Government’s risky transport route
At first blush, there was not a lot of good news for the South Island in this week’s Government announcements about transport projects.
A new fuel tax (or ‘‘excise’’, a tax by another name) of between nine and 12 cents a litre will bite in the South Island, where motorists already pay higher petrol prices than in the North Island. And a good chunk of that will go to help fund commuter rail in Auckland.
We in the south are fortunate we do not have to contend with Auckland traffic but the reality is, we all pay for that city’s gridlock.
Auckland is the heart of the New Zealand economy and if it is performing inefficiently, we all bear the costs, if not the road rage.
Perhaps it is also some comfort that major highways in the North Island will lose funding in favour of upgrades to regional road and more investment in light rail and cycleways. It is a win for evidencebased policy making, as study after study shows that building more highways adds to traffic jams rather than solving them.
But it is a change of priorities that is politically risky. Rail projects are hugely expensive and take a long time to deliver, whereas voters can see progress on a new road comparatively quickly.
In what seems to be designed to take the sting out of that change, regional and rural roads get more funding, with an emphasis on safety improvements such as rumble strips, median barriers, and bike paths.
In Nelson, the Government’s focus away from building new motorways will no doubt raise the question of whether the longdebated Southern Link route is now dead and buried.
Nelson National MP Nick Smith, a longtime supporter of the Link route, says the new policy amounts to ‘‘highway robbery’’ for Nelsonians. He says none of the increased taxes will be spent on fixing the city’s increasing congestion.
Labour’s Nelson candidate last year Rachel Boyack counters that the policy will see big funding increases for road safety and maintenance.
The city’s Rocks Rd route will again be the main political battleground.
For some it’s well past time for action to improve the waterfront route for cyclists and pedestrians and they hope the new policy will unlock those improvements.
The city’s Rocks Rd route will again be the main political battleground.