$2 Transmission Gully toll tipped

Motorists are likely to pay $2 each time they use Transmission Gully, their contribution amounting to about 20 per cent of the total cost of the route.

They will not have to stop to pay a toll, with electronic scanners reading licence plates then billing motorists for each trip they make.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce said yesterday it was likely a toll would apply to the $1 billion-plus project, saying it would cost about $2 for a private car.

Tolling would contribute about $200 million to the project, with the rest of the money coming from the Government's roading coffers.

The tolling system would be similar to one in use on the Northern Gateway toll road north of Auckland, and one planned for Tauranga's Eastern Link road. On that project, tolling has brought construction on the 22-kilometre road forward by at least six years.

Motorists would pass under a gantry spanning the road, with electronic sensors recording licence plates of vehicles. The fee is automatically withdrawn from the car owner's toll account, or a bill is sent to their address.

"There is likely to be a toll on it," Mr Joyce said yesterday. "The question is how much of the funding would you expect to see raised by a toll and the answer is not very much. In the context of a billion-dollar project, every bit helps, but by far the majority of it – $700m to $800m – would have to be paid out of the fund."

A Dominion Post poll yesterday showed that most people would be willing to pay up to $3 to use the new highway. However, 27 per cent said they opposed any tolling.

The Government announced on Tuesday that the Gully would be built as part of a massive upgrade of State Highway 1 between Levin and Wellington Airport. The entire project will cost up to $2.4 billion.

Work will include bypasses built at Otaki and Levin, an expressway through the Kapiti Coast, new tunnels drilled beneath Mt Victoria and The Terrace, an upgrade of roads around the Basin Reserve and the creation of at least 650 jobs.

Transmission Gully will be built despite a benefit-cost ratio that is an eighth of what was once considered the threshold for work to begin.

A Pukerua Bay business owner thinks the Gully could be his store's death-knell.

Paul Edwards has owned Archway Books on State Highway 1 for more than 15 years, and thinks the Gully would take too much traffic away from his store.

"It would have a major impact," he said.

"And we'd probably be looking at shifting, that's my gut feeling."

- © Fairfax NZ News