Submissions on the Holiday Highway close tomorrow on January 28th. Fill in your submission here, or send an email to
To get you started, you might like to consider the following bullet points, which form the basis of the CBT’s submission:
- The proposed Puhoi to Wellsford Toll Road has a very poor BCR, somewhere between 0.4 and 1.1 according to various studies since 2009. These BCR figures have been arrived at without knowing what price will be set for the toll in relation to trucks and cars.
- The BCR figures ignore the risk of rising petrol and diesel costs. If prices continue to rise this must have an impact on the viability of roading projects in general and in particular this project, since the BCR is already borderline.
- With an estimated completion date between 2019 and 2022, the existing road will continue to be used without safety improvements, risking further loss of life. Significant safety improvements are possible in a much shorter timeframe if the project does not proceed.
- Estimated travel time savings are unrealistic, as pointed out by Bevan Woodward in a recent article: “A slow trip from the Puhoi to Warkworth currently takes about 13 minutes. That’s an average speed of 78 km/h to travel the existing 17 km. The business case claims that the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway will provide a travel time saving eight minutes. However, to achieve this one would have to travel the 18 km of proposed new motorway at an average speed of 120 km/h. If the new 18km motorway was driven at the legal speed limit of 100km/h, this would take 11 minutes. However, as the motorway access takes one to the north of Warkworth, another one to three minutes must be added to drive through the Hill Street intersection into Warkworth, meaning that there are no time savings. The NZTA’s business case claims significant time savings which are unrealistic and without these time savings, the project delivers a very negative return on investment.”
- Even if the estimated time savings do eventuate, they would have very little impact on the economic wellbeing of Northland.
- Alternative options have not been adequately considered or costed, in particular the alternative “Operation Lifesaver” proposal put forward by the Campaign for Better Transport.
