The words “Transmission Gully” once meant a promising solution to Wellington’s squeezed northern corridor. They are now the bywords of failure. When uttered at this year’s summer barbecues, they elicit a knowing shake of the head from Wellingtonians used to years of bad news about the project.

Transporting New Zealand attended a meeting before Christmas where Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency advised us, before it hit the media, that Transmission Gully would not open in time for Christmas. We were told that the builder contracted to deliver the Transmission Gully project ran out of time to complete all of the compliance tasks necessary to have the road open.

Out of the 100 safety and quality assurance tests that need to be met before the road can safely and legally open, only 34 had been accepted by the independent reviewer as meeting the required specifications before Christmas. We were also informed that as at 3 December 2021, only 17 of the 45 consent tasks that needed to be fulfilled for the road to open also had been achieved.

Reports of flawed chipseal, ‘flushing’, and water seepage through the road’s surface are also of major concern. Repairs over the past few months have apparently been unsuccessful, which indicates that the long-term resilience of the road is, at best, uncertain. Flushing is a serious safety hazard as it results in a smooth and sticky surface texture due to an excess of bitumen, which can become very slippery in wet conditions.

None of this was any surprise to us at Transporting New Zealand. If I’m not mistaken, the latest delay was the fifth projected opening date that has come and gone. Pretty much as soon as the building of the route began, rumours, many of which were later confirmed, started circling of issues between Waka Kotahi, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, the Wellington Gateway Partnership and the road builders, CPB HEB. Scepticism the budget would be adequate and the programme realistic was largely born from Waka Kotahi having to pour at least another $400 million in on top of the initial $850 million estimate.

From the start, Transmission Gully suffered from a classic case of over- promising a world-class road on a significantly less than world-class budget. The previous government can take a good deal of responsibility for that. However, it is also obvious that the present government is a reluctant inheritor of the project and sees itself as having little political skin in the game.