Auckland Northern Corridor – pre-implementation funding

Applicant

NZ Transport Agency

Purpose

1. To seek the Board’s approval to fund $16.24m for the Northern Corridor Improvements (NCI) project pre-implementation phase prior to the completion of the Detailed Business Case (DBC).
2. To provide you with our preliminary findings on the option to include the implementation phase of the Northern Corridor Busway Extension from Constellation station to Albany station as part of the NCI project.
3. To seek your agreement to include the busway extension as part of the core NCI project scope for construction, subject to reporting back to you in October with final information about the project’s (including the busway’s) affordability and value for money.

Date of decision

14 August 2015

Resolutions

The New Zealand Transport Agency Board:

Reason for the decision

The assessment profile for this activity remains at high strategic fit, high effectiveness. The Benefit Cost Ratio is 3.0.

The stretch of SH1 between SH18 and Greville Road currently experiences high levels of congestion due to bottlenecks and constrained interchanges.  The project improves this critical bottleneck on Auckland's Northern Motorway by replacing signalised intersections with direct motorway to motorway connections.

Completion of the Western Ring Route (WRR), and future land use growth in the town centres of Albany, Massey North, Westgate and Hobsonville are expected to add further pressures on the transport network in the area. The Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing and Puhoi to Warkworth projects will further increase demand along the northern corridor in the future. The project will address the increasing travel demands in the Northern Corridor.

• IBC traffic modelling results indicate that the following travel time savings will be achieved in 2026 (these will be confirmed in the DBC):

For SH 1

• A 1-2 minute saving per vehicle (AM and PM Peak) for vehicles travelling on SH1 (northbound) through the Upper Harbour and Greville interchanges
• A 4-5 minute saving per vehicle (AM and PM Peak) for vehicles travelling on SH 1 (southbound) through the Greville and Upper Harbour interchanges

For SH 18 to SH 1 Connections

• A 4 minute saving per vehicle (AM and PM Peak) for vehicles travelling from SH 18 (Albany Highway) to State Highway 1 (Greville Interchange)
• A 6 to 8 minute saving per vehicle (AM and PM Peak) for vehicles travelling from SH 1 (Greville Interchange) to SH 18 (Albany Highway)

The project will also address an inherent conflict between ‘through-traffic’ and ‘local access’ traffic in the corridor, exacerbated by the growth in the North Harbour Industrial Area located adjacent to SH18.

With the Northern Busway extension being included in the project scope (subject to approval), bus services will be significantly enhanced with improved journey time reliability between Constellation Station and Albany Station.

An assessment of the project has been undertaken in accordance with the Investment Assessment Framework. The assessment profile for this activity has been determined as being of High strategic fit, High effectiveness and with benefit cost appraisal result of 3.0, the project has been assigned Priority 3.

The Project will contribute to the Government Policy Statement and meet the objectives of the LTMA.

We confirm that the matters in sections 20(2) and 20 (5) of the LTMA have been satisfied, and that the matters in section 20(3) have been taken into account.