Local Board Update. June 2019
The Chair of the Local Board, Beth Houlbrooke and myself have been having regular meetings with Auckland Transport maintenance managers responsible for Rodney wards local roads (not State Highway 1 or 16). The Local Board does not have any direct responsibility for roads, but we wanted to get a better understanding of the issues around our sealed and unsealed network that is often the topic of frustration on local Facebook groups.
You’d think the issues would be simple to sort out, just roll out more repair teams, and fix things quicker, certainly, that was my view. However, as it often is with infrastructure, it isn’t as simple as we’d like. Here are some takeaways from these meetings and suggestions for frustrated road users.
For every $100 of property rates paid, $36 is spent on Transport infrastructure including new assets and maintaining existing ones and residents quite reasonably expect to have well-maintained roads as a result.
Rodney’s roads have suffered from decades of underinvestment going back to Rodney District Council and previous entities. This was because there was never enough money to spread over a sizable road network serving a small, sparse population. Many roads often are little more than gradually upgraded farm tracks with poorly constructed foundations and difficult geology meaning some of our roads will always have issues until expensive rehabilitation is undertaken – and that applies to sealed and unsealed roads.
Auckland Transport has warned Councillors and the Mayor for at least six years that unless funding was increased for road maintenance across Auckland the amount of work done would fall and assets would be ‘sweated’ for longer, meaning bigger gaps between upgrades and general maintenance. In order to keep up with the growing back log of work 2.5% average annual rates increases weren’t enough. At some point 3-4% increases would be needed – plus the longer this was delayed, the worse the problem and cost to fix it would become meaning rates would have to rise even higher. This is a deeply unpopular message for ratepayers. No one wants rates to increase, and politically, this is what has been the outcome. It’s not sustainable, but as long as rates are constrained the tough political decision is put off for a future council to wrestle with. Meanwhile AT managers and residents have to wrestle with our roads!
Weather play a huge part in issues both on sealed and unsealed roads. Rising water pops the surface off sealed roads and creates similar issue on unsealed roads. Obviously, winter is the worst time of the year for this, and it’s also the worst time of the year to try and repair roads, especially sealed roads as wet whether stops tar adhesion. Often the only solution is temporary asphalt patches until drier weather allows a long-term repair – this is a deep source of frustration for some who feel it’s either a shonky repair or a contractor doing it on the cheap to save money. In fact, the best use of your rates is to undertake a full repair in the right weather. Unsealed roads present a huge challenge, rising traffic levels due to rural subdivision and activities such as clean fills that hammer roads not designed for heavy traffic mean regrading is only a temporary fix. Ultimately sealing these roads is the answer and although $121m has been allocated to doing this over the next 10 years, there are over 600 roads requiring sealing.
The best thing you can do when there’s an issue is report it straight away. It takes a few minutes to go online and fill out a form alerting AT to an issue. In most cases this will lead to quick action – I’ve had minor potholes filled within 24 hours of lodging a report. Some issues will take longer to fix and will see either a temporary repair or delays while engineering assessments are done. Often it may seem that a local issue is being ignored whereas in the wider context across Rodney, it’s part of a program of works that can be affected by weather or unexpected issues that need instant action, it doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
You can report a problem with Auckland Transport by calling 09 355 3553 or better, log it online with photos: https://at.govt.nz/about-us/contact-us/report-a-problem/
The RUB* 