Short-sightedness and penny-pinching planning have time and time again stalled plans for good solutions when it comes to Auckland's harbour crossing
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Photo: Tom Kitchin
Countless ideas, more than 50 years, a great deal of discussion, yet no progress has been made on fixing Auckland's harbour crossing woes.
Today's episode of The Detail looks back at the history of the harbour bridge, the plans to replace or improve it, the political winds that keep putting off decisions, and potential solutions.
New Zealand Herald senior writer Simon Wilson takes us back to the post World War II rebuild period.
"If you go back to the 1950s, Auckland was a city where there was a very good comprehensive public transport system based on trams," he says.
"Auckland made a decision to follow the American model, best exemplified in Los Angeles, of ripping up the public transport system, ripping up the tram tracks, building motorways. We would create new suburbs where everyone would be able to have a quarter-acre section.
"In that context, Auckland decided to build a harbour crossing. With a harbour crossing it was recognised that the whole [North Shore] area would become prime suburban territory. After an awful lot of fuss, planning and cost-cutting and then determined development, they built the harbour bridge - it opened in 1959.'"
Auckland University senior lecturer in architecture and planning Tim Welch is a public transport expert.
He explains how the final version of the bridge was cut back from the first proposal.
"The original plan had seven lanes - it had two lanes for walking and cycling along with vehicle lanes. Then we went through an austerity period, that was scaled back and what we got was a car bridge."
But only a few years later, it had already reached capacity.
"Ten years passed and we had to clip on additional lanes," Welch says.
It's been 56 years since then and nothing has fundamentally changed - the bridge still has the four original lanes plus the two two-laned 'clip-ons'.
Despite many ideas, from tunnels to specialised walking and cycling "clip-ons to the clip-ons" , none of them have come to fruition.
The last government's proposal was for two tunnels and a separate light-rail tunnel, then adding dedicated bus, walking and cycling lanes to the original bridge. It now looks like that's on the chopping block.
The new National-led government is talking about more lanes for traffic, enhancing the northern busway and not adding anything for walkers or cyclists. There are no details yet on whether its preference is for tunnels or bridges.
Welch calls the perpetual putting off of a second harbour crossing start "not financial [but] political".
"We could have paid for this a long time ago but the political winds keep changing. It really comes down to decision making more than it does financial sense."
When it comes to an ideal solution, he's calling for something that "might seem counter-intuitive".
"What we could do is build nothing but repurpose some lanes - we could repurpose a lane for the busway... we put more people in public transport. We can dedicate a lane to walking and cycling.
"There are great examples across the world of where we've reduced the amount of lanes on a road or a bridge and it's actually improved traffic."
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