Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis. Photo: Jimmy Ellingham
A district council is continuing to raise concerns about traffic count figures behind a proposal to toll the Manawatū-Tararua highway when it opens next year.
As public consultation on the proposal closes on Monday, a battle over numbers is multiplying.
The plan to charge motorists $4.30 and trucks $8.60 a trip has come under heavy criticism from people in surrounding areas, who have waited years for the new highway to open. The former State Highway 3 through the Manawatū Gorge closed in 2017 due to rockfall.
Construction of the highway, Te Ahu a Turanga, began in the 2020-21 summer, but tolling has only been on the cards for a couple of months.
When assessing a road for tolling the transport agency has four criteria, including one that says: "Not less than 10,000 vehicles are likely to travel the road per day".
Transport agency modelling forecasts 10,902 vehicles a day using the road in 2025, rising to 14,250 a day in 2048.
The Tararua District Council is disputing those forecasts, noting about 7600 vehicles a day used the old road through the gorge before it closed, and has undertaken its own traffic counts on the present east-west routes, the Saddle Road and Pahīatua Track.
Its counters found 6935 vehicles a day used the Saddle Road and 3001 on the Pahīatua Track - an average of 9936 in total, over a seven-day period.
Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis said the count took place in the school holidays and included a weekend when the All Blacks played in Wellington, so that could have affected the numbers.
And some vehicles using the track would likely continue to do so due to the extra time a trip over the new highway would add to travelling from southern Tararua-northern Wairarapa.
The transport agency has also been doing traffic counts, beginning 24 September, but said they won't likely be available until November.
Collis said the one of the agency's counters was located in Ashhurst, so would include construction traffic from the new highway in the Saddle Road count. The council counter was at the Woodville end of the road.
An agency counter for the Pahīatua Track was positioned close to Palmerston North, so would include commuter traffic to a nearby subdivision.
"Where the counters are located is important. Our roading team chose locations that would only pick up traffic on the Saddle and the track, and not surrounding roads," Collis said.
A transport agency spokesman said the most recent traffic count numbers it had were from early August 2023, showing 5810 vehicles a day on the Saddle Road and 4447 on the Pahīatua Track.
The agency was asked where its counters were now located.
"These counts are done primarily for maintenance and operations planning and schedules for those roads, so it is within in our interests to ensure the counts are as accurate as possible," the spokesman said.
"We are currently looking to install a second set of counters nearer to the summit of each route, which will reduce the likelihood of other traffic affecting the data and help provide better insights into the volume travelling from Tararua to Manawatū."
Collis said the council counters would remain in place so they could pick up reliable numbers, which would be shared with the public.
"NZTA's August count for the Pahīatua Track is 4447. That's a huge number for the track.
"NZTA's figure is 128 per cent higher than the track in 2019 and over 1400 vehicle movements higher than the reading our roading team took last week."
Collis said it looked like the transport agency counters were placed in locations that would make sure the traffic on the alternative routes was more than 10,000 vehicles a day.
She said the Tararua community has lost faith in the agency, and the slow release of traffic count numbers further eroded trust.
Also on Friday, the transport agency published on its website a "toll modelling assessment", completed by an external consultant.
While warning its assessment was limited in scope, it concluded: "The Te Ahu a Turanga tolling assessment indicates potential for revenue generation, but also highlights substantial uncertainties."
The transport agency spokesman said the agency's board would consider pubic consultation and technical assessments when making a decision.
Collis said she was unimpressed the external assessment was released near the end of the consultation period.
The new highway was originally budgeted at $620 million, but a blowout means that figure has increased to $824m.
Transport minister Simeon Brown has said that, and pressure on the the national land transport fund, are among the reasons behind the tolling proposal.
