Posts Tagged ‘roads’

Congrats: fuel tax drive more trucks out of Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, July 2nd, 2018 - 25 comments

Truck drivers are being to told to refuel outside of the Auckland regional fuel tax. Hopefully this will also mean that more of the excessively subsidised road destroying heavy vehicles will stay outside of our precious Auckland roads. But raising the Road User Charges in accordance to the general 4th power law would be more direct and have a better economic effect.

Another DHB in trouble

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, August 22nd, 2017 - 45 comments

National found $10b down the back of the sofa for roads roads roads, but is under funding our health system to the point of collapse.

Vision vs roads

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, August 21st, 2017 - 18 comments

The weekend offered up a pretty clear contrast between Labour and National. Address the problems facing New Zealand, or build more roads that make no long-term sense.

Roads not health

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, March 9th, 2017 - 98 comments

A new coalition protests health under-funding, while the cost of the holiday highway blows out. Our government has its priorities all screwed up.

Polity: Pork bridges

Written By: - Date published: 3:28 pm, March 9th, 2015 - 40 comments

A sudden enthusiasm for local infrastructure projects on the eve of a tight by-election. What a remarkable coincidence! I wonder whether the cost/benefit ratios on these bridges are up to scratch? Last year National bribed people in the general election. OIA time

Polity: Herald on regional roads fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, August 2nd, 2014 - 13 comments

The National Government’s $212 million plan has Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee explicitly admitting that it is a massive pork-barreling for government MPs with public funds, and explicitly tells people to piss off if they don’t like it.

NRT: National’s roads are pure pork

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 pm, July 29th, 2014 - 13 comments

The extent that the National minister have been pork-barreling the roading budget for their electorates is crazy. The OIA’s show that most of the $212 million announced by John Key at the National party conference is pure pork for ministers. They are assessed as costing more money to build than they will ever produce in benefits, even using NZTA’s infamously overoptimistic assessments. National MPs and Ministers want to be seen as delivering something for their electorates before the election. So much for assessing needs based on merits. They must be really worried about this election to misuse so much pork.

Polity: Brownlee burns $100,000 or $5 million, take your pick

Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, July 1st, 2014 - 27 comments

The Government has almost finished a $100,000 project to strengthen a bridge it will now tear down and replace as part of its new roading package. The $3m to $5m cost to replace the bridge, with construction due to start next year, was a “massive investment while there’s other more pressing priorities in the region”. Who would have thought that pork-barrel road projects had such poor cost/benefit reasoning behind them. Heckuva job, Gerry. OIA time

Polity: ROPS – Roads of Political Significance

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, June 30th, 2014 - 131 comments

National’s announcement yesterday of $212 million for 14 roading projects around regional New Zealand hits a lot of bad notes. I think it is a strategic mistake.  New Zealanders are not used to pork-barreling as naked as this. All but two of the projects are in National-held areas, and those other two are on National’s target list in September. And some are complete clunkers. For instance Nick Smith rerouting SH6 from the rich houses on to the kids going to schools

Delusional transport predictions

Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, June 16th, 2014 - 57 comments

This morning I was reading the Transport Blog on The Draft 2015-2025 Government Policy Statement released by the Ministry of Transport. This is the main starting point for a number of the transport planning documents over the coming decade(s). Somehow based on what looks like a delusional belief that people are going to start driving more as the price of petrol is going up, the MOT is planning about $17 billion dollars to be  sunk into (what I think will be) white elephant new roading over the coming decade.

LocalBodies: Gerry Brownlee, Making Stuff Up Again!

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 pm, March 18th, 2014 - 35 comments

The crazy thing about Gerry Brownlee is that he is so incompetent because he never seems to study anything that he is responsible for. On Monday, Local Bodies wrote about his current burst of illiterate and untutored whining and blowhard posturing about roads. And yet people on the inside of the National party appear to rate him? What does that say about their competence?

Making you pay for their folly

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, December 18th, 2012 - 112 comments

Well it looks like the government has finally listened to all of the arguments about how unaffordable the Roads of National Significance are.

Their response? To tax you more to pay for their white elephant.

Asset Sales to pay for nearly 1.5 years of roads

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 29th, 2012 - 8 comments

Gerry Brownlee has announced $12.3 billion of road spending over the next 3 years. Asset sales will pay for less than half of it. Does it really make sense to lose control of our strategic assets – with all the income they bring in – for just over 1 year’s worth of roads?

Nats blow $216m (so far) planning unneeded roads that won’t be built

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, July 16th, 2012 - 31 comments

RNZ is reporting that National has spent $216m just on the investigation and design stage of its Roads of National Significance so far (and that’s only 5 of the 7 projects). Most of it on outside contractors Look, I get this kind of shit can be surprisingly expensive. But nearly quarter of a billion dollars just for investigation and design? With these projects involving a 260km of highways that’s nearly a million dollars per kilometre, a thousand dollars per metre, just on planning!

National’s budget priorities: Roads to Nowhere

Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, May 25th, 2012 - 4 comments

The 3 most expensive items in the Budget: 1. $10.24 billion: Superannuation, 2. $3.69 billion: Debt Servicing, 3. $3.32 billion: National Land Transport Agency (Roads of National Signficance etc) – up $334 million. National are prepared to sack teachers, raise prescription costs and pick paperboy’s pockets to defend their roads that make no economic sense.

Billions down the drain on roads to nowhere

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, February 15th, 2012 - 42 comments

Gerry Brownlee has weakly attempted to fob off the decline in benefit:cost ratio of highway projects under National. ‘Sure’ he says ‘we’ve been funding projects that barely break even while high BCR spending like early childhood education gets cut, but things will turn around’. Um, no. Look at the projects National has on the horizon, […]

Nats’ ad claims credit for Lab’s infrastructure

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, November 1st, 2011 - 51 comments

Oh dear. This is not what National needed on the back of Goff besting Key in the first debate. National’s new TV ad is on the world-class infrastructure they claim to have built. But it was all planned, funded, and mostly built by Labour. Have National accidentally revealed their real achievement: taking credit for others work?

Spending cuts I’d like to see – No 3

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, April 27th, 2011 - 4 comments

Following two years of unsustainable tax cuts and economic mismanagement, National appears certain to rebalance the books with spending cuts. But what will they choose to cut? George.com asks: ‘how about the $4.2 billion in roading projects that will return, at best, just $3 billion of benefits?’

Kiwis want buses, not holiday highways

Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, April 4th, 2011 - 32 comments

Kiwis are voting with their feet, or rather their arses. Patronage of public transport is skyrocketing to the point of overcrowding while state highway use is falling among except for freight. You have to wonder why the government keeps building expensive highways that will be underused when public transport is full to the brim.

Future Auckland Transport

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 23rd, 2011 - 78 comments

This post was going to be about Auckland Unleashed which is being released today, but has been somewhat, er, derailed, by the bridge vs tunnel report that’s come out.

Nats waste money on roads, ignore rail

Written By: - Date published: 6:17 am, November 25th, 2010 - 25 comments

It’s official: the Auckland CBD rail loop would bring more benefit to the country for its cost than any of National’s ‘Roads of National Significance’. And that’s even before we talk about peak oil. Any rational government would put the money into the project that gets most benefit for the taxpayer buck. Not this one.

Roads of National Party Significance Continue…

Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, September 22nd, 2010 - 52 comments

Transmission Gully: A road that makes no economic sense, that will now be forced through extra fast, with reduced consultation.

Govt ignored advice to save lives with lower drink-drive limit

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, September 21st, 2010 - 29 comments

The government was told that lowering the drink-drive limit would save 33 lives and $238 million a year. They ignored it. Why? I reckon the only money they were worried about was donations from the booze barons. These idiots don’t bother with basic cost vs benefit analyses. It’s all about pay-offs for their mates. And donation kickbacks.

Local Govt minister wants to privatise water

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, November 17th, 2008 - 91 comments

As you’ll have read, John Key has made ACT leader Rodney Hide his Minister of Local Government. So, what’s ACT’s local government policy? Commercial activities are best performed by the private sector because they have more incentive to innovate and deliver better services. Local government should progressively shed ownership of its commercial activities. Local government […]

Sales pitch

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, August 26th, 2008 - 59 comments

He just doesn’t give up does he? Maurice Williamson was spotted this morning still trying to sell his toll booth idea to Auckland motorists. Spy photos below.