Tolls at Orewa would get road started

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Transit New Zealand has hinted that Orewa's stalled motorway project could be finished sooner if ratepayers are prepared to make up shortfalls - by supporting it as a toll road and underwriting loans to build it.

State highway construction is generally wholly funded by the state through the national roads programme.

But Transit's national highway manager, Rick van Barneveld, said yesterday that the AlpurtB2 section to Puhoi would need to be financed by tolls if construction was to start in 2006-07 and finish in 2010.

Legislation allowing toll roads was expected to be passed by the end of the year but tolls, on their own, would not be enough to cover the $160 million project.

From 30 per cent to 60 per cent of the cost would still have to come from Transfund, subject to its priorities. The project has a priority rating of six in the 10-year programme of the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee, which advises Transfund.

New financing ideas were also needed, Mr van Barneveld said.

Rodney District residents should not feel Alpurt was being singled out unfairly for a toll charge, he said.

"I'm suggesting that other communities cope with issues - and tolling is one way to do it."

Mr van Barneveld said Transit was open to considering an approach by Rodney District Council and Infrastructure Auckland to service debt to allow an earlier start.

A tricky issue, and the reason Transit was not looking at a start before 2006-07, was the need to consult the community to get its agreement to a toll road.

That could change if someone was prepared to underwrite the risk associated with the period it took to get a toll approved, or, at worse, if approval was not forthcoming.

In the meantime, said Mr van Barneveld, Transit needed to get Environment Court consent to continue to use the residential road Grand Drive as the link between the end of the motorway at Orewa and State Highway 1 to the north.

Transit was criticised at a public meeting on Monday night because the motorway would not be completed on schedule by December 2003.

The two-hour meeting in Orewa, attended by 300 Rodney residents, was a successful start to efforts to whip up public pressure for the project, said its convener, Rodney MP Lockwood Smith.

"People power" was also advocated by Act MP Muriel Newman, who is organising a petition to push forward Alpurt B2.