In Transit June 1995 - No. 64 - Future National Land Transport Programme

 

In Transit June 1995 Pg1 

In Transit June 1995 Pg2

In Transit June 1995 Pg3

In Transit June 1995 Pg4

First apologies, as you'll see Page 2 has been "checked" by someone who was very young at the time (!), but it is still largely legible.

This edition of InTransit focused on preparing readers for the forthcoming announcement of the National Land Transport Programme.  The decision was to be made in the July meeting of the Authority ("board") following the decision by Cabinet as to how much funding would be available (on top of the 97% of previous year's budget guaranteed) for the Programme - that decision was for $675.8M (Transit NZ requested $692.8M).  The Board then gets to revise its list of projects and funding by output class, before getting final approval from the Minister as to the amounts by output class.  The level of funding approved by Government was sufficient to retain capital project funding at a BCR of 5.0

The edition notes the importance of having a dedicated fund (which was announced as Government policy but not yet implemented). This edition highlights the issue of the Otira Viaduct being up for funding, although its BCR was below the threshold of 5 applicable at the time, the project was essentially about resilience, because without its construction, the Otira Gorge zigzag would be destroyed due to erosion. 

Other key points in this edition:

• Description of two new techniques to treat road surface flushing (when the surface becomes slick due to bitumen rising above the stone chips), including the use of more chips per litre of binder and the recycling of the old seal by milling it into little segments.
• Tour of the Authority of issues in Wellington, notably SH1 north of Paremata, Newlands Interchange and other prospective projects.
• Variable speed limits being investigated for SH1 Ngauranga Gorge due to accidents caused by motorists driving at 100km/h in the wrong conditions. 
• Contract has been let to build the $12m Pokeno Bypass (a key early part of the Waikato Expressway).