Public transport is the solution to 'pain in the ass' congestion, Mayor Phil Goff says

September 22, 2020

Phil Goff told Breakfast delays are expected until the end of the week.

Aucklanders are "making the best of" delays on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which are expected to continue until at least the end of the week, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said.

Damage to the bridge on Friday, caused by a wind gust blowing a truck into a load-bearing strut, has resulted in extra delays and hours spent crawling on the motorway.

Goff told TVNZ1's Breakfast, however, that "these things happen", adding that it was "nobody's fault that there was a wind gust".

"When it happens, you've got to cope with it and do the best you can."

The mayor said he was "pleased" work on a temporary fix could be in place from tonight.

"It just wasn't on to say, 'Well, we're going to have four lanes out for the five-week period that it takes to fabricate and install the permanent fix,'" he said.

Goff said while there is "still going to have problems probably through to the end of the week", Aucklanders "are making the best of it."

He recommended commuters "still look at the public transport option" for travel across the bridge, adding that a bus trip "is sometimes less than half the time of the car trip".

Lane closures on the damaged Auckland Harbour Bridge are again to blame.

Despite concerns being raised around the vulnerabilities of the city and the bridge's impact on commuting between the North Shore and Auckland's CBD, Goff said a second harbour crossing would cost more than $8 billion and would not be available until at least another decade, he told Newstalk ZB.

A business case for a second crossing - likely to be a tunnel - has been completed and has since moved on to the planning and designation phase, he said.

Goff said public transport in large cities "is the way of the future", adding that repair works to the Auckland Harbour Bridge would have been needed much sooner had it not been for the Northern Busway.

He said while it's "a pain in the ass when you're stuck in a construction site", the busway projects currently underway are expected to revolutionise how we travel.

"Things are really happening in this city, but that's because of growth and the problem is we should have started these projects 10 years earlier."

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