Waikato highway from Cambridge to Piarere would pay for itself in just over one year

Waka Kotahi says once funding is available, they can move relatively quickly to extend the Waikato Expressway to Piarere. Photo / Mike Scott

A new Waikato highway from Cambridge to Piarere would pay for itself in just over a year, according to a report commissioned by infrastructure lobby group Northern Infrastructure Forum (NIF).

The group wants swift progress on infrastructure delivery from the next government following the release of the report, which shows economic benefits for two major infrastructure projects - the proposed Warkworth-to-Wellsford (W2W) and Cambridge-to-Piarere (C2P) highways.

The report was commissioned by NIF and carried out by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) and focused on the benefits the two projects would generate through improved supply chain efficiency, resilience and productivity of businesses along the highway corridor.

At present, funding for transport projects is mainly based on travel time savings and road safety benefits.

Forum chairman Simon Bridges said the report’s findings were compelling.

“The findings show that, once operational, each of these projects will add up to $500 million a year to New Zealand’s GDP. Over a 20-year period, each project would pump over $6 billion into the economy, compared to a situation where the investment had never taken place.

“This fully vindicates the commitment that both the Government and the Opposition have made to W2W and C2P in recent weeks, and sends a powerful message about the role of world-class infrastructure as an enabler of growth.”

He said infrastructure was key as the country continued to recover from a post-Covid economic slump, and it would “lay the foundations for a more productive, prosperous economy and society”.

Bridges said the findings should spur decision-makers to invest in large-scale, inter-generational infrastructure and accelerate infrastructure delivery as much as possible.

“We need to develop a prioritised list of infrastructure projects, and then we need to get on with it. Every year we delay projects like these, we’re leaving up to $500m on the table,” he said.

He said the assessment model used in the report should not just be applied to highways.

“The right rail freight links, rapid transit connections and urban road improvements will also generate compelling economic benefits. Looking ahead, it’s really important that these are properly understood, and that they’re used to drive infrastructure decision-making.”

The Cambridge-to-Piarere Long-Term Improvements Project proposed by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency is a 16-kilometre-long four-lane expressway extending from the southern end of the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway to the intersection of SH1 and SH29 at Piarere.

The board of Waka Kotahi endorsed the business case in June 2021 and were now working through processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA) that would allow it to require designations and to obtain regional resource consent to ensure they were ready to proceed when funds were made available.

Both National and Labour have indicated the project is high on their priority lists and likely to be funded.

Once funds have been secured, the next stages would include detailed design, tendering and construction.

Funding for a new two-lane roundabout at the intersection of SH1 and SH29 in Piarere, where traffic branches off to Tauranga, was announced in 2020 as part of the NZ Upgrade programme, and work was due to begin in October 2023.

Key project details based on 2020 prices

W2W

• $2.1b construction cost
• Up to 16 per cent reduction in travel time
• Total number of crashes to reduce by 10 per cent
• $399.2m contribution to GDP each year through improved supply chain efficiency
• $2.6m contribution to GDP each year through improved resilience
• $95.3m contribution to GDP each year through agglomeration

C2P

• $631m construction cost
• 18 per cent reduction in travel time
• 70 per cent reduction in high-severity crashes
• $351.8m contribution to GDP each year through improved supply chain efficiency
• $48.9m contribution to GDP each year through improved resilience
• $86m contribution to GDP each year through agglomeration