KEY POINTS:
An influential regional transport committee has put the boot into plans for tolls on the western ring route.
Auckland's Regional Land Transport Committee voted 12-5 against supporting the Transit NZ scheme as a way of closing a funding gap of at least $800 million to complete the 48km route between Manukau and Albany by 2015.
Chairman Joel Cayford refused to allow an amendment from Council for Infrastructure Development chief executive Stephen Selwood proposing that the committee give conditional support of tolls - subject to moves by Transit to satisfy concerns raised in a submission prepared by regional transport officials.
Concerns raised in the submission, which will join almost 20,000 others received by Transit so far, include allegations the agency's forecasts of benefits are "misleading" and overstate time savings for users of a tolled route.
The submission also describes free alternative routes offered by Transit to meet legal requirements as "piecemeal" and says it is unclear how the agency intends mitigating impacts of toll-avoiders on local streets.
It also points to a conflict in pricing signals to motorists, to keep the western route free of congestion, given they will still have free use of State Highway 1.
Dr Cayford said the committee was still waiting for the Government to respond to its submission and 980 others on far broader road-pricing schemes the Ministry of Transport had proposed to manage travel demand and raise money for public transport.
The committee submission on tolls points to high collection costs of at least 25 per cent of toll revenue.
And it says considerable uncertainty surrounds the most expensive and challenging component of the western route - a link through Waterview which Transit admits could cost up to $1.5 billion.
It says a $100 million motorway link through Greenhithe, which Transit hopes to start tolling at 75c in peak periods when it opens before the end of next year, has already been funded.
Yet those who use it will have to pay for improvements elsewhere on the route from which many of them will not benefit.
Transit spokesman Clive Fuhr told the committee that everyone using the route should have to contribute to the whole scheme, as full benefits would not be available until it could be completed from Albany to Manukau.
But he said that although Transit would like to use Greenhithe to test and fine-tune an electronic collection system, it was considering delaying tolls on that sector.
Mr Fuhr said that even if Transit managed to complete the ring route by 2015 without tolls - which it did not believe possible - it feared the road would become congested within a year of opening.
Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis said that although his council could support tolls in principle, imposing these on one side of Auckland and not the other would prove too harsh for lower-income groups.
He believed a regional petrol tax would be more equitable.
But Mr Selwood said an extra tax of an untenable 30c a litre would be needed to fill all of Auckland's transport needs, and greater efficiencies from managing travel demand would outweigh the administration costs of tolls.
The Regional Land Transport Committee includes regional and territorial council members as well as representatives of community transport interests.
