Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling through the central North Island, visiting NRC members and covering a lot of ground across our beautiful country. The scenery was stunning, but the treacherous July weather gave me a firsthand lesson on the fragility of our road network.

I had to take a minor detour to avoid floods near Stratford, but elsewhere, the network was hit hard. While traveling north from Whanganui, a weather system tracked through, quickly closing SH3 at the Awakino Gorge, Mt Messenger, and between Mokau and Piopio due to slips. The famous Forgotten World Highway (43) also fell victim and closed. State Highway 4 was already closed due to repair works.

This left travellers needing to get north to the Waikato or beyond with very few options. For me, it was a minor inconvenience of driving an extra few hours east to State Highway 1 and north from there. However, for transport operators, it meant a major rework of routes by dispatchers, shepherding trucks caught in the wrong part of the district, detours of hundreds of extra kilometers, and managing driver hours and customer expectations. Resulting in a lot of extra costs for fuel and wages, with a low chance of recovery from customers. 

Yet another unneeded example of how a weather event combined with a limited highway network resilience can cause a major hit to productivity many struggling transport operators could do without. Something that those in the Tasman / Marlborough region are all too familiar with recently.

But equally a reminder on how investing in critical state highway network resilience pays off.  

We are on the right path, but there is a long way to go. The four-lane Manawatū Tararua Highway linking state highways 2 and 3 opened last month. The Brynderwyns project completed last year has hugely reduced closure times when slips occur. A second Ashburton bridge is planned for South Canterbury, bolstering a vital SH1 link. 

I say it often because it is often overlooked: our state highway network is our lifeblood, keeping people and the goods they need to survive connected across a lot of unforgiving terrain. 

So it was disappointing to see partisan politics once again rear its ugly head in the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee recently. Two opposition parties challenged the evidence provided by an NZIER report on the benefits of a four-lane highway between Auckland and Whangarei, known as the Northland Expressway. Committee member and Northland MP Grant McCallum rightly called the comments irresponsible. The Northland economy is one of the most vulnerable in the country, and the people of Northland deserve certainty over planned infrastructure investment. Opening up the stunning north to a four-lane highway from Auckland will be an absolute game changer for the future growth and prosperity of Northland.

NRC has joined countless others on both sides of the political isles to keep critical infrastructure investments above politics. No one disagrees we need better road, rail, water, electricity and maritime connections. 

So let’s hold our politicians to account, and demand they lock in the projects this country needs. 

How? One good way is to share your views on the draft National Infrastructure Plan put out by the Infrastructure Commission. You’ve got until 6th of August, and it only takes 5-10 minutes to complete the template.

Take the time. It might just save us, and our grandchildren, billions. 

Justin Tighe-Umbers,
Chief Executive, National Road Carriers Assn