\u201cIf we look at the traffic today, we know that 50% of people crossing the bridge during commute hours are on a bus. So that\u2019s really taken up a significant amount of the demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we\u2019re only considering cars as an option across that bridge, some of the other things that you would hope to see in this bigger study about light rail as a potential, or better bus lanes, or walking or cycling, all those things will be gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is gonna be mostly constrained to just \u2018How is vehicle traffic going to be impacted?\u2019, which is a limited story when we talk about connecting the city to the North Shore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welch said Auckland was at risk of repeating the same mistakes made when the bridge was first built.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe original bridge was going to be essentially twice the size with footpaths on both sides and, because of austerity, that number was cut down, and we ended up with the kind of smaller bridge we had, and then, within a couple of years, traffic exceeded about 10 times the projections, so we added on the clip-ons that we have now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been paying the interest on that cheaper build ever since, for 70 years almost. It\u2019s something that, if we do it again, we\u2019re locking ourselves into decades more wishing we had done something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Aucklanders have waited with bated breath for a final decision on this never-ending saga.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Chris Hipkins\u2019 Labour Government announced that a second Waitemat\u0101 harbour crossing would begin in 2029 as it unveiled five options: tunnels, bridges or a combination of both.<\/p>\n
Michael Wood, then the Transport Minister, announced that the new crossing would connect to the ambitious Auckland Light Rail in the city centre.<\/p>\n
Whatever the preferred choice, it would become the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand history.<\/p>\n
This wouldn\u2019t come to pass. The light rail project would be cancelled in early 2024 within the National-led coalition Government\u2019s first 100 days.<\/p>\n
Eight months after Hipkins and Wood had gushed that \u201cthe second harbour crossing has just become real\u201d, the dream was over, and Auckland was back to square one.<\/p>\n
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown (front) prefers a bridge over Meola Reef. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop (rear) says that is not on the table. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2026, and Transport Minister Chris Bishop has said a final ruling is in sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re planning on making a decision mid this year, so the next few months, in terms of the options for basically a bridge versus a tunnel,\u201d Bishop told Ryan Bridge TODAY on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Once finalised, the decision will go to the NZTA board before landing with the Cabinet for approval.<\/p>\n
But as the \u201csingle biggest infrastructure project New Zealand\u2019s ever built\u201d, Bishop stressed that, whatever the decision, it would require bipartisan support to give certainty over the city\u2019s transport future.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has long advocated for a bridge over Meola Reef, a partially submerged rocky lava flow extending into the water from Point Chevalier, arguing that doing so would be cheaper and more logical.<\/p>\n
Bishop has said that option is \u201cnot currently on the table\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one of the parties, and this is my city. I understand bridges better than professors of bridges,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n Tunnel v second bridgeThe real bottlenecksThe case for public transportWhy cross-party support is essential.<\/p>\n The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting, who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In other words, the can cannot be kicked down the road any longer. Documents reveal many areas of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,3952,16717,1565,2199,48054,14134,2550,1668,218943,20589,305,12814,4486,130,5971,111,43,139,69,139204,691,28630,8466,223,1961,36199,32951],"class_list":["post-426815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-auckland","tag-aucklands","tag-becoming","tag-bridge","tag-city","tag-crossing","tag-decision","tag-even","tag-front","tag-glaringly","tag-harbour","tag-have","tag-looms","tag-month","tag-more","tag-need","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-obvious","tag-or","tag-page","tag-second","tag-the","tag-this","tag-tunnel","tag-turns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}