Waterview Connection – hearing starts Monday

After years of background work, arguments, designs, redesigns, re-redesigns and so forth, the Waterview Connection project will have its official planning hearing from Monday onwards. The hearing is likely to be quite lengthy, with NZTA putting forward a vast array of witnesses, Auckland Council doing similar, and a relatively large number of submitters also being very interested parties. Despite the lengthy lead-in period, because this project is being ‘fast-tracked’ through the government’s new planning structure – and has been sent to a Board of Inquiry – things have actually moved really quickly in the last few months. I would imagine that quite a few NZTA staff and their consultants would have been doing little else but this project in order to get everything ready. There’s certainly a mountain of paperwork!

The latest mountain of paperwork to arrive is what’s known as NZTA’s “Rebuttal Evidence”. Back in November last year NZTA lodged their “evidence in chief”: which is the primary justification for the project by NZTA and the analysis by their consultants about what the environmental effects of the project are and how they will be avoided, remedied or mitigated. You can read all of NZTA’s evidence here (both evidence in chief and rebuttal evidence). After NZTA had lodged their evidence, submitters who wanted to be involved at the hearing had the opportunity to lodge evidence themselves – and many did so. Out of the submitters’ evidence, three that I found particularly worth reading were what Auckland Council had to say about transport matters, what Auckland University economics professor Tim Hazeldine had to say about the project’s economic justification and what the principal of Waterview Primary School had to say about concerns relating to effects on the school.

NZTA have had the opportunity to respond to matters raised by the submitters, and their rebuttal evidence does just that. Perhaps the most useful rebuttal evidence to look at is that of State Highways Manager Tommy Parker: as he effectively summarises what many of the other expert witnesses have said in their rebuttal evidence – and he presents the “NZTA case” as it now stands. Mr Parker comments on a few interesting matters, including the following:

• Whether the project meets its stated objectives
• Whether a cycleway needs to be constructed along the alignment of the tunnel section
• Whether congestion charging would offset the need for the project
• Whether the project’s economic assessment is robust
• Whether a bus lane should be provided along Great North Road
• Whether the ventilation buildings/stacks (either one or both of them) should be undergrounded
• Effects on the school and kindergarten

The first useful bunch of these issues to discuss is the question of whether the project is justified. This encompasses issues over whether it will meet its objectives, whether congestion charging could alleviate the need for the project and whether the economic assessment of the project is robust. These questions were also raised in the Campaign for Better Transport’s submission on the Waterview Connection (although unfortunately the CBT could not afford to hire traffic engineers and economics experts to argue their case further).

Of course Mr Parker disagrees with submissions saying that the project does not meet its objectives: It’s amusing to see the cyclical nature of much of what’s said here – and how it actually avoids the real questions. The first objective is fairly obvious – yes the project contributes to the region’s transport infrastructure and yes it will link up SH20 with SH16. It will improve the resilience of SH16 by raising the causeway and therefore reducing the flooding. It will also increase the capacity of the road – whether that should equate to improving the capacity of the road should probably be left to others to determine.

The second objective of the project is the one that I’ve always felt hasn’t been well supported at all by the documentation.  How does the project help support economic growth and productivity? Where’s the study? Where are the figures? What if the money was put into different projects – would they generate greater productivity gains? While the Waterview Connection has a more robust business case than most of the other RoNS: it just seems like a giant omission to not include much at all about how the project actually achieves all these supposed economic benefits. Maybe I need to read the economics rebuttal evidence in some detail – it might be in there.

The other objective the project has is to support modal choice and mobility in the Auckland region – by improving public transport, walking and cycling. I’ve always thought the project only really makes token gestures when it comes to public transport: and we’d be much better off constructing a Northwest Busway than widening SH16 to nine lanes. Here’s what Mr Parker says to those who criticise the project’s lack of public transport, walking and (particularly) cycling infrastructure:

So it’s clear that NZTA are not going to build a connecting cycleway above the tunnel section of the motorway. Instead they’re going to request Auckland Transport do it and offer some funding assistance. The problem is that NZTA’s pot of money for cycling is incredibly small and this cycleway would have to complete against all the other great cycleway projects not being built – instead of being able to get a little bit of money out of the absolutely giant state highways funding budget. Oh how I wish transport projects of all kinds had equal access to funding!

Moving along a bit, in response to questions raised about the project’s economic justification, Mr Parker reveals that the cost-benefit ratio of the project has decreased dramatically in recent months since a new traffic model was used: Oh wow this raises so many interesting questions. What’s the difference between the ART2 and ART3 models? How on earth can one model generate traffic benefits vastly bigger than the other? Were petrol prices factored into ART3 more than ART2, causing the big difference? If ART3 is a more up-to-date model, then shouldn’t that be peer reviewed and finalised before we go and spent close to $2 billion of public money on this project?

What he also says about how NZTA prioritises projects also makes for interesting reading: Apart from the obvious typo, it is revealing to see the kind of words that NZTA uses to justify its projects – potentially those that don’t actually make economic sense. I can foresee this whole process potentially happening in a few years time for the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway: with NZTA justifying the project because it gives effect to the GPS despite it having an absolutely pathetic cost-benefit ratio.

Amongst all the gloom there is one usefully good piece of news – and that relates to a potential Great North Road bus lane through Waterview, a lane that is desperately needed to reduce the huge delays faced by bus passengers along this stretch of road in the morning peak: It will be useful to follow the extent to which we end up with a bus lane along Great North Road.

Another disappointment though is NZTA’s response to requests for the ventilation buildings to be undergrounded – with Mr Parker’s response setting up an interesting question for the Board of Inquiry: can NZTA get away with doing something that creates pretty massive environmental effects just because it’s expensive to mitigate those effects? Remember that the project cost is around $2 billion: so $20 million is only 1% of the project. I’m not quite sure whether the “it’s too expensive” will ‘cut the mustard’ with the board of inquiry: that will be something interesting to follow in the hearing and in the final decision the board makes.

I’ll have a good read through more of the rebuttal evidence over the next few days and see if there’s other interesting stuff. Having a good read through the economics, transport and visual effects rebuttal evidence might be particularly revealing.