Meola Reef harbour crossing: Mayor could use own fund to pay for study

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has floated using his mayoral fund to pay for the Meola Reef harbour crossing study if councillors will not support spending the cash.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said on Monday the government is commissioning a detailed business case looking at the options for a second Auckland harbour crossing, including its financing and delivery.

The study will include taking another look at a bridge across Meola Reef near Point Chevalier, a solution Brown has pushed for.

But Meola Reef will only be included if Auckland Council foots the bill for half the cost of the study.

Some councillors - including North Shore councillors Richard Hills and Grant Gillon - have said they will not support it.

Brown told Checkpoint on Tuesday it would be good to have consensus among councillors, "but I've got my own budget as well of course, so it's not entirely necessary, but I get consensus on most things".

More than $106 million has been spent on reports on potential future harbour crossings, but there was still no plan for what should be built.

In late 2022, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) commissioned experts to look at a range of options for future harbour crossings, as well as resilience issues for the existing bridge.

In October 2024, the government told NZTA to do detailed analysis of the highest performing bridge and tunnel options. Those options, located to the east of the existing Auckland Harbour Bridge, were the only two options being considered, according to the project's website.

An investment case was completed in May and put to the NZTA board to choose its preferred option. It chose a tunnel.

Winston Peters has criticised the decision by Cabinet - which he is part of - to now fund the business case work.

Speaking on Morning Report on Tuesday, Bishop defended the business case, saying previous reports have answered 'why' another crossing was needed, and the new study would answer 'how' it will be done.

Cabinet would then be in a position in 2027 to decide what to build and how to pay for it, he said.

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins told Morning Report if Labour was elected in November, it would support the business case continuing.

Brown said the Meola Reef option should be looked at because the current option "doesn't make sense".

He said the latest option would "connect a traffic jam with a traffic jam".

"There's no sense in what they're doing, and that's why we should look at something else."

An extract from a July 2025 briefing by NZTA on the Meola Reef option, that was released under the Official Information Act, showed that option has had multiple studies since the 1990s, and was discounted because "it doesn't address the issues of resilience, growth and public transport reliability", would have "severe environmental and community impacts with poor terrain to negotiate and highly developed urban areas", and it was "highly likely that poor ground conditions beneath Meola Reef would still require deep piles to support a bridge pier or causeway".

On Monday, Bishop said the business case will look at Auckland's transport network more broadly, including the motorway plan, any time-of-use charging scheme, and the 30-year Auckland Integrated Transport Plan which is to be developed as part of the Auckland Transport governance reforms.

He also said the government had received a proposal from an international consortium to upgrade the existing bridge, which officials have recommended be looked at as part of the business case.