Kerre Woodham: A decision has to be made on the Harbour Crossing

I hope your weekend was as splendid as mine. There’s nothing like catching up with friends, spending time with the family on a glorious summer's day. It was just wonderful.  It did involve a lot of toing and froing across the harbour bridge of course. Living on the North Shore as I do now, there were things to do in town and people to see in town and then back we come, which means that a harbour crossing upgrade, a second harbour crossing, has become of more than theoretical interest for me.  

Talk of a second harbour crossing for Auckland has been going on for decades, as you would well know. Matt Lowry gives a great summary of the history of harbour crossings or discussions there of in greaterauckland.org.nz. He said in a series of op-eds in the Herald, in 1975 the great visionary Sir Dove Myer Robinson said that a decision on a new bridge or tunnel was urgent, claiming the bridge would reach maximum carrying capacity by 1981 to 1982. So that was in 75. You had the Mayor saying this is a matter of some urgency. 

I mean, there have been studies up the wazoo. There have been more studies than factories have produced toilet paper. The NZTA has spent 25 million on investigating another crossing and 55 million on property purchases for things that might happen in the future, but haven't been decided on yet. A decision has to be made. It's not going to get any cheaper. Previous generations have bitten the bullet and understood the necessity of funding big scale projects that will future proof the country. Somebody needs to have the cojones to make a decision that successive administrations have failed to make since 1975. Because the Hail Mary’s, Inshallah’s or hoots wahey’s are only going to protect us for so long before inevitably tragedy happens. 

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