Mayor waits for 123 years, give or take a century

Barry Curtis

Good things, it seems, comes to those who wait. Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis has been waiting a long time for the motorway extension from the Southern Motorway at Manukau through to Wiri 4.5km away.

At the launching of the vital $210 million western ring route project yesterday the mayor declared, in his usual strong speaking voice, that he had been advocating the project since he "first became mayor in 1883".

Prime Minister Helen Clark, speaking after him, suggested lightly that it had taken only 23 years, rather than 123 years of Sir Barry's advocacy.

Construction starts next month on the dual two-lane carriageway linking State Highway 1 with State Highway 20 at Puhinui due for completion by 2011.

The route, which could expand to six lanes in the future, is expected to improve access to Auckland Airport and to relieve sometimes severe traffic congestion in the Manukau City area.

It is also a key part of the planned western ring motorway route through Auckland from Albany to Manukau, an alternative to the existing Southern-Northern motorway route.

Sir Barry's pleasure at the start of construction after so long has some validity. The route designation has been in place since 1974. That year, Labour Deputy Prime Minister Hugh Watt, the MP for Onehunga, suggested it was time to get on with the western ring route.

In the end construction of the route is starting despite earlier worries that it might become a casualty of a feared $685 million deficit in Transit New Zealand's 10-year national state highways forecast.

Both Helen Clark and the new Minister of Transport, Annette King, were quick to point out in Auckland yesterday that the Government had found that deferral of such important projects was not acceptable and there was an extra $1.3 billion over the next five years in the 2006 Budget for the problem.

Ms King said such investments meant that over the next five years the Government would spend $300 million more on land transport than it collects in petrol excise duties, road-user charges and vehicle registration fees.