Transport spending has always been paid for out of road taxes. But National’s roads to nowhere cost too much and road user tax revenue is stagnant because traffic volumes are responding to high petrol prices.
They’ve added huge top ups from general tax but it’s still not enough to meet the rising costs of the motorways. They’ve cut every other area of transport spending to the bone. Still not enough.
Now, National’s going to start borrowing for their motorways. They’re going to chuck it on the credit card, rather than re-examining whether they should be building these projects at all.
With petrol prices nudging the all-time record and traffic volumes falling, you have to wonder why we would take on debt to fund $12 billion of uneconomic roads on routes that only 4% of drivers use.
[just listening to Morning Report. They’ve got a infrastructure building company shill on for a soft interview saying that borrowing for building these projects is great. He’s already lied about the total cost of the RoNS and their benefit:cost ratio. Later, they’re having Gerry Brownlee on for a soft interview. Phil Twyford and Julie Anne Genter each got a single line in the reported piece. Nice balance guys.]
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