Brynderwyn Hills out of action again.

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#3263372 23-Jul-2024 09:50

northlanders-fear-more-slips-closures-of-brynderwyn-hills

Former roading contractor Keith Taylor, who spent his life working on Northland roads before his retirement, said the ground was “unstable”.

The report said the combination of soils and rock that gave way was so unusually slippery, the area was in a “critical state of stability”.

neb

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#3263509 23-Jul-2024 12:06

On a semi-related note, why do we (NZ) consistently mispronounce Brynderwyn? The accent is always on the second syllable whereas in Welsh it's on the first, which is "hill". The "der" part that we emphasise is just filler.

(UK friend asked this one a long time ago).

tweake

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#3263649 23-Jul-2024 17:15

transport-minister-announces-four-lane-highway-from-auckland-to-whangarei/DR75K223N5CDVPNJ3V7DMKCTOQ/

The Government’s announcement that it will accelerate work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme will be “a game-changer” for Northland.

some good news, but it could all be hot air, as per usual when it comes to govt and northland.

hopefully they wise up and push a temporary bypass road through first, then at least that takes the pressure off. i suspect auckland council will be pushing for the dome motorway to be done.

neb

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#3263676 23-Jul-2024 18:59

tweake: some good news, but it could all be hot air, as per usual when it comes to govt and northland.

If it's like Penlink, another Road of Significance, then you could die of old age waiting. That's literally what happened to friends of Mother Neb's, they owned land that was acquired under eminent domain and they both died of old age waiting for construction to actually happen.

tweake

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#3263689 23-Jul-2024 19:27

neb:

tweake: some good news, but it could all be hot air, as per usual when it comes to govt and northland.

If it's like Penlink, another Road of Significance, then you could die of old age waiting. That's literally what happened to friends of Mother Neb's, they owned land that was acquired under eminent domain and they both died of old age waiting for construction to actually happen.

Penlink was only put under Roads of Regional Significance fairly recently. its been on/off since 90's afaik (council control?). much like wellsford and warkworth bypasses.

but certainly, they say one thing then quietly do another. i hope they finally realize the urgency of the situation.

ezbee

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#3263692 23-Jul-2024 19:39

Last year Penlink was estimated to cost $830 million.
Probably hitting the Billion with delays ongoing.

That's a lot to serve a relatively small population with limited growth?
Unless its high rises on the golf course?

neb

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#3263709 23-Jul-2024 20:21

ezbee: Last year Penlink was estimated to cost $830 million.
Probably hitting the Billion with delays ongoing.

That's a lot to serve a relatively small population with limited growth?
Unless its high rises on the golf course?

Well, admittedly when they originally costed it it was £140,000.

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GV27

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#3263711 23-Jul-2024 20:25

ezbee:

Last year Penlink was estimated to cost $830 million.
Probably hitting the Billion with delays ongoing.

That's a lot to serve a relatively small population with limited growth?
Unless its high rises on the golf course?

The huge growth already happened and more houses are being added. Been going to the Peninsula for 30 years now, it's changed out of sight.

Standard Operating Procedure is for Auckland to wait forever for infrastructure while officials in other parts of the country dally, the growth happens anyway, it becomes a congested mess and then someone turns around and says "Well it's not like it's going to grow much more than it already has!" as a reason to delay building anything even longer.

Imagine if they'd built Penlink when the development actually started intensifying on the Peninsula about fifteen years ago; it would have been even cheaper then. But that's not how that works, apparently.

neb

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#3263719 23-Jul-2024 20:38

GV27: Imagine if they'd built Penlink when the development actually started intensifying on the Peninsula about fifteen years ago; it would have been even cheaper then. But that's not how that works, apparently.

Well, they did spend about half a Penlink's worth of money and time mucking around with Whangaparoa Road, which was about as effective as putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. You've got to give them that.

tweake

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#3263946 24-Jul-2024 12:32

far-north-mayor-wants-work-to-begin-on-new-mega-project-road-as-soon-as-possible

"This is something that Northland leaders have been calling for for decades to be honest, so it's already too late to be honest.

ezbee

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#3263948 24-Jul-2024 12:38

Suppose we will see if they will move 'fast' on fast tracking this.
Or use more scoping and cost benefit studies to delay for next Government?

Though the direction for some of these roads is to get them to pay by tolling?

How would Far North feel about that to get something finally done?

tweake

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#3263952 24-Jul-2024 12:50

ezbee:

Suppose we will see if they will move 'fast' on fast tracking this.
Or use more scoping and cost benefit studies to delay for next Government?

Though the direction for some of these roads is to get them to pay by tolling?

How would Far North feel about that to get something finally done?

i think there is a couple of different issues here.

first is getting a back up road in place before the hill fails again. you can't have that as a toll road. any backup road is required to be free.

the big problem with tolls is you have to have a toll free road people can use. the hill may end up failing to the point its never going to be used again and therefore cannot function as the toll free road.

there is no reason they cannot push this though quickly. a lot of this was started last time national was in power, so some of the work has already been done. in fact it was jacinda who stopped it all within weeks of being in power. the irony of labor winning the Whangarei seat, only to have jacinda stop the fix and then have northland cut off from the rest of nz.

Scott3

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#3263953 24-Jul-2024 13:02

tweake:

transport-minister-announces-four-lane-highway-from-auckland-to-whangarei/DR75K223N5CDVPNJ3V7DMKCTOQ/

The Government’s announcement that it will accelerate work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme will be “a game-changer” for Northland.

some good news, but it could all be hot air, as per usual when it comes to govt and northland.

hopefully they wise up and push a temporary bypass road through first, then at least that takes the pressure off. i suspect auckland council will be pushing for the dome motorway to be done.

From the article:

"deliver the Northland Roads of National Significance as a single expressway between Auckland and Whangārei"

Argh.

If the goal is an expressway between Auckland and Whangarei, that should be the starting point for design work, not the current situation where segments of road are prescribed, and then asked to be plugged together into a single project.

The underlying issue is that current approach forces the route eastwards of where it would likely have ended up if the goal was to build the optimal road between Auckland and Whangārei.

On a bypass, for Warkworth the calls for a bypass were ignored. The Skeptic in me says it would have undermined the business case for the larger project.

tweake

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#3263956 24-Jul-2024 13:19

Scott3:

tweake:

transport-minister-announces-four-lane-highway-from-auckland-to-whangarei/DR75K223N5CDVPNJ3V7DMKCTOQ/

The Government’s announcement that it will accelerate work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme will be “a game-changer” for Northland.

some good news, but it could all be hot air, as per usual when it comes to govt and northland.

hopefully they wise up and push a temporary bypass road through first, then at least that takes the pressure off. i suspect auckland council will be pushing for the dome motorway to be done.

From the article:

"deliver the Northland Roads of National Significance as a single expressway between Auckland and Whangārei"

Argh.

If the goal is an expressway between Auckland and Whangarei, that should be the starting point for design work, not the current situation where segments of road are prescribed, and then asked to be plugged together into a single project.

The underlying issue is that current approach forces the route eastwards of where it would likely have ended up if the goal was to build the optimal road between Auckland and Whangārei.

On a bypass, for Warkworth the calls for a bypass were ignored. The Skeptic in me says it would have undermined the business case for the larger project.

it originally was motorway from auckland to whangerai. thats been cut up into sections, so work can start on the critical stuff first. the problem is they have all delayed things so much that now there is a ton of pressure to get it all done fast. the hill failing, auckland under pressure for new rubbish dump etc.

not sure what you mean about forcing the route eastwards. there really been one route from the start, nothing has been pushed east. an east bypass was looked at but has major issues, and was quickly dropped.

dropping it down from motorway to expressway makes its simpler/cheaper.

Scott3

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#3263959 24-Jul-2024 13:41

Up until now, the roading projects between Auckland and Whangārei, have been peace meal, and have not considered the overall route. Generally have been upgrades / bypasses to chunks of the existing SH1 route. This constraint bounds the design compared to looking at the project in it's entirety (we can still build it in stages, but it would be optimized for the final configuration, not each succussive project). It also clouds our ability to evaluate the economics of the project as a whole.

Here is an example "The roughly 50-kilometre stretch, which includes the notoriously unstable Brynderwyn Hills, would only be scoped “at a later date”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300939736/national-announces-four-lanes-to-whangrei-not-quite

Even the wording in yesterdays article spells out that the government is asking NZTA to plug a bunch of projects together to come up with a single expressway between the cities (as opposed to doing an evaluation of the route in it's entirety and selecting the optimal design.

"Brown said the Government has agreed “in principle” to an accelerated delivery strategy that will enable NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to move at pace and deliver the Northland Roads of National Significance as a single expressway between Auckland and Whangārei"

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