Making Auckland’s transport network as efficient as possible has been a big driver for the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and its partner organisations in the Auckland Business Forum over recent years.
This builds on our mission to strengthen Auckland’s place as New Zealand’s pre-eminent commercial, industrial and communications centre. And of course a critical part of that is centred on our advocacy to central and local government to enable economic growth and improved productivity through investment in infrastructure to help meet Auckland’s growing freight task.
There is a lot we are helping make happen, but a lot more that freight interests need to watch and help push for.
At the top of our transport list is getting construction happening to address the heavy congestion in the Neilson – Church street area between Onehunga and Southdown and its huge cost on local businesses – estimated at $30 million a year on freight businesses alone.
The former Auckland City Council had long proposed the upgrading of Neilson Street as its solution. But armed with research showing around 6000 heavy trucks use the route daily – more than on most state highways – and congestion was getting worse by the day, we took a decision with National Road Carriers to promote the case for a new SH1-to-SH20 motorway-to-motorway link. Our idea is a new “Road of National Significance” built along the northern shoreline of Manukau Harbour between SH20 at Onehunga, and which cuts inland to link with the Southern Motorway at Mt Wellington.
We are advocating for a road design that eliminates traffic lights and intersections for trucks, avoids community severance and taking up valuable industrial land, and most important gives freight operators a more direct route to SH1 and SH20 for long-distance freight trips that begin or end at distribution businesses in this part of Auckland.
It’s happening step-by-step. In late 2014 we won the case for the new road on the Manukau Harbour shoreline, when boards of Auckland Transport and NZTA signed up. But they have been slow to confirm a design and firm programme on when and how the project would be paid for.
After more advocacy, prime minister John Key recently announced the elevation of East-West to “a project of national significance” and that it will go through a streamlined consenting process later this year to bring forward its construction. That is a commitment we can all welcome and celebrate, but rest assured the Forum will stay on the case to ensure the design details meet the specifications required to improve freight efficiency.
Grafton Gully (Stage 3) is another long-proposed NZTA project vital to the freight sector that the Forum wants completed with urgency.
It involves a 900m extension of SH16 between Stanley Street and Quay St. Our idea is for an underpass.
This would allow for the 50,000 vehicles/day that travel to the motorway from eastern seashore suburbs (Mission, St Heliers etc) and the 4000 heavy freight trucks/day heading to-from the Ports of Auckland to enter the motorway network at Quay St in a way that avoids The Strand and heavy congestion at the Parnell Rise/Stanley St intersection. With good design, an underpass would free up local community concerns on Beach Rd and The Strand and compliment Council proposals to make amenity improvements (including on Quay St in central city).
For the freight sector and business, the big benefit of this project is that it will help give certainty to the port being able to continue to operate efficiently on its current site for the foreseeable future. Numerous reports have identified the growth of general traffic in Grafton Gully as a major uncertainty to both road freight and Port efficiency in the future.
I strongly encourage freight sector interests to think this through in the context of keeping a close watch on what is happening in the Auckland Council’s Future Port Study. Any decision to relocate the Port out of Auckland where 70 percent of customers are within 35 km of the port, would not only increase the freight transport logistics and costs enormously, but achieve only to transfer the social and environmental concerns some have with the port in its current location on to another community. It wouldn’t fly. The best ‘fix’ that has emerged to date is to improve the road and rail access to the port in a way that also delivers local community benefits. This would give the Port and freight sector certainty for years to come. Let me know what you think; I would appreciate hearing your views.
