Brian Rudman: If you build it, they will come ... and come

Auckland International Airport's engineering boss, Steve Reindler, was jumping up and down on Monday demanding a new $146 million four-lane bridge across Mangere Harbour by tomorrow at the latest.

Otherwise, traffic congestion was likely to become "intolerable" for air passengers, notably business travellers caught in the rush hours.

Just why delays should be more intolerable for the Koru Lounge set than the rest of us, I can't imagine. My other reaction to his public submission to Transit NZ's draft 10-year state highway building plan was what a shame the airport empire builders hadn't predicted this little problem before they launched their think-big programme to turn the airport surrounds into a mini-city.

I raised this last October when airport chief executive Don Huse announced a major probe into land transport issues at the airport. At the time the airport company was heavily promoting its plans to commercially develop 1500 hectares next to the airport for commercial and residential use. Roll up, roll up, cheap land for all, was the sales pitch.

The advertising bragged about how the land "is easily accessible from the north, south and east" and "future plans for airport roading will enhance access to the regional road network and main arterials".

Intriguingly, just six months later, Mr Reindler is wailing a very different tune. Far from being "easily accessible" from all corners of the globe, he told Transit that "before too long it won't just be Mangere Bridge that is a major bottleneck with insufficient capacity", it will be the whole "strategic network within the wider precinct of the airport" that will be jammed.

So which is fact - the "easy access" of the come-on advertising, or the "major bottleneck" of this week's scare-mongering?

Holding the airport's hand at the hearings into Transit's highway plan on Monday was Tony Garnier, road lobbyist extraordinaire for dumped Auckland mayor John Banks during the Eastern Highway fiasco. I always had the impression that Mr Garnier would not be happy until the whole city was covered in tarmac, so it's perhaps little wonder where the airport is coming from. The question is, will it be happy with just a $146 million bridge?

On past record, the answer is no. In recent years, taxpayers built a fine motorway to the airport to ensure passengers would get there on time, and how did the airport company show its gratitude? It took advantage of the new access to develop a large retail and commercial suburb employing more than 8000 people. Is it any wonder the roads are clogging up again - not with passengers but with shoppers and delivery trucks?

If it's easy passenger access the airport is genuinely concerned about, then why don't they look at the solution every other major city airport adopts - rail access? The lobby group Campaign for Better Transport estimates that a rail link using diesel trains could be up and running for around $200 million. This would include the cost of a new bridge across the Manukau and follow the disused Onehunga line across to Mangere township to the airport. For that cost you'd get a 20- minute frequency, using a single track with strategic passing bays.

For double the price, you could get a light rail service running between Britomart and the airport.

Like the campaign to open the Onehunga branch line, this proposed airport link continues to be ignored or disparaged by the region's transport authorities, despite instructions from the Government for them to pay greater regard to public, rather than just road, transport.

What the transport bureaucrats and politicians need is a good nudge, and who better to do that than the airport company? It could spark it off by commissioning a report. Then it could show it meant business by offering to underwrite the cost of the actual link. It could treat it as part of the airport infrastructure - which in effect it would be.

But if the airport prefers to persevere with its demands for fast-tracking a new road bridge, maybe it should consider coughing up for that instead. After all, the airport wants it for the benefit of its clients - both the air-travelling public and the customers of the burgeoning industrial and retail estate alongside.

In these cash-strapped times it seems only fair that if you create demand it's up to you to satisfy it.