Posts by Sacha
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They aren't either/or propositions.
Agreed. Integrating public transport and roading projects makes sense - like busways, rail or cycling with any motorways.
However, look at the constrained budgets, and the difference one plonker in office can make to where they are spent. The balance needs to be pushed a long way towards public transport to make a difference fast enough - or all we will have is roads. How many lanes do you reckon those electric/biofuel trucks will need anyway?
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Giving traffic a fully-functioning alternative route between south and west can only really be seen as a good thing. Other than that, however, there seems to be very little consideration to transport plans that don't involve laying more concrete and asphalt.
I agree, Waterview makes more sense than the Northland motorway madness.
Speaking of alternatives, that Waterview $1400m could instead build the Southdown to Avondale rail route (reserved for that purpose for decades), connecting the Western line across Onehunga into the main Southern line and out to the airport and Manukau city, with stations at strategic points. And without having to throw another $860m into widening the northwestern motorway.
Again, others like Joshua have the detail, and the maps including full future networks. You sure won't find them in the newspapers whose owners wouldn't want to upset their advertisers and mates at the Club, the golf course and the bach reached by a road of National significance.
Unlike rail lines, we might have to rip up the flash new tarmac in a few decades anyway when oil is too expensive to use for either private petrol or bitumen for repairs. Might be just enough to grease the electric trains.
These large projects are 100 year investment decisions, so they demand good thinking and respect for evidence. By contrast, Joyce is probably counting on us all using nuclear hovercraft in a couple of decades. Or burros, depending on our station. He certainly won't be holding the baby, so what's the problem?
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this $100 million
Isn't it also approximately the amount that would allow the electric trains to be purchased right away, despite Joyce's interference with that process?
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Welcome home, Mr Monkley.
Now about that mango in your luggage.. -
she then goes on about the Oktoberfest at Lincoln
What did she make of it?
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I recommend that everyone checks out Joshua Arbury's transport blog.
I particularly enjoyed the the post about recent research into the mythical "time savings benefits" that are used to justify pumping our taxes into building more roads. Result - billions of dollars later, Melbourne's traffic speeds are actually slower. Joshua concludes:
"if giving people more spare time was so important, the government would buy us all a dish washer. It would be cheaper than the Waterview Connection."
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When I say "here" I mean not this thread, but another one recently.
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Oh, he's been mentioned here as well..
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Labour's well-dragged feet.
Quite. I understand Cullen had to be forced to witness the congested glory of the New Lynn rail/road roundabout before he finally gave its major trench separation project the green light as Finance Minister - after many years of well-reasoned reports and delegations.
Anyone who has seen the predictable increase in peak traffic there from the new Mt Roskill motorway extension will have some idea of what would have resulted if the fuckery had continued and double tracked rail was added on top of 45,000 vehicles per day.
Frankly, the problem with Auckland is often Wellington - or members of parliament with big city thinking sourced from bustling Queenstown or Napier. As Rudman notes:
Not for the first time in Auckland's recent history, the tender process for a new public rail system has been stalled by Government antagonism.
In the 1990s the ARC had 58 international expressions of interest in a contest for a light rail system, but Wellington killed it. In 1975 the Kirk Labour Government okayed an electrified suburban rail system for Auckland but the incoming Muldoon National Government sank it.
Joyce, Hide, Key et al have no excuse for lack of Auckland knowledge. Joyce in particular seems a smart and successful man, so it's hard to interpret his actions charitably when they seem so pig-ignorant.
Like pretending trucks and cars are not massively subsidised by taxpayers and ratepayers but trains are. Like ignoring peak oil and climate change. Like allocating $100m to think about his proposed Northland motorway while Auckland's crucial electric trains go begging after their funding had already been arranged as part of the regional fuel tax.
Joyce makes some points that are logical from his perspective about re-examining Auckland's transport as a region - if only that had not already been going on for years and in considerable depth. Maybe the answers are just.. inconvenient.
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Empathy is something you learn from those who raise you and the people around you - or not, it seems.
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