In Transit - July 1998 - No. 93 - Flood damage and summary of state highway funding under 1999 National Roading Programme

The July 1998 edition of InTransit primarily focused on repairs to flood damaged highways in Taranaki, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Auckland and Northland.  However, it also included a summary of state highway funding under the 1999 National Roading Programme, funded by Transfund NZ at the time.

Highlights were:

• $444.2m of funding for the year for Transit NZ for all of its work, around half of all funding going to Transit NZ, the remainder going to local authorities for local roads and public transport.
• $221m of Transit's funding was for state highway maintenance
• The funding threshold for new projects was maintained at a BCR of 4:1. 
• Projects separated into Category 1 (approved now) and Category 2 (funding approved dependent on finalising resource consents, property purchases).

New projects with approved funding were listed by region, with those mentioned (that were not already committed) including:

• Design of Grafton Gully upgrade on SH16
• Structural upgrade of Auckland Harbour Bridge to meet seismic standards
• Development of ATMS on Auckland's motorway network
• SH2 Sargants Corner realignment, Hauraki District
• SH5 Rotorua Stockpile Curves realignment
• SH3 Awakino realignment
• Four-laning of Old Taupo Road Rotorua (SH5)
• Route J, Tauranga (SH2)
• White Pine Bush South realignment SH2, Hastings District
• Glengarry Hill realignment SH5, Hastings District
• SH3A South Clearview Curves realignment, New Plymouth District
• Urenui Bridge replacement SH3, New Plymouth District
• Investigation/planning for SH1 4-laning, realignment from Plimmerton to Pukerua Bay, Porirua City
• Maisey-Bronte realignment SH60, Tasman District
• Candy's Bend to Starvation Point realignment, SH73
• SH1 Hawkswood Deviation near Cheviot
• Six single-lane bridge widenings SH6 Makaroa
• SH1 Gore Main Street improvements
• SH1 Fairfield Motorway Dunedin (extension of Southern Motorway beyond Green Island)

In Transit - June 1997 - No. 81 - Annual safety certification of highways, Newlands Interchange and other projects

 The June 1997 issue of In Transit had articles on the following points:

• An annual safety certification of the state highway network is to be produced to identify opportunities to improve the safety of the network. This covers factors like roadside shoulder slopes, road camber, obstructions on the road edge, running a checklist over the entire network, with annual reviews of this status.
• Retirement of John Kearney from the Transit NZ Board. He commented that establishment of Transit NZ improved control and management of the state highway system, as it looked at it from a system not a sectoral point of view. 
• Work commencing on the $16.5m Newlands Interchange project in Wellington on SH1.
• Near completion of a new level crossing at Rolleston with Selwyn District, adjacent to SH1 (a site of four fatalities).
• Vibralines to be installed on the edges of Auckland motorways following successful trials on the Johnsonville-Porirua Motorway near Tawa. This is expected to reduce the 400 accidents a year due to vehicles running off the motorway network, by cutting injury crashes by 15%.
• Transit NZ purchased land as part of a property development north of Tauranga to enable a corridor for the future northern Tauranga arterial project (what is now known as Takitimu North Link).
• Options being investigated for the Te Puke Bypass (what is now the Tauranga Eastern Link) SH2.
• Work to start on the $7m Kaitoke realignment on SH2 Wellington between Upper Hutt and the Remutakas.
• Joint planning study launched with Kapiti Coast District Council for what was to be called the Kapiti Western Link Road project (a local road to connect Raumati, Paraparaumu and Waikanae to relieve SH1). This project was cancelled in favour of the Kapiti Expressway which was started in 2013 and completed in 2017, bypassing Paraparaumu and Waikanae with SH1.

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.

In Transit - June 1996 No. 74 - Quality Management

This edition of the InTransit newsletter focused on Transit New Zealand adopting the 1980s/1990s management trend of Total Quality Management (TQM). This was starting to go out of fashion in the United States at the time of this newsletter, as it was replaced with ISO9000 standards (mentioned in the primary article) and the Six Sigma approaches to management. 

Besides a description of how the agency adopted quality assurance, was an article celebrating the increase in the budget approved for Transit New Zealand enabling the BCR funding threshold to be lowered to 4.5 in 1996/1997 and 4 in 1997/1998, which reflected the Government's confidence in the standards of capital projects to be approved for funding by the new funding agency, Transfund New Zealand. 

Other elements of this newsletter are:

• Description of the forthcoming Roads 96 conference including mention of the Land Transport Pricing Study, an epic piece of pioneering work to establish the costs including externalities, of land transport and the how these costs were paid or attributed;
• Transit's interest in trialling an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) for Auckland, which would subsequently be implemented.
• Local authority survey of safety; and
• An image of an on-street party celebrating the relocation of SH1 in Timaru from the CBD to the bypass route recently opened (which despite the caption is not a motorway). 

In Transit June 1996

In Transit June 1996

In Transit June 1996

In Transit June 1996

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.

Coast to Coast Volume 1 June 1994

 

Coast to Coast Volume 1, June 1994 Pg.1

Coast to Coast Volume 1, June 1994 Pg.2

In addition to In Transit, regional offices of Transit New Zealand would also issue their own newsletters. This is the first published by the Christchurch Regional Office.  Some of its highlights are:

• Investigation into two major bridges on SH73 in Arthurs Pass. The Otira Viaduct and the new White Bridge. (Both subsequently built).
• Design of the widening of the Pareora River bridge on SH1 south of Timaru
• Removal of the designation for the Christchurch Northern Arterial between Bealey Avenue and the Northcote-New Brighton expressway (now called Queen Elizabeth II drive), this effectively removed the option for a northern urban motorway from the edge of central Christchurch, through St Albans and Mairehau to the recently built Northern Arterial that starts on Cranford Street.  
• Construction progressing on the Temuka Bypass.