KEY POINTS:
Transit NZ is steeling itself for a toll-free Auckland western ring route by promising to build a $330 million duplicate motorway crossing of Manukau Harbour with no strings attached.
The agency has been under fire from Auckland Airport for allegedly threatening to defer the crossing project if it could not gain enough public backing for tolls along the 48km route.
But it told planning commissioners yesterday - at the opening of resource consent and land designation hearings for a second Mangere bridge and widened motorway approaches - that tolls were not part of the 4.7km project and would be the subject of a separate statutory process.
Regional transportation manager Tommy Parker said Transit's board would next month consider findings from public consultations on its tolling proposal, which drew more than 21,000 submissions, before deciding whether to seek Government approval.
"It is therefore not clear at this stage whether the tolling regime that Transit is currently considering will go ahead," he told a seven-member panel appointed by Auckland Regional Council, Auckland and Manukau cities, and Conservation Minister Chris Carter.
But he said Government funds had been budgeted for the bridge duplication project in any case, for construction to start next year towards completion in mid-2011.
Mr Parker said an added timing factor - but "not an overriding one" - was a desire of both the Government and the region for the new bridge carrying four lanes of southbound traffic and a bus shoulder lane to be ready by kick-off time for the Rugby World Cup in September of that year.
His funding assurance, which was endorsed outside yesterday's hearing by Transit acting chief executive Wayne McDonald, follows concern raised by the airport company in November that the agency was threatening to put off the project if it could not collect tolls from motorists along Onehunga Bay and elsewhere between Manukau and Albany.
"We believe this directly contradicts the undertakings established in Budget 2006 and is completely unnecessary," the company said in its submission on the tolling scheme.
It was also opposed by the regional council and the three city councils along the route.
