In Transit - May 1996 No. 73 - Environmental benefits from sealing SH12 through Waipoua Forest

 The May 1996 edition of In Transit primarily focused on the following:

• Benefits of completion of the sealing of SH12 in Northland through the Waipoua Kauri Forest.  The benefits including less dust, fewer weeds and less runoff.  Sealing the final 10km of SH12 cost $5.5m and was the final section of state highway in Northland that was unsealed.  The project included "footbridges" to protect Kauri trees adjacent to the road. 
• A  discussion paper on funding Alternatives to Roading was released. This funding output class would be available from July when Transfund took over land transport funding functions from Transit.  It was explicitly created because the lack of road pricing meant that relative prices between modes did not reflect the benefits of funding activities for non-road modes. Types of projects expected to be funded include those that remove trucks from roads with high-maintenance costs and passenger transport activities that could reduce congestion.
• Development of the national traffic database. This includes data that estimates the revenue generated from different parts of the network relative to expenditure. Some data points included:
• State highways are 11% of the network but carry 44% of VKT
• Unsealed roads are 40% of the network but carry 3% of VKT

In Transit May 1996 No.73 Page 1

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In Transit December 1994/January 1995 No. 59 - the storm damage issue

 

In Transit December 1994

In Transit December 1994

In Transit December 1994

In Transit December 1994

In December 1994, Transit NZ was reporting on reconstruction over the past year on highways in Milford and Haast due to rainfall. However, it was able to fund reconstruction and restoration from its existing funding under the National Land Transport Programme.  It notes over 100km of road had been rebuilt or repaired, following massive rock falls and slips demolishing large segments of highways and burying bridges.  Christchurch was also hit, but it was noted that major projects were not badly affected.

This issue also reports:

• Construction of the Eland-Glengarry realignment on SH5 (Napier-Taupo Road) realigning 5km of state highway (and having a BCR of 7.6) 
• Decision to build passing bays in Homer Tunnel, partly because large tour coaches find it difficult to pass in the tunnel. The passing bay proposal had a lower BCR than the funding threshold, but funding was approved due to its strategic importance to tourism.
• Series of projects in Wellington including realignment of 1km of SH58, Martinborough flood relief bridge, Newland flyover construction commenced, Whangamoa Hill deviation on SH6 Marlborough underway, design of the Stoke bypass commenced, planning for bypasses of Ruby Bay and Motueka.
• Major public consultation on options for SH1 between Porirua and Waikanae, these were in response to Transmission Gully not being able to be funded in the foreseeable future.  Noting Transmission Gully was estimated to cost $150m at the time and not expected to be funded for at least 15 years (2009).  However, the Transmission Gully route was still to be designated to protect it from development and to give landowners certainty. 
• All Northland state highways will be sealed by 1996 following a contract to seal the last 10km of SH12 through Waipoua Forest, noting special root bridges were designed to avoid damaging kauri tree roots.
• Contract awarded to realign the Waiau Bridge and approaches in north Taranaki on SH3.
• Waikato projects including four-laning of Fairy Springs Road in Rotorua, sealing of the last 6km of SH25 Coromandel, Pokeno bypass, Mangatawhiri Bridge realignment and Tamahere deviation (Waikato Expressway).
• Auckland projects including completion of the Bombay Hills motorway extension, commencement of construction of the Mangere motorway (connecting the Mangere Bridge with the Papatoetoe Bypass and including the Airport motorway connection) and completion of the Upper Harbour highway interchange on the Northern Motorway. 

Finishing sealing the state highways?

In Transit February 1994

Hard as it is to believe, but the state highway network is to this day not fully sealed.  Ten km of State Highway 43 is not sealed today in 2023, although funding to address this was approved in 2019. State Highway 43.  Two of the twelve kilometres of the highway has been sealed recently, and the remaining work will be completed in 2024. This has taken quite some time, as the InTransit newsletter from the then State Highway manager (and funding agency), Transit New Zealand indicated. Transit New Zealand wanted to seal all of the state highways by 2002, with this headline story noting that SH87 Dunedin to Middlemarch, SH38 to Lake Waikaremoana and SH43 Stratford to Taumarunui had not been sealed.

However, these weren't the priority. Top priority was SH6 Haast Pass, which is extraordinary as this is the only road connection from the West Coast to Otago and Southland. This was followed by SH12 through the Waipoua Forest and SH25 around the Coromandel Peninsula. It is rather extraordinary to think that these roads were unsealed in considerable part 30 years ago.

SH6, SH12 and SH25 had sealing completed in the subsequent eight years, but SH87, 38 and 43 took more time.

SH87 Dunedin to Middlemarch was sealed in the late 1990s, noting that it had been neglected in part because the Otago Central Railway was seen as the key corridor, but that had been closed in 1990 and the remaining segment used for tourist excursions. There was definitely an element of political decision making to put some road improvements on a low priority to try to save rail.  A similar argument would have been made around SH43 Stratford to Taumarunui which until recently had a relatively well used railway line in operation, connecting Taranaki to Waikato and Auckland (with passenger rail service operating until 1983), and which until the 1990s had a freight terminal at Ohura. That railway line is mothballed, but undoubtedly its presence would have seen proposals to seal the parallel state highway as appearing to be wasteful.

SH38 Lake Waikaremoana was sealed subsequently, although it is important to remember that 198km of the route through the Urewera National Park is not state highway and is unsealed.

SH43 Tangarakau Gorge remains partly unsealed.

The attached report reflects a survey undertaken of local authorities and the tourism sector on priorities for sealing roads, at a time of tight budgets.  Notable was priority given to sealing Glenorchy Road around Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, and the Crown Range route, all of which proceeded in the 1990s as growth in tourism was seen as a national priority.  The Catlins route along the Otago-Southland coastline is also included in this and has no doubt opened up that scenic region to many more visitors (and again much of that area had a railway line until 1971 that would have influenced political decision making around upgrading a road when a marginal railway line was in operation). 

It is worth noting that at this time, when the funding threshold for road projects was high (a benefit-cost ratio of better than 5:1 required) sealing the state highways was seen as a strategically important project even though it had a poor BCR. In most cases the benefits were seen as mainly being reduced maintenance costs over 25 years, improved travel times and some improved safety, but wider economic benefits were not included in appraisal. It might be argued that having sealed these roads they induced more traffic which increased economic opportunities for tourism-supported businesses much further afield (e.g. encouraging self-drive travel between the West Coast and Wanaka/Queenstown). 

This is a reminder of the strict austerity around road capital spending by central government at this time, and indeed ho much government historically did not spend significantly on many state highways over decades if they were not seen as economically or politically significant.