I arrived back in Auckland on Friday, having been out of the country for a few weeks on holiday, and what a day to arrive back in the middle of a storm. A storm that should raise a lot of questions given its impacts, particularly on our transport system. That’s because when it combined with a king tide it impacted a number of key roads around the city – and elsewhere.

The first sign of trouble was on Tamaki Dr where the causeway along Hobson Bay was inundated and almost indistinguishable from the harbour.

Tamaki Dr is CLOSED between The Strand and Ngapipi Rd due to flooding. Please avoid the area and take an alternative route. ^LC pic.twitter.com/bhKA6M4YsK — Auckland Transport (@AklTransport) January 4, 2018

This is definitely not the first time Tamaki Dr has been closed due to flooding and it was announced back in September that Auckland Transport plan to raise the road by up to half a metre to prevent these issues – although perhaps that isn’t quite enough.

An hour later and it was the turn of the Northern Motorway just south of Esmonde Rd. Videos show the water covering all southbound lanes. You can also see from the image below that the busway lane is completely closed.

SH1 – NTHN MWY, SOUTHBOUND – FLOODING – 10:00AM Due to flooding two lanes are blocked on the Northern Motorway southbound after Esmonde Rd. Delays are back to Northcote Rd. Please avoid the area and consider using SH16/SH18. ^LC pic.twitter.com/WR15U4dnGi — NZTA Akld & Nthlnd (@NZTAAkl) January 4, 2018

I haven’t heard of any plans from the NZTA to raise this section of motorway. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were hoping to tie it in to any works associated with another Harbour crossing. Equally it wouldn’t surprise me if some in the organisation tried to get another crossing pushed up the agenda.

It was then the turn of the Northwestern Motorway.

SH16 NTH WSTN MWY, EASTBOUND – FLOODING – 11:10AM Due to flooding the left lane is blocked eastbound on the Nth Wstn Mwy on the Causeway. Take extra care and drive to the conditions #SwitchOnToBeSeen ^LC — NZTA Akld & Nthlnd (@NZTAAkl) January 4, 2018

This one is the most surprising given that only within the last year have the NZTA finished spending hundreds of millions to raise the causeway to prevent exactly this from happening. They even listed preventing flooding as the primary reason for it – even though it was primarily being done to add more lanes due to building the Waterview tunnels. Here’s that they say on the project page.

What is the Causeway Upgrade Project? The Causeway Upgrade Project is raising the motorway 1.5 metres to prevent flooding and widening it to provide additional capacity and bus shoulder lanes in both directions. The cycleway alongside the motorway is being raised, widened and upgraded, too.

I realise that Friday’s storm coming at the same time as a king tide might not be the norm, but surely it won’t be that unique over the coming 30-50 years. Surely such a newly upgraded piece of infrastructure shouldn’t have flooded already. Given they also forgot refused to build a busway that’s now acknowledged as being needed within a decade, you’d at least have thought they’d get the raising right. And how flooded would it have been if they hadn’t done it?

Finally roads weren’t the only transport infrastructure impacted. The new Half Moon Bay ferry terminal, that only opened in April last year, was also damaged in the storm and will be closed until further notice (at the time of writing this post). Like with the SH16 Causeway, was that it was damaged so soon in its life or was it just a freak incident that caused damage?

Half Moon Bay ferry terminal is closed & ferries to/from the city cancelled until further notice due to damage from Friday's storm. A full assessment will be carried out tomorrow with further updates, please look at alternative transport options.

🗺️ https://t.co/Y6TrEHo1CP pic.twitter.com/md9dfBTk8Z — Auckland Transport (@AklTransport) January 6, 2018

What this really highlights is how we need to build more resilience into our transport system. In many ways we’re lucky this happened when it did, while many people are still on leave so not affected. But next time may be different, and we know these types of events are only likely to continue. It has been estimated that up to 2,000 km of road around the country will be affected by climate change. That’s a lot of road raising that will be needed and it won’t be cheap.

Resilience comes in many forms too, both physically such as raising low lying roads to prevent inundation, but also in providing alternatives so that should something happen, this includes crashes/breakdowns etc, then not everyone is impacted.

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