Public outcry forces tunnel-plan rethink

Fierce community opposition to Auckland's revised Waterview motorway project has prompted the Transport Agency to consider a slightly longer tunnel.

It told Auckland City's transport committee yesterday it was investigating the feasibility of joining two tunnel sections to keep the road underground for about 2km of a 4.5km link between the Southwestern and Northwestern motorways.

The agency last month caused a furore by ditching a $2 billion-plus plan to run most of road through twin tunnels, after the Government decided that was unaffordable.

A revised proposal estimated to cost $1.4 billion includes two shorter tunnels covering a total of about 1.8km, leaving the rest of the motorway at surface level and destroying up to 365 homes.

The first tunnel would be 1.15km long between New North Rd and the intersection of Blockhouse Bay Rd with Great North Rd, at which point the motorway would emerge for about 150m before disappearing into a covered trench for 700m through Waterview.

The replacement plan has dealt a serious blow to National candidate Melissa Lee's chances in the Mt Albert byelection campaign and sparked protests including a march by hundreds of opponents last weekend.

But principal project manager Clive Fuhr told city councillors the agency would investigate the geotechnical feasibility of linking the two tunnel sections to create a continuous underground length of motorway.

"We are quite focused on the community's response, challenging us to continue it as a tunnel," he said. "If we are able to link the two tunnels to effectively operate a single tunnel it will be something like 2km long."

Mr Fuhr told the Herald later that such a solution would depend on being able to dig the main tunnel slightly deeper beneath Avondale Heights without adding too much extra cost to the project.

Results from investigations would be reported to the agency's board at a meeting in Auckland late in August, when it is due to decide whether to proceed with the overall project.

But Waterview resident Margi Watson of the Tunnel or Nothing protest group said such a compromise would do little to rehabilitate the project.

"It still falls incredibly short of good environmental or community mitigation." she said.

The councillors reserved judgment on the revised plan until receiving a staff report in August outlining mitigation proposals, although it passed a resolution reaffirming a commitment to work with the agency "for the early completion of the project and to achieve best outcomes for the State Highway 20 Waterview corridor".

It resolved that its support for the project would be based on ensuring the community and affected residents would receive fair compensation, including high quality replacement open space.

Although most of the new route steers clear of the lower reaches of Oakley Creek, a 2.2km length of open motorway will run close to it through Alan Wood Reserve and Hendon Park, further upstream.

Mr Fuhr said about 5ha of open space would be lost to the motorway, and the agency would have to compensate for that, under direction from the city.