Council Buoyed By Track Report

Tararua council is buoyed by a study report identifying alignment improvements and cost benefit ratios on the Pahiatua Track and have hailed it as a “very pleasing” document.

“It is the most positive report yet,” Tararua’s manager district assets Stephen Taylor told councillors.
The study compiled by consultants MWH New Zealand Ltd is vital to the council’s latest push to gain ‘R’ funding to upgrade the 19 km route to the standard of an arterial highway.

Tararua has been lobbying Land Transport New Zealand for years to gain recognition of the route’s strategic significance to Palmerston North when the Manawatu Gorge is closed.

In its bid for funding assistance the council had identified $4,157,000 of Capital Improvement work and had flagged a local share of $1,320,600 in recent Annual Plans.

However the MWH New Zealand Study Report has expanded the project cost to $8,707,000 attracting a 70% subsidy with a local share of $2,612,100.

The study has identified a number of alignment improvements and has looked at seal widening improvements with varying seal widths.

Critical to Tararua’s case are the cost benefit ratios and whether they meet the ‘R’ (Regional) funding criteria for assistance.

Each of four ‘stages’ to be upgraded on the route has come up with a positive cost/benefit result with an overall cost/benefit of 2.1.

Mr Taylor now believes that the results of the study justify an ‘R’ funding subsidy of 85% alongside other major contender routes and that the council “should push for it.”

“This stacks up with the Whanganui River and the Napier/Taihape proposals,” he said.

Councillors voted for the project and will push their case further on December 9 at a meeting of the Regional Transport Committee.