Design contract kick-starts $1b road plan

Auckland's long-awaited $1.33 billion package of eastern suburban transport projects is about to gather steam under a $15 million design contract.

A tender for detailed design work needed to start about $200 million of projects around Panmure, including a new four-lane road and the abolition or replacement of the suburb's difficult mega-roundabout, was endorsed yesterday by Auckland City Council's transport committee.

Although the Opus transport consultancy was the sole bidder, the committee decided to recommend that the council award a contract for $15.3 million after price negotiations and a favourable "probity" report by independent reviewers.

The Ameti package of projects is being developed as a joint venture between the Auckland and Manukau city councils with the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and the Government's Transport Agency, which has required it to be staged over about 20 years.

Auckland City's share of the package - to be paid for from a combination of government subsidies, development levies, rates and, possibly, road tolls - amounts to $893 million.

Subject to council approval, Opus will be responsible for designing a road with bus lanes likely to cost about $145 million from south of the Ellerslie-Panmure Hwy to Morrin Rd adjoining the new Stonefields suburb.

A further extension north to Merton Rd will be designed later.

Opus will also design traffic improvements between the highway and Panmure Bridge, with provision for bus priority lanes and a separate structure for cyclists and pedestrians to be attached to the bridge in a project with Manukau City. The traffic improvements are likely to include replacing the five-way Panmure roundabout with a radically remodelled intersection, possibly controlled by traffic lights.

Panmure's railway station may also be partly or entirely covered to provide extra ground-level space for pedestrians and urban development projects.

Auckland City transport policy group manager Don Munro said the target construction start date for the Panmure phase of Ameti was 2012, with completion expected by 2019.