The grounding of the Aratere ferry last weekend was another stark reminder of the fragility of New Zealand’s transport network. Anna Murray looks at the challenges threatening the reliability of that entire system.
When the steering on the Aratere failed just over a week ago, causing it to run aground and disrupt a crucial link between the North and South islands, it served as a symbol for the vulnerabilities within the transport system.
Right around the country, the network is facing a perfect storm of issues: Population growth and the increasing demands that come with it; ageing roads and bridges; and key routes that are increasingly at the mercy of natural disasters.
It hasn’t always been this way, says James Smith, general manager of policy and advocacy at the National Road Carriers Association.
“[After the] Second World War, we went out and we built a whole pile of stuff; we built it ahead of our population growth,” he said. “Then we grew, and we didn't keep ahead of that.”
Smith said all of this infrastructure, like water, roads, bridges, rail, just sits and quietly does its job.
“Everyone forgets it's a depreciating asset; it’s being consumed.”
New Zealand’s transport network is suffering after successive governments put off dealing with the multiple issues that face it, Smith said.
“Eventually, you run out of time — you just can't keep deferring maintenance,” he said.
“There’s always a good reason why stuff is deferred but the problem with that is it's not followed immediately by a catch-up phase.”
Chopping and changing of govt plans
New Zealand’s transport network also suffers from the stop-start planning cycle that comes with changes in government, Smith said.
He said long-running problems with SH1 at the Brynderwyns in Northland were an example of this.
The crucial road link to the north had been closed for much of this year to repair the damage it suffered in the severe weather events of early 2023. Initially due to reopen in mid-May, that date was pushed back until last week after further slips in the area.
Smith said a plan to put a permanent diversion around the Brynderwyns was paused six years ago.
“The problem that the diversion was there to solve was still sitting there, then [there was the rain] and down it all came,” he said.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown said the Government was prioritising an alternative route to the Brynderwyns as a new Road of National Significance, with work due to begin in the next 10 years.
A troubled bridge over water
A little further south of the Brynderwyns is another significant transport headache – the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Opened in May 1959, the critical link across the Waitematā Harbour has reached the human retirement age of 65 years – and blew past its original design life of 50 years some time ago. An NZTA briefing from 2021 noted the bridge couldn’t take any more strengthening work.
Options for a second harbour crossing to ease the pressure on the ageing bridge have been discussed for decades but a decision on what that could look like is still up in the air.
The previous Labour government revealed a $35 billion plan for two road tunnels and a light rail tunnel across the harbour before last year’s election. The coalition Government promptly discarded that plan and ordered NZTA to investigate “a more realistic and cost-effective proposal for the Waitematā Harbour Crossing”.
An NZTA spokesperson told 1News last week that the Waitematā Harbour Connections was one of New Zealand’s most complex infrastructure projects.
“The Indicative Business Case is an advanced draft, still subject to amendment and iteration and NZTA [is] awaiting further direction from the Government on next steps,” they said.
Smith said the Waitematā crossing issue is not an easy – or cheap – fix.
“But it doesn't alter the fact you’ve got an ageing asset, [and] you’ve got a growing population,” he said.
“So, you either do something about the asset or you say we have to restrict growth.
“If the decision is we’re not going to get any more capacity, then [you need] to stop the demand. What does that mean? Do we force businesses out of Auckland?”
A country paved in problems
While the Auckland Harbour Bridge, Brynderwyns and the Cook Strait ferries might get the lion’s share of headlines, transport infrastructure is creaking right around the country.
Smith said one local council he’s working with has nearly 600 bridges along its road network.
“They were all built about 100 years ago, all with 100-year lifespans,” he said.
“The entire country's riddled with them. Every local council has got them.”
Professor Imran Muhammad, an urban planner at Massey University, said New Zealand’s transport network is ageing across almost all modes, while dealing with new pressures at the same time.
“We have population growth, and we have all these natural hazard events,” he said. “I think that the real issue is that the intensity and the frequency of these issues has dramatically increased.”
Smith agrees.
“You can argue all you like about what's causing the changing weather patterns, but you can't argue with the fact that the weather patterns are changing,” he said.
“If you look at what happened last January with the adverse weather events that occurred, there was the fact that the infrastructures couldn't cope with the volume of water that descended.
“If these things happened once every couple of hundred years, then who cares? But it’s not every couple of hundred years. It’s going to be happening almost on a regular basis, so this is now the new normal, but the infrastructure isn’t there to cope with it.”
How to turn the corner?
Muhammad said there were two problems holding up much-needed fixes for New Zealand’s transport system: Too little funding and too much politics.
“We have the same level of funding, while there’s competing demand from different modes of transport and that’s why the politics is happening, [with people focusing] on different modes rather than a system-wide kind of thinking,” he said.
“We have too much politics around transport – about roads, public transport, cycling. They are all in competition about these.
“Actually, all these modes are important. What we really need is network-wide thinking, [not] just bashing each other.”
Then, there’s the small matter of significant funding gaps.
Muhammad said the country needs to look at more creative ways to enlarge the funding pie, which could mean mechanisms such as congestion charging and private public partnerships (PPPs).
Minister for Infrastructure Chris Bishop outlined exactly those proposals in a speech to the LGNZ Infrastructure Symposium earlier this month.
He discussed congestion charging to manage the demand on transport assets and said the Transport Minister had already signalled the Government’s new Roads of National Significance would all be tolled.
Bishop also said the Government was open to a PPP model for funding major infrastructure.
PPPs are an arrangement between government agencies and private sector companies to finance, build and operate major infrastructure projects. Some people are against them, due to concerns around potential cost overruns, a lack of transparency, and profit motives that could compromise quality.
Full throttle ahead?
Transport Minister Simeon Brown released the Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS) last week.
The GPS is reviewed every three years and provides a 10-year plan for prioritised spending in the transport system.
“The GPS will support economic growth and productivity, ensuring people and freight can get to where they want to go quickly and safely, while also prioritising maintenance and resilience, safety, and value for money," Brown told 1News.
Smith said the Government needed to take action quickly, while simultaneously planning for future needs.
“We’ve been calling for a 50-year plan, especially given the challenges the country’s going to be facing [in the future],” he said.
“We're busy thinking in the immediate. It's why some people don't do prevention, [why they] don’t fix the car until it breaks. It’s a human nature thing, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.
“There's no better time than now to start to address [the transport infrastructure issues] — because the longer we leave it, the longer we don't address the elephant sitting in the room, the bigger that elephant's going to be.”
Smith said the capability to tackle the big problems was there.
“When we actually make the decision to do something, we are world leaders at getting stuff done,” he said.
“We have got the capability to do it. We just need to have the political will and the long-term vision to do it.”
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