KEY POINTS:
Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis is making a dramatic call for a bridge or tunnel to prevent snarl-ups at the notorious Panmure roundabout.
"It doesn't matter if it's a flyover or a tunnel - the most important thing is to get rid of traffic conflict between the minor roads and the major corridor," he said in frustration at long delays for Manukau commuters after lane changes that Auckland City Council insists were essential to make the roundabout safer.
Sir Barry said a tunnel, understood to have been under consideration more than 30 years ago by Auckland regional transport planners, could link Lagoon Drive with the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and hasten the journeys of thousands of commuters from parts of his city such as Pakuranga and East Tamaki.
Auckland City officials acknowledge that reduced capacity caused by the lane changes has added an average of 20 minutes to journeys to work, but point to a decline in crashes on the roundabout and promise measures to improve traffic flows once commuter patterns settle down in coming weeks after the return of tertiary students to classes.
But Sir Barry said immediate action was needed to return the roundabout with its six feeder roads to its previous three-lane configuration pending a longer-term solution.
He said he intended proposing a resurrection of the tunnel plan at a meeting today of a political steering group from Auckland and Manukau cities and community boards to receive recommendations from officers on improving transport capacity across their common border on the Tamaki River.
A joint study group of consultants guided by officers from both councils and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority has been working on the project - which has an estimated cost of $834 million - following the demise of the $4 billion eastern highway proposal between Manukau and Hobson Bay.
Auckland City transport strategy, planning and projects group manager Alan Bufton said the tunnel proposal was mooted as part of a road-traffic route between Penrose and the central business district in about 1975, at a time when there was much less attention given to public transport needs.
He said he was unable to comment on proposals yet to be presented to political leaders, which had a higher emphasis on improved walking and cycling as well as public transport links, but confirmed that a long-term aim of his council included either significantly modifying or removing the Panmure roundabout.
It is understood that could be achieved by providing a duplicate Pakuranga Motorway bridge and widening and extending Mt Wellington Highway to the north, towards Glen Innes, ferrying car and bus passengers to railway stations along the way.
The original eastern highway proposal included reserving the existing Panmure bridge. Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard is not ruling out some form of "grade-separated" crossing of the roundabout, but said Sir Barry should bear in mind that there was likely to be a bypass of the area under what is termed the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative.
