Kerre Woodham: Auckland's harbour crossing - a discussion that goes round in circles

I can imagine 50 years from now, the morning host on ZB 9am to Noon will be nearing retirement and they'll have talked about everything, as I have done over my time here. So, they'll be opening their show on the 18th of August 2076, and they'll say, “Harbour crossing, tunnel or bridge? Meola Reef crossing or a bridge alongside the existing one? 0800 80 10 80.” And 50 years from now, the discussion will begin again and again and again.  

Can you imagine we'll have a second harbour crossing in 50 years? Which is the more likely scenario – the ZB morning host 50 years from now opening it up for discussion, bridge or tunnel, Meola Reef or alongside the existing one, or that you'll be driving over or through the tunnel-crossing, listening to the morning host on Newstalk ZB in 2076? Because it will have been built and there you will be in your driverless car, sipping your morning coffee, listening to the wireless on your car radio while you're going over the harbour crossing.  

It seems like one of those where you just end up going round and round and round in circles, which would be fine if it wasn't costing us so much money. How many reports have there been into another crossing? There was one in 1996 —last century— Transit New Zealand's scoping study identifying the initial bridge and tunnel options. Oh, and then things stepped up again, in 1997 the Auckland Regional Council reviewed dozens of alignment variants. Bit of a lull, then between 2006 and 2009 there were more studies, alignment and corridor protection studies recommending twin tunnels – I remember that, remember the discussions around that 20 years ago. 2010 to 2011, new transport and economic evaluation that looked into add-ons like the Skypath. 2023, the Waitematā Harbour Connections detailed business case presented five shortlisted bridge and tunnel options. 2024 to ‘26, further geotechnical seabed testing and market sounding investment cases by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport.  

And then this month, another reset ordering an independent Crown-led detailed business case alongside a separate $1 million study for a Meola Reef alignment, which is basically a sop to Wayne Brown's ego and will only happen if Auckland Council's willing to pay half a million towards it. You cannot imagine how thrilled I am to be an Auckland ratepayer contributing towards Wayne Brown's ego and a taxpayer paying towards a $1 million ego study. Chris Bishop says the latest independent Crown led detailed business case is necessary. 

“The difference here would be that in the past we've made decisions based on desktop studies, right? So a bunch of people have sat around and looked at a map and gone, “Oh, that'd be quite good," and drawn a line and gone, Let's do that." This time we've actually had a barge in the harbour, we've got the route alignment for a new bridge, we've got the route alignment for the tunnel. There's a lot more work's been done and I appreciate people listening will say, “Oh yeah, yeah, well he would say that," but this, you know, is genuinely true. We're a lot further advanced, we've got a really detailed investment case for both a bridge and a tunnel.  

“The question is always, and has always been with this project, and this is the reason why the ‘08 and 2014 and 2015 and 2016 versions fell over, no one's yet worked out a proper way to pay for it because it's, you know, like it potentially, you know, could bankrupt the transport system or even, you know, the country's fiscal position unless we get it right. So that's the work we're doing right now, and I don't want people to underappreciate the scale of the cost. It's huge.” 

I don't think we underestimate that, but I also know that given the amount of time we've wasted and the money we've wasted on coming up with options and then re-presenting the same options, would have been a good down payment to a lovely firm of Chinese tunnel builders who could have come in, whapped the thing up and pushed off again. We'd be driving over it.  

The only thing that makes me feel marginally better about this decades long time and money wasting exercise is that the first harbour bridge was beset by the same issues. I know we probably think, as I did until I looked into it, God, must have been 20 odd years ago, that our pragmatic, phlegmatic forebears just rolled up their shirt sleeves and threw up the Auckland Harbour Bridge and bloody be done with it because we needed it, but in fact no. It faced intense public, political and technical opposition for decades. North Shore residents and farmers had been agitating for a crossing since the 1860s. So nearly 100 years later the thing was shoved up after much debate.  

So maybe, maybe, maybe we aren't completely and utterly as hopeless this generation as I think we are. These are the same kind of debates, discussions, you would think we would learn from history, wouldn't you? But no. And if ever there was a piece of infrastructure that needed to be looked at by independent consultants, the Infrastructure Commission has a look at it, it cannot be touched politically, we decide on the best option, we toll the thing and be done with it. But it just does not seem to be that simple. It wasn't that simple in 1860 and it's not that simple in 2026. I hope things will have improved by 2076.