The Christchurch Motorway projects

The only South Island roading project of national significance is aimed at freeing up traffic into and around Christchurch, especially access from the north and south to the Port of Lyttelton, and comprises three elements costing up to $800 million.

Probably the most important is the 10.5 kilometre Southern Motorway extension, which includes over-passes, under-passes, new intersections and new cycle and pedestrian connections. It also crosses several waterways and will require the excavation of historic landfills, bringing major modifications to Halswell Junction, Awatea, Carrs, Wigram and Curletts Roads, and to Magdala Place.

While reducing congestion in the suburbs of Halswell and Wigram, and to Banks Peninsula and the rapidly growing dormitory town of Rolleston, its particular economic significance is the easing of access to Lyttelton from Ashburton and Mid-Canterbury to the south, a region that has boomed over the last decade as irrigation breathed new life into dairying, meat and grain production.

The Government’s commitment to picking up the $176 million tab for the Southern Motorway has left local authorities breathing a sigh of relief because, combined with the other projects, it solves the dilemma of a $184 million shortfall in funding in Canterbury’s 10-year roading plan.

The second project is the Northern Arterial route, which will improve the connections between the Northern Motorway and the central city and relieve the congestion along Marshland and Main North Roads which are heavily patronised by commuters from northern satellite towns like Rangiora and particularly Kaiapoi.

Unlike the Southern Motorway, for which plans are well advanced, the Northern Arterial concept had more or less ground to a halt until the Government’s roads of national significance announcement.

The third element of the Christchurch project is the Western Bypass linking the Southern Motorway to the Northern one along the eastern edge of Christchurch International Airport. The four-laning of Russley and Johns Roads will improve access to the airport not only from the north and the south, but also along Memorial Avenue, which is the main access from the city.

The junction of Memorial Avenue and Johns Road at the main entrance to the airport is presently controlled by a roundabout which looks likely to be replaced by a north-south overpass and an east-west underpass.

The bypass will also improve access from the west, an area in which agriculture is likely to intensify – much as it has done in Mid-Canterbury – as a result of a major irrigation scheme presently battling for approval in the Environment Court.

The areas north and east of the airport have lately been the scene of a battle between airport management and developers demanding the right to subdivide empty land whose development has so far been restricted by the airport’s noise zone restrictions. The Western Bypass may have the effect of shifting the developers’ attentions northward, thereby easing the airport’s concerns of encroaching housing resulting in noise-based restrictions on its present 24-hour operations.

None of the three projects has the potential for either tolling or a PPP, and all three have been long designated by the local authorities – the Christchurch City Council and Environment Canterbury – as critical to reducing traffic flows on connecting suburban roads.

In welcoming the designation of the three projects as being of national significance, Canterbury Regional Transport Committee chair Jo Kane says the money ear-marked for the Southern Motorway in particular may now be diverted to other projects in and around the city.

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