Government to sound out market on second Auckland harbour crossing

Friday, 14 March 2025

“Market sounding” for a second Auckland harbour crossing will start next month, Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has announced.

There has long been talk about adding a second crossing in addition to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, but speaking at the Infrastructure Investment Summit in Auckland on Friday, Bishop said early market sounding for a second crossing would begin next month.

The summit is a key element of the Government’s plan to close New Zealand’s infrastructure gap by entering public private partnerships to develop things like roads, courthouses, prisons and schools.

Bishop said NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) was undertaking an assessment process to refine the scope and cost for the project.

It would be a multi-billion-dollar, intergenerational, critical harbour connection project, Bishop said.

The market sounding would be undertaken by Waitematā Harbour Connections, part of NZTA.

A briefing on the project would be developed around the middle of the year, followed by a second market sounding next year.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge was opened in 1959.

It was paid for by tolls, before becoming free to cross, and Bishop said the second crossing, when delivered, would be tolled.

The second crossing could be either a bridge, or a tunnel.

Bishop said: “These days, 14% of the total vehicle kilometres travelled in Auckland are on the bridge, with 10,000 freight trips and 235,000 people per day. This includes more than 1000 daily bus crossings, carrying 35,000 passengers, on the Northern Busway.

“750,000 people currently rely on the on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and 290,000 jobs are connected by it.

“By 2051, it’s expected there will be 122,000 public transport trips across it daily. It’s also expected that by then, $29 billion of NZ’s annual GDP will rely on this key connection,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the existing bridge is getting old and can’t handle this expected growth in demand. It is also vulnerable to weather events. NZTA has advised the government that within the coming decades, parts of the bridge will need to be closed for significant periods of time to complete resilience works – significantly disrupting the economy. And with an aging piece of infrastructure, these disruptions are expected to get worse.”

He said: “Our current connection is fragile and nearing the end of its life. Simply put, we need a new one.

“A new harbour crossing will be one of the most complex and expensive infrastructure projects New Zealand has ever undertaken,” he said.

“Over the next 12 months, we are undertaking geotechnical, environmental, and utilities investigations to gain a comprehensive understanding of ground and seabed conditions,” he said.

“Right now, there is a barge preparing to head out into the harbour next week to undertake these assessments – the first time ever these under-harbour investigations have been undertaken, showing how serious we are about progressing this project.

“Across the next 18 months, we expect to make decisions on the scope of this new connection, specifically whether it will be a new bridge or a tunnel,” he said.

Bishop also said expressions of interest were now being sought to develop the Northland Expressway, which he had flagged in March.

He also said the Government was working on law changes to allow it to toll entire road corridor, including existing roads that benefit from new projects.

The laws under development would also allow for tolls to be raised in line with inflation.

Bishop said the Government was committed to expanding the use of road tolling to build and maintain “Roads of National Significance”.

The Government had identified six routes on which tolls could be used to help fund development, and continued maintenance, or roading.

They were the Northern Gateway Toll Road (currently tolled), the Tauranga Eastern Link Toll Road (currently tolled), the Takitimu Drive Toll Road (currently tolled), Penlink (to be tolled once open), the Takitimu North Link (to be tolled once open), and Ōtaki to North of Levin (to be tolled once open).

However, Bishop said future roading projects that could be paid for through tolling. These included roading from Cambridge to Piarere, the Hawke’s Bay Expressway, the Belfast to Pegasus Motorway and Woodend Bypass, and Tauriko West State Highway 29.

“While decisions have not yet been made, all Roads of National Significance are being assessed for tolling,” Bishop said.

“New Zealand already has three existing toll roads in Auckland and Tauranga, and three more in construction or development. All our new roads, such as our Roads of National Significance, are being assessed for tolling,” Bishop said.

“While our existing toll roads are operated by the New Zealand Transport Agency, the Government is for the first time exploring the potential for private involvement across our growing network of toll roads in New Zealand, including the potential use of toll concessions.

“A toll concession is where a private company, called the concessionaire, is granted the right to operate and maintain a toll road for a set period of time, and collects the revenue from it to offset their costs and provide a return on investment. In return, the Government receives an up-front capital payment which it can reinvest into new roading projects, potentially bringing them forward by years,” Bishop said.

“For existing toll roads, a concession can be granted to operate and maintain a road,” he said.

“It is important to note that under any toll concession, the Crown retains ownership of the toll road. Management is transferred and reverts to the Crown at the end of the concession period,” Bishop said.

He said the Government would shortly begin the market sounding stage to test concession opportunities.

As well as using private sector capital to build infrastructure, the focus would be on “user pays” using mechanisms like tolling.

Spanish billionaire Jose Manuel Entrecanales from multi-national expressway developer Acciona said it was interested in bidding to build the Northland Expressway.

The company had a tolling concession on the Pūhoi to Warkworth expressway.

He also gave an indication on how “smartroad” tolling was developing overseas.

In Atlanta in the United States, Acciona was developing a motorway on which there was smart tolling, which included surge pricing for using fast lanes during times of high congestion.