Guest Post: User Pays or Carbon Tax?
This is a Guest Post by regular commenter Patrick Reynolds.
In 2007 the Transport Minister Labour’s Annette King formalised NZ’s excise tax on petrol as a hypothecated tax for the National Land Transport Fund. This means that the tax is only to be used for funding transport.…
8 Comments Harbour Crossing Alternative: further thoughts
The feedback on yesterday’s blog post about my suggested alternative to another motorway harbour crossing has been quite interesting – and perhaps a little more mixed that I had anticipated. For a start, it’s probably worth clarifying that I don’t think a railway line between downtown and Takapuna is a particularly high priority for Auckland: I would put it behind the City Rail Link, rail to southwest Auckland (including the Airport), busways along State Highway 16 and in the southeast, as well as a huge overhaul of our existing bus network.…
A curious Herald editorial
I should be jumping for joy today over an editorial in the NZ Herald today that’s highly critical of Steven Joyce. But I’m just not quite sure about what it’s really trying to achieve by telling Joyce to “butt out” of the congestion charging issue.…
Time-of-use road pricing – Taking the next step, voluntarily!
Recent posts (here, here, and here) have touched on the issue of time-of-use road pricing. In this post I will briefly examine its merits, before suggesting a strategy for how it might be implemented in a way that overcomes it’s main disadvantages. …
My alternative to another road-based harbour crossing
Today’s opening of the Hobsonville Deviation motorway has somehow led to further discussion of another road-based harbour crossing of the Waitemata. This from the NZ Herald:
The pieces of Auckland’s motorway puzzle are falling into place – and the biggest piece, a second harbour crossing, is looming large in the minds of planners…
…And the mother of all roading projects, a replacement for the Auckland Harbour Bridge, is edging closer, according to New Zealand Transport Authority Auckland state highways manager Tommy Parker.…
NZTA pessimistic about impact of Hobsonville Motorway?
The Hobsonville Deviation motorway project has its open day today, and properly opens for traffic tomorrow morning. This is a fairly critical part of the Western Ring Route and will make a big difference to Hobsonville Road in particular – removing around 80% of the traffic from this road.…
Wynyard Quarter Opens
I checked out the opening of the Wynyard Quarter area today – taking Adele on her first ever bus ride in the process. It was actually pretty awesome, and it seemed like half of Auckland was there. The lifting bridge providing the connection between the area and the rest of the CBD worked well and was pretty impressive size-wise: Once we got over the bridge there was tonnes going on – with the tram loop being a particularly popular attraction.…
Funding the big transport projects
An article in today’s NZ Herald notes an important discussion at an Auckland Council meeting yesterday over their 10 year funding plan – and in particular what was said about funding options for transport projects in Auckland – including the City Rail Link.…
The “other” De Leuw Cather report
The 1960s highway study undertaken by American consultants De Leuw Cather has a somewhat infamous status in Auckland’s transport history, laying out a motorway network that has driven calls to “complete it” for decades since. Fortunately much of this plan has never happened and probably never will.…
Is Steven Joyce right about public transport subsidies?
Public transport subsidies are a perennially controversial topic. In this post I quickly summarise the case for subsidies before highlighting why Steven Joyce is pretty much wrong about public transport subsidies in Auckland.
Public transport subsidies are basically motivated by “externalities.” …
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