Overview

Transport investment in Greater Christchurch during the next three years will continue to be targeted at completing the earthquake recovery work and making significant progress developing Christchurch Motorways.

Post-quake, towns and smaller settlements have flourished to the north, south and west of Christchurch. This has resulted in significant growth in the number of commuter vehicles driving into and out of Christchurch each day. The highways, particularly to the north, and city streets have become heavily congested, the situation being compounded where routes are affected by road works, road closures and detours.

Development of the Christchurch Motorways – the Southern Motorway, Western Corridor and Northern Arterial – had been planned for many years as part of the Urban Development Strategy to accommodate growth in neighbouring Waimakariri District and Selwyn District. These routes have become more critical with the change in commuter patterns and by the end of this 2015-18 National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) 60% of the programme will be complete. All three routes are scheduled for completion by 2020, at a cost of more than $900 million. The new motorways will significantly improve network resilience and economic productivity by enhancing network reliability and reducing travel times by up to 15 minutes on the Southern Motorway from Rolleston to the central city, and all motorists will enjoy safer and more predictable journeys.

As well as investing in the motorways, the Transport Agency is co-investing with our Greater Christchurch partners in other measures in the short term, such as new bus services, bus prioritisation at key intersections and additional lane capacity to reduce congestion and improve traffic flows along the northern corridor.

The Transport Agency is also co-investing with Christchurch City and Waimakariri District Councils in initiatives aimed at encouraging people to cycle, walk or use public transport. A total of $47m investment will contribute to the creation of a safer, more pedestrian and cycle-friendly city in the next three years. Also proposed is $137m co-investment with Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council over the next three years to sustain and encourage greater patronage of the city’s bus services, operations and improvements.

A further $200m will be co-invested with Christchurch City and Waimakariri District Councils this NLTP period to complete the Transport Agency’s commitment of more than $620m to rebuild the Greater Christchurch transport network. The priority with this work is to ensure the network is effective, efficient, safe and, most importantly, resilient.

The total investment in Greater Christchurch during the 2015-18 NLTP period will be $1,575m.

On this page:

Key routes and investments

Greater Christchurch

Regional numbers

Greater Christchurch regional numbers

Key strategic responses

The transport rebuild

With 60% of Christchurch city’s underground water, sewerage and stormwater pipes now either repaired or replaced, work is gearing up to complete the rebuild of the transport network and roads above them. Over two million square metres of roads, 150 bridges and more than 400 retaining walls were damaged across Greater Christchurch, of which about 40% have now been repaired. Since 2010, the Transport Agency has invested more than $370m in the rebuild and will have invested more than $620m when the work is completed in the 2015–18 NLTP period.

Work is set to begin on the $80m project to restore the alternative freight access route over Sumner Road to the Lyttelton Port of Christchurch. This road was closed by rockfall following the February 2011 earthquake and Lyttelton Tunnel is currently the only viable link to the port for dangerous goods and other freight vehicles. Work to re-open this strategic lifeline route is expected to be completed by 2017/18.

The Waimakariri District Council expects to complete its earthquake recovery programme by 2017/18. The Transport Agency has invested $5m in the council’s programme and has agreed to a further $4m to complete these works.

Growing public transport

Congestion has become a real issue in Greater Christchurch as the area grapples with a growing number of vehicles on its roads. Investment in a better public transport network and service is seen as critical to provide benefits for everyone moving about the city. It will improve safety and help ensure the new network is more reliable and achieves the desired recovery in patronage.

During the 2015-18 NLTP period, the Transport Agency together with Christchurch City Council and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) will be investing in bus lanes, a new Central City Bus Interchange and superstops on Manchester Street and at Christchurch Hospital as part of Environment Canterbury’s hubs and spokes model. The new model includes five high-frequency core services that run across the city every 10 to 15 minutes, passing through the new Central City Bus Interchange, supported by connecting suburban services. Most people will be within 500 metres of a Metro bus service.

The Transport Agency has committed $300,000 for Environment Canterbury’s $600,000 marketing campaign that will be rolled out to support the new model, change perceptions of public transport, and ultimately, get more people out of their cars and travelling by bus. The aim is to achieve a 20% increase in passengers carried by 2020 to 20 million passenger trips annually.

Encouraging cycling and walking

Christchurch has a strong commitment to encourage more people to cycle or walk. The City Council’s Major Cycleway programme is planned to provide an extensive and connected cycleway network comprising 13 major cycleways through the city, linking with local cycleways.

All cycleways that are part of the Christchurch Major Cycleway Network will be Safe Cycle Routes. They will be constructed using the council’s recently adopted Cycleway Design Guide, which requires cyclists to be separated from traffic lanes on busy roads. Wherever possible routes will be constructed off-road or in very low-volume streets, where car speed will be reduced using traffic management.
The Urban Cycleways Fund is expected to contribute to seven of the proposed cycleway projects that connect into the CBD along four primary corridors. These are routes where a significant increase in demand is forecast. Under current proposals, the Coastal Pathway that links the city to Sumner will also be progressed.

Waimakiriri District Council is also developing a cycling network to link the urban areas of Rangiora, Kaiapoi and Woodend and connect the district network to the Christchurch Major Cycleway routes.

Education and promotional programmes will be developed to support any infrastructure programmes. These will encourage more people to cycle more often, more safely.

It is expected that the total cycling and walking investment in the Christchurch area in the 2015-18 NLTP period will be $47m. This includes $19.9m from the Urban Cycleways Fund.

Enabling North, South and West Christchurch access and growth

Greater Christchurch is experiencing growing pains as families and businesses relocate near or outside the city boundary in search of homes and business premises. The fast-tracking of the Roads of National Significance (RONS) projects, where possible, has been critical to get Christchurch moving again.

The Western Corridor, connecting north and south Canterbury with the Christchurch International Airport, is also important as a commuter route, providing safe and reliable access to homes and work. Three sections of this corridor are complete and the remaining three are all under construction with completion expected in 2017/18. The Western Corridor is expected to deliver an average peak journey time saving of five minutes.

To the north, work will begin in 2016/17 on construction of the Northern Arterial and Christchurch City Council’s Cranford Street extension to improve safety and congestion, as well as supporting improvements to public transport, cycling and walking.

To the south, work will start in 2016 on the three-year project to construct the second and final stage of the Southern Motorway, providing good access to Lyttelton Port and the central city.

The anticipated $137m 2015-18 NLTP investment in public transport is expected to result in over 16.6 million passenger trips per year over the next three years.

Christchurch - An Accessible City Programme

A central city needs to be vibrant, safe, attractive and accessible. As part of the rebuild, Christchurch’s Central City is undergoing significant change, including the reconfiguration of the transport network. The Transport Agency is working with the Christchurch City Council and CERA to deliver the ‘An Accessible City’ programme of the Central City Recovery Plan, which aims to create a pedestrian and cycle-friendly inner core and support the public transport network. The first of the Accessible City projects were completed early in 2015, challenging everyone to think about how they will access and enjoy what the new central city will offer.

The Transport Agency has co-invested $18m in the first of five phases of this programme and will work closely with Christchurch City Council over the coming months to agree a plan for the next phases of implementation, with the expectation that further funding will be provided through the 2015-18 NLTP. This co-investment is being targeted to achieve improvements to traffic flows and provide safer, more enjoyable and people-friendly ways for people to move around the central city. These network improvements are also expected to play a major role in ensuring the public transport network will provide a high level of service and operate efficiently.

Maintaining the network

Keeping land transport networks available for people to get where they want to go easily, reliably and safely is a primary objective of transport investment within and beyond Christchurch. Over the 2015-18 NLTP period $489m has been allocated for local road and $56m for state highway maintenance and renewals respectively. This is an increase of $37m for local roads over the last three-year period.

The Transport Agency is working with councils to agree how the transport network will be maintained and operated to deliver the right level of service to meet the different needs on different parts of the network.

Given the pressure to achieve value for money from maintenance activity funding, any maintenance cost savings identified by a council will benefit all stakeholders. Savings can be redirected to councils where the condition of the network warrants an increase in maintenance investment and there is strong evidence to support the increase.

Making journeys safer

Across New Zealand around $3.2 billion is expected to be invested in the transport network over the next three years to deliver improved safety outcomes. Most of this expenditure will be directed at infrastructure improvements through the capital works programme, often where safety is one of the outcomes, along with congestion relief and travel time improvements. A proportion of this investment targets specific safety improvements, including high-risk intersections, pedestrian and cycling safety initiatives, speed management and education programmes.

Working with NZ Police and investing together in road policing is at the heart of the region’s investment. Together through targeted programmes the Transport Agency and NZ Police will work to address the factors contributing to crash-related deaths and serious injuries. These factors include speed, drink and drug driving, not wearing restraints, dangerous and careless driving, and high-risk drivers.

Across Greater Christchurch and Canterbury, the Transport Agency is supporting NZ Police to trial new modelling tools that will help the Police to deploy their road safety focused resources in a more targeted way. This initiative is focused on enhancing the excellent work already being delivered by the Police and is based on targeting resources to address specific safety considerations, such as safety risk factors, locations or times of day. If successful we expect to move quickly to roll out this initiative across all Police districts.

Investment highlights

  • A planned total of $137m will be invested in public transport over the 2015-18 NLTP period. A total of $47 million is expected to be invested in cycling and walking in Greater Christchurch during the 2015-18 NLTP period. This includes $19.9m from the Urban Cycleways Fund.
  • A total of $489m is being allocated this NLTP period for the maintenance, operation and renewal of local roads in Greater Christchurch. Included in this is an increase of $37m over three years in the Christchurch City Council network as the council transitions from a focus on repairing the earthquake damaged network to maintaining its whole network to deliver the right level of service.
  • A total of $56m for the maintenance, operation and renewal of the state highway networks.
  • An investment of $841m in new roads and network improvements is expected. Of this $490m will be invested to deliver network efficiency and safety improvements to substantially complete the Transport Agency’s Christchurch Motorways projects. These projects form part of the RONS programme, which is scheduled for completion in 2020. The programme involves upgrading all corridors that will form the strategic state highway network around Greater Christchurch, improving economic productivity and safety across Greater Christchurch.
  • The Transport Agency has committed up to $65m for the Christchurch City Council’s $80m project to re-open Sumner Road to the Lyttelton Port of Christchurch.

Regionally significant activities that are likely to be considered for construction funding in the years 2018-21 include Halswell Road improvements and Rolleston state highway access upgrades for Christchurch southern motorways.