There’s a time for thought, and a time for action.More than a month into 2019, we have yet to see much action around a gap of nearly three billion dollars in the national infrastructure pipeline.
As projects such as the Auckland northern and southern corridor improvements, the Waikato Expressway, Peka Peka to Otaki and Transmission Gully wind down, these should in theory be replaced by the next wave of improvements.
But the only major NZTA projects we’ve had confirmed so far are the $360m SH1 Papakura to Bombay improvements and the Manawatu Gorge replacement.
The amount of fire the New Zealand Transport Agency’s certification systems have come under recently along with staff changes certainly has not helped the agency maintain a focus on getting projects over the line, yet in many ways the agency’s hands are tied by the changing nature of the work proposed.
We know there’s a gap in the construction pipeline, but it’s unlikely the remainder of the Roads of National Significance projects will emerge from their reviews to fill it.
We know the roading work programme is shifting from major state highway projects to smaller regional, safety and mass public transport improvements.
Given the talk of “record investment” last year, and more recent statements from government about 2019 being a “year of action”, we’ve been led to anticipate a veritable smorgasbord of smaller projects to replace the major projects that are finishing up.
An about-turn of infrastructure policy was always going to be challenging.The reality is we have not seen this array of small to medium-sized regional improvements come to market, or had a reasonable indication of when much of the work will begin.
While the work is slow to come to market, the changes themselves are not all bad.It’s clear we need to improve coastal resilience in our infrastructure networks.
Many regions of New Zealand have long been overlooked and will welcome the opportunity to use the Provincial Growth Fund to get projects going.There’s still a lot of work to be done in bringing our water infrastructure and broadband networks up to scratch.
The reduction in congestion on our roads from improved public transport networks and more mode-neutral transport options in our cities will be a relief – if we can ever overcome the endless arguments about the best way forward.
Auckland is a case in point.Massive developments are taking place in Auckland with the America’s Cup base, the Central Interceptor and City Rail Link, not to mention the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, which will result in a $28 billion overhaul of the city’s transport networks to cope with the rapidly growing population.
City Rail Link, huge residential developments, SeaPath, SkyPath, light rail, a second harbour crossing – the list of potential ideas for improvement and points of contention goes on.
In this light, endless arguments over the government’s actual commitment to light rail are counterproductive.It’s important to get it right.But we’re already playing catch-up and it’s also important these ideas happen in some sort of reasonable timeframe.
The key point here is we need to get on with the work or the world will move on once again and the plans to solve the current issues we’re facing will be obsolete by the time we start work.
Having projects like PenLink on hold for decades doesn’t help.We have seen some attempts at innovation from government to speed up the infrastructure funding process, but public-private partnerships are still being approached with caution.
As for Kiwi civil contractors, there’s a lot we’re waiting on.Not just the announcement of a new selection of roading projects, but the findings of the Three Waters Review (freshwater, stormwater and wastewater) and the creation of a new independent infrastructure body as well.
We know there’s a lot of work to be done, and we want to be able to get on with it so the country’s skilled workforce of excavator operators, truck drivers and civil construction workers can find meaningful work opportunities rather than looking overseas for greener pastures where work is happening on the ground rather than just over the horizon.
