Editorial: Compromise on viaduct costly error

It would be easy - and perhaps expected - that an Auckland-based newspaper would express unalloyed pleasure at the partial success of a campaign to bury the stretch of motorway that crosses Victoria Park. The park is one of the few large grassed areas near the inner city and seems destined to become increasingly valuable with the recent commercial redevelopment along Fanshawe St. The viaduct above the park is undoubtedly an intrusion on the sward, though it is not now as unsightly as it used to be. Trees have grown to maturity around it and provide a good screen from most directions. Nevertheless, if national roading funds were unlimited it would be preferable that the viaduct was replaced with a tunnel under the park.

But national roading funds, of course, are finite. There is not nearly enough in the kitty of Transit New Zealand to carry out all the roading improvements needed in Auckland, let alone throughout the country. Money wasted in one area is money not available for more urgent work in another. It was understandable that a St Marys Bay residents group should campaign for the motorway to go underground, not just where it crosses Victoria Park but all the way to the harbour bridge; the noise of the traffic is highly unpleasant in the homes on the cliffs above. But it was not understandable - and quite irresponsible - for the Auckland City Council and the Regional Council to support that campaign. It is not in the interests of the city or region overall for scarce national roading funds to be squandered.

Faced with Auckland's demands, Transit decided to shelve the urgently needed expansion of the viaduct, probably the worst bottleneck in the motorway system, and take the funds where they could be used more sensibly. That was two years ago. Now it seems Transit's board has come up with a compromise. Anxious to relieve the bottleneck at Victoria Park, the board is understood to have agreed to put its planned additions underground. But only the additions; the existing viaduct would remain for the time being. It would carry traffic in one direction, the tunnel in the other.

It is hard to see what this compromise would achieve. It would not remove the existing structure from the park, it would cost about $40 million more than simply widening the viaduct and it would not be a permanent solution. The one-way tunnel carries a price estimate of $200 million, against $290 million for a six-lane tunnel carrying traffic in both directions. The complete option looks much better value than the one-way proposal that is envisaged to be expanded one day, possibly at an outlay of another $200 million.

If this compromise is welcomed as far as it goes by the residents' group, the reason can only be that it is a stake in the earth for their larger ambitions. Once a short stretch of the motorway is put underground it becomes much easier to argue for more. Already, Mayor Hubbard is suggesting that a Victoria Park tunnel should be dug deep enough to lead one day into a harbour crossing on or below the seabed.

Meanwhile, residents of the whole region await slow progress on the rest of the motorway network scheduled a generation ago. Transit is making improvements, as finance permits, most recently to spaghetti junction and the Gillies Ave ramps. There are urgent extensions still needed in the southeast and the north, as holidaymakers will shortly rediscover. The northward section to bypass Orewa, the scene of regular holiday traffic snarl-ups, will proceed only with finance from tolling. These are the needs that must be brought to mind whenever pressure is brought to bear for excessively expensive attention to any part of the system.

Transit should stand by its priorities. This Victoria Park compromise would neither improve the landscape nor represent sound public spending. Like most compromises, it is worse than either alternative.