National to axe Let's Get Wellington Moving, promises 'four lanes to the planes'

Monday, 31 July 2023

A National government would dump the troubled Let’s Get Wellington Moving project – including light rail – but has committed to building a second road tunnel under Mt Victoria.

It would also revive the proposed Petone to Grenada Link Road, which it says will open up land for more than 5000 homes, and a cross valley link to ease congestion across the harbourside suburb and Lower Hutt.

The proposals are part of an ambitious transport policy to be released today, which the party says is a cornerstone of its election pitch.

This is the opening salvo in what is set to be one of the main ideological battles of the campaign: how to build and fund transport infrastructure in a climate emergency.

Over the next 10 years, National would invest $4 billion in the Capital’s transport networks, partly paid for by scrapping the $7.4b package.

Other funds would be raised through value capital charging (a levy on housing developments along the new northern route), tolls, extra government investment and reallocating money from the Land Transport Fund.

“Let’s Get Wellington Moving is a toxic mess of a programme,” infrastructure and housing spokesperson Chris Bishop said. “After six years, the only thing that it has delivered is a set of traffic lights on State Highway 1 – and it's cost millions and millions of dollars in consultancy fees.

“Wellingtonians are just sick of the dithering and the delay.”

Bishop – National’s candidate for Hutt South – developed the policy alongside transport spokesperson Simeon Brown.

LGWM – first mooted in 2014 and then fleshed out in 2017 – is a funding model that would see central government pay 60% of costs, with local councils picking up the rest.

Light rail is a central plank, but the programme has polarised Wellington residents. As of May, $114.3m million was spent over eight years, with close to $70m going to consultants.

It has delivered only one notable project – a pedestrian crossing over SH1, Cobham Drive – and speed restrictions. A 2021 report found it was “at risk of failing to deliver.”

Construction on a plan to remove private vehicles from the Golden Mile will start in September.

Critics – including local businesses – say officials are moving to restrict vehicles from the city’s streets but without improving degraded and unreliable public transport networks. There is also concern the pace of a rollout of cycleways is getting ahead of social licence for street changes.

Axing LGWM would be a blow to Wellington’s mayor Tory Whanau, who campaigned on light rail. Earlier this year, she admitted she was worried her plans for the city would be scuppered by a National-led government – and that she would be “deeply concerned” if Brown became transport minister.

The ‘car-centric’ proposals will also put National at odds with residents who want new infrastructure to prioritise climate change and public transport, as well as the city’s vocal cycling advocates.

But National says its plans will free up money to improve bus links – and point to a future where drivers will move to electric cars.

If elected, the party would build a second, wider Mt Vic tunnel in parallel to the existing one – with construction starting before 2025.

It will provide two lanes for traffic travelling east towards the city’s airport, and the original, century-old tunnel will carry two lanes of traffic to the city. A pedestrian and cycleway will be built above the road, separated from traffic in the new underpass.

Upgrades would remove north-south state highway traffic from the Basin Reserve, a notorious choke-point, and widen Ruahine St to deliver ‘four lanes to the planes’. The cost for both is $2.2b.

“Let’s Get Wellington Moving is building this extravagantly expensive, diagonal tunnel which will have no new capacity for private cars,” Bishop said.

“It has become, basically, a vehicle for the imposition of light rail into Wellington – an expensive vanity project.

“The city has a pretty good bus network now and there are huge improvements that can be made to it. That's where the focus should be: better buses for Wellington.

“We are going to build them [the councils] a tunnel, that will be cheaper than the current proposal. It’s a state highway – and that’s what the Crown should pay for. That’s going to free up a lot of capital for the councils to improve the bus network.”

The new tunnel and upgrade would improve travel times between the central city, airport and eastern suburbs, and reduce traffic volumes on alternative routes like Evans Bay Parade, Oriental Parade and through Newtown.

The party has also revived proposals for a four-lane route between Tawa and the Hutt Valley.

A Petone to Grenada highway would link to a new west-east connection across the Hutt Valley, via a new interchange at Petone, currently a bottleneck.

That route would divert traffic from the Petone Esplanade which carries 25,000 vehicles per day, trying to access SH2 from Wainuiomata, Eastbourne, including heavy trucks from the Seaview and Gracefield industrial areas. That’s more traffic each day than Transmission Gully carries.

As well as reducing congestion, and travel times between state highways 1 and 2, it would also provide residents with a new route out of the city in the event of an earthquake.

National says the corridor would allow for up to 5200 new homes – and it would levy developers to help meet costs.

Commuter times between Porirua and the Hutt Valley would be cut by about 30 minutes in a return journey in peak travel, Brown said.

It would also allow for new public transport between the Hutt Valley and Wellington’s northern suburbs.

The plans for northern Wellington will be familiar to voters. National pledged to revive the Petone to Grenada route – which would link Hutt Valley to SH1 via Horokiwi – in the 2020 election campaign after Labour put plans on ice in 2018.

The Cross Valley Link road – often called the ‘road to nowhere’ – has been talked about since the 1960s, and funding it was another of the party’s 2020 promises.

In 2021 Waka Kotahi, the transport agency, accepted a business case from Hutt City Council, but officials warned it was more than a decade away. Bishop says construction on the entire route will start within 4-10 years.

Missing from the blueprint is a promise made by former leader Judith Collins to build a second Terrace Tunnel – where traffic from the urban motorway grinds to an almost instantaneous gridlock.

Bishop said the party would like to look at options, but it is not part of the current manifesto.

Labour is yet to unveil its transport policy, but it has backed LGWM and light rail for both Wellington and Auckland.

National is banking that how people move around the Capital will be a central issue for local voters. While the Wellington Central and Rongotai electorates are typically safe Labour seats, Hutt South and Ōhāriu are expected to be a tight race.