
She was willing to pay $10 daily in congestion charges but would expect her 90-minute morning drive to take less than one hour.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the Government will be progressing legislation this year to allow the introduction of time-of-use charging to reduce congestion and increase productivity.
Modelling has shown that successful congestion charging could reduce congestion by 8% to 12% at peak times, improving travel times and efficiency, he said.
The council is on board with time-of-use charging, and Mayor Wayne Brown has suggested charges on the Northwestern motorway between Lincoln Rd and Te Atatū and the Southern Motorway between Penrose and Greenlane.
However, in a report to today’s council’s transport committee meeting, officers are concerned about the legislation centralising control of any schemes in Wellington and how the revenue will be spent.
Under a bill, introduced to Parliament last month with support from all parties except Te Pāti Māori, the Minister of Transport would approve any schemes following the recommendation of a panel of the local council and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) officials, where NZTA provides the chair and holds the casting vote.
In the report, officers want the bill changed so Auckland Council plays a bigger role in time-of-use charging, greater assurances the revenue will fund things such as improved public transport, and concerns addressed about the impact on low-income earners.
The bill limits exemptions to only emergency vehicles. Council officers said this will make it difficult for some groups to avoid “genuine hardship” and risks undermining public support for congestion charges.
The AA is on a similar page to Auckland Council; open to the idea of time-of-use charging, particularly in Auckland, and it supports the legislation.
AA spokesman Martin Glynn said that doesn’t mean the motorist group supports implementing it.
“That will depend on what’s proposed. Which roads would be charged? What would the charges be, and when would they apply? How much time will people actually save? And, of course, will there be realistic public transport alternatives?”
Glynn said AA members were far from convinced, sceptical it could be made to work, and concerned about fairness and affordability.
Travel times have improved on the Northern Motorway, where commuters can also use the Northern Busway. Photo / Michael Craig
The AA would like to see changes to the bill, including discounts, caps and exemptions, greater transparency around how charges are set, and the minister to be satisfied with the level of community support before approving any scheme.
What was needed, Glynn said, was a “Goldilocks charge” that provided meaningful travel time savings and was not too expensive for the many people who had no choice but to rely on their cars.
Glynn said data from the AA’s congestion-monitoring tool and Google travel-time data showed growth in travel times across two of Auckland’s three main motorways during the morning peak between 2017 and 2024.
Over seven years, the typical morning travel time on the Northwestern Motorway between Westgate and the CBD has risen from 26 to 31 minutes, and on the Southern Motorway between Papakura and the CBD from 39 to 44 minutes.
On the Northern Motorway between Albany and the CBD, where commuters can also travel to work on the Northern Busway, the drive had improved from 29 to 27 minutes.
Glynn said travel times jumped back to above pre-Covid levels on the Southern and Northwestern motorways but not on the Northern – perhaps because of increased working from home among people on the North Shore, compared to other parts of the city.
Parker said congestion charges are all very well, but the meaningful solutions are a Kumeū bypass and a busway on the Northwestern Motorway.
“We just can’t get out of Kumeū. The only two things we talk about in Kumeū are traffic and the lack of a high school,” she said.
Bernard Orsman is the New Zealand Herald’s Auckland and Super City reporter.
