Editorial: Eastern road option must be kept open

Nobody in Auckland needs reminding that a defining issue at the last city election was a highway proposed on a "corridor" through the eastern isthmus that previous generations had kept clear for just that purpose. For most voters the issue probably had less to do with the merits of the particular proposal than the personality of its leading proponent, then-mayor John Banks. But that cannot be said of the ward around Hobson Bay, which the highway would have crossed. Hobson ward gave its two council seats to candidates committed to stopping the project.

Richard Simpson and Christine Caughey had little else in common with the left-wing "City Vision" team that won the western suburbs, but with its support they quickly kept their promise. Now the two Hobson representatives want to go further and change the designation of the land, removing the right to use it for a transport artery of any sort except rail, possibly forever.

The City Vision members kept their heads down when Mr Simpson's call to change the designation suddenly appeared this month on the council's transport committee agenda, which he chairs. Surviving highway supporters on the council managed to have the item deferred for a special meeting of the committee to be held on Monday. Members of the left and right should make common cause this time to ensure the designation stays as it is.

It is one thing to stop a particular roading proposal, quite another to preclude any road at any time. The "corridor" alongside the Purewa Creek was left vacant by past generations in the knowledge that sooner or later a road would be needed. It might not be for all traffic, it could be a busway, though a new road might be needed sooner rather than later to serve the 30,000 population increase planned for Glen Innes and Mt Wellington.

Council officers have begun designing a link southward from those developments to State Highway 1 and Mr Simpson fears that a northward connection to the city might be next. The eastern corridor is the obvious route. When he and Ms Caughey look at the plans of Auckland and Manukau cities they see an upgraded loop that looks like the first stage of the highway Mr Banks wanted to build.

It may be, but the fact is, the eastern arterial is not yet one of Transit New Zealand's priorities. It did not figure in the list of work to be financed from the Budget last week. Mr Banks proposed to finance the road from tolls but the estimates of the likely use were so low that he had to pare back the plan to a degree that hardly made it worthwhile. Even voters who had initially supported it probably decided the reduced version was not worth the trouble.

That is not to say a road will never be needed. Mr Simpson and Ms Caughey implicitly concede as much with their determination to foreclose the option. The spectre of the eastern highway hangs over the city "like a bad breath", says Mr Simpson. "We have to go through a public exorcism." The only citizens still haunted by the "spectre", understandably, are those overlooking Hobson Bay. Nobody wants another causeway in their backyard, but nobody complains that previous generations allowed Tamaki Drive to be built across the bay.

Likewise, future generations will be grateful to those who keep the highway route available. People elected to government at any level have a temporary licence to make decisions. They should be wary of binding the future. If the two Hobson ward members do not want their contribution cursed in the eastern suburbs for generations to come, they will leave the designation as it is. The council has no mandate to close the eastern artery for all time.