More Double Standards from Joyce
Green MP Gareth Hughes put a few tricky questions about the holiday highway to Steven Joyce in parliament today: You can read the transcript here.
While Mr Hughes fell for the typical mistake of trying to score a “king hit” with a rather too all encompassing assumption (even I somewhat agree with Steven Joyce when he says that it’s far too simple to say that public transport will always solve the problem and roads never will), the best question he asked by far – and the one that made Joyce squirm a bit in his reply, is outlined below:
Gareth Hughes: Given the Minister has said that more analysis is needed, why did he commit billions of dollars to the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” in March 2009 when the business case was not completed until 9 months later, in December 2009, and, as the Minister said only 4 weeks ago, “No work had been done on this project prior to it being confirmed as a road of national significance”?…
54 Comments CBD Tunnel vs Puhoi-Wellsford: an in-depth analysis
An interesting question and answer session in parliament today on the merits of the CBD Rail Tunnel and the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”. A transcript can be read here (and by the way it’s interesting to see in the video how keen Bill English & Gerry Brownlee were to say that they’re even less keen on the CBD Rail Tunnel project than Steven Joyce is).…
Joyce gets defensive
Last week wasn’t a good week for Transport Minister Steven Joyce. Starting on last Sunday, highly acclaimed business journalist Rod Oram wrote a superb article completely slamming the business cases for a variety of the roads of national significance that Joyce is so fond of.…
Exploring the web of “wider economic benefits”
Steven Joyce’s main response to the release of the CBD Rail Tunnel business case seems to have been to immediately question the accuracy of the study. In particular, he has questioned the validity of including broad urban regeneration – or employment based – wider economic benefits of the project.…
Rod Oram on the holiday highway
A really interesting article by Rod Oram in the Sunday Star Times today, discussing the cost effectiveness of the government’s various roading projects. Here are a few sections:
The government told owners of 55 properties last week that their homes or other buildings could be bulldozed to make way for its $1.65 billion Puhoi to Wellsford motorway.…
Joyce on rail in Auckland
There was an interesting radio interview of Transport Minister Steven Joyce on Radio NZ this evening, with the topic of conversation being his response to the various large promises being made by mayoral candidates for the Auckland Super City. The interview is available to listen here, and it’s certainly worth having a listen to.…
Victoria Park Tunnel – videos
While looking for some detailed plans of how NZTA will manage the closure of the Wellington Street onramp for three months starting pretty soon, I came across a couple of great videos providing updates on how building the Victoria Park Tunnel is progressing: This is a pretty exciting project and, unlike some of the other roads of national significance, the numbers seem to stack up pretty well in terms of its cost-effectiveness.…
Further analysis of RoNS & holiday highway
The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) have somehow managed to force their way into being the forefront of transport investment in New Zealand over the next decade, with a huge amount of the $10.7 billion anticipated to be spent on state highways over that period going into these seven roads.…
RoNS: just a giant subsidy for the trucking industry?
The recent debate in parliament over the economic justification behind the “Roads of National (party) Significance” (RoNS) prompted me to delve a little further into how these roads, which suck up a HUGE amount of the expenditure on transport over the next decade (over half the money NZTA will be spending on state highways across the entire country from memory will go into these seven roads), are being economically justified.…
RoNS in Parliament
Interesting question by Green MP Gareth Hughes to Steven Joyce in parliament today about the economic justifications of the Roads of National Significance (RoNS): Good to see this kind of debate happening in parliament. I’m quite impressed by Mr Hughes.
The OECD report being referred to in the questions and answers is here, and I have previously blogged about it here.…
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