Transit opens tolls campaign

Transit NZ is mailing half a million pamphlets to Auckland homes and businesses in an unprecedented campaign to woo them to pay tolls for faster motorway trips to the airport and other destinations.

The highways agency recognises it cannot impose tolls on Auckland's strategically important western bypass without public approval, but warns that without them, it will be unable to complete the 48km motorway before at least 2025.

How much will tolls cost?

Transit wants seven tolling points along the route, between Manukau in the south and Albany in the north.

Peak-time tolls at charging points will range from 75c to $1.50 for cars, and double those amounts for trucks.

General motorists would pay $7 to drive along the entire route at peak periods, $4.50 during the rest of each day and at weekends, and $1 at night. These amounts are in 2006 dollars, and will rise annually with inflation plus up to 2 per cent for each of the 35 years Transit says it needs to repay an $800 million road-building loan and $150 million for setting up tolling gantries and other infrastructure. That compares with funding already committed by the Government of $1.3 billion.

How will tolls be paid?

Cars and trucks will not have to stop at toll plazas as in previous schemes such as on the Auckland Harbour Bridge and the Tauranga bridge.

"There will be no coins in buckets," Transit chief Rick van Barneveld said in Auckland yesterday.

Cameras mounted on overhead gantries will record vehicle number-plates to start with, and electronic equipment may be added to read tags on windscreens.

Motorists will be tracked through the vehicle-registration database and billed at regular intervals. Off-motorway kiosks may be available for anyone who wishes to pay cash.

Mr van Barneveld acknowledges cameras may not catch every number-plate, and some motorists may evade payment. "But our principal purpose is not trying to get the miss rate down to zero," he told the Herald. "We are just trying to send a broad signal here and secure some revenue."

Number-plate recognition is used by London's congestion-charging scheme, and Transit has contracted a Swedish firm to buy an "off-the-shelf" system able to be installed here by the end of next year.

Why should Aucklanders accept tolls?

Transit says the full benefit of the western ring route will not be available until all of its links are completed, and to achieve that by 2015 it needs an extra revenue source to what the Government has already committed from fuel taxes and its consolidated account.

Mr van Barneveld says Auckland urgently needs an alternative route from north to south to reduce its "very fragile reliance" on State Highway 1 and to cut travelling times as other roads become increasingly congested.

His organisation claims from computer modelling that motorists using a tolled western route would cut up to 40 minutes off trips between Manukau and Albany at peak times, compared with a "do nothing" option.

It also points to a higher level of certainty in planning trip times to such destinations as the airport, and says travel along an untolled SH1 is also likely to be up to 20 minutes faster once large volumes of traffic are diverted to the western route.

What if some motorists are unwilling or unable to pay?

The Land Transport Management act requires Transit to ensure a feasible free alternative route is available at every stage of a journey.

Transit says it has gone to lengths to plan tolling points near free alternative routes. For that reason it is not tolling motorists on the two harbour crossings at Mangere and Greenhithe.

Another consideration is its inability to toll existing roads unless they are deemed "physically or operationally integral to a new road".

The only tolling points on existing roads will be on the Auckland side of a duplicate Mangere Bridge and on the Northwestern Motorway. Transit argues that the existing motorway along the Onehunga foreshore, which it intends widening in any case, will be integral to a new road.

It will widen the Northwestern Motorway between Waterview and Westgate, allowing it to toll one lane in each direction, and will leave two or three lanes uncharged.

How will the toll lane work on the Northwestern?

Transit will separate toll and free lanes with some form of physical barrier, which it has yet to determine. That could range from small vertical markers to a solid barrier. Motorists entering a toll lane at Hobsonville would have to stay in it until Avondale, and could not use it to reach central Auckland.

That is already proving controversial with Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, who fears many of his city's commuters will be shut out of the lane in what he described yesterday as a "bizarre" plan.

Mr van Barneveld said Transit had been responsive to early concerns in Waitakere for toll-free lanes to remain available, but would take Mr Harvey's concerns into account.

What is the schedule for introducing tolls?

Transit says it wants the first toll gantry ready in time for the opening late next year of a 4km stretch of motorway between Greenhithe and Albany.

Other project completion dates:

Mt Roskill extension - 2009

Manukau extension - 2010

Manukau Harbour crossing - 2011

Hobsonville deviation - 2011

Northwestern Motorway additional lanes - 2015

Waterview Connection - 2015

What do industry and community leaders think about tolls?

Road Transport Forum chief executive Tony Friedlander believes truck operators will accept tolls as an interim solution, but his organisation prefers a more comprehensive road-charging regime to be introduced in the longer term, so as not to favour some routes.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee described as "fundamentally flawed" the concept of charging tolls on a road Transit wants to encourage motorists to use to draw them away from the CBD.

North Shore Mayor George Wood is concerned Greenhithe will be the first section of motorway to be tolled.

"I thought it had already been paid for - Transit is getting hungry."

Auckland Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker said: "It makes sense to consider alternative funding solutions to bring the project forward, with Aucklanders being given the opportunity to express their views."

But the Herald has started receiving emails from readers questioning why tolls are being considered at a time of record Government surpluses.

What happens next?

Aucklanders have until December 4 to make their views known.

Transit will open seven information centres around the region, starting next Tuesday in Albany. It will also hold "listening sessions" at various locations from November 2 to December 15.

For more details or to download a submission form, visit: Transit.govt.nz