Latest / Best of Business / Best of 2024: Transport planner details the feasibility of new Cook Strait links

Transcript

Best of 2024: Transport planner details the feasibility of new Cook Strait links · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. There'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: so as can we.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Rail enters talks to terminate plans for the new inter
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: islander Fairies. One transport planner has been looking into the
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: feasibility of a fixed link between the two islands. Would
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: a bridge or a tunnel be a viable option? Nicholas
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Read is the principal public transport planner for Mr Cagney
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and he joins me now, good morning, Nicholas, good to
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: have you with us.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Good morning for CHESSCA.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: If we are looking for a better option than what
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: we have, what are our options?
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Well, to cross the straight, there's a whole lot of options.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: We could consider, various scales of cost and impact on
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: the environment in the economy. Certainly there's options around the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: existing ferries and expanding those ferries and also moving to
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: a fixed link such as a bridge or a tunnel.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: What are the main obstacles facing a fixed link between
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the North and the South Islands.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: The main obstacle is in the nature of the strait itself.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Cook straight is very wide and it is very deep.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: It's up to two hundred meters deep, over to hundred
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: meters deep in places, and over twenty two kilometers at
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: the closest point. So it is a very large gulf
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: of water to bridge or tunnel under.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Could you put a bridge in?
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: The short answer is no, it would be a bridge
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: of the lakes the world has never seen. It is
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: just simply too far and too deep. There are some
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: places that have very long bridges, but they are more
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: like viaducts. Effectively, they're sitting in tens of meters of
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: water and they're supported below from piles. We're talking over
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: two hundred meters deep, where you just can't physically build
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: a bridge of that length in that depth.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: And I suppose, as you mentioned, you know, if you did,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: you'd want to build it from the shortest point, you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: from the shortest points, but then there probably is no
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: infrastructure at those points. There's nowhere for there's no roads
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: already or rail or anything like that in place.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: That's correct, And the shortest point is actually off to
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: one of the islands of the Sounds and not actually
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the mainland itself, So then you'd be into the position
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: of having it off that island onto the south Island.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Proper and indeed on both sides, the western side of
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Wellington the eastern side of Picton. That is that's remote country,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: very hard terrain. There's barely a gravel road in those areas,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: let alone the kind of connections, the need of national network.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, so tricky to build a bridge. What about a tunnel?
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, surprisingly, a tunnel appears to be feasible. A cook
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: straight tunnel wouldn't be the longest tunnel in the world,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: and it wouldn't be the deepest, but it would be
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: close on both accounts. So it would be still a
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: very very large project to deliver that sort of tunnel.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And what would the tunnel cater to Would it be
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: able to take cars and trains or would you have
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to refine it down.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all of the really large tunnels of this kind
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: of scope are rail tunnels, not road tunnels, because the
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: rail tunnels a lot easier to build, and they're a
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: lot safer and easy to operate on those extreme sorts
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: of lengths and debts. So if we're talking about a practical,
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: technically feasible option, it would be a rail tunnel.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Were keywise, we like practical Nicholas, don't we? And so
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: when you say safer, in other words, if you've got
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: railway lines going through there, you've got less possibility for
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I suppose crashes or an accident or I suppose I've
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: also got to think a little bit about fumes and
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: things like.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: That exactly that. Yeah, you know, individual vehicles, individual drivers
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: a lot more chance of crashers. You've got a lot
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: more people in there with the higher fire risks from
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: private vehicles, and then the issues of how do you
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: manage a situation like that with evacuations with all potentially
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: hundreds of individual vehicles in place. With a railway, it's
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: more of a controlled system. They have a lot more
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: ability to manage situations like that.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: What about our tendants, our fault lines and earthquake risks
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and things like that, Does that come into play? Or
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: have engineers been able to safely around the world build
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: tunnels and environments like ours.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So the leaders in this kind of space are
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: the the Japanese, who have currently the longest underwater tunnel
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: in the world between their main island and the Norman Island.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: And that is a very active part of the world
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: when it comes to fault lines, volcanoes, and earthquakes, as
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: we probably all know, and they manage it, so it
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: is possible.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so. I imagine the benefit then of having a tunnel,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: as it's going to be faster and we could always
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: put you can put your car on a train, can't
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: you that that's a service that can be operated, so
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: if you were going from one ye to the next.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I imagine the main benefit of it is that we're
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: going to be able to have a lot more traffic
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: traveling back and forward, and it's faster. It would add productivity.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, it would. The operation would be like
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the Channel Tunnel between Great Britain and France. It's a
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: rail tunnel. Passenger and freight trains can run straight through
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: and those will save a lot of time themselves. And
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: they also get operate a shuttle train system for cars
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: and trucks which would load onto the oversized train cars
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: at one end, run through and unload in the other.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: So we're talking about getting down from about three and
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: a half hours ish plus loading time on the ferries
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: down to about forty minutes.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's that's the benefit. But something tells me, Neicholas,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be cheap building a tunnel in
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: a very deep straight.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: No, unfortunately, because you know, it looks technically feasible for sure,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: but we if you look at the projects like Thatsy
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Tunnel in Japan and the Channel Tunnel in Great Britain,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: taking the cost of those projects working them forward into
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: today's dollars, we're looking at minimum fifty billion dollar project,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: possibly double that, and that alone just you know, good,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: it would work well, but it's just completely infeasible from
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: an economic perspective.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That is a hard sell. So all and all in really,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the ferry crossing is probably still the most viable option
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: in trying to improve that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, the fairies are it. The fears are what we're
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: going to be needing to use going forward. So it
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: is about making that work here.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Oh look, thank you so much for your time this morning, Nicholas,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Ith No way, thank you.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Right, So there we go. That solves that. No, bridge
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: tunnels too expensive. Back to the fairies. Oh no, we're
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: not getting your feries just yet.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: How are you donking for more from News Talks B
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: listen live on air or online and keep our shows
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: with you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio,