KEY POINTS:
Auckland Regional Council members want a $3 billion tunnel to the east of the central business district to be considered as a priority for the next traffic crossing of Waitemata Harbour.
They voted yesterday for a crossing from North Shore City to the eastern side of central Auckland, emerging between the waterfront and Grafton Gully, to be "one of the priorities" of a joint study with Transit NZ and other partners.
The resolution, proposed by council chairman Mike Lee at a meeting of the ARC's transport policy committee, challenges Transit's preference for a tunnel under the proposed $2 billion-plus Tank Farm development to link the Northern Motorway at Northcote to the Northwestern Motorway via Spaghetti Junction.
Transit had been close to applying for a designation to safeguard a corridor under the Tank Farm although it does not expect another harbour crossing will be needed until at least 2020, and possibly much later.
The agency has agreed to work with the regional council, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and Auckland and North Shore cities on a $1.3 million study to decide the best route. It will review more than 20 options considered in the late 1990s including the western crossing and a route connecting to the since-abandoned eastern motorway.
Mr Lee says he is not advocating a resurrection of that project, as it would cause unacceptable environmental damage to Hobson Bay and other natural features, but he told the transport committee it would be "mad" to develop a crossing so close to the narrow motorway corridor now leading to Spaghetti Junction.
He said an eastern crossing would provide easy access to Auckland City Hospital and universities from the North Shore, and a direct connection to the rail network. It would also allow Ports of Auckland freight to cross the harbour "without having to trundle through the central business district."
He agreed to leave open the question of where to place the northern end of tunnel, after horrifying committee chairman Joel Cayford by suggesting that it be Bayswater Peninsula.
Dr Cayford, who lives just across Ngataringa Bay from Bayswater, said the peninsula would be devastated and that Lake Rd between Devonport and Takapuna would be "completely destroyed."
