Report gives harbour bridge a reprieve

By MATHEW DEARNALEY transport reporter

Engineers expect the Auckland Harbour Bridge to last longer than a gloomy prediction of six months ago, but this has not stopped a push for a new harbour crossing.

The regional land transport committee has decided to ask Transit New Zealand to head a full investigation into a new crossing, and to establish a project team including regional council and Auckland and North Shore city representatives.

Transit said in October that the existing bridge's two clip-on extensions might have to be replaced in less than 20 years.

But a Transit-commissioned peer review, which went this week to the transport committee, said the extensions would probably last at least until 2050.

The highway agency's Auckland manager, Wayne McDonald, said yesterday that the review had refined the prognosis for the clip-ons to about the mid-point of an earlier prediction of "greater than 20 years to significantly less than 100".

Consultants to the Auckland Regional Council have widened options for a new crossing, suggesting it would be possible to build a duplicate structure on the eastern side of the existing bridge.

The council called for its own review of the initial Transit "constructability" study, which favours a second bridge about 500m to the west of the existing bridge or an underwater tunnel to its east.

This followed a threat of legal action from about 1000 Northcote Point residents who signed a petition against having their community split by a cut and cover tunnel connecting a western bridge to the Northern Motorway.

The reviewing consultants concluded that a duplicate bridge next to the existing bridge, but on the opposite side to Northcote Pt, merited further consideration.

They also warned that the tunnel option might not be feasible once the western waterfront reclamation between the bridge and Viaduct Harbour was developed, and recommended swift action in making a full scheme assessment before then.

Residents' spokeswoman Gaye Greenwood was guarded about giving too much weight to the new bridge suggestion, wondering whether it would simply help Transit defend itself from legal action for failing otherwise to consider alternative locations.

She said her group wanted to be consulted in drawing up terms of reference for the proposed project team.

The transport committee also voted to ask Transfund to support the investigation as one of five high-priority study projects, among which it included the $3.5 billion to $4 billion eastern highway proposal.