Puhoi motorway fades into the future

By CATHY ARONSON transport reporter

The Orewa to Puhoi motorway could be delayed a further 10 years, prompting roading authorities to consider reducing the speed limit to 80km/h on the existing highway.

The $158 million, 6km section of new motorway, to bypass Orewa and a winding section of State Highway 1, was due to be built by the end of next year but was stalled in 2000 by Environment Court challenges.

It is the last section of the Northern Motorway extension. The first section, from Albany to Orewa, opened in 1999.

But building the extension has fallen off the Auckland Regional Council's list of priorities in favour of completing Auckland's roading network to relieve congestion.

The council said the motorway would not help regional growth and it would not promote it in its draft 10-year regional land transport strategy, used as a funding guide by Transfund.

The move has outraged Rodney District Council Mayor John Law, who has pulled out of the ARC transport committee and refused to sign the strategy.

He said the district would lose at least $400 million in the next five years if work did not begin on the motorway, which will take four years to complete.

The delay has prompted the police, the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transit to consider reducing the speed limit on the existing section of State Highway 1 from 100km/h to 80km/h.

A decision will be made by the end of the year.

The completed section of motorway has increased daily traffic by nearly 3000 vehicles, creating safety concerns in Orewa and more accidents on the old, windy State Highway 1.

In 1998 there were no deaths and 30 crashes; last year there were two deaths and 36 crashes.

The Auckland regional manager of the Land Transport Safety Authority, Peter Kippenberger, said the road was not designed for the speed and volume of traffic.

"The delay will put a significant strain on the state highway."

Rodney MP Lockwood Smith said reducing the speed limit would cause further delays, cost the region more and cause more accidents by frustrated motorists.

"It [traffic] is already at a crawl from Warkworth to Orewa on the weekends and almost stationary on the holidays," he said. "It's strang-ling the region."

The Rodney Economic Development Trust said delays to the new motorway would hurt vegetable, flower and meat exporters and transport companies such as United Transport in Whangarei and Transcon in Warkworth, which both moved about 40 trucks a day to and from Auckland.

They are not allowed to drive on the link road through Orewa to the motorway and must drive through Silverdale.

All motorway traffic could be blocked from the residential link road in December next year, when the deadline imposed by the Environment Court expires.

Mr Law said the community was starting a petition to present to the ARC and the Government.

In a letter to the regional council chairwoman, Gwen Bull, he said: "The prioritisation criteria used are cooked to meet metropolitan needs".

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