Last week Infratil – the owner of NZ Bus among other things – held their annual investor day and one of the speakers was Simon Bridges whose ministerial portfolio’s of Transport, Energy and Resources as well as being the Associate Minister of Climate Change cover a lot of Infratil’s businesses.
The video of his talk is online and there are a number of quite interesting things he’s said in relation to transport which I’ll cover below.
In the first part of his talk he talks about what he sees as two key themes running through his portfolio’s, they are:
- Climate change – for which his two portfolio’s account for about 50% of NZ’s emissions.
- Disruptive Technology – where he cites changes such as electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles – which he says he wants companies to be testing them in NZ.
For those that want to watch the video the actual discussion on transport starts at 8:45 however I’ve transcribed the relevant parts below.
In a sense it’s a period of continuity, the goals of this government in transport have been the same throughout our time in office. There’ve been productivity and growth and supporting that through our transport network. There’ve been safety and there’ve been getting greater value for money from the NZTA – primarily I should say from the NZTA.
I wouldn’t be doing my job as transport minister if I wasn’t in a sense adding my values and overlay on to that so I’ve got four or five personal priorities that I want to drive quite hard. One of them is results. I want to make sure I’m getting results primarily from the New Zealand Transport Agency and that they’re delivering the things we’ve said we would like the Roads of National Significance, like the urban cycleways, like an accelerated roading package in Auckland and a regional package throughout the regions. Significant money involved in that and I expect them to deliver those projects on time on budget or if they can much better than that so that will be a real first tier priority.
There’ll be a slight change of emphasis relevant to New Zealand Bus. In a sense if you think about what we’ve done, we’re caricatured as the roading guys and girls because the roads of national significance have been such a strong branding exercise. Actually there’s a lot more to it, we’ve spent 2 billion dollars on metropolitan rail in Auckland and Wellington, about $1.7 billion in Auckland and about half a billion in Wellington. And I want to work harder as a matter of emphasis on us emphasising what we are doing on public transport and other modes whether it’s cycling whether it’s metropolitan rail or the like because we’re spending significant sums. Those that follow these things will have seen the government policy statement which informs where the money goes. I’ve upped the money in some of these areas and we will be doing more in that regard.
The suggestion that the RoNS are just a successful branding exercise is something Simon mentioned to us when we met him recently however it’s clearly much more than that. As we’ve talked about and shown many times before the RoNS have been prioritised above and sucked funding out of other projects, many of which performed better economically. It’s also been a strong branding exercise by the government to suggest they’ve spent $1.7 billion on rail in Auckland when much of it money spent or committed by the previous government or a loan that Auckland has to pay back.
Auckland will be a real priority, effectively I want to make sure we’re getting the best value for money and the right projects out of Auckland for the money we spend. That is probably going to involve Central Government having more formal engagement with than we have in the past with Auckland City the Council, with Auckland Transport, a more hands on role because as I say we want to see an effective value for money long term plan for that city because it’s so crucial to New Zealand’s Growth.
I’ve mentioned technology and my itchy – in a sense faith in it. I want to really see us using technology in transport. I’ve mentioned EV’s, autonomous vehicles and so on but there’s many examples where we get efficiencies, more productivity and enhance New Zealanders lifestyles in that.
The comments about Auckland are particularly interesting. There has been increased talk recently about the government and the council agreeing on a transport accord. While an agreement does sound good in theory it all comes down to just what’s inside the agreement and there’s always a risk the either party will force a number of unpalatable projects on the region for political reasons. More useful would be if it focused on how to get better and more coordinated planning, funding and prioritisation of projects. One possible way would be having AT also be responsible for state highways and the local rail network.
And some questions and answers of the Minister
Question (16:15): As you know in the last few years private motoring has got cheaper thanks to the cheaper price of petrol but catching the bus has got more expensive because the regional councils are pumping dough into the trains as you mentioned. Is that something that you’re worried about?
Simon Bridges: In relation to rail vs buses – I mean that’s a bit blunt but if we sort of put it like that – yeah I do, I don’t want to say worry about that, but I do think we have to tread somewhat wearily and make sure we’re in a sense platform neutral across these things. There is a lot more life in buses and I’m not kind of just saying that because I’m here in a room full of investors where you’re a company with buses I genuinely think that.
So you and I have talked for example, privately but I’m happy to open about this idea of light rail/trams in Auckland. It seems to me that’s a strange idea when you take into account that, look in London buses are the hottest things there. They have more passengers going by bus than they do by the underground and that’s because it’s seen as a premium offering. It’s got the wireless, it’s a better offering and so I think as we see more double decker buses there’s a lot more life in busing in New Zealand. It has a very strong capacity to bring the public transport and congestion benefits that yep you can also get for rail but I think often times you get from rail at a higher price.
I would agree that there is a large role in the future for buses in NZ and that still the majority of PT trips will occur on them however it’s also important to remember they are part of an overall network. When the changes that Auckland Transport are making are finally rolled out we will do away with modes that compete with each other and instead they will complement and enhance each other. It’s also a reality that on some parts of the network the capacity that buses provide simply isn’t enough and in those places rail is likely to be the best option – just like in London and any major city.
Question (18:50): Two questions related to transport, do you see a role for the private sector in some of those projects because at the moment they seem to be a central and local government initiative but we’ve seen the role PPPs can play in accelerating infrastructure. The other question around light rail for example, is it in some New Zealand projects more of an affordability issue or a timing issue.
Simon Bridges: So on your first one without going over the top on it. I think what we can say is a couple of generalisations that one, let’s just talk about Auckland for a second. It’s so fundamentally important because it’s going to see 60% of New Zealand’s population growth for the next 20 years, three quarters of a million population growth over the next 30 years so that’s Waikato/Bay of Plenty put together, that’s all of Canterbury put together, maybe a bit more so it’s important right.
What we can also say about big cities is that I think I’m very safe ground to say as they get big their transportation problems do become more complex and the projects they require become bigger and more complex alright. So even if you take my, what I’ve just said about light rail vs buses. Yep we are going to do the City Rail Link, to answer your question directly, yep there may be a place for light rail there might not be but over time we’ll work that out but there will be bigger and more complex projects is what I’m saying to you.
Where they meet the sort of tests we have I think there’s a good chance they will they’ll be by PPPs. We will need large corporate and international expertise on these things. So my hunch, more than a hunch, my view is that we will see more PPPs in New Zealand over time. We’ll pick up pace on that and that’s in the large roading projects but also in those significant public transport ones. I mean we already know we’ve got City Rail Link coming, no decisions been made on that but that foreseeably will be a PPP. We’ve got the Waitemata Harbour Crossing coming sometime in the mid to late 2020s. That will be the biggest infrastructure project New Zealand’s ever seen, it’s a $5-$7 billion project that chances are will be a PPP. Puhoi to Wellsford etcetera so already there you’ve got potentially three, four, five PPPs.
Of course based on what AT have been saying we could probably add Light Rail to that potential PPP list. I also think that depending on how they’re structured the public transport PPPs have the potential to be some of the more attractive ones as they could allow the private sector to also really integrate and leverage land use around stations. While that’s also possible if the council funds it directly.
Overall some interesting comments by Bridges and they are certainly more open towards Auckland that we heard from his predecessor. We await with interest to really see what stamp he will put on the portfolio.
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Since when has driving been getting cheaper the last few years? The last six months maybe.
‘Yep we are going to do the City Rail Link’
Perhaps someone could tell Brewer, Wood, and Quax that?
My understanding is that it is very difficult to structure a project such as the CRL as a PPP as its functionality is entirely hostage to the whole network, fisking the rewards and costs of one part of it is tricky. This is not the case with a whole new project like the proposed Light Rail. Will do a post on this shortly.
Hmm, that comment on CRL as a PPP has me worried, how can it be a PPP? If any project was definitely not suitable for a PPP CRL is it.
But is he indicating by his comments that AT will have to hand over all the properties they’ve bought after CRL is built (and the underground stations as well) to private developers in lieu of full/some payments for the construction costs to defray the cash spend? And then what? AT pays rent to private “underground mall” owners for the next 30+ years to use the stations and cannot reap the benefits of its own transport network?
Doesn’t sound like Bridges is on the same page as AT/AC thats for sure on this issue.
I think the “accord” he talking about is like a free trade deal – negotiated in private, like never made public until its signed and locked in stone and will include onerous clauses the bind the smaller party (AC) to the larger one (Central Government).
I would take exception to Bridges comment that (only) 60% of NZ’s population growth will be in Auckland, current trends put it well above that with no signs of it slowing.
He may be right for “natural” increases being 60% in Auckland, but external migration is the elephant in the room and can easily match/swamp that.
And if it comes to 90% of the growth (including external migration) happens in Auckland, then his projections of what is required for transport in Auckland for the next 30 years at 60% growth will be 50% too low.
We need a bit of future proofing on these big public transport projects and not just by adding more roads, which is the solution we’ve seen to date.
Given he’s been transport minister now for over 6 months, his actual performance to date has not really been that distinguished. Maybe he has some stuff in the Budget next month but any surprises have to announced well ahead of time. Sounds to me that he is just a “Minister of more of the same”.
No, 55-60% of nationwide growth is more or less the trend for Auckland, and that’s plenty.
I disagree the long term growth trend of Auckland is 40% of national growth. That is also typical for the biggest city in a country -Zipf’s law. Any other figure is taking a small year sample and over valuing its importance for spin purposes……
The London comment I suggest only makes sense in the context of a room full of bus owners. Is nonsense. All London’s modes are very full and are run on a complimentary basis, whether it’s train, tube, or bus. There is little or sense of people selecting one mode over another, you use the one that serves the route you need.
What is perhaps more disappointing given he is Climate Change and Energy Minister too is that he doesn’t highlight the value of electric trains over diesel ones, and diesel buses, but again I guess he doesn’t want to do that to the bus owners; exactly the people he should though, they need to feel some pressure to lift their emissions and energy source game. He gets very ‘excited’ about electric cars, but will allow Kiwi Rail to trash their electric locos with short term justifications? So is it just cars that gets him excited?
This is the electric century and we are well placed to take advantage of that, and we need to kick the imported liquid fuels habit. leadership would be good.
Does this comment in the question make sense? “… catching the bus has got more expensive because the regional councils are pumping dough into the trains”
I don’t understand how investing in trains makes buses (more) expensive – unless you are saying we bus owners get less subsidy per passenger now as the regional councils have invested in trains and can’t pay our ever increasing subsidy requests as a result.
I understood,the subsidies to bus owners are dropping because the Ministers own government requires a higher farebox recovery for each passenger, isn’t that the actual story here – the bus owners have to put up fares to cover their share of the costs more fairly than they did before?
Or are these guys accusing the Regional councils of cherry picking routees for the trains?
Got news for you lot – PTOM.
Greg that’s frankly just bollocks. Because of the current set-up 100% of the new revenues from the rise in bus pax goes to the bus operators. AT (us) are investing in all sorts of ways to increase their profits. Additionally the huge rise in rail use is feeding a lift in bus pax too. It’s just nonsense from a vested interest.
Agree its utter bollocks.
On review I think the questioner is actually meaning:
“We find we can’t compete on the bus routes that directly compete with the faster/more modern trains (in Wellington and Auckland) like we could before [as the trains are so much better/faster/more convenient than anything we can offer]. So we now lose money on these routes as they have declining passenger numbers, before we could seek a top-up on the subsidy per passenger now we’re capped at 50% maximum per passenger and our costs are going up while the trains is going down. Can you put a stop to this so we can stem our losses and can you please restore our monopoly profits again?”
So its simply a case of outright special pleading of the worst sort from these guys.
No it’s not Greg. It’s a perfectly reasonable query from somebody looking to protect themselves and their shareholders interests. It would be negligent of him (her?) to do any different.
The only you need to be concerned about is the response.
Neither the question or reply are “in order”. A Minister of the crown has a responsibility directly to the taxpayers of NZ, not a vested group of bus owners/drivers.
Asking to “do something” about the “unfair playing field” they now find themselves is special pleading. Neither the questioner or the Minister covered themselves in any glory on this one.
Yes, Bridges response is waffly and vague, but seems to indicate without saying directly, that LRT has no place at all – unless – its owned/run by the same bus operators who run the buses now (i.e. Infratil owned NZ Bus).
Does raise the issue, if Double deckers are good enough as the minister implies they are, how come NZ Bus isn’t running any now on any of its dozens of routes?
H&E are putting double deckers on their routes later this year, yes there are overhead clearance and related issues to be sorted, but NZ bus is clearly dragging the chain here on double deckers – and worse, is doubling down (not up) on smaller ADL buses that can’t carry the required passenger loads instead of the larger buses like double Deckers that are clearly required.
“A Minister of the crown has a responsibility directly to the taxpayers of NZ, not a vested group of [insert vested group involved in road transport here].” – I can only assume you are ignoring the politics of the National party over the last 7 years.
It is clear that the National party feel much more responsibility directly the vested groups. That is the only way to explain most of their transport investment. Especially in relation to Auckland, their transport investment, especially the RoNS, are not providing what the people say they want.
Saying the national election was a mandate for that investment is nonsense as so few people vote on transport issues. However, I think a lot of people in Auckland voted for Brown based on his CRL policy – it was front and centre in the policy debate.
It’s not a very useful comment, a bit like mfwic banging on about ‘revealed preferences’. It’s not a revealed preference so much as a revealed use. A roundabout way of saying people used the most the thing they used the most, or in other words people usually picked the thing that worked best for them given the options at their disposal… Something that is all but useless when talking about a new thing that people might use if it started to exist in the future.
Anyway, it’s daft to split hairs of which mode or what. For a start it depends on how you cut the cake. Yes london has more bus trips that underground trips, but it has more rail trips in total that bus trips, if you don’t arbitrarily separate the trains that run mostly underground from the ones that run mostly above the ground. And it also has more walking trips than either bus or rail. Doesn’t exactly mean that walking is a premium product!
Secondly, one or the other-ism ignored the fact that there is a network of transport links of various modes, usually used in concert. If I’m not mistaken slightly more than half of the underground users get to the station by bus. So what’s the premium option, well a good integrated network by the sonds of things.
Finally the ministers rational is pretty weak. The bus is premium because it’s got wifi and because it’s preminum (!). Well in Auckland the trains will all have wifi, and before the buses. So does that make the opposite true here?
Yes the underground is most definitely the ‘premium’ option with buses being used to connect with the tube as you say.
In London if you are going a distance of less than 5km and there isn’t a tube line directly from your location to your destination then bus will be the preferred option 9 times out of 10. However if travelling further then the tube is usually a lot faster and in London’s cold winters can be more pleasant than the bus.
The main thing is that they work together (zone based Oyster card daily limits) so if you are staying within your zone then a bus+train (tube or overground or NR) in each direction will usually get you close to your daily zone limit so any further trips don’t cost any more.
Even a multizone trip (higher daily zone limit) will usually be reached with the above trip over 2 zones.
The great thing is the TfL website and apps are very good at giving you multiple options over multiple modes of transport to get where you need to go. Speaking of London, I would love to see more double-decker buses in Auckland (don’t cost much more to purchase or operate, yet they provide double the capacity of a standard bus).
Yeah, the Minister is making a fool of himself, talking absolute nonsense about buses being the premium product, just because he’s talking to a bus operating company. Would love to see how he answers a similar question when addressing Veolia management or shareholders.
I certainly rarely took a bus in london if a rail option was available.
The premium product is something operated on it’s own right of way which gets you to your destination quickly and reliably, be that the NEX or the train.
The premium product is certainly not a smelly old Infratil waka pacific bus stuck in traffic with no wifi.
Yeah he’s talking complete bollocks; he obviously knows nothing about transport in London. Although I suspect he knows nothing about transport, full stop.
If I’m going from Wimbledon to Arnos Grove (I’ve done this trip not long ago) it would take 2hours 40 minutes by bus and 53 minutes by tube.
Not sure if more nervous, or confused. This is being said to a room full of bus investors so I guess certain comments need to be taken with a grain of salt. Action is good, but not sure if he is heading in the right direction…He seems to love the driverless cars, not sure why when mass uptake is still so far away, considering that the majority of people driving on the roads need to be in one to get any efficiency benefits.
Trams vs Buses? I guess again he is in a room full of bus investors, but I think he needs to try catching a bus on lower Dominion Road during peak time to see the capacity problems we are already having.
Also why does this Government always try to talk up the amount of spending on PT/Rail when most of it has been committed by the previous government, and any $$ for any investment in PT is so hard fought for yet they are willing to hand out money willy nilly to any roading project regardless of economic performance?
You do have to wonder what planet these National party ministers are on as they prattle on about fantasy PPPs. The comments about London buses/underground suggest that Bridges has very little experience of travelling around London. And the other risible porky about councils putting up fares because of trains is just another weird non sequitur. At least this minister can put two words together unlike his predecessors: all Joyce could say was ‘motorways’; Brownlee just made car noises.
And how much has he studied the failure of UK PPPs, both rail and train operating companies. Metronet Rail (maintained and operated he infrastrucre for half the tube lines) went bust, Railtrack (maintained the national rail network) went bust, National Express defaulted on the east coast mainline operation, and so on.
Its funny how the government are against investing in PT because self driving cars are supposedly the future, but when it comes to investing in roads this future isn’t even considered.
Is the Kirkbride road grade separation really needed with self driving cars? I would have thought the whole business case is largely based on improving safety and for future traffic growth, but self driving cars are meant to fix both of these problems.
Same with a second harbour crossing – we keep on hearing about how self driving cars will be much more efficient at using road space than humans (twice as efficient?), so its unlikely we need another crossing until the current bridge is end of life. And with self driving cars they could probably close a clip-on lane and the bridge would still have enough capacity, so they could just replace the clip-ons to extend the life of the bridge.
I think there is a hidden agenda by the freight industry here, as big, and as long a con as the US motor industry pulled on America and NZ post WWII with the way they purchased then shutdown many of the city wide (streetcar/tram based) transit systems replacing them with hundreds and hundreds of inferior buses – just like the pup we were sold when trams were ripped up here and replaced with buses.
The con here is that the bus and freight guys collectively dangle the “driverless tech” mirage in front of the minister and encourage him to make big investments in roads – to cater for this driverless tech future we will all enjoy.
The hidden part of the con is that the freight companies know that they can make huge savings on freight haulage if they can get driverless trucks on the roads way quicker than anyone else (including their opposition) can.
Because they know HPV’s haven’t really saved that much money as was hoped because they still need a driver – but imagine a fleet of driverless HPVs running around the country side – its like a fleet of low cost 747s dedicated to freight haulage 24/7.
But these guys (unlike the Minister it seems) also know the tech is so immature that driverless anything let alone freight trucks won’t be able to cope with mixed traffic for many decades if at all.
So what they’ll lobby for down the track is making these big expensive roading projects e.g. holiday highway and other roads like the Kirkbridge road interchange – partially or fully driverless only (with fully segregated “driverless vehicles only” lanes/roads and have all the “human” controlled cars/trucks and whatever back on the old (crappy) routes on the margin.
As a result they’ll cream the profits from not needing humans at the wheel, and all at the cost of the rest of us subsidising this operating model for a select few of beneficiaries.
Driverless buses will be way way trickier to implement as it has to drive in mixed traffic and also has a load of humans on it (paying passengers), so whenever it crashes its big news
– they figure no one cares about driverless trucks crashing – because no one is hurt especially if they’re on their own roads/lanes.
And think this will reduce your freight costs on the products you use accordingly?
Think again, because like the huge profits from those ever huger container ships that ports like Auckland and Tauranga have to cater for every 10 or so years, they’ll remain with the owners of the leviathans not with the folks who use the service they provide.
So its just a giant “privatise the profits and socialise the costs” scheme gussied up as a wonderful universal and utopian dream. Just like all those Jetson and Disney cartoons promised we’d all have.
Great point Greg, I hadn’t really thought of the option of having driverless only long distance roads. Basically a truck driver drives from origin to the start of the driverless only road, gets out, the truck drives itself to the destination city, a different driver gets in and drives to the destination. I can see the value in this – but it doesn’t change the fact that automated vehicles will not fix city problems any time soon.
Driverless long distance roads would also be good for cars too, a lot of fatalities occur on long journeys – assuming driverless cars on a dedicated road are safer than driven cars.
but imagine if all the new roads ever built were for Driverless (trucks) only and you needed a driverless (truck) to use them?
How would that help your scenario – thats the “long game” the freight industry is playing here. They don’t want regular drivers or people in driverless cars on the same roads as them.
They want special purpose lanes/roads that only have other driverless vehicles on them, with no people inside them, that way there can be no loss of life when the inevitable happens and the trucks run out of control and crash.
Building, running and maintaining that separate infra. will be a multi-decade investment – the sort that private enterprise never makes because the returns are so long in coming, so it will fall on the likes of Minister Bridges and his successors to approve and pay.
Sounds a bit like driverless trains to me or am I missing something?
Yes you’re right, they do, but you see we can’t call them that because they don’t have rubber tyres and don’t run on concrete roads.
But other than that, its a driverless train. But Shh, don’t tell anyone.
There is a huge difference between driverless trucks and driverless trains – a driverless truck can be driven on standard roads by a person where required so it can be end to end. With a train you need to load the goods onto a truck, take it to the train, load it on the train, take it as close to the destination as possible, load it onto a truck, and take it to the destination.
“a driverless truck can be driven on standard roads by a person where required”
You assume it comes with a steering wheel and all the other accoutrements of a bygone era like a forward facing cabin with windscreen, young padawan.
True driverless vehicles in the future will not need to be like this and having trucks that can be driven by people is a half way house at best and expose as many problems as it solves.
“With a train you need to load the goods onto a truck, take it to the train, load it on the train, take it as close to the destination as possible, load it onto a truck, and take it to the destination.”
That may currently be the case, but who is to say that for instance KiwiRail (or more likely their proactive futuristic, kicked up the arse incarnation) will not in a few years have true drive on rail wagons and proper rail infra. that allows (human) driven trucks like we have now, to be driven onto a rail wagon, secured easily and securely with little more than a handbrake and magnetic clamps and then railed swiftly by driverless (or remote controlled) train and smoothly to the closest rail depot, where upon it is then driven off the train onto the roads and all without all that tedious moving the goods between vehicles as is done now.
And that future I can imagine happening way way sooner and for a lot less $.
The whole thing is arrogance and spin. Roads of National Significance is not a branding exercise it is an ideological straight jacket of central government control over how and where urban development occurs.
In Wellington and Auckland National had to continue with a few PT schemes that Labour had started but National have not initiated any new ones. In Canterbury the government has not introduced any new PT schemes despite it being the second biggest city that desperately needs to be rebuilt productively after the earthquakes. National certainly has done nothing to support cycling in Christchurch either.
P.S I doubt Auckland will get 60% of the population growth. Auckland is only building 1/3 of the new houses in NZ so how is it possible that they will get 60% of the new people?
I further believe that Simon Bridges deliberately overstates Auckland’s growth prospects because that justifies Central government control over transport provision because Auckland is ‘special’. It is all about massaging egos as a method of spin to justify control not being given to regions.
When population growth is correctly stated as being Auckland and Canterbury will have about 60% of the growth (Auckland getting 30 to 40% and Canterbury getting 20 to 30%) and 80% of the growth will occur in Auckland, Canterbury, Waikato, Wellington and the Bay of Plenty then it is less clear why Central government needs to control transport spending to control the urban development in all these areas.
We all seem to agree that new urban development should pay for the full cost of new infrastructure development. The easiest way to do that is for regional taxpayers and governments to manage this process.
Usually two thirds of Aucklands growth comes from natural increases (i.e. births – deaths) so increased ocupancy, both through children in dwellings previously occupied by childless couples and more (and larger/fuller) retirement villages, could handle a lot of the growth. I also suspect that construction in Auckland is currently being constrained by developers waiting for the Unitary Plan to come into effect.
Massive immigration and Chinese buying boltholes in safe western cities. The traditional methods of population increase are changing.
“the roading guys and girls”?
What girls? They’re pretty thin on the ground in the upper echelons of transport planning that produced the RoNS. When was the last time we had a girl Minister of Transport? Not under this National government, that’s for sure. And there appear to be more women on NZTA’s “About us” page than on their board.
I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism about Mr Bridges on the basis of anything he has said here. I’ll change my mind if and when he shows us the (non-RoNS) money.
Annette King was strong on motorways
Why do the right think it’s appropriate to waste taxpayer money with privately financed PPPs?
“The suggestion that the RoNS are just a successful branding exercise is something Simon mentioned to us when we met him recently”
And did he say anything else that is interesting or at odds with what he is saying here or was it the same old BS like every other transport minister.
As for RoNS being a branding exercise, he is right – in the original meaning of the word, i.e. a way of marking goods or animals as “yours”.
The RoNS will forever mark the recipient towns and cities as having been “owned” by the Key National Government and the resulting “brand marks” on the environment made by its billions of dollars of roads spending with very poor outcomes will take a long time, if ever to be erased from the landscape, the lives and the memories of those who “were there” or who come after the RoNS.
The climate change that will follow in due course from the equally poor “Business as usual”, will brand the entire country with a great burden of mitigation costs and consequent unintended consequences directly stemming from the half arsed “Branding” exercise that the RoNS represent.
And those driverless cars he is so fond of? They’ll still be as distant a memory when he and all his ministerial colleagues retire from politics, as it is today.
Way to make your mark, Mr Bridges, Joyce, Key and co.
I think it is foolish to hang on every word the Transport Minister speaks, as if everything he says is somehow fully-considered, meaningful, and significant. This assumes that he has thoroughly informed himself on the subject and carefully weighed-up all the pertinent and conflicting issues..
The reality I suspect is that his understanding of transport matters is as shallow as that of his predecessors. He has been allocated this portfolio as a generic minister, not as a transport specialist. Therefore I suspect that most of what he says is off-the-top-of-his-head, unthought-through, and heavily coloured by basic National Party ideology.
I believe we should not attach too much significance to his words.
you think the minister was asked to speak at infratils investors conference and decided to just turn up and wing it?
No, not ‘turn up and wing it’. I’m sure the minister prepared extensively. But he clearly spoke without an in-depth understanding of the complex issues which utlimately determine transport outcomes. Issues which are being manipulated by this government based on party-political ideology, not on sound transport planning.
– The complete lack-of-awareness of any down-side to his govt’s heavy bias towards road-building
– the continued myth-peddling that this govt initiated the DART, WARP and AEP programmes
– an obvious absence of any understanding of the interrelated roles of urban rail and bus
– casual talk of more PPP’s (“a hunch. . “, and “chances are. .”), with an air of belief that these deals are somehow a risk-free way to proceed.
I say again, I believe we should not attach too much significance to this minister’s utterances.
Dave B – I believe you right. It is doubtful if the Minister has thought about the issues as much as many of the contributors to this blog.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job as transport minister if I wasn’t in a sense adding my values and overlay on to that so I’ve got four or five personal priorities that I want to drive quite hard.”
So, gut feeling and ideology has now replaced common sense and need.
Another Harbour Crossing! Pourquoi? At least we will have $60 odd million in the kitty because we aren’t wasting it away on Northland bridges -or are we?