KEY POINTS:
Auckland's $1.89 billion Waterview motorway tunnels project is being lambasted by the Green Party as a financial drain with a "miserable" benefit-cost rating - even without considering future oil prices.
Green MP Keith Locke said yesterday he was astounded by an admission that the Transport Agency's predecessor, Transit NZ, had made no oil price projections in its plans for a pair of tunnels to connect SH 20 with the Northwestern Motorway by 2015.
He was granted permission to table in Parliament a letter in which Transit acting chairman Bryan Jackson, who is a member of the new agency's board, disclosed a benefit-cost ratio "of approximately 1.0" for the 4.5km motorway link.
The letter, sent to Mr Locke last month, also included an indication by Mr Jackson that tolls would be charged to drive through the 3.2km set of bored tunnels within that link - even though the Government says it has yet to make a decision on that.
Mr Locke said the ratio figure stated in the letter meant there was insufficient financial gain expected from the project to outweigh the cost, other than the general longer-term benefit of completing a network.
"The projected tunnel is more like a drain into which the Labour Government is pouring nearly $2 billion."
He said it was astonishing that Transit had made no projections for oil prices, particularly as it was now part of an organisation in receipt of a commissioned report warning that oil would never be cheap again. That report predicts a reduction in kilometres travelled on the roads, a phenomenon already noted by the Transport Agency at some points on Auckland's motorway network, until 2015 - or longer if planners and decision-makers act fast in the meantime to provide and encourage the use of alternative transport modes.
Mr Jackson said benefit-cost ratings were useful only for ranking projects against each other, and were not a reliable measure of absolute value.
Although Transit had not made any oil projections, he promised future assessments of how Aucklanders may respond to higher vehicle running costs, and said his organisation's decision to limit the tunnels to four lanes in each direction was to balance future roading provisions "with appropriate travel demand management tools".
