National’s eternal road obsession
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- Date published:
8:58 am, September 3rd, 2024 - 39 comments
Categories: humour, public transport, Satire, simeon brown, transport -
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The year is 2035.
After a successful three term Kieran McAnaulty-Carmel Sepuloni joint Prime Ministership which started in 2026 after the last National Government imploded, National, this time led by Simeon Brown, regain power.
The last Labour Government may have eradicated child poverty and homelessness, built light rail in all major cities, and being well placed to meet its accelerated goal of the country being carbon neutral by 2040.
But it was the inundation of Tuvalu by rising sea levels which caused Labour’s demise. National with its sponsored parties NZ First and Act ran a successful “close our border” campaign after Labour had promised to rehome Tuvalu’s 12,000 residents after its food supplies had been devastated by salination. And the highly refined dog whistle campaign which a number of Atlas sponsored entitied ran succeeded in spooking the electorate.
New Prime Minister Simeon Brown has hit the ground running by immediately announcing that the long abandoned East West motorway in Auckland would be constructed.
Asked why the Government would proceed with the project when part of the motorway would be submerged by more extreme high tides experienced ever since the polar caps had melted he said that when the tide was not high the motorways would “contribute to economic growth and productivity”.
When asked why public transport fares were being doubled he said that the Government had campaigned on building the new roads of national significance and that the motorways would “contribute to economic growth and productivity”.
When asked why Labour’s successful emissions trading scheme fund, which had been used to fund many projects which had contributed to the country’s significant advancements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, was now being diverted into building more motorways he said that the motorways would “contribute to economic growth and productivity”.
Construction of four new hospitals had been immediately halted. Brown called on the Labour Party to reach a long term consensus on the construction of infrastructure “so that we can keep on building motorways that contribute to economic growth and productivity”.
When asked what the Act Party thought of the announcement Act leader David Seymour said that the party was too busy drafting its Treaty of Waitangi Repeal bill to respond.
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The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
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And on Morning Report today the minister says they will be looking at building "no frills" roads. In other words cheaper badly designed, badly constructed and unsafe versions. Roads that will soon require millions more to keep them usable – like the Kapiti expressway.
The minister need to be quizzed on these "no frills" construction methods and the quantity of savings. It's a soundbite that plays to the base but in reality will likely refer to overriding the present commitment to " Environment and sustainability in our operations". This probably saves a few % of the cost of road projects.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/roads-and-rail/highways-information-portal/technical-disciplines/environment-and-sustainability-in-our-operations/
I'd imagine that means pp partners will build them on the cheap, bank a profit and the tax payers will fix them
Moar roads, faster roads, fewer speed bumps, fewer cones – appealing to our inner Clarksons and Cruises, feeling the need for speed and leaving all our troubles behind.
The bit they don't tell people is that there will be MORE traffic. The new roads will quickly become as congested as the old ones.
have to admit i love transmission gully
It's too steep. Being a National Party project, all sorts of corners will have been cut and one of the most obvious is the profile of the road.
It's a forever road and it's too steep, both northbound and southbound.
It's safer, provided everyone obeys the rules, with shorter travelling times on average – just be prepared for delays if you're going north at the wrong time:
Still, can't have everything.
There now seems to bed less congestion on the old route, through Pukarua Bay.
Like the Hamilton expressway built on the cheap and now under constant rebuilding
I have been driving that road regularly in recent years. There has never been a time that I can remember that you could actually drive down it without having to drop to a single lane, usually in a queue, and at a low speed at least once for several kilometres at a time. Usually more than once.
Looks like that RONS is under continuous rebuilds (and probably most of them are). I guess they forgot to allow for enough heavy truck traffic when rapidly doing cheap contracts with the road construction mates.
They certainly forgot to ramp up the truck road user charges (and the road design) to a relevant level to pay for much higher build and maintenance costs required by the Fourth power rule when it comes to heavy trucks.
Nat's don't think things through properly all "smoke and mirrors".
and periodically closed for work done on it as well. maybe what, 2-3 years now of that stuff and another year to go. Poorly designed under the previous National Govt, poorly built under the previous Nat Govt. Having to be fixed by a Labour govt.
Historically….
The existing network isn't being maintained anywhere near adequately enough before he adds to it with even shoddier roads than recently completed efforts.
We don't seem to be able to maintain a decent road surface anymore for longer than a few weeks and the Hamilton/Taupiri section of SH1 always seems to be under repair.
Councils haven't kept up since English stiffed them for RONS and fall further behind with each cycle plus the weather has lifted the effort required.
Simeon sprays and walks away again as they all get to do with the poodle media.
Simian also mentioned PPP for one road…I forget which. PPP in the UK has invariably ended up with the private contractor making substantial profits at the expense of the general public, often after major over runs on construction costs, all of which end up being paid for by the public.
The right wing have never been elected out after just one term.The left have only ever had one three term Government. Two terms is likely to be the norm from now on for both sides. Then again maybe there will be a shift away from adversorial politics altogether and the need for political parties may even cease to exist.
Unless we get some urgent action on climate change, political parties won't be the only things that "cease to exist!"
I'm sure the oligarchs would like to dispense with the inconvenience of elections and the pretense of democratic representation.
Does the First Labour government not count as left?
But Koina this government has been odd from the start. It scraped victory through the support of Winston. Luxon has never been popular. The coalition has often been dominated by ACT who got 8%. They inherited an economy that was flat and through cost cutting and slagging off the economy have actually made things worse.
This is all very weird. The next election will not be normal…Lab/Gr/TPM have a real chance of winning if they play their cards right…Hipkins has to go to start with…he is seen as an uninspired loser.
Chipkins and Labour will not win the next General Election if he is the Leader, they need someone solid like David Parker, rather than a jumped up Churchmouse.
Worth revisiting Rod Oram's piece on 2035. Joyously optimistic.
This might make a cracker TV series
"NZ 2035 Yes Minister!"
And to think it was National that electrified the North Island main trunk rail line (although they never quite finished it completely) in the late 70s early 80s.
Such progressive thinking is foreign to the modern National Party.
It goes right through my farm job. Never yet seen a train using it?!!
There’s only one road that Simeon Brown must build as soon as possible: the road to Damascus.
Simeon reckons….
Simeon Brown does have a list of dedicated cheer leaders, though
Road Carriers Association NZ
Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting NZ
Automobile Association.
Car and Truck Magazine
and of course Ford Ranger drivers.
But apparently not Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the Dog and Lemon Guide.
Has anybody else noticed the striking similarity of Simeon Brown to the Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman?
Was it Alfred E. who used to say, "Wot, me worry?"
Seems appropriate for wee Simeon.
Compared to Simeon, Alfred's bright as a button
Love it, Love it 🙂
It's 2035. Labour voters looked back to the 2026 elections.
How lucky they were that the Green Party and TPM had, while keeping their independent policies, developed a coalition of opposition that was so tight, so professional, so believable that it made voting for the left, instead of the coalition of chaos, a no-brainer.
That was what had really changed the game.
FFS if we are going to build more roads let's build them properly so they don't fall to bits with the heavy truck traffic we have on our roads. Engineering 101 in my book. Sir Simeon is still in kindergarten with his buddy Baldrick.
all that heavy traffic should be going by rail
East-West highway 5.5 km long, $327 million to build per km back in about 2017. With price escalation since then what, $500 million per km? maybe slightly less, maybe more?
Apparently the road has been costed by NZTA/WK at $999 or less. Did NZTA get their costings from Nicola Willis maybe? Who else could get things so spectacularly wrong.
So Simeon is either wanting a road that will cost $2.5 to $3 billion (or more) for under 6 kms – what was his leader saying about Need to have's vs Nice to haves,
or
A rs little 'Highway" (read local road) with cost estimates about 1/3 of the true costs of the road as planned back in 2017.
east-west estimated 'costings' here