After apology, regret and neglect, the Transmission Gully opens in Wellington

An elaborate game of pass the parcel is underway in Wellington about who is responsible for the failure to have the new Transmission Gully Motorway, originally intended for completion in April 2020, and then five projected dates after that, finally open for this year’s Christmas holiday traffic.

The reason given is because the various resource consents and safety assurance tests have not yet been fully completed and are unlikely to be before the onset of the summer holidays (when presumably all the bureaucrats responsible go off on holiday).

These tests are important and should not be compromised but it is beyond belief, given that this project has been under construction for over seven years and the current eighteen-month delay on last year’s projected completion date, that the consenting authorities were not better geared up to act in time for the roadway to be opened this month.

An open apology

Waka Kotahi, the transport agency responsible for the highway, is openly apologetic for the failure to meet the latest deadline and is clearly frustrated at the ongoing delays. But the Greater Wellington Regional Council, the major consenting authority, lazily denies any responsibility for the delay, placing all the blame on the road-building company.

It clearly never occurred to the GWRC that there was a huge expectation that the highway would be open for these summer holidays and that it might therefore have been prudent for it to think ahead and organise itself so that the consents issues could be resolved speedily and in time for Christmas.

The GWRC chair acknowledges the project is already nearly two years behind schedule, which, extraordinarily, in his mind seems to excuse the latest delays.

In fact, it would not have been unreasonable to expect a halfway efficient Council to have been doing all it could in the interim to ensure the consent applications were lodged as early as possible so they could be approved in good time to allow the road to open this year.

Non-completion penalty

For its part, the roadbuilder, already potentially subject to a $7.5 million non-completion penalty payment rising by $250,000 for every day the road remains unopened is saying nothing. Local Mayors are relishing playing the “I told you so” game over the time the consenting process stakes, but do not seem to have shared any of their self-proclaimed wisdom with Waka Kotahi or the government before the problem became apparent.

Central government, normally so keen to have its fingers in the pie, has been noticeably silent on the delay and the impact it will have on Wellington over the coming summer. Neither the Labour MPs representing the areas through which Transmission Gully runs nor the Minister of Transport have expressed any concern or sympathy for the thousands of motorists who will be delayed in lengthy queues heading into and out of Wellington this summer. Nor have they made any suggestions about how the process could be facilitated to open the motorway earlier than the Easter 2022 date Waka Kotahi is now projecting.

Transport Minister Michael Wood has been singularly uninterested in Transmission Gully since taking office last year.

In contrast, he has been far more vocal and positive on the Auckland light rail project which just happens to run close to his Mount Roskill electorate. He has been very keen to ensure that progress on that project which the Prime Minister previously promised would be up and running by now, only to face the humiliation of its being vetoed by New Zealand First.

It is a great pity Wood has not shown even a modicum of the interest he has in Auckland Light Rail on Transmission Gully. But then, Transmission Gully was a project initiated by the previous government, so matters little to this government. Nor does he have to travel over the affected area at all regularly, so it really is a case of out of sight, out of mind.

Meanwhile, Wellington motorists will continue their indefinite crawl past the nearly ready Transmission Gully highway, increasingly aware that neither the Minister nor their local Labour MPs care a jot for their frustration.

Anyway, that is it for this year. In the spirit of Christmas, my best wishes to everyone for the coming Festive Season, in the company of family and friends; for safe travels and relaxing times (and in the case of Wellingtonians not too many lengthy delays crawling past Transmission Gully!) Merry Christmas!

Peter Dunne was a Minister of the Crown under the Labour and National-led governments from November 1999 to September 2017. He lives in Wellington.