KEY POINTS:
Mayors on both sides of the Auckland Harbour Bridge are joining forces to lead a push for early consideration of another Waitemata crossing - preferably a tunnel east of the existing middle-aged structure.
North Shore Mayor George Wood said yesterday that a formal meeting between him and his Auckland City counterpart, Dick Hubbard, had been arranged for next week.
He said he was keen for them to give strong leadership over preparations for another harbour crossing, by establishing a joint standing committee of both their councils with representatives from key players including Transit NZ and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.
The meeting, to be held on the Auckland side of the bridge, has been arranged in the wake of Transit's decision last week to ban trucks from its outside "clip-on" lanes.
Despite the reappearance of hairline cracks in the lanes, which were joined to the bridge 10 years after it opened in 1959, Transit says it is confident that by reducing heavy-vehicle fatigue stress, the add-ons will last another 40 years.
The two mayors are viewing the use restriction as a wake-up call to start planning for what could be a $3 billion project to ease Auckland's dependence on the existing bridge and the Upper Waitemata Harbour crossing.
"A third crossing would be the Auckland region's biggest-ever project but we have to get on with it," Mr Wood said. "It's been in the too-hard basket for too long."
Mr Wood pointed to his council's involvement with Transit and the Auckland city and regional councils in a steering group which oversaw planning for the $295 million Northern Busway, which is due to open in less than a year between Constellation Drive and the harbour bridge.
"That has been a most successful vehicle for bringing everyone together."
Although Transit warned in 2003 that the bridge's two clip-ons might have to be replaced in less than 20 years, either by a second bridge to the west of the existing structure or a tunnel to the east, an engineering review six months later concluded that the 1969 extensions would probably last at least until 2050.
Even so, it has begun investigating land and transport implications of building a tunnel between the bridge's old toll plazas at Northcote and Wynyard Wharf near the Tank Farm, which it said local councils made clear was their preferred option.
But Mr Wood said the magnitude of such a project should not exclude the consideration of other options, even that of a tunnel proposed in the late 1990s from Mechanics Bay on the eastern end of the waterfront to Bayswater, running under Devonport and serving strong public transport as well as motoring needs.
He also raised the possibility of charging motorists to help to pay for another crossing, despite opposing a suggestion in 2004 by former Auckland city mayor John Banks that tolls on the existing bridge be a funding source for completing the region's motorway network, including an eastern highway.
"I think there is every possibility it [a new crossing] could be tolled and that is another issue that would have to be talked through," Mr Wood said.
Auckland city transport committee chairman Richard Simpson, who was elected on an anti-eastern highway ticket, is proposing a more radical solution which he said should pay for a new crossing "with change left over".
That would involve demolishing the existing harbour bridge, which he described as an outdated "icon of our love affair with the private car", and releasing 180,000 square metres of prime property around St Marys Bay and Pt Erin for development and public waterfront access.
But instead of a tunnel, Mr Simpson wants a low-gradient bridge between Wynyard Wharf and Onewa Rd in Northcote, to allow the busway to be converted to a light-rail system if needed in future.
Although light-rail could also run through a tunnel, he said a well-designed bridge for half the price could be a visual asset rather than what he called the existing eyesore. It would also allow pedestrians and cyclists to cross the harbour for the first time without having to use ferries.
"How can we call ourselves a sustainable city if we remain totally reliant on fossil fuels to cross the Waitemata Harbour?"
