Transmission Gully culprits
November 29th, 2005 at 9:10 am by David FarrarIt is very easy to blame Transit for being biased against Transmission Gully (and they are) but at the end of the day the decisions are made elsewhere, and illustrated in this exchange:
Further, the Environment Court had clearly stated that Transmission Gully was the project that would proceed in the long term. “What happened between 2000 and 2004 to bring forward a proposal that was rejected in 2000?” Sir Brian asked.
Transit Wellington regional manager Graham Taylor said more accurate costings were done on both options and presented to then Transport Minister Pete Hodgson.
The Government chose to provide enough money to build the coastal expressway, he said.
I pointed this out at the time. It was Claytons consultation as the Government said in theory you can decide whatever you want, but we are only providing enough money for one option.
No tag for this post.
November 29th, 2005 at 9:25 am
what happened to the PPP model. Wouldn’t this be the exact project to prove the worthiness of the concept. Personally I would pay a $5 toll if it were going to save me 30mins of my time (it would still be cheap at double the price: how much do you value your time at?)
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Well of course the government’s to blame! Didn’t you know, that they are responsible for global warming, world poverty, bad weather, sports losses, car breakdowns, and your constipation, as well?
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Oh Johnie are you trying to win lamest post of the year. The Government is responsible for how much funding is made available, and they have not made enough available. Fairly simple, even for maths dunces.
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 10:27 am
My problem with this whole process is that any alternative route won’t be completed for another ten or fifteen years. In the 1930s the Italians built motorways through far more difficult terrain than Transmission Gully in only a few years. The roads are still in use today. Have a drive along the Ligurean Coast to see what I mean.
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Johnnie, everyone knows only George Bush jr’s government is responsible for all those things & more.
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
It is true that Cabinet decided how much additional money was going to be provided for the Western Corridor – and it isn’t enough to complete Transmission Gully – that doesn’t mean it is the wrong decision though. Would it have been right to build the Aramoana Aluminium Smelter or the Queensberry and Luggate Dams with taxpayers money in the early 80s? No. Just like the Nats refused to provide enough money into roading in the late 90s for Transmission Gully – it’s a dog.
and pundito, try paying $15 for the toll – and see if you’ll ever bother paying, especially the congestion at Paremata seems to have gone ( but then most supporters of Transmission Gully either live there and have shut up, or don’t use the road every day and haven’t noticed).
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Libertyscott
In a long-ago post on this subject you referred to the cost-benefit calculation that is applied to highway repair and development. I’ve seen the ratio but am more interested in finding out exactly how that is calculated for any given stretch of road and you appear to be someone who knows this stuff.
The reason I ask is that I’ve recently marvelled at what appears to be a blatant piece of stupidity on the new “Longswamp” motorway extension. Millions have been spent since 2003 to push the dual carriage motorway through almost to Rangiriri – including one stretch around Mercer which uses US Interstate-style splits of North and South lanes. From the Huntly end more millions were spent for the far simpler job of building the so-called “Waikato Expressway” – more motorway stuff from just South of Rangiriri to just North of Huntly.
The rub is that the link between them has been left as a two-lane highway with occasional passing lanes. Apart from adding a new N-S barrier of heavy wire cable and metal posts, together with some upgrades of surface and side road connections it’s very much as it has been since the last major change in the early 1980′s. This stretch had to be the most simple (and hence cheapest) part of the whole stage. No swamps or rivers, no steep inclines, perhaps two intersections to deal. Even the 25 year-old cuttings had been made with a view to allowing a full four-lane motorway. I’d long assumed that that was exactly what they would do. Surely it would not have been a huge % of an already big job?
This kills me! Actually it might one day because now we have the classic funnel effect as traffic enters this section and merges. I cannot help but think that the already appalling death rate on this road will simply be compressed into this ridiculous piece of engineering.
Any knowledge about this and how they figured out it was not worth the upgrade?
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
tmh
There is a whole manual for this, which Land Transport New Zealand produces called the Project Evaluation Manual. The costs (mostly construction costs including land purchase discounted over 25 years)and benefits (travel time savings, vehicle operating cost savings, accidents avoided, reduced emissions) and both measured for all projects on an equivalent basis.
On the Waikato Expressway, I know that the most dangerous section was Mercer-Longswamp (justifying the full 4-laning/expressway) and the Rangiriri-Ohinewai section was not far behind – but substantially cheaper to build. The section in between did NOT have a bad accident rate, and so 4-laning it was not a priority. The benefit-cost ratio for that section was therefore low, although it would be relatively cheap to build.
In essence:
- Mercer-Longswamp was very expensive, but also cost more lives than any other section of the highway, so it was justified, not just under the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR)(which was perhaps around 2:1) but because of the severity of the problem (one of the most dangerous stretches of highway in the country).
- Rangiriri-Ohinewai was around a third the cost of Mercer-Longswamp, but still quite dangerous, so it had a good BCR (around 4:1).
- Longswamp-Rangiriri is probably not much more expensive that Rangiriri-Ohinewai (including the Rangiriri bypass and taking into account inflation) but has far less accidents (road has tended to be wider, straighter) and the median barrier that has been installed had a high BCR and fixes the most critical safety issue (head on collisions). The full upgrade of that section has a BCR between 1 and 2, so is not a priority.
In essence, the problem between the two sections was not serious enough for it to get the full upgrade vs. spending the money saved on other projects elsewhere – but the median barrier project has made it safer. Not enough money to do everything. The same analysis has seen Huntly get an upgraded internal bypass instead of the $250 million eastern bypass over Taupiri Hill – the bigger bypass just isn’t a better project than a lot of others, whereas a tidy up of the roads through Huntly was low cost and helped improve traffic flow and safety.
However, at the moment central and local government officials are participating in a joint process to determine priorities for funding in the Waikato over the next ten years – including the Waikato expressway. I am certain that the section you described will get upgraded within that timeframe, but for now there are bigger issues (e.g. SH2 over the Maramaruas) which are getting funded. I know Hamilton is very keen on the Te Rapa Bypass and the Ngaruawahia Bypass, both of which are better projects (for saving lives and travel time savings) than Longswamp-Rangiriri.
Longswamp-Rangiriri seems silly the way it is now, but this is what happens when you need to ration money to get the best projects built. Had this not been done that way, then something somewhere else would not have been built.
Vote:November 29th, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Fair enough, but was any modelling done around my question of whether the accidents might simply be pushed into the Rangiriri-Ohinewai section? Is this a possible effect and if so, is it taken into account in the BCR – which after all appears to focus on the stretch of road in question rather than those either side?
The example that makes me wonder about this is that I remember that the SH1/SH2 intersection at the foot of the Bombay Hills being a notorious graveyard – and that it had been so for decades (my Dad told me it once had a painted skull & crossbones on the road leading up to it). Once the huge re-engineering was done in the late 80′s/early 90′s the problem was fixed. But did that simply raise the accident rate further south? Was Rangiriri as dangerous before the motorway pushed south of the Bombay hills?
Vote:November 30th, 2005 at 12:45 am
The total project evaluation – of which the BCR is one input – is meant to take into account the totality of the scheme (it can be part of the BCR as well, but is not double counted) including causing accidents either side or congestion. This is one reason some road widening projects are not carried out for part of a road, if it simply moves the same jam further along. So it SHOULD have been taken into account. I don’t THINK there should be a problem, as there are passing lanes in the middle section, and as long as motorists are convinced to wait long enough until the next section to overtake (as it is bad overtaking and crossing the centre line that causes the problem).
I think the Mercer-Huntly section was dangerous long before the Bombay Hills interchange was built – that interchange was partly about congestion at holiday times too, nearly impossible to get out of SH2 onto SH1.
I don’t profess to be an expert on the causes of road accidents, but the main problems along that route basically come about from very high traffic volumes on a road with poor overtaking opportunities, narrow corridor and intersections that are difficult to safely or quickly enter or exit – and impatience, speeding, stupid overtaking. The expressway work fixes the route issues.
I’d like to see the Longswamp-Rangiriri, Rangiriri Bypass, Cambridge Bypass and Ngaruawahia Bypass sections built within 10 years as this would fix the worst sections, and only leave the very expensive bypasses of Huntly and Hamilton to go.
Vote:November 30th, 2005 at 7:23 am
Libertyscott
Interesting. Thanks for the info. We’ll see how it pans out.
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