Catch-up time for Auckland roading

Auckland's road network had been underfunded for a long time and at some stage that had to be changed, Helen Clark said yesterday.

A 10-year draft state highways programme by Transit New Zealand shows Auckland is pencilled in to get $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion likely to be available for major highway works until 2013, bringing complaints from the capital's leaders.

At her post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister said she had not seen the draft.

"But it's fair to say that objective analysis of the way in which Transit money has been deployed over quite a long period of time suggests Auckland has been underfunded," she said.

"So there has to be some catch-up some time, particularly considering the amount of GDP [gross domestic product] generated out of Auckland and the amount of export and import trade."

Herald feature: Getting Auckland moving