We’re only a couple of days away from the election so here’s a quick recap of the key aspects of transport polices of various parties.
National and Labour
We covered both National’s and Labour’s transport policies more in depth earlier, and both are strikingly similar. Especially given the year we’ve had with weather events showing the scale and impact of climate change we already need to account for, both major parties are proposing irresponsible transport programmes – by promising large scale road building programmes that will suck up massive amounts of money, and completely ignoring any attempt to try and reduce emissions from transport.
While there’s a lot of similarity between the two lists of projects, the big area where they differ is in how to pay for them – though both include some forms of crown grants and loans.
National
National is promising to fund their road expansion by pulling money from public transport, active transport and road safety – and adding a large can of magic beans in the form of investment by the likes of international pension funds. They have mixed up financing and funding, however, as any private investment will still need to be paid back and likely at a much higher rate than if the government just took on debt directly.
These financing options are a sure-fire way for us to spend a lot more money over the long term to build infrastructure. A deal good for bankers, not so good for New Zealanders.
While there are some important public transport projects on National’s list, some already funded, while the others – Northwest Rapid Transit and Airport to Botany – either require special funding or National are expecting Auckland to pay for half.
National came under criticism when they launched their transport policy for using out-of-date project costings, with Labour suggesting they could be nearly $5 billion short.
National is also promising to end schemes like the clean car discount – which has been hugely successful at encouraging people to buy electric vehicles – and Auckland’s Regional Fuel Tax, which is a critical source of funding for many of Auckland’s existing transport projects.
Labour
Labour is looking to pay for its promises a bit differently, and somewhat more realistically. The key will be an increase in fuel taxes and Road User Charges, starting with “two six-monthly 2 cents per litre increases for the first year, followed by two annual 4 cents per litre increases, reaching a total of 12 cents per litre in July 2026“.
They’re also looking to hypothecate traffic infringements directly into the National Land Transport Fund rather than them going to the general fund.
Greens
As you would expect, the Greens transport policy emphasises building and investing in lower-emission options, with a focus on making it easier to get around our cities and around the country using public transport, walking and cycling.
The key parts of their plan are listed as:
- Transform public transport networks, including building light rail in Auckland and Wellington, and providing comprehensive bus lanes in all cities.
- Invest in nationwide rapid rail for passengers and freight, to connect regions and major cities, and contribute to economic development, and decarbonisation.
- Increase the accessibility of e-bikes for people on low incomes by rolling out community hire schemes through marae, community centres, and educational institutes, together with targeted subsidies.
- Extend Community Connect to provide free fares for students and apprentices, community service card holders, everyone under 18, and all Total Mobility card holders.
- Enable the direct provision of public transport, services by regional councils, by replacing the Public Transport Operating Model.
- Create safe walking and biking routes for every school through more pedestrian crossings, and lower speed limits near schools.
- Require road and street maintenance projects to consider improvements to active and public transport infrastructure, such as cycleways and busways.
In interviews, they’ve confirmed that the light rail focus in cities will be on surface solutions, with the savings from not pursuing the government’s current deep tunnel plans for Auckland being used to help fund light rail in Wellington and Christchurch as well.
ACT
ACT don’t seem to have a dedicated transport policy, but a press release says they’re “proposing a genuine shakeup of how roading infrastructure is funded in New Zealand“.
“ACT is the only Party proposing a genuine shakeup of how roading infrastructure is funded in New Zealand, ensuring Auckland, and the rest of New Zealand gets access to safe, modern and efficient roads.
“ACT is proposing to introduce a world-class toll roading system. It will use private sector financing and expertise to get new roads built faster and to maintain existing roads more quickly and effectively.
[…..]
“Under a world-class toll roading system, New Zealanders will have a choice: make use of new toll roads much sooner or wait for tax-funded roads to be delivered later or never.
So essentially all roads would be built as a Public Private Partnership with the cost paid back via tolls.
In some ways this is quite good: none of the mega-roading projects announced by National or Labour would happen under this kind of plan because they simply won’t stack up financially – most don’t stack up economically anyway. There are plenty of examples overseas of PPPs overseas failing when they rely on toll revenue to pay for them. That’s why the industry changed their model effectively to be a loan with a guaranteed payback for the private partner, which is what’s happened with Transmission Gully and Puhoi to Warkworth.
New Zealand First
As always, New Zealand First’s transport polices are a grab bag of populist talking points and oddities, such as focusing on Waka Kotahi’s name or promising to build fishing vessels.
While there are a few good things, e.g. they “Support quality affordable public transport in urban and rural areas“, there are a couple of specific points that stand out in relation to things we focus on.
- Require new cycle lane funding to be resourced by local government with an immediate moratorium on any new cycle lane funded from the National Land Transport Fund.
- Cancellation of Road to Zero with monies prioritised for local and regional road reengineering improvements to speed New Zealand up to 100 km/h and 110km/h, not slow it down
Given the current state of the polls, it could be a very close result on Saturday, with a lot at stake in the next few years.
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The world is seeing a weird shift back to 1950’s thinking at the moment and it’s weird and scary. It’s being fueled by culture wars w hich have no real place in transport…or politics in general (but hey if you’ve ran out of actual ideas or they are too hard to do).
This is the most tepid, uninspiring election I’ve seen in this country at one of the most critical junctures of the 21st Century. Ah well, she’ll be right..
National came under criticism when they launched their transport policy for using out-of-date project costings
National “used the most conservative publicly available costings for each of these projects as opposed to producing a figure that really would just be an estimate of what inflation might or might not be over the next 10 years,” National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown told Newsroom.
“This is a 10-year plan so we expect the costs will be revised over that time. But we are confident that we can build these projects within the funding envelope we have identified. We have also set aside a $1.4 billion contingency to cover any additional costs, which is a lot higher than the $48 million Labour set aside as contingency for the [New Zealand Upgrade] Programme.”
One reason for NZs low productivity is that we have spent far too much on roads, sprawl, the associated infrastructure and the cost of servicing 5000 km of roads and houses. The land bankers, developers and National want to continue with the sprawl and then expect others to provide very high cost PT and services.
One of Labours best achievements has been to intensify which has been done despite strong opposition such as the burning of KO at Botany. Apartment living is better for the economy, families and the environment,
“One of Labours best achievements has been to intensify”
Ironically, the country-wide relaxation of the restrictive anti-density rules was a bi-partisan agreement between Labour and National. One of the greatest policy improvements of the last decade, in my view. Of course now National has abandoned it.
Yes that was sad. I feel a green vote coming on.
There is an embarrassment looming for any future govt,in the form of ferry infrastructure for the new interislanders arriving 2025 and 2026. As with any building project,the costs will have inevitably blown out,but there seems to be little real progress on either end, Kiwi Rail certainly not trumpeting anything about it.
With this expenditure, grade separating Auckland train network, inevitable cost blow outs on existing projects, and Cyclone repairs,it is hard to see anything left in the road building budget.
On an Auckland level,killing the fuel tax,will be highly problematic,expecting all of Aucklands issues to be solved by rates revenue is wishful thinking. Our rates will soon hit $100 per week, l realize some people pay a lot more. We ,as a society have some tough choices ahead, not sure road building should feature highly among them.
The National party had consistently attacked Te Huia and threatened its future
Simeon Brown said “It is a huge cost. National wouldn’t have done it but it’s started now, so if we are elected we are going to have a look at it from a cost-benefit perspective,”.
This person shouldn’t be anywhere near transport policy, he’s dangerously backward. Whatever Labour has done wrong, it’s nothing compared with what this guy is promising.
The National party also want to scrap the Community Connect Concession.
I think with Winston involved and all the sunk costs such as the infrastructure at Rotokauri it will be quietly reviewed and survive.
A vote for National is for:
More massive roads
Less public transport (especially light rail)
Reduced spending on rail infrastructure
Cancelling public transport fare concessions
More incentives for gas guzzling utes over clean emissions vehicles
Reduce spending on road safety (in fact spending in an to attempt to get speed limit decisions reversed)
Increased borrowing
More budget blowouts
More rates increases
The National Party’s 100-day plan includes cancelling the Auckland 10c fuel surcharge (I don’t know if they have said they will make up the funding), and
Issue a draft new Government Policy Statement on Transport reflecting National’s new Roads of
National Significance and public transport projects.
• Stop Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions and start work on replacing the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022.
• Withdraw central government from Labour’s failed Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme.
• Cancel Labour’s Auckland Light Rail project.
I don’t think national have any plan for Auckland rapid transit full stop.
The northwest bus way is already in place albeit a temporary solution that will get better over time and likely be in place for 20 plus years.
The eastern bus way proposed by national is largely already completed and AT are already working on the final stage. And the Botany to airport bus way is the only proposal that isn’t already in place or under construction, but national won’t look at this until there 2nd or 3rd term, I also heard that it might be some sort of gadget barn system, ie monorail cable car or rubber tire train.
So Auckland is the real looser in this election.
Could AT take back the light rail proposal?
Perhaps the most alarming things not discussed so far are National’s plans to cut spending on PT, Active Modes and safety (except to spend a huge amount to reverse Safe Speeds changes and make those roads deadly again).
Very few of the major projects that they are trumpeting are ready to go. Their entire 3-yr term will disappear in planning and procurement before a shovel hits the dirt, followed by years of committed disruption and spending to build any of them, before the freight industry sees any improvement in productivity out of these measures. The lower cost parts of the transport programme (safety, PT active modes) are the items with best positive Benefit-Cost Ratios and are delivered much more quickly (despite the inertia to get those programmes moving over the last 6 years).
“Very few of the major projects that they are trumpeting are ready to go.”
Have *I* got an East West Link for you!
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/east-west-link/#:~:text=Update%20on%20East%20West%20Link&text=Two%20appeals%20against%20the%20BOI's,East%20West%20Link%20was%20upheld.
Just a few sweet billion. Easily able to be started by a government directing an agency that is keen to build motorways in a way they never were keen to build public transport.
“National is also promising to end schemes like the clean car discount – which has been hugely successful at encouraging people to buy electric vehicles ” Has it?
How much difference would’ve it been if this was not implemented? EV’s already stacked up financially very well.
I haven’t seen stats on it but I do wonder if the sinking lid on CO2 output for imports in the Clean Car Standard have had a greater positive effect than individual purchases triggered by the rebate.
This has shifted the used car market a lot, and you can see it on the streets of Auckland where it seems that every third car is a Toyota hybrid of some description.
exactly my thoughts, it’s massive waste of money that has benefit only for car dealerships importing cars from overseas and people that are reasonably wealthy already that they’d buy EV without any price incentive anyway.
Sad, after the disappointment of another ageing mayor of our city winning a “democratic” election, we are now faced with someone actually born before 1950, very much doing the time warp back to before motorways were built. And what did we have before the motorways? A rather respectable public transport system, based on trams/light rail.
For someone who grew up here in the 1980s and 1990s, with a defunct railway (memories of walking on train tracks because there were almost no trains); the electrified train network is a marvel.
Having seen the world, with examples of historic preserved tramways and subways, and progressive modern investment by governments into improving public transport in far more difficult circumstances than this city.
And like us all, returning with visions of the future, to discover that we really do live in a backwards outpost that carries a very ignorant colonial prevalence in its general population.
Quality apartments and quality public transport are the only legitimate answer to our changing climate and there is very little promise from politicians that they will use science and research to make their decisions that will effect us all.
We vote because we hope, but there is little hope in the polls that point to a true dinosaur returning to take us forward to the past.
The funny thing about NZers overseas, they generally love the vibe of Euro cities: the mid-rise neighbourhoods, al fresco dining, the ease of getting around on trams and bikes etc. Then they come home and complain about car traffic here! We could have it here, but we’re too provincial and backward.
Don’t get me wrong, I love NZ and most NZers, but we’re bunch of yokels, really.
Yes Winston and NZF are very pro heavy-rail. You might even see RR if not RRR being planned.
This blog has a long history of being very anti-NZF with obvious bias. Probably because NZF and the Greens are big rivals on several issues.
RR = regional rail
RRR = rapid regional rail
?
Yes RR as in an extension to Tauranga, possibly reintroducing Auckland-Wellington.
RRR as in making plans to speed up RR – rail improvements, faster trains, further electrification etc.
Heavy rail is not the answer to every problem. For example in NZF’s transport policies they say “NZ First will instead back a heavy rail spur from Puhinui Station to the Airport at a fraction of the cost”, they don’t however mention “At a fraction of the benefit”. LR was never really about the airport.
I hardly think this blog is being biased against NZF given these policies:
– Require new cycle lane funding to be resourced by local government with an immediate moratorium on any new cycle lane funded from the National Land Transport Fund
– Cancellation of Road to Zero
– Immediate cessation of work on Auckland Light Rail
– Cessation of ‘Lets Get Wellington Moving’ except for the new road tunnel and funding to connect the airport to SH1 as “four lanes to the planes”.
I’m not saying it is, but in many cases it is. That airport rail spur if done back when proposed would’ve cost $1B…. Now we’ve got plans for TLR running to around $20B just around the isthmus (not including the new under harbour).
You could build surface LR along Dom Rd to serve most of what is needed and still have tens of billions left over.
$1b to replace the Puhinui bus with a less frequent train is about as bad an idea as $20b on a metro line.
But you’re fine with the additional multi billions to extend tunneled LR to the airport?
You’re forgetting about the network/single seat effect not too mention that travelers tend to view rail over buses by a huge margin.
National in their (shonky) fiscal statement:
“National will issue a new Government Policy Statement on Land Transport, in line with the funding
set out this Fiscal Plan. As outlined in Transport for the Future, priority will be given to state highway improvements, road maintenance including fixing potholes, and the roll-out of a nationwide EV charging network. National intends to spend less on other areas such as coastal shipping, inter-regional public transport and walking and cycling.”
One NZ First policy is to build the rail connection to Marsden Point.
I ended up voting for NZF being the least worst option for the direction I’d like to see. Transport is important to me but I’m no fan of co governance. Hopefully he will keep the nats somewhat in check.
was the choice how many decades backwards you wanted to go? I hear 1950 is nice this time of year.
I did similar. At least we might get 2 of the 3 ports not connected by rail connected (or reconnected in the case of Eastland Port). I think a line to Nelson might be a bit more of an ask.
What a meaningful and humane article. Thank you for sharing with us. Now let’s try to play the game with me.
The post provides a comprehensive overview of the transport policies in the 2023 election. It delves into the potential impact on Auckland’s transportation landscape, offering valuable insights into the political decisions shaping the city’s future. The analysis is thorough and serves as a reliable resource for anyone interested in understanding the intersection of politics and transport planning.