Toll motorways to pay for rail?
There’s an interesting opinion piece in today’s Herald by Alan Griffith – a former director of finance for the Tauranga City Council – on motorway tolling and the funding of rail projects.
One thing Mr Griffith does very well is outline the argument for why roads should pay for rail – something I have argued repeatedly in recent times:
Why, you ask, should road traffic fund rail development?…
18 Comments Shedding some light on this $30 million “funding gap”
My previous post, which commented on an NZ Herald article relating to operating costs of Auckland’s rail system, noted the somewhat bizarre emergence of a $30 million funding gap. While my previous post asked the question of “where the heck did this funding gap come from?”…
CBD Tunnel delaying tactics begin
Interesting article on the CBD Rail Tunnel in the NZ Herald today. A few excerpts:
Auckland has been told to meet a claimed $30 million annual funding gap for keeping its trains running before the Government will seriously consider a $2 billion inner-city railtunnel.…
Should the Council start a bus company?
My post the other day about the Public Transport Management Act, and the changes that it now seems won’t be happening to it, got me thinking about ways in which we could improve the cost-effectiveness of providing public transport. While the fact that the PTMA will now not be changed sounds good, I worry that this is effectively the result of many of the bus operators’ concerns (generally that they might not be able to make huge profits off public subsidies anymore) have been met in another way.…
How to pay for these rail projects?
Somewhat unsurprisingly, many commentators have been quick to write off Len Brown’s transport vision for Auckland as impossibly expensive, ‘pie in the sky’ aspirations. Some of the criticism has come from predictable sources, like David Farrar’s Kiwiblog:
Len may think he has a mandate for the rail – and he does if the ratepayers of Auckland who voted for him are willing to pay for it.…
Fund the CBD rail tunnel with parking levies?
The big question mark surrounding what progress we can hope to make on the CBD Rail Tunnel in the next few years is “where is the funding going to come from?” If the project costs around $1.5 billion I have always thought a likely split would be central government funding around a billion (through NZTA and most likely through doing a cheaper and more cost effective Puhoi-Wellsford) and the Auckland region finding the remaining $500 million from local funding sources.…
Massive media coverage for rail
Wow, things really have gone crazy in transport circles over the last few days since the local government elections. In the past I had found myself highly disappointed by the lack of information on the big public transport projects advanced by the mayoral candidates (as they were at the time), but now it seems like we’re almost getting overwhelmed by the media’s interest.…
Parliament discusses Auckland’s transport future
There was a very interesting question and answer session in parliament today on how the Auckland local government elections may affect transport priorities. A transcript of the discussion can be read here.
There are a number of matters that are interesting to comment on here.…
Super City: where to now?
As I noted yesterday, the Super City election results are pretty good for public transport advocates like myself. We have a new Mayor who talks great vision when it comes to improving the rail network and seems highly determined to turn that vision into a reality.…
ARTA’s Public Transport Vision
At the July 2010 Board Meeting of NZTA, ARTA made a quite interesting presentation – what they called “Auckland’s Public Transport Strategy”. The whole presentation can be downloaded here (it’s really just a quick Microsoft Powerpoint display), and there are some parts of it that are worthy of sharing – and of further comment.…
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