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Auckland Mayor Len Brown responded to questions from residents on transport issues for more than an hour at a meeting in Orewa last night.
His choppy ride into Gulf Harbour on the ferry was followed by slightly calmer waters at the meeting at Orewa Community Hall, although strong views were expressed on all sides.
Around 55 people, including residents and representatives of business and community groups, came out on a cold and rainy night to talk transport with the mayor. Crs Wayne Walker and John Watson were there, as well as Hibiscus & Bays Local Board chair Julia Parfitt, deputy chair Greg Sayers and member Lovisa Rasmussen.
The mayor made it clear that he is pinning a lot of hope for transport funding on meetings with central Government, NZ Transport Agency, KiwiRail and Auckland Transport that begin next week.
The meetings, which he described as “a historic occasion”, are expected to be ongoing for around 6–9 months.
What he is hoping for is an agreement for “The Fix” for Auckland’s transport network woes, including a second harbour crossing, potential rail to the North Shore and Penlink.
The building of the Penlink Rd from Whangaparaoa to Redvale was raised several times – not only by members of the Penlink Now team who were present. Mr Brown said that pressure was being brought to bear for “a two for the price of one” deal that would include Penlink with the contract for the motorway extension from Puhoi to Warkworth.
He says it will be on the table at the meeting with Government.
“We won’t be starting digging next year, but hopefully I will be able to come here next year and say that we have got an agreement that the project will get done, with the support of Government for a Public Private Partnership,” Mr Brown said.
Not everyone was in favour of Penlink, with some residents saying that the cost was too high, the business case weak and mass transit was a better fix than building more motorways.
The mayor agreed that Penlink was not a total fix, but part of a package that includes the potential for bigger vessels for Gulf Harbour ferry, the new bus network that begins mid-October on the Hibiscus Coast, and the Silverdale park and ride.
With many angry that the park and ride would be inadequate, even once extended to 500 car parks, he suggested it might be time to look at paying to use it so that a commercial entity could build a multi-level parking building there to cater for growth.
Long time resident of Whangaparaoa, Suzanne Wilson, said that development and population growth has rapidly outpaced infrastructure provision on the Coast, leading to the frustrations of gridlocked traffic at peak times.
Several residents said they were sick of paying rates for little return, with all the work apparently going on south of the Harbour Bridge. Mr Brown said that hard decisions had to be made around priorities because funding was limited.
However he said should Government step up to the plate with funds, projects that include Penlink ($384 million), the Curley Ave extension into Silverdale Village ($25 million) and the widening of Whangaparaoa Rd ($20 million) could be brought forward to ‘very high priority’.
Local board chair Julia Parfitt drew the biggest applause of the night when she said that what’s important is that Auckland Transport and Council make best use of the money that is already there. She said the local board will leverage the Council’s growth capacity fund which is only fair because this area is experiencing huge growth.
“We need that infrastructure, and we need Silverdale to thrive as the local employment centre. We have that opportunity and we must make sure we make good use of it.”
