SH20 Waterview Connection
Encyclopedia
The Waterview Connection is a planned motorway section which will form part of the Western Ring Route
through Auckland
, New Zealand
. It is to connect the stub of State Highway 20 in the south from Mt Roskill
to join up with another motorway, State Highway 16
in the west at Point Chevalier
, and is a part of the Western Ring Route
. It was formerly known as the SH20 Avondale
extension.
The Waterview link will be 4.5km long, of which 2.5km are to be in a mostly bored twin tunnel, with three lanes in each tunnel. By 2026, it is expected to carry 83,000 vehicles a day.
On 21 Dec 2009 a final alignment and extended tunnel option was announced requiring 205 houses to be bulldozed. From late 2010 onwards, the consent process for the motorway proposal proceeded with a new 9-month fast-track format enabled by changes to the Resource Management Act
. Significant upgrades and widening (additional traffic lanes) on State Highway 16 from St Lukes Road to Te Atatu was also rolled into the approvals process for Waterview. While the majority of this widening occurs on the Western Ring Route, the widening is not part of the Waterview Connection, except in a legal/approvals sense.
In mid 2011, the Board of Inquiry granted consent, which could not be appealed except on points of law (and was not appealed by any parties). The decision was generally greeted as positive, as it allows work to proceed on the project, and as the Board directed significant environmental mitigation
over and above what the NZTA
had originally proposed for the affected communities.
The NZ Transport Agency
intends to complete the Waterview works in the 2015/16 financial year. The link will be the last section of SH20, and will complete the Western Ring Route.
Transit New Zealand
selected the Waterview connection as its preferred route, with the support of the Auckland City Council and Waitakere City Council, over the Rosebank option, which is still the preferred route of the Auckland Regional Council.
The previous AW1 and AW4 routes favoured a New North Road interchange with ramps facing south, and full connections at the Waterview interchange. The preferred route was announced with a Great North Road interchange replacing New North Road and no southbound access at Waterview. This proved unpopular with local residents, and it is considered unlikely a bored tunnel could accommodate an interchange because of its depth.
The NZ Transport Agency continues to investigate options for the Waterview connection. The three options are:
These may include a partial interchange at Great North Road where it meets Blockhouse Bay Road, or a tunnel with no interchange at Great North Road. The NZ Transport Agency is still investigating options for the Waterview interchange.
In Newsletter 11, November 2006, Transit announced that it would be investigating further construction options for the route. The map included expands the study area to the east, which would allow SH20 to run almost directly from the Mt Roskill extension, parallel to Richardson and Woodward Roads, to the SH16 Great North Road interchange at Waterview. Outcome of the tunneling assessment was due around September 2007.
Transit NZ's board resolved to seek a designation over land for a $1.89 billion pair of motorway tunnels through Waterview. The board called for a report from officials on managing fumes from the tunnel "to benchmark the proposed approach incorporated in the design work to date against current international best practice". In response to submissions questioning the adequacy of just two traffic lanes running in each direction, it sought a comparative assessment of the operational performance and costs of providing three-lane tunnels, initially estimated at $2.14 billion.
Tunnels are not much more expensive than a far more disruptive option of a surface route combined with limited sections of "cut and cover" trenches costing $1.7 billion. A full surface option would be prevented by a need to run the motorway under or over two rail corridors, several busy arterial roads and Oakley Creek
. National fully supported completing the region's western ring route in no more than eight years.
It was announced on 26 August 2008 that the steering group advised the Government that a public-private partnership (PPP) would be the best way of building the new $2 billion section of the city's Western Ring Route. Finance Minister Michael Cullen said a PPP, which would mean tolls of about $2 a trip, was looking "pretty positive". Transport Minister Annette King said the report identified several critical factors that would need to be met for the project to be successful, and she had ordered officials to do more work before the Government committed to a PPP. Treasury, Transport Ministry and New Zealand Transport Agency officials would report back to ministers by October or early November. "Once this work is done Cabinet will be able to make some firm decisions on how to progress Waterview."
the alternative Rosebank route.
wanted the government to review the tunnelling with a view to cancelling it. He argued in an editorial that the project represented a "tunnel with no hill", costed at that time at about $1.9 billion or about $600 million a kilometre. Therefore, the motorway should instead be built as a surface road, and the savings instead invested into water storage projects benefitting farming.
On 30 Jan 2009 Transport Minister Steven Joyce announced his concern with the $3.16 billion cost (including financing costs of more than $500 million and an upgrade of the nearby Northwestern Motorway for $240 million) of three-lane tunnels, as he was "not comfortable" with the idea of building two-lane structures with no ability to enlarge them for future traffic demand.
He has given officials until April to review all options for a connection of State Highway 20 to the Northwestern at Waterview, including a potentially disruptive surface route through Mt Albert and previously discarded "cut and cover" proposals.
He was unable to predict a completion date for Auckland's 42 km western ring route, saying officials regarded a 2015 target of the previous Labour government as "aspirational".
A raised surface motorway through Allen Wood Reserve and the short section between the bored and cut and cover tunnel portals near the Great North Rd and Blockhouse Bay Rd intersection are the largest differences between the new preferred route and the previous bored tunnel option. At $1,165 million, it is cheaper than the $1,974 million two-lane bored tunnel option and $2,335 million three-lane bored tunnel option.
Subject to board approval on 27 Nov 09 of a final design for the motorway, the NZTA will lodge a land designation application early next year with Auckland City, for a construction start in 2011-12 and completion in 2015.
The revised route map shows road header constructed tunnels running from Alan Wood reserve opposite Range View / Stewart Roads, under the north end of Hendon Ave and under Pak 'n Save, continuing under the ends of Powell St & Craddock St, under the Phyllis St softball fields, under the Oakley Creek waterfall and reserve with a final section of cut & cover under Great North Rd and emerging in Waterview Park as per previous options.
, New Zealand's Minister of Transport, declared the project one of the "Roads of National Significance". Crucially, this step allowed the application to be considered by a new governmental body, the Environmental Protection Authority, a fast-track process which bypasses normal resource consent and Environment Court processes, in favour of a fixed 9-month process led by a "Board of Enquiry", whose decision cannot be appealed except on points of law. The decision to fast-track was cited as to avoid approval delays which had held up other projects for over 15 years, though local groups were pessimistic about their chance to achieve fair mitigation within the tight process.
The tunnel sections will now be approximately 2.4km long. Also included in the fast-tracked project was the decision to undertake significant capacity-related widening works on State Highway 16, which are outside of the Waterview area (from St Lukes Road interchange to beyond Te Atatu
), which were bundled into the application process which consists of 54 resource consents and 7 designations.
With around 40 folders of materials and plans to go through, local community groups expressed anger in October 2010 that they would only have four weeks to formulate submissions regarding the fast-tracked applications. Calls by Auckland City Council and an affected community board to extend the deadline were rejected, citing the tight statutory timeframe.
The EPA publicly notified the application package on 18 Sept 2010, with the period for public submissions closing 15 October 2010. Evidence needs to be produced and provided to NZTA by December 17th 2010. The Board of Inquiry hearing was to run February to April 2011 (actually taking 16 days of hearings until March), with a draft decision by the Board of Inquiry expected in May, with the final decision due by June 20th 2011. This was later slightly pushed out to June 30th.
A number of matters came into public focus during the hearings process. One of them was the shape and locations of the two proposed ventilation shaft buildings near the northern and southern tunnel entries, and their likely effect on local visual amenity (with the shafts, at 25m-27m height, proposed to tower visibly over surrounding suburban areas) and local air pollution levels (where an indepependent report considered that the NZTA had been too optimistic in terms of pollution conditions during traffic jams and due to induced demand
). Other matters included effects on local neighbourhoods, even those were demolition was not expected, such as for several apartment buildings directly adjacent to a multi-year construction site.
The draft decision on the overall project was released end of May 2011, confirming the matters of the earlier direction, with the final result not significantly different when released end of June 2011.
In October 2010 the NZTA signed a contract with Fletcher construction to complete stage 2 of the $40m project at the Maioro Street Interchange. In November 2010, NZTA continue to negotiate the acquiring of the Faulkner Collins' factory and offices from Stoddard Rd in Mt Roskill under the public works act, in order to make way for the Maioro St interchange connection to Stoddard Rd. Faulkner Collins employees took turns sleeping at the factory, fearing the NZTA would change the locks during the night.
and one led by Fulton Hogan
in partnership with Australia's Leighton Contractors. A third consortia led by Baulderstone Pty Ltd missed out on selection. As of May 2010, it was known that each of the two remaining tenderers had about 140-150 staff preparing bids for the project, and one tenderer, after the decision, noted that they had spent about $18 million preparing the bid. Construction start is expected to be before Christmas 2011.
In mid 2011, it was announced that the 'Well Connected' consortium led by Fletcher Construction had won the tender, for $1.3 billion.
are a part of constructing SH20. KiwiRail
sees this route as strategically important as it is the only real alternative cross-isthmus heavy rail route to the existing Newmarket line, the further upgrading of which is not realistically feasible or possible. KiwiRail request that any tunnel construction does not preclude rail above it in the future, including the possibility of rail being trenched to cross below New North Road to connect to the existing North Auckland Line.
with the end of the then-existing SH20 Cycleway
, including a walking/cycling bridge over Oakley Creek
at Phyllis Street. However, at lodgement time in 2010, NZTA clarified that it would only build cycleways along the sections that are NOT located in a tunnel, leaving the potential for a connecting cycleway between SH16 and SH20 in doubt.
After a several-months long hearing process, the Board of Inquiry in mid 2011 however came to the decision that a walk- and cycleway along the tunnel alignment was a required mitigation for open space loss in the areas around both tunnel portals (though not technically as transport mitigation), and that NZTA will have to pay for (though not build) the facility. Cycling advocates Cycle Action Auckland
lauded the decision as a resounding win for cycling in Auckland, and a key part in making the Waterview Connection into a truly multi-modal project. The approximate route of the cycleway will be from near Alford Street in Waterview, crossing a new bridge over Oakley Creek, then through Phyllis Reserve, before crossing to Allan Woods Reserve in New Windsor/Owairaka via a new bridge over the rail line at Soljak Place.
Western Ring Route
The Western Ring Route is a motorway system being constructed in Auckland, New Zealand. It runs along three existing state highways: the Southwestern Motorway , the Northwestern Motorway and the Upper Harbour Highway . When finished it will surpass the Southern Motorway to become the longest...
through Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. It is to connect the stub of State Highway 20 in the south from Mt Roskill
Mount Roskill, New Zealand
Mount Roskill is both a volcanic peak and the suburban area in the city of Auckland, New Zealand.- Mountain :The peak, which is to the southwest end of the suburb, is 110 metres in height, and is one of the many extinct cones which dot the isthmus of Auckland, all of which are part of the Auckland...
to join up with another motorway, State Highway 16
New Zealand State Highway 16
State Highway 16 is a New Zealand state highway linking Auckland City with Wellsford, via Auckland's Northwestern Motorway, Helensville and Kaukapakapa...
in the west at Point Chevalier
Point Chevalier
Point Chevalier is a suburb and peninsula in the west of the city of Auckland in the north of New Zealand. It is located five kilometres to the west of the city centre on the southern shore of the Waitemata Harbour....
, and is a part of the Western Ring Route
Western Ring Route
The Western Ring Route is a motorway system being constructed in Auckland, New Zealand. It runs along three existing state highways: the Southwestern Motorway , the Northwestern Motorway and the Upper Harbour Highway . When finished it will surpass the Southern Motorway to become the longest...
. It was formerly known as the SH20 Avondale
Avondale, Auckland
Avondale is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, located in the Whau ward, one of the thirteen administrative divisions for the Auckland Council. It is commonly considered to be part of West Auckland. It was originally called "Te Whau", which is the common name, of Māori origin, for Entelea...
extension.
The Waterview link will be 4.5km long, of which 2.5km are to be in a mostly bored twin tunnel, with three lanes in each tunnel. By 2026, it is expected to carry 83,000 vehicles a day.
On 21 Dec 2009 a final alignment and extended tunnel option was announced requiring 205 houses to be bulldozed. From late 2010 onwards, the consent process for the motorway proposal proceeded with a new 9-month fast-track format enabled by changes to the Resource Management Act
Resource Management Act
The Resource Management Act passed in 1991 in New Zealand is a significant, and at times, controversial Act of Parliament. The RMA promotes the sustainable management of natural and physical resources such as land, air and water...
. Significant upgrades and widening (additional traffic lanes) on State Highway 16 from St Lukes Road to Te Atatu was also rolled into the approvals process for Waterview. While the majority of this widening occurs on the Western Ring Route, the widening is not part of the Waterview Connection, except in a legal/approvals sense.
In mid 2011, the Board of Inquiry granted consent, which could not be appealed except on points of law (and was not appealed by any parties). The decision was generally greeted as positive, as it allows work to proceed on the project, and as the Board directed significant environmental mitigation
Environmental mitigation
Environmental mitigation, compensatory mitigation, or mitigation banking, are terms used primarily by the United States government and the related environmental industry to describe projects or programs intended to offset known impacts to an existing historic or natural resource such as a stream,...
over and above what the NZTA
New Zealand Transport Agency
The New Zealand Transport Agency is a New Zealand Crown entity tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, including the responsibility for driver and vehicle licensing and investigating rail accidents. It was created on 1 August 2008 by the Land Transport Management Amendment...
had originally proposed for the affected communities.
The NZ Transport Agency
New Zealand Transport Agency
The New Zealand Transport Agency is a New Zealand Crown entity tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, including the responsibility for driver and vehicle licensing and investigating rail accidents. It was created on 1 August 2008 by the Land Transport Management Amendment...
intends to complete the Waterview works in the 2015/16 financial year. The link will be the last section of SH20, and will complete the Western Ring Route.
Planning history
The project has had an extensive planning history, with earliest consultation having occurred in 2000, though the proposal for a route roughly in the area dates from much earlier.Routes considered
Several routes were considered, all being variations of either a connection to SH16 along the Rosebank Peninsula (e.g. AR1, AR3) or at the Great North Road interchange at Waterview (e.g. AW1, AW4). It was generally assumed that below-ground construction would be required where AR3 passed through Avondale Heights, to a maximum depth of 41 m. On the basis of technical and environmental assessments, the AR3 and AW4 route options were dismissed.Transit New Zealand
Transit New Zealand
Transit New Zealand was, from 1989 to 2008, the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for operating and planning the New Zealand State Highway network...
selected the Waterview connection as its preferred route, with the support of the Auckland City Council and Waitakere City Council, over the Rosebank option, which is still the preferred route of the Auckland Regional Council.
The previous AW1 and AW4 routes favoured a New North Road interchange with ramps facing south, and full connections at the Waterview interchange. The preferred route was announced with a Great North Road interchange replacing New North Road and no southbound access at Waterview. This proved unpopular with local residents, and it is considered unlikely a bored tunnel could accommodate an interchange because of its depth.
The NZ Transport Agency continues to investigate options for the Waterview connection. The three options are:
- the AW1 option as previously presented
- an extended cut-and-cover option
- a full tunnel option
These may include a partial interchange at Great North Road where it meets Blockhouse Bay Road, or a tunnel with no interchange at Great North Road. The NZ Transport Agency is still investigating options for the Waterview interchange.
In Newsletter 11, November 2006, Transit announced that it would be investigating further construction options for the route. The map included expands the study area to the east, which would allow SH20 to run almost directly from the Mt Roskill extension, parallel to Richardson and Woodward Roads, to the SH16 Great North Road interchange at Waterview. Outcome of the tunneling assessment was due around September 2007.
Tolling not considered further
On 4 April 2007 Transit "decided not to progress with the toll proposal at this time". "On balance, and after careful consideration of the public responses and the stakeholder submissions, the Transit Board's view is that it will be too difficult to satisfactorily address those - at times, competing - issues while maintaining a feasible business case for tolling the Western Ring Route".Bored tunnels preferred
On 7 February 2008, bored tunnels were announced as Transits preferred option. The NZ Transport Agency's preferred option is a pair of two-lane tunnels costing $1.89 billion, rather than a pair of three-lane tunnels costing $2.14 billion. NZTA's traffic modelling indicates the capacity of the two-lane tunnels would be reached within 10 years of operation. Map of Tunnel RouteTransit NZ's board resolved to seek a designation over land for a $1.89 billion pair of motorway tunnels through Waterview. The board called for a report from officials on managing fumes from the tunnel "to benchmark the proposed approach incorporated in the design work to date against current international best practice". In response to submissions questioning the adequacy of just two traffic lanes running in each direction, it sought a comparative assessment of the operational performance and costs of providing three-lane tunnels, initially estimated at $2.14 billion.
Tunnels are not much more expensive than a far more disruptive option of a surface route combined with limited sections of "cut and cover" trenches costing $1.7 billion. A full surface option would be prevented by a need to run the motorway under or over two rail corridors, several busy arterial roads and Oakley Creek
Oakley Creek
Oakley Creek is a creek in Auckland, New Zealand. While heavily human-modified , it has a number of important ecological features, such as having the former Auckland City's only natural waterfall .The least...
. National fully supported completing the region's western ring route in no more than eight years.
Public-private partnership investigation
The government set up a joint public-private sector steering group to investigate the feasibility of a public-private partnership (PPP) as a procurement method for the Waterview Connection Project. A PPP will be evaluated alongside a conventional public sector procurement method to determine how the two methods compare in terms of value for money. The steering group has as an independent chairperson, Sir Brian Elwood, and reports directly to the Ministers of Finance and Transport. It was expected to report back to Government by the end of June 2008.It was announced on 26 August 2008 that the steering group advised the Government that a public-private partnership (PPP) would be the best way of building the new $2 billion section of the city's Western Ring Route. Finance Minister Michael Cullen said a PPP, which would mean tolls of about $2 a trip, was looking "pretty positive". Transport Minister Annette King said the report identified several critical factors that would need to be met for the project to be successful, and she had ordered officials to do more work before the Government committed to a PPP. Treasury, Transport Ministry and New Zealand Transport Agency officials would report back to ministers by October or early November. "Once this work is done Cabinet will be able to make some firm decisions on how to progress Waterview."
Notice of requirement deferred
The NOR, which was expected to be lodged by the end of November 2008, was deferred. The NZTA stated that they would keep working towards lodgement while the technical issues were worked through. The following points have been raised:- Air quality issues were raised by Waterview Primary School representatives. They had serious concerns with the air quality report released last month. It showed air quality would be the same or slightly better at most sensitive sites around the air vents, because the tunnel would remove traffic from local roads but the report didn’t consider the impact of tolling, which could add more traffic to surface roads, and there wasn’t enough consideration given to international best practice on air filtering. Also, the report didn’t account for ventilation fans being turned off during off-peak times, allowing emissions to escape through the tunnel openings. They also want reconsideration of taking a section of the school’s playing field for use during the five year construction period.
- A developer has consent for building 83 new homes, 19 metres away from the Owairaka ventilation stack and there are concerns over unfiltered fumes. The developer wants the ventilation stack moved further away, but there are worries that might push fumes closer to Christ the King School.
Request to reconsider Rosebank route
The ARC requests NZTA to reconsider whether the proposed Waterview Connection is the most cost effective way of completing the Western Ring Road. This should include reconsideration of the costs and benefits ofthe alternative Rosebank route.
Cost of bored tunnels questioned
In 2009, the CEO of Federated Farmers, Conor English (brother of the Finance Minister of the same period, Bill English), announced that Federated FarmersFederated Farmers
Federated Farmers of New Zealand Incorporated is an organisation in New Zealand which lobbies on behalf of its member farmers.It has a network of 24 provinces and seven industry groups. Federated Farmers provides a locally based, democratic organisation that lobbies on farming issues both...
wanted the government to review the tunnelling with a view to cancelling it. He argued in an editorial that the project represented a "tunnel with no hill", costed at that time at about $1.9 billion or about $600 million a kilometre. Therefore, the motorway should instead be built as a surface road, and the savings instead invested into water storage projects benefitting farming.
On 30 Jan 2009 Transport Minister Steven Joyce announced his concern with the $3.16 billion cost (including financing costs of more than $500 million and an upgrade of the nearby Northwestern Motorway for $240 million) of three-lane tunnels, as he was "not comfortable" with the idea of building two-lane structures with no ability to enlarge them for future traffic demand.
He has given officials until April to review all options for a connection of State Highway 20 to the Northwestern at Waterview, including a potentially disruptive surface route through Mt Albert and previously discarded "cut and cover" proposals.
He was unable to predict a completion date for Auckland's 42 km western ring route, saying officials regarded a 2015 target of the previous Labour government as "aspirational".
Combination tunnel method announced
On 13 May 2009 NZTA announced its new preferred route for the Waterview Connection motorway as a combination of surface, bored tunnel and cut and cover tunnel. The tunnels would be constructed with provision for three lanes in each direction.A raised surface motorway through Allen Wood Reserve and the short section between the bored and cut and cover tunnel portals near the Great North Rd and Blockhouse Bay Rd intersection are the largest differences between the new preferred route and the previous bored tunnel option. At $1,165 million, it is cheaper than the $1,974 million two-lane bored tunnel option and $2,335 million three-lane bored tunnel option.
Combined surface/tunnel alignment confirmed
On 11 Sept 2009 the NZTA Board confirmed the combined surface/tunnel alignment for the Waterview Connection. The Board is confident that the project's effects can be managed in a fair and reasonable way and that many of the community concerns can be addressed through good design. Over the next two months the NZTA will provide the Board with details on how a range of issues will be addressed, including:- the subsequent process of engagement to be adopted with respect to the community and other stakeholders;
- air quality effects;
- open space replacement and enhancement;
- noise mitigation;
- other environmental impacts;
- tunnel design options to minimise or remove the separation between the ‘bored’ and ‘cut and cover tunnels;
- urban design – including cycle and walkway connections and access; and investigating a ‘central interchange;
Subject to board approval on 27 Nov 09 of a final design for the motorway, the NZTA will lodge a land designation application early next year with Auckland City, for a construction start in 2011-12 and completion in 2015.
"Final" alignment confirmed
On 21 Dec 2009 the NZTA announced the tunnels would be built further east, as continous tunnels without an (open) gap halfway and expressed confidence that they would be able to be completed within the original project budget. NZTA argued that this would be the most cost effective option for constructing this section, and would require 205 houses to be bulldozed. Underground land will need to be purchased from 105 properties. The board had decided against including a central interchange at New North Road. Construction on the project was proposed to start in mid to late 2011 with an anticipated completion date in the 2015/16 financial year.The revised route map shows road header constructed tunnels running from Alan Wood reserve opposite Range View / Stewart Roads, under the north end of Hendon Ave and under Pak 'n Save, continuing under the ends of Powell St & Craddock St, under the Phyllis St softball fields, under the Oakley Creek waterfall and reserve with a final section of cut & cover under Great North Rd and emerging in Waterview Park as per previous options.
"Road of National Significance" & Fast-tracking
In 2009, Steven JoyceSteven Joyce
Steven Leonard Joyce is a New Zealand politician, who entered the New Zealand House of Representatives in 2008 as a member of the New Zealand National Party...
, New Zealand's Minister of Transport, declared the project one of the "Roads of National Significance". Crucially, this step allowed the application to be considered by a new governmental body, the Environmental Protection Authority, a fast-track process which bypasses normal resource consent and Environment Court processes, in favour of a fixed 9-month process led by a "Board of Enquiry", whose decision cannot be appealed except on points of law. The decision to fast-track was cited as to avoid approval delays which had held up other projects for over 15 years, though local groups were pessimistic about their chance to achieve fair mitigation within the tight process.
The tunnel sections will now be approximately 2.4km long. Also included in the fast-tracked project was the decision to undertake significant capacity-related widening works on State Highway 16, which are outside of the Waterview area (from St Lukes Road interchange to beyond Te Atatu
Te Atatu
Te Atatu is the name of two suburbs in western Auckland, New Zealand: Te Atatu Peninsula and Te Atatu South. They are located next to each other some 10 kilometres to the west of the Auckland city centre....
), which were bundled into the application process which consists of 54 resource consents and 7 designations.
With around 40 folders of materials and plans to go through, local community groups expressed anger in October 2010 that they would only have four weeks to formulate submissions regarding the fast-tracked applications. Calls by Auckland City Council and an affected community board to extend the deadline were rejected, citing the tight statutory timeframe.
Process and hearing
The consenting process was (as of the end of 2010) continuing in parallel with the tendering process in order to save time (i.e. NZTA was assuming that the project will achieve consent largely as applied for). On 3 September 2010, NZTA’s application for designation and resource consents for the Waterview Connection section of the Western Ring Route ‘road of national significance project’ was referred to a Board of Inquiry, chaired by Environment Court judge Laurie Newhook.The EPA publicly notified the application package on 18 Sept 2010, with the period for public submissions closing 15 October 2010. Evidence needs to be produced and provided to NZTA by December 17th 2010. The Board of Inquiry hearing was to run February to April 2011 (actually taking 16 days of hearings until March), with a draft decision by the Board of Inquiry expected in May, with the final decision due by June 20th 2011. This was later slightly pushed out to June 30th.
A number of matters came into public focus during the hearings process. One of them was the shape and locations of the two proposed ventilation shaft buildings near the northern and southern tunnel entries, and their likely effect on local visual amenity (with the shafts, at 25m-27m height, proposed to tower visibly over surrounding suburban areas) and local air pollution levels (where an indepependent report considered that the NZTA had been too optimistic in terms of pollution conditions during traffic jams and due to induced demand
Induced demand
Induced demand, or latent demand, is the phenomenon that after supply increases, more of a good is consumed. This is entirely consistent with the economic theory of supply and demand; however, this idea has become important in the debate over the expansion of transportation systems, and is often...
). Other matters included effects on local neighbourhoods, even those were demolition was not expected, such as for several apartment buildings directly adjacent to a multi-year construction site.
Board of Inquiry decision
On 9 May 2011 it was reported that the NZTA has been directed to, among other mitigation changes:- build the northern tunnel exhaust tower on the other (eastern) side of Great North Rd, further away from Waterview Primary School than planned - NZTA had opposed the change arguing extra costs of up to $29 million
- build the southern tunnel exhaust tower, in Owairaka, 70 to 80 metres southeast of the NZTA's preferred site, away from a narrow chokepoint in Alan Wood Reserve, requiring a short extension to the 2.5km tunnels, also reducing the project's open space displacement - NZTA had opposed the change arguing extra costs of up to $21 million
- build the two towers to a height of "15 metres above ground - not more - not less"
- pay $8 million towards construction of a walk- and cycleway between Owairaka and Waterview, to mitigate open space loss by providing local connections for the communities
The draft decision on the overall project was released end of May 2011, confirming the matters of the earlier direction, with the final result not significantly different when released end of June 2011.
Community response
While community groups still expressed negative views about the motorway after the hearings process, many noted that they felt the tunneling (compared to a 2009 surface alignment) and the added mitigation prescribed on NZTA during the hearings process, had helped to make the result more acceptable for the local communities. While some described the process as a "David and Goliath" fight, most agreed that the Board of Inquiry had handled the process well, and listened to local concerns.Start of enabling works
In March 2010, NZTA announced that $10 million enabling works would start at the southeastern end of the route, diverting a sewer line and a tributary of Oakley Creek in preparation for the new Maioro St interchange. While the works will occur on land already designated as motorway, local groups were concerned that the move preempted the consenting process for the main alignment, which still was to happen at that stage.In October 2010 the NZTA signed a contract with Fletcher construction to complete stage 2 of the $40m project at the Maioro Street Interchange. In November 2010, NZTA continue to negotiate the acquiring of the Faulkner Collins' factory and offices from Stoddard Rd in Mt Roskill under the public works act, in order to make way for the Maioro St interchange connection to Stoddard Rd. Faulkner Collins employees took turns sleeping at the factory, fearing the NZTA would change the locks during the night.
Contract awarded
16 November 2010, NZTA announced the two shortlisted competitors to construct the project, being two rival alliances of companies, one led by Fletcher ConstructionFletcher Construction
Fletcher Construction Limited is a leading New Zealand construction company. It is owned by Fletcher Building Limited and has three main divisions:*Building and interiors *South Pacific...
and one led by Fulton Hogan
Fulton Hogan
Fulton Hogan is a large infrastructure construction, roadworks and aggregate supplier company in New Zealand, which is also active in wider Australasia....
in partnership with Australia's Leighton Contractors. A third consortia led by Baulderstone Pty Ltd missed out on selection. As of May 2010, it was known that each of the two remaining tenderers had about 140-150 staff preparing bids for the project, and one tenderer, after the decision, noted that they had spent about $18 million preparing the bid. Construction start is expected to be before Christmas 2011.
In mid 2011, it was announced that the 'Well Connected' consortium led by Fletcher Construction had won the tender, for $1.3 billion.
Mitigation and related projects
A number of not directly motorway-related projects will or may form part of the SH20 connection works, either to mitigate negative effects on the environment, or to provide for other transport modes.Avondale–Southdown railway line
Enabling works and allowance for the Avondale–Southdown lineAvondale - Southdown Line
The Avondale–Southdown Line is a proposed railway line between Avondale and Southdown in Auckland, New Zealand. One of its main functions would be to remove north–south freight trains from the section of the Auckland rail system that has most passenger traffic...
are a part of constructing SH20. KiwiRail
KiwiRail
KiwiRail Holdings Limited is the rail operations subsidiary of the New Zealand Railways Corporation, which trades as KiwiRail. Headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail transport operator in New Zealand. Since July 2010 John Spencer has been the Chairman...
sees this route as strategically important as it is the only real alternative cross-isthmus heavy rail route to the existing Newmarket line, the further upgrading of which is not realistically feasible or possible. KiwiRail request that any tunnel construction does not preclude rail above it in the future, including the possibility of rail being trenched to cross below New North Road to connect to the existing North Auckland Line.
Passive Open Space
Passive open space will be lost during construction of the motorway to construction lay down areas and lost permanently where the motorway & associated structures are built. NZTA has proposed replacement passive open space below & around the Waterview interchange ramps, and the existing privately owned empty site adjoining Alan Wood reserve & future surface motorway.Active Open Space
The existing fields at Waterview Park and Alan Wood Reserve will be lost. NZTA propose to construct new fields adjacent to the Waterview interchange, and above the tunnel entrances at Alan Wood Reserve. These would likely be used as construction lay down areas during construction. During the project Expo's, NZTA had proposed to develop additional fields at Phyllis St for use during the construction period but this was dropped for the EPA submission.Walk- and Cycleways
Documents shown during the public consultation phase in early 2010 showed a proposed walk- and cycleway generally following the line of the motorway / tunnel alignment, connecting the existing SH16 CyclewayNorthwestern Cycleway
The Northwestern Cycleway is a 12 km mostly off-road cycle route connecting the Auckland CBD in Auckland City with Henderson, Waitakere City in New Zealand...
with the end of the then-existing SH20 Cycleway
Waikaraka Cycleway
The Waikaraka Cycleway is an off-road cycleway in the south of Auckland City, New Zealand, running from the Wesley suburb in southern Auckland City along New Zealand State Highway 20 to Onehunga and then continuing along the shoreline of the Manukau Harbour beside mostly industrialised areas until...
, including a walking/cycling bridge over Oakley Creek
Oakley Creek
Oakley Creek is a creek in Auckland, New Zealand. While heavily human-modified , it has a number of important ecological features, such as having the former Auckland City's only natural waterfall .The least...
at Phyllis Street. However, at lodgement time in 2010, NZTA clarified that it would only build cycleways along the sections that are NOT located in a tunnel, leaving the potential for a connecting cycleway between SH16 and SH20 in doubt.
After a several-months long hearing process, the Board of Inquiry in mid 2011 however came to the decision that a walk- and cycleway along the tunnel alignment was a required mitigation for open space loss in the areas around both tunnel portals (though not technically as transport mitigation), and that NZTA will have to pay for (though not build) the facility. Cycling advocates Cycle Action Auckland
Cycle Action Auckland
Cycle Action Auckland is a pro-cycling advocacy group in Auckland, New Zealand. The volunteer-driven group aims to improve infrastructure and conditions, as well as perceptions of cycling to encourage more "everyday people" to use bicycles, including for commuting and recreation...
lauded the decision as a resounding win for cycling in Auckland, and a key part in making the Waterview Connection into a truly multi-modal project. The approximate route of the cycleway will be from near Alford Street in Waterview, crossing a new bridge over Oakley Creek, then through Phyllis Reserve, before crossing to Allan Woods Reserve in New Windsor/Owairaka via a new bridge over the rail line at Soljak Place.
Maioro Street to New Lynn
As part of the SH20 Mt Roskill extension, NZTA is widening Maioro St from two to four lanes, to be completed mid 2009. The Auckland City Council is responsible for widening the remaining route to New Lynn, i.e. New Windsor Rd, Tiverton Rd, Wolverton Rd. While it completed some widening of Tiverton Rd in 2007, Auckland City Council has deferred completing any more widening until 2015-2020.External links
- Waterview Connection (official NZTA project website)
- Auckland Motorways