Updated plan to address Auckland’s growth

Transport Minister Simon Bridges has released a joint report by the Government and Auckland Council, which updates work undertaken as part of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) to understand the required level of transport investment needed in Auckland over the next decade.

“ATAP is the strategic plan for Auckland’s transport infrastructure investment, policies and services to be delivered over the next three decades.

“ATAP was an important milestone for the Government and Auckland Council in agreeing an approach to the long term development of Auckland’s transport system. However, we know that Auckland’s recent and projected population growth is higher than originally forecast,” Mr Bridges says.

“ATAP agencies were asked to provide an update of how much additional funding may be required in the first decade to meet the challenges of growth. The update identifies an additional $1.9 billion of transport investment will be needed over the ten year period.

“This is $1.1 billion less than the amount previously identified by Auckland Council,” Mr Bridges says.

The total funding required for the decade is estimated to be $25.9 billion, of which $20 billion has already been committed to by central Government ($13 billion) and Auckland Council ($7 billion).

“That leaves about $5.9 billion to be sourced from the Government, Council and the private sector over the next ten year period,” Mr Bridges says.

“The report identifies faster growth is now expected to occur in North and South Auckland requiring some transport investment to be brought forward to support the housing development in these areas. We will also need to bring forward transport investment to accommodate additional public transport demand.”

Key initiatives from the first decade package that would be brought forward into the next three years with this extra funding include:

• Advancing development of the “next generation” of State highway projects, including the SH16/SH18 interchange, Southern Motorway widening between Papakura and Drury, improved Eastern Airport Access (SH20B) and the Northwestern Busway.
• Accelerating Auckland Transport’s programme, targeting high priority and well developed investments including the Mill Road, AMETI Eastern Busway and associated Reeves Road flyover, the earlier purchase of new electric trains, along with earlier completion of key city centre bus lanes and interchanges.
• Completing approximately $250 million of rail network infrastructure upgrades to cater for ongoing rapid growth in rail use and increasing freight volumes, including an additional track from Westfield to Wiri and a variety of key network resilience and performance upgrades.

“Current and committed investments include $3.4 billion for the City Rail Link, $1.85 billion for the East-West Link, and up to $1 billion in upgrades to the Northern and Southern motorway corridors,” Mr Bridges says.

“This is a very useful update of the agreed ATAP programme. I look forward to continuing to work with the Mayor of Auckland on addressing the remaining funding required for the first decade.”

Notes to editors:

The ATAP report, released in September 2016, set out an agreed strategic approach to the development of Auckland’s transport system alongside an indicative package of transport investments.

Since ATAP concluded, Statistics NZ has released revised population projections which indicate that Auckland’s population will increase by 100,000 more people by 2028 compared to the projections used in ATAP. In response to this, the Government and Auckland Council have worked together to identify the scale and mix of investment that may need to be brought forward into the next decade to accommodate this additional growth. This work has resulted in an updated estimate for the funding gap required in the first decade of $25.9 billion, an increase of $1.9 billion compared with the original ATAP estimate. Current available funding is $20 billion.

More information, including the final report, is available at www.transport.govt.nz/atap ​