Council to press for Tauranga harbour crossing toll

Tauranga City Council is pushing ahead with plans to use tolling to bring forward construction of a new harbour bridge.

Without tolls funding half the cost, the city's urgently needed $210 million Harbour Link - which will create a 4.9km four-lane highway connecting downtown Tauranga with Mt Maunganui - could be 10 years away.

The project also includes a viaduct across the Sulphur Pt industrial area.

Councillors resolved yesterday to recommend that Transit New Zealand approve the 50-50 combination of tolls and Government funding to get work started, hopefully early next year.

But the council and Transit have ruled out discounts for low-income workers who use the bridge regularly.

They say such a policy would create a precedent which would be "unmanageable".

Discounts or waivers for some motorists were recommended by a hearings panel of three commissioners early this month.

The panel considered 1639 public submissions on the toll proposal, 66 per cent of which backed topping up Government-allocated funding with tolls for a quicker start on easing traffic congestion.

A survey of the affected community showed that 75 per cent of people supported the fund-sharing suggestion.

The latest move does not mean the city council has given up getting the Harbour Link included in the state highway network.

It has resolved to formally approach Transit again on the matter and also to "continue to actively seek further alternative non-toll funding" for the bridge project.

An anomaly which has angered locals is Transit's refusal to declare the Tauranga harbour bridge a state highway, despite its approach roads having that status.

Transit and Tauranga City Council predict that, without tolls, the harbour bridge will be carrying 50,000 vehicles a day by 2016.

The existing bridge at present takes about 37,000 vehicles daily - 10,000 more than when the previous toll was lifted in 2001 after 13 years.