John Roughan: How long will Michael Wood’s harbour crossing ‘vision’ of light rail, walking and cycling link last?

Transport Minister Michael Wood and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announce five new options for an additional connection across Auckland's Waitematā Harbour. Photo / Michael Craig

OPINION

Auckland’s new mayor is proving to be sometimes a breath of fresh air and sometimes a foolish blowhard but it was refreshing to hear him declare this week that the city’s most urgent need is not another harbour crossing, and not one for light rail.

North Shore commuters know he is right. Much as they would like the security of a second crossing they know the harbour bridge is still well within its capacity. Thanks to its moveable median, the bridge is the bit of motorway that flows best.

Nevertheless, it used to be fun to discuss alternative routes for a bridge or tunnel. But when the Government produced five of them recently, Auckland yawned. I was in the car on the afternoon of the announcement and callers to ZB were all scoffing at the common element of the five options: light rail.

Quite why this Government is so keen on a slow mode of mass transport eludes most people. Since it loves railways, callers asked, why doesn’t it concentrate on the one we have? Mayor Wayne Brown is saying the same.

It is less than 10 years since a previous Mayor Brown convinced the city a central rail link would be all it takes to turn the old railway into a silk purse. In the Herald’s Project Auckland supplement this week, CRL chief Sean Sweeney mentioned one of its inner-city stations was being “future-proofed” for a connection to the North Shore.

The trouble with politicians who offer what they call “vision” is that their visions don’t last very long. No sooner was central Auckland being dug up for the CRL than Phil Twyford, then Transport Minister, wanted light rail to the northwest because the CRL would not make the existing western line much quicker.

Now Twyford’s replacement, Michael Wood, is proposing another tunnel out of the city centre for light rail to Māngere, tunnelling near the western line as far as Morningside. Even light rail enthusiasts think this is nuts. Cyclists said the same about his bike bridge.

Every time I see this young minister in the news I wonder how his career has survived the bike bridge. In 60 years of following New Zealand politics, I can’t remember a decision as silly. Yet here he still is, his credibility in the Labour Party and even within the Press Gallery apparently undiminished. He was touted as a leadership contender when Jacinda Ardern resigned.

He is very left wing and he holds three important economic portfolios, transport, immigration and employment. He has given trade unions power to dictate industry pay minimums, retains close control of work visas in the face of labour shortages and, on the evidence of the bike bridge, has no sense of the value of public money.

That project was to be financed with unspent money in the Covid Relief Fund, which didn’t really exist. It was just a name given to a Budget estimate for getting through the pandemic. But as the economy recovered from lockdowns quicker than expected, the money left in the “fund” caused the Government to lose its fiscal head.

It decided the balance was available for practically anything. The bike bridge had an amusing genesis. It grew out of a proposal from engineers engaged by Wood to work on the “Skypath”, one of many impractical projects adopted by the Labour Party long before Winston Peters put it unexpectedly into power.

The consultants advised Wood that the existing bridge could not bear the load of a path clamped to one side and they suggested instead a separate bridge for vehicles as well as bikes and pedestrians. Though more expensive, they said, the cost-benefit ratio would be better.

The problem was that the legislation the Government had written for transport projects in the name of Covid relief specified that the projects must be only for “active” transport – walking or cycling. The consultants I know were incredulous when Wood then wanted a bridge solely for those.

Unbelievably, the Cabinet agreed to it. Wood was joined for its announcement by the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson. When the decision was met with general scorn, the Government said it would instead build another vehicular crossing a decade earlier than scheduled. It was a face-saver.

Big investment decisions such as this are best left to the NZ Transport Agency, which schedules them objectively against other calls on petrol tax revenue. In the meantime, we can probably ignore visions a previous Herald editor with fine instinct called “things we’ll never see”.

But it is no joke that a minister who has shown abysmal investment judgment is now wasting our money to plan and design another mirage.