Some are simply terrible. Others are fanciful but fun. A couple are actually quite good – but there can only be one champion, and it might shock you.

Ever since the Auckland Harbour Bridge was born in 1959, we’ve been berating it as inadequate and a disappointment. For decades we’ve tried to replace it with a better model. Recently mayor Wayne Brown added another insult to the pile, proposing a weird bridge between Toby Manhire’s house in Point Chevalier and Anna Rawhiti-Connell’s place on the North Shore. He is just the latest in a long line of crossing dreamers. Their plans are as boundless as time and as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach. But that doesn’t mean The Spinoff can’t rank all 12 of them.

12. Labour’s triple tunnels

For six years, the Labour-led government was bedevilled by expensive, over-engineered transport projects and proposals that never ended up getting built. In the 2023 election campaign, it decided to address those perception issues head-on by making its first transport announcement a plan to build two road tunnels and a light rail line under the Waitematā Harbour at a cost of up to $60 billion. It’s possible we don’t need six extra motorway lanes across the harbour given the current bridge isn’t totally full yet. Maybe it’s not technically necessary for light rail to wind circuitously through every North Shore suburb before puttering out in Albany. Arguably, Labour should have suggested something that wasn’t patently absurd and had a chance of actually being constructed. But at least its officials got to have a lot of fun dreaming this one up. Thankfully for the rest of us, the land of dreams is where their proposal will remain.

11. National’s congestion connection

National hasn’t finalised its take on a second harbour crossing, but we do know a couple of details. For one, it won’t include woke stuff like walking. If you’re not emitting a cancer-causing particulate of some description, you won’t be crossing the Waitematā. The main problem with that is, to repeat a point made by mayor Wayne Brown on TVNZ’s Q&A, that our current congestion issues are on the motorways and arterials feeding the Harbour Bridge, not the bridge itself. While it’s nice for drivers to have an extra route available for the trip between two traffic jams, it’s arguably not the best use of $20 billion or so when we’re scaling back hospitals.

10. The bendy bridge

The bendy bridge looks nice. It’s just not that realistic. For one thing, it’s needlessly bendy, increasing driving time and adding construction costs. Its designer Garth Falconer told the Herald the bridge “merges seamlessly” with the existing motorway, which is a relatively euphemistic way of saying “thunks loudly into the side of the Northcote Point peninsula”. 

To avoid a mass pileup on the cliffside, construction teams would need to tunnel under Northcote’s villa-laden streets, causing a howl of outrage from residents that could be heard from the fourth circle of hell. Admittedly that’d be cool, but in the name of all things holy, we need to stop making every project in this country a tunnel. What are we, mole people? Christ!

9. The $785m bike bridge

Everyone hated the $785 million bike bridge. Even cyclists would say it was too expensive. Newstalk ZB descended into a multi-week rage-induced fugue state. The airwaves filled up with the sound of sputtering. Meanwhile, David Seymour told the Herald “we’d lose less if Michael Wood sent taxpayers’ money to a Nigerian prince to keep safe until he can pay us back”.

To a certain extent, the outcry was justifiable. At a BCR (benefit-to-cost ratio) of 0.4 to 0.6, the bridge returned just two to three times the value of the Mackays to Peka Peka section of the Kāpiti Expressway, which was funded by the last National government with barely a murmur of discontent. On the other hand, at a BCR of 0.4 to 0.6, the bridge returned two to three times the value of the Mackays to Peka Peka section of the Kāpiti Expressway, which was funded by the last National government with barely a murmur of discontent.

We fund terrible transport projects all the time. The BCR on Labour’s triple tunnels could stretch the laws of maths and physics by descending into the negatives. At least the bike bridge would’ve finally given us a chance to cross the Waitematā on fewer than four wheels, as the designers of the original Harbour Bridge intended.

8. John Tamihere’s double-decker bridge

When John Tamihere proposed turning the Harbour Bridge into an 18-lane double-decker bridgetravaganza, Auckland mayor Phil Goff said the $10 billion price tag would bankrupt the city. Some hack at The Spinoff took the mickey. These days, the plan sounds like a bargain. If we can get out of this mess only flushing $10 billion down the toilet, I’ll eat a hopefully non-lethal dose of tarmac. 

At the very least, this construction marvel would be the closest thing to an Escher painting in the world of civil engineering. It’s fun. It’s innovative. Most importantly, it’s not a goddamn tunnel. No more tunnels! Justice for Tamihere. Justice for the double-decker 18-lane bridgeapalooza.

7. The harbour loop

The loop-the-loop is a homage to the circular argument we’ve been having about an additional harbour crossing for several decades, and is approximately as feasible as the double-decker bridge.

6. Gondolas

Austrian firm Doppelmayr says it would take two years and $200 million to build a gondola linking Wynyard Quarter, Bayswater and the Akoranga bus station. It’s a tantalising proposition, beset by one fatal flaw: in New Zealand, our gondolas have a luge at the end. It’s a package deal. Building one without the other is un-Kiwi to the point that I’d actually call it high treason.

5. Gondola to the top of the Sky Tower, luge to the ground

Much better.

4. Wayne Brown’s weird bridge

No one loves Wayne Brown’s weird bridge more than me, but even I have to admit it has its flaws. For one thing, there are no roads at either end, meaning we’ll have to cut some sort of dirt track through an ammo dump, a kauri grove, and into Birkdale on one side, and plough a digger directly through Toby Manhire’s Point Chevalier bungalow on the other. That’s not impossible, and indeed annoying Manhire is a net benefit of this project, but it also creates legal complications.

The other entries on this list are perhaps preferable.

3. A public transport, walking and cycling bridge

When the $785 million bike bridge was proposed back in 2021, Waka Kotahi officials told the government it would have cost $1 billion extra to add public transport capacity. Unfortunately that proposal stood a small chance of actually getting built, so was discarded in favour of a politically ruinous proposition with a worse business case. Then transport minister Michael Wood justified the decision by explaining that $1 billion was way too much to add to the project budget. Labour eventually opted for its more fiscally prudent $45 billion-plus proposal instead.

Various options have been proposed for this bridge, but most of them originate around Wynyard Quarter and link to the existing Northern Busway. Sadly again, many of these designs make sense, and some even stack up well economically, so it’s unlikely they’ll be built.

2. An undersea travelator

David Slack’s Substack blog More Than A Feilding contains biting satirical takes on the government and funny personal reflections. Mostly though, it’s devoted to campaigning for an undersea travelator across the harbour. “An immersed tube is a kind of modular undersea tunnel composed of segments,” he writes in Tunnel vision. “You could even wrap it in another layer of Perspex and fill that up with warm water and beautiful tropical fish,” muses self-obituary Over and out. “I’ll be right here with my travelator drawings,” says Life in the gondola lane.

Though this article has been slightly negative about tunnels, the prospect of a Kelly Tarlton’s-style travelator under the harbour is simply too good to pass up. Put the giant squid sarcophagus at the end.

1. The existing Auckland Harbour Bridge

We don’t actually need an additional harbour crossing that badly. The existing bridge isn’t all that congested and is currently tracking below the traffic projections set out by officials in 2010. 

The problem really sits at either side of the bridge. But that could be fixed. Congestion charging is part of the solution, as are public transport improvements. Another potential salve can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Though Labour’s triple-tunnel plan was mostly curse-ridden, it did contain one design element that could be a marked improvement on the current situation.

An augmented version of this could last us decades, provided the right investments are made to make it work. There, $60 billion saved. Now maybe we can afford a proper hospital in Dunedin.