Council ‘numb’ to bill for cycleways

Christchurch City Council has become ‘‘numb’’ to the ballooning costs of its cycleways, one councillor says, as another $25 million is needed to complete four routes.

However, the council’s transport boss has strongly refuted the claim, made by Cr Yani Johanson at yesterday’s council meeting.

Johanson also asked if the council was checking to see if it was getting good value for money with its cycleways.

‘‘The costs associated to the cycleways, just seems like so much money. It’s almost like we’ve become numb to the costs,’’ he said.

Transport head Lynette Ellis said she wanted to stress that staff were not numb to the costs, and that comparisons with other cities had been done before Covid.

Back then, Christchurch was averaging between $3 million and $3.5m per kilometre to build cycleways, and $4m to $4.5m per kilometre for roads, which was cheaper than Auckland’s $4m to $4.5m per kilometre for cycleways, Ellis said.

However, the costs had increased, and it was now at least $4m a kilometre to build a cycleway, she said.

‘‘Auckland is going up, Wellington is going up, everyone in the country is going up,’’ Ellis said.

‘‘These are very big, very complex projects, where we do a huge amount of work.’’

The council decided to punt the decision on whether to put the additional $25m in the budget until next year’s 10-year budget, the long term plan.

There was enough money budgeted for work to continue on the cycleways in the meantime, Ellis said.

The additional money was to complete four cycleways – the South Express, Nor’West Arc, Northern Line and Heathcote Expressway.

They had previously been funded through the Government’s shovel ready programme, which contributed $78m.

However, as part of the agreement with the Government, all cost overruns must be paid for by the council.

Ellis said yesterday that the original cost estimates supplied to the Government were based on information it already had.

There was not enough time to get new, detailed costings done, and KiwiRail’s costs were also not fully understood back then, she said.

Almost half the $25m increase was due to extra KiwiRail costs for work needed on the rail corridor, or inflation as a result of delays by the state-owned rail network owner.

Mayor Phil Mauger asked whether if the council had been more accurate with its costs when it put in the funding application, the Government would have given the council more. Ellis said she did not have a crystal ball.

Last month councillors voted – without debate and behind closed doors – to go ahead with a project on Halswell Junction Rd, which will create 200m of new road at a cost of $25m, up 40% from $18m.

‘‘The costs . . . (it) just seems like so much money.’’

Cr Yani Johanson