1996 National Roading Programme: Canterbury/West Coast NRP news

The Canterbury/West Coast Transfund newsletter highlighted spending in the first National Roading Programme issued by Transfund New Zealand. Key statistics included:

• $49.24m to be spent in Canterbury
• $22.91m to be spent in the West Coast
• Local road maintenance and construction was the largest output class for Canterbury at 36.2% of spending.  Passenger transport was 7.2% of spending
• State highway maintenance and construction was the largest output class for the West Coast at 58.4% of spending.

Projects of significance on state highways included:

• Otira Viaduct on SH73. Cost of $26.1m to bypass the "zigzag" section and multiple slip and earthquake prone sections of highway, significantly improving resilience on the route.
• Craigieburn Bridge replacement on SH73 at $0.63m, replacing a single lane bridge with a history of accidents.
• Washdyke Bridge replacement on SH1 at $0.63m, which was an old two-lane stone bridge bottleneck on a three-lane section of highway.
• Additional passing lanes north of Rakaia overbridge, SH1

Projects of significance on local roads included:

• Rolleston railway crossing replacement, removing a dangerous level crossing that was the site of the infamous Southerner accident.
• Seven cycleway improvements in Christchurch City
• Committed improvements to the intersection of Moorhouse Avenue, Madras Street and Manchester Street in Christchurch City
• 1km seal extension on Inland Kaikoura Route in Kaikoura District

Unlike the Dunedin regional office newsletter, this newsletter contains detailed lists of projects approved, across State Highways 1, 73 and 6 and local road projects in Christchurch City, Hurunui District, Timaru District, Waimakariri District and Grey District.

National Land Transport Programme 1996 - Canterbury regional newsletter

 

Coast to Coast August 1995 issue

NLTP 1996 Canterbury/West Coast regional allocation

NLTP 1996 Canterbury/West Coast major projects

NLTP 1996 Canterbury/West Coast summary

In the Canterbury/West Coast newsletter the first page is a national summary, but beyond that key points include:

• $54.7m funding for Canterbury
• $18.2m funding for the West Coast
• $28m of spending is for local roads in both regions
• $2.5m of spending is for passenger transport in Canterbury, $23,200 for the West Coas

Main projects listed include:

• Cass River bridge replacement SH73
• Windy Point realignment SH7
• Completion of SH1 Timaru bypass

A large number of small state highway and local road safety, bridge replacement and cycling projects are also included, indicating the relatively high value given to safety projects at the time. Notably funding for the Otira Viaduct was only for the design phase, as the project did not meet the funding threshold for construction.

In Transit July 1994

In Transit No 54 July 1994

In Transit No 54 July 1994

In Transit No54 July 1994

In Transit No.54 July 1994

In this issue:

• Expansion of competitive tendering to all minor and ancillary work, including that for local authorities, and including what is needed for Local Authority Trading Enterprises to be eligible to tender for such work.
• "Adopt-a-Highway" programme for local communities to support landscaping highways
• Removal of the designation for the Christchurch Northern Arterial
• Electronic road pricing trials in Singapore

The latter two points may be of more historical interest. 

Christchurch Northern Arterial designation removal

The removal of the designation which was originally for a motorway is significant as it meant that there was next to no likelihood of a motorway/expressway heading to the northern edge of the Christchurch CBD. No doubt had it remained, there would have been some resistance to a motorway extending to Bealey Avenue.

The reason for the removal was that Transit NZ believed Cranford St would be adequate to meet demand over the long term along with a belief that an arterial road that included the cost of removing the housing on the designation would be unlikely to be economically viable. It was noted that the designation would remain to the north (in largely rural land), which of course was subsequently used for the Christchurch Northern Corridor motorway extension.

The designation was one of the many motorway designations placed in New Zealand cities in the 1950s and 1960s, except of course in Auckland, many were built, whereas Christchurch's Northern Motorway in the 1970s was at the city outskirts and largely consisted of a bypass for Kaiapoi.

Singapore Electronic Road Pricing trials

In 1994 Singapore had been operating a manually enforced paper-based congestion pricing cordon in its CBD since 1975, but at this point was trialling electronic road pricing to implement wider corridor based congestion pricing using electronic On Board Units, with prepaid smart cards for payment. These trials led to full implementation of the ERP system in 1998, which remains the world's most efficient and effective congestion pricing scheme.