Bishop’s bold promises for Wellington region’s roads

Friday, 20 October 2023

Nicholas Boyack looks at how the election of National and Hutt South MP Chris Bishop might affect roading projects like the Petone-Grenada link road and a second Mt Victoria tunnel.

If Chris Bishop, the newly elected Hutt South MP and likely Minister of Infrastructure, can build half the roads he promoted during the election campaign, he will replace Bob as our favourite builder.

As well as a second Mt Victoria tunnel, he campaigned on the promise to build two major roads in his home patch of Lower Hutt, the Petone-Grenada link and the Cross Valley Link (CVL).

“With an estimated cost of $1.8 billion, this project will reduce commuter travel times between Porirua and the Hutt Valley by around 30 minutes each day in peak travel, allow public transport from the Hutt to Wellington’s northern suburbs, and will unlock greenfield development opportunities for up to 5200 new homes in the area,” he said before the election.

The Cross Valley Link (taking traffic from Seaview to State Highway 2) has been talked about since the 1950s, without ever advancing beyond a good idea that no-one was prepared to fund.

Bishop also talked up a second road from Wainuiomata to Lower Hutt, and a bridge over the Hutt River near Stokes Valley.

Earlier this month, Bishop promised to start the Mt Victoria tunnel within three years.

“Wellingtonians are sick of the seemingly interminable arguing over the Basin Reserve and a second Mt Victoria tunnel,” he told one media outlet.

The question is, will any of these roads see the light of day?

His Hutt South rival, Labour’s Ginny Andersen, dismisses his promises, saying he has a history of promising uncosted roading projects at election time.

“This is just pork barrel politics. He is promising things he can’t deliver.”

When it comes to the Petone-Grenada link, Andersen might have a point.

In August 2020 Stuff noted the project looked doomed.

“The Petone-to-Grenada link road has long been a pet project of Bishop’s but has run into repeated trouble. The project has effectively been dead in the water since 2018, when [Waka Kotahi] NZTA announced the road would need to be redesigned.”

Bishop rejects the notion that he is playing “pork barrel politics” and said the reality was that the road had been talked about for many years.

Labour’s Ōhāriu candidate Greg O’Connor had publicly supported Petone-Grenada and Bishop believed there was widespread support among regional leaders.

Former MP and Cabinet minister Peter Dunne says where the money is coming from and where the projects rank with Waka Kotahi are the obvious questions.

Ultimately, he said, the new Government could set its own priorities, even if Waka Kotahi had different priorities.

It was the same with funding. The Government could reprioritise funding and take money intended for other areas, if it judged a project like Petone-Grenada or the second Mt Victoria tunnel to be the priority.

Dunne, however, warned that making a start on such projects sounded easier than it actually was. “I don’t think it can be done quickly or easily.”

Asked whether he would put any money on the Petone-Grenada project if he was a betting man, he said he would, but not very much.

“That is because the new Government has made some big political promises and they will be in deep trouble if they can’t deliver.”

Waka Kotahi has not done any work on the Petone-Grenada link since 2018. Its last report, dated December 12, 2018, is a piece of engineering gobbledegook that says little more than to look at other options.

A few months later Waka Kotahi issued a press release, essentially noting the project was dead in the water.

“In 2017, we identified that the link road in its then-proposed form may not provide the resilience outcomes needed for Wellington, was more costly than first thought, and its impacts on the environment might be difficult to minimise.”

One of the road’s key justifications had always been that it would provide what engineers called “lifeline resilience” – in other words, another alternative way out of Wellington after a big earthquake.

Waka Kotahi, however, discovered that because of the steepness of the terrain it would be subject to landslides in the event of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake.

National’s estimated cost of $1.8 billion appears to be based on the 2018 report. If you look at other major projects (Petone to Ngauranga went from $94 million in 2020 to $312m, when work started this year), $5b might be a more realistic sum.

It is not clear how much the Cross Valley Link would cost but over time it has morphed from a new road to a three-stage project initially involving improving walking and cycling options on the Petone Esplanade, Hutt Rd and Ewen Bridge.

What is indisputable is that a new road requiring a another bridge over the Hutt River, and having to buy an unknown number of houses to make way for a road, would be expensive and time consuming.

The new roads for Wellington are part of a $24b package to build 13 roads of national significance, which National hopes would unlock new housing in Wellington, Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga.

National’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, said the projects would be funded by a combination of reallocating funds from the National Land Transport Programme, new Government investment and private funding.

Bishop said tolls and getting landowners who benefit from a road to contribute were other possibilities.

Economists think there is another potential problem.

Economist Andrew Schoultz, from consultancy Sense Partners, said that even if the money could be found for National’s wish-list, it faced a major hurdle around inflation and the ability of the construction sector to build so many big projects at the same time.

Worldwide there was a shortage of skilled engineers and New Zealand would be forced to compete for overseas workers, which would inevitably delay the projects.

From an economic perspective, he said, roads like Petone-Grenada were a poor investment.

Not only would the money produce a better result if it was spent on public transport, but roads encouraged urban sprawl that put infrastructure under extra pressure.

National’s claim that the Petone-Grenada link would unlock thousands of new homes raised questions about the affordability of infrastructure, he said.

The further infrastructure was from the central city, the more expensive it became, Schoultz said. Providing wastewater services for low density greenfield housing was expensive and a poor use of public money.

People living at the top of Newlands would expect a bus service, which would be expensive to provide and potentially reduce services to areas of Wellington that had higher density housing.

Without bus services, new homeowners in Newlands would revert to cars, putting the already stretched roading network under even more stress, he said.

The newly elected Green MP for Rongotai, Julie Anne Genter, has a simple message for Bishop and National. “The best opportunity we have here for (better) transport is to upgrade public transport and clearly that is what Wellingtonians voted for.”

National wants to reduce congestion and she argued that was best achieved by getting people out of cars and on to public transport.

“I am really hopeful that they will realise they do not have to follow up on these silly promises because they do not have any votes to lose.”

A second Mt Victoria tunnel would only make congestion worse by encouraging more people to jump in to their cars, she said.

Bishop said it was not a case of “either or” .

He agreed with the view that public transport, particularly the train network, needed upgrading and was a powerful tool to support housing intensification.

National was also committed to freeing up land and he said that, nationally, that was best achieved by the new roads he was promoting.

The CVL, Petone-Grenada link and a road he would like to see built from Lower Hutt to Wainuiomata would create an east -to-west corridor that freed up land.

It would also take traffic off the highly congested Petone Esplanade, which he notes Andersen had previously argued should be a priority.

Bishop rejected the argument that building a second Mt Victoria tunnel would only add to congestion in central Wellington.

“There are not too many people who think we do not need a second Mt Vic tunnel.”

One of its advantages was that it would free up space for buses, which he saw as a key element in moving people in the central city.

Greater Wellington councillor Thomas Nash is hopeful that once National is briefed on Wellington’s transport options, there will be a realisation that investing in the rail network is the No 1 priority.

KiwiRail needs something like $1 billion across its lower North Island network and with 18 new hybrid trains coming, Nash said a major network upgrade was needed for the trains to operate to their potential.

“If they decide to do all these (roading projects and not invest in rail), they will have to face the consequences of a seriously compromised rail system.”

Bishop “completely agrees” that trains are a priority and said National was committed to investing in the network.