Mayor says Transmission Gully won't open till late 2022, leaving council roads going nowhere

Monday, 22 June 2020

Transmission Gully remains quiet on a section near Battle Hill Regional Park after repeated delays on the project.

What we gain is also what we lose. Transmission Gully has been a dream for a century - running through the hills north of Wellington, it will connect the capital and the rest of the country. Unfortunately, the benefits of this dream road have never seemed so distant as when they are so close, with its opening date drifting into the future. In a week-long series, we examine what we lose while we wait: the financial, economic and personal impacts of delays to Wellington's billion-dollar road.

Porirua's mayor says Transmission Gully will likely not be completed till 'late 2022'.

Mayor Anita Baker said she was told by an employee on the billion-dollar project that they were now working on till late 2022.

The Transmission Gully motorway north of Wellington was due to open in late 2020.

However, despite long-running negotiations over a new opening date, the NZ Transport Agency is sticking to its latest expected 2021 opening, and says work often continues after the 'official completion' of a road.

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Porirua Mayor Anita Baker says Transmission Gully is likely two years away.

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Suburbs like Pukerua Bay would get their communities back once Transmission Gully opens, says the AA's Mike Noon.

Baker said the council was paying for several roads connecting to the billion-dollar project, which would become 'roads to nowhere'.

The council had to stump up millions this year for roads that might sit unused till late 2022, she said.

Porirua's mayor says we could be waiting till late 2022 to get on Transmission Gully.

'So we pay at the end of the year, but where are they going? We could have paid for those in two years' time, we could have delayed it.'

Baker wanted the Government to cough up more money from Covid-19 recovery coffers and just 'get the road finished'. She had not been updated officially on the project.

Transmission Gully construction at Pauatahanui, Porirua.

The two local roads would link the new motorway to Porirua suburbs Whitby and Waitangirua.

Council chief operating officer Andrew Dalziel said ratepayers would cover about $16 million of the $35m bill for the roads. NZTA covered the rest, he said.

They had been on track for completion by this month before the level 4 lockdown, but would now not be completed till March 2021, he said.

Transmission Gully, a public private partnership, originally cost $850 million, but that jumped to a billion after wrangling with the builders. The opening date was originally April, then November - now the Agency says it will be well into 2021.

AA motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon said NZTA needed to tell people what was happening.

Nobody knew why the budget had increased and why deadlines had been repeatedly pushed back, he said.

'Petrol is a big expense for households. Seventy-six cents of every litre, including GST, is tax. And this is our tax money. Why does the project keep blowing out?'

He said the project had become a train wreck, which shouldn't be swept under the carpet, 'and we've got no answers'.

Noon said once Transmission Gully was completed, the region would have a faster, 'vastly safer', route that would give suburbs like Pukerua Bay and Mana, on the current State Highway 1, their community back.

A NZTA spokeswoman said the road would still open sometime well-into 2021.

'On almost all major roading projects, there is further work that continues following the official completion of a road. We are unable to comment on individual contracts between the builder and subcontracted workers on Transmission Gully.'

A winter construction programme would continue till a new completion date was worked out between the consortium contracted to deliver the road, its builder, and NZTA, she said.

Transmission Gully will be a 27 kilometre, four-lane road running between Linden and Mackay's Crossing. It traverses Wellington City, Porirua and the Kāpiti Coast. Work started on the project in 2015.