Nats cold on $360m SkyPath, commit to harbour crossing study

17th July 2020 By Staff Reporter | news@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker

New National leader Judith Collins has cast doubt on Auckland’s $360m Northern Pathway across the Harbour Bridge and would reassess it if the party were to become government after the September general election.

But Collins said at the unveiling of National’s $31bn infrastructure plan in Auckland this morning that she was committed to expanding the city’s ferry network and exploring a new harbour crossing.

Judith Collins

The planned $360m Northern Pathway project encompasses elements of the initial SkyPath proposal across the Harbour Bridge and was one of  11 infrastructure projects fast-tracked by the Government last month under a new law.

“In terms of cyclist and pedestrian access across the harbour, National is sceptical of the $360m Labour plans to spend on ‘SkyPath 2’,” Collins said.

“Unlike the Dominion Road [light rail] ‘ghost train’, I am not announcing today that ‘SkyPath 2’ will certainly be cancelled, I’m not announcing that. But the likelihood is that we will want to work with experts on a more cost-effective way for cyclists and pedestrians to get across the harbour.”

She said National would expand the city’s ferry network, walkway and cycling links, as well as expanded park and ride facilities. It would also begin scoping work on a new harbour crossing, with the intention of construction starting in 2028.

“National’s plan is that the crossing should be a tunnel or tunnels, and be for both road and rail, and new public transport technologies that come on line,” Collins said.

The initiatives would all be part of the $31bn infrastructure plan, which focussed today mainly on projects in the upper half of the North Island.

Collins said National would “go ahead with everything Labour has said it would do in transport,  with the exception of Phil Twyford’s light rail ghost trains, and the probable exception of the $360m Skypath 2”.

National’s projects, which included four-lane motorways connecting Whangarei, Auckland, Tauranga and Hamilton, would be phased over the next decade and beyond but work would begin immediately on $300m worth of digger-ready projects in Auckland.

One of the pledges would be to complete Auckland’s rapid transit network, including rail to the airport and new busways.

Of the $31bn programme, $17bn was earmarked for the Auckland and upper North Island projects, and $14bn for soon-to-be-announced projects in the south.