$24b transport plan not enough - Crone

  • 16/09/2016
Vic Crone (Getty)
Vic Crone (Getty)

Mayoral candidate Vic Crone says the plan to transform Auckland's transport over the next 30 years is too weak.

The joint report, known as the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP), aims to get traffic flowing on the country's most gridlocked streets.

It involves a bigger and better public transport system and a congestion tax on motorists entering the city centre, but Ms Cone wants public-private partnerships to build what's needed.

"That will give us the ability to bring forward desperately needed infrastructure across Auckland," she told Newshub.

"There quite simply isn't enough in the first decade. We need more money."

The package is expected to cost around $24 billion over the next decade, compared with around $20 billion expected to be available under current transport funding plans.

Ms Crone said it's astonishing nothing's been planned for the North Shore in the first decade.

While frontrunner Phil Goff says he's satisfied with ATAP overall, he fears not enough will happen in the short-term.

"Not to have light rail until the second 10-year period, the congestion in Auckland by that time will be close to gridlock. We need to bring some of the big projects forward."

Mr Goff says it's good to finally see council and central Government working together however.

A second harbour crossing, if it ever happens, now looks decades away. The Auckland Plan says it's needed by 2030, but ATAP says it won't start until 2038.

Ms Crone wants one 20 years earlier than that.

Newshub.