Second Harbour Crossing, Auckland facts for kids
Second Harbour Crossing is the name given to the proposed second transport link across the Waitematā Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand. The second link would supplement the Auckland Harbour Bridge which is nearly at capacity and also provide more redundancy and public transport linkages between Auckland City and North Shore City. It is sometimes also called the Third Harbour Crossing, as there is already an Upper Harbour Bridge (or Greenhithe Bridge). More recently, it is named Additional Waitematā Harbour Crossing (AWHC) in planning documents.
Proposals were discussed soon after the Auckland Harbour Bridge was first built, which quickly reached capacity before being widened. By 2008, the proposed crossing was narrowed down from around 160 alignment options to a multi-tunnel link somewhat east of the existing bridge. However, the project was at least a decade away from funding as of the late 2000s. Once started, the project would likely take between 5 and 15 years to complete, according to the NZ Transport Agency. In late 2009, the National government declared it a priority in the new 20-year infrastructure plan. In June 2013 PM John Key announced a new Harbour Tunnel to be completed by 2025-2030 and the alignment decided by December 2013.
Background
At the time the clip-on additions to the Auckland Harbour Bridge were being installed in 1969, predictions noted that the increased bridge capacity would last only until about 1985. Even with the clip-on sections and the traffic management in place, the Harbour Bridge was soon experiencing congestion during rush hours again. Various plans were proposed for a second link in the following decades, including one connecting from Meola Reef to Birkenhead, though the idea was abandoned in the 1970s after public outcry.
It was expected that traffic congestion would only get worse as North Shore City grew further and Auckland City became more densely settled. Therefore, there was growing pressure for another harbour crossing. It has also been suggested that reliance on the harbour bridge as a single asset (which might experience failure via an earthquake or other disaster) is not in the interests of either Auckland or New Zealand.
However, a 2007 study by the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) showed that peak hour traffic volumes were actually down compared to the early 1990s. The morning peak (from 7 am – 9 am) dipped from 17,048 vehicles inbound (towards Auckland City) in 1991 to 16,032 vehicles in 2006 (though the opposing traffic climbed from 5,872 to 10,555 vehicles). At the same time, the afternoon peak (from 4 pm – 6 pm) fell from 17,092 vehicles outbound to 16,759 (though again, the opposing traffic rose substantially, from 6,944 to 10,991). This was generally attributed to travel demand management, to drivers avoiding peak hours, and to increased bus usage since the construction of the hugely successful Northern Busway - 40% of peak time passengers across the bridge were being carried by bus rather than cars. By 2017, more than 50% of people travelling across the bridge were travelling by bus. This has raised doubts about whether a second crossing is necessary.
It was considered that the future timing of an additional harbour crossing would be delayed by the completion of the Western Ring Route (a combination of upgraded and new motorway sections skirting the western edge of the harbour and suburbs), which would provide some relief for traffic travelling between the North Shore and West Auckland. This route was completed in 2017 with the opening of the Waterview Connection on 2 July 2017.
The City of Auckland District Plan of 4 October 2011 (updated from 1999) states that a second harbour crossing is to be delayed (district plans are a type of document that is updated at best once or twice every decade):
- The Auckland City Council will work with Transit New Zealand, the ARC, and the North Shore City Council to develop and implement measures, designed to optimise the future use of the existing Harbour Bridge and its approaches, for the peak period movement of people. This is to avoid or substantially delay the need to construct a second crossing of the Waitematā Harbour.
Running counter to those delays, pressure for earlier completion of a crossing came from another source. In 2017, Auckland Transport's projections indicated that the North Shore's Northern Busway would reach maximum capacity in 2026, twenty years earlier than originally expected. AT's report said that increased patronage would "manifest in overcapacity conditions and poor operational performances" at Albany, Sunnynook and Akoranga stations. A decision on a timeline for conversion of the busway to a rail link was expected to be announced before the end of 2017, with an AT spokesman saying that conversion to rail could not take place before the second crossing (AWHC) was built.
2019 reappraisal
In 2019, about 170,000 vehicles were crossing the bridge each day, including 11,000 trucks and more than 1,000 buses. The following statistics were for the 7–9am morning peak period:
- 38% of all bridge users were bus passengers
- 58% of bridge users bound for Auckland CBD (not to the south or west) were bus passengers
- 20,000 people travelled in cars to the CBD (unchanged for 25 years)
- 53% of car users were travelling past the CBD to southern or western destinations
- 11,000 truck crossings rising rapidly and expected to reach 26,000 in 2046
A paper published by the New Zealand Transport Agency said that with private vehicle crossings static due to congestion on feeder roads and with the rise in public transport crossings, it would make more sense to drop the road-plus-rail proposal and build a rail crossing only. With freight volume and number of trucks rising, heavy rail might be justifiable, rather than a light rail passenger service.
Other modes
Plans intend that with the construction of the new motorway links via the second crossing, capacity on the existing bridge be freed up for walking and cycling links. However, advocacy groups have noted that any second crossing would not be built for possibly decades to come, if at all, and thus should not detract from providing the links sooner.
