Warkworth-Wellsford: in or out?
Yesterday NZTA released a map of their projects and priorities in Auckland, as part of the National Land Transport Programme release of information. The whole map (in case NZTA remove or update it) is shown below: As Cam’s post yesterday noted, there’s something in the way Puhoi-Wellsford is shown that really stood out – showing the Warkworth to Wellsford section of the road as a “possible” Road of National Significance.…
12 Comments Is Brownlee stretching the truth? Fuel prices, vehicle demands, and the RoNS
Gerry Brownlee made some quite remarkable statements in parliament recently (this video is worth watching; Lockwood’s response to Julie’s point of order about halfway through was a moment of quite some mirth in my flat). To summarise Julie’s questions and Gerry’s answers (NB: I have quoted Gerry verbatim in some places, hence some of it is incoherent): Are the RoNs an appropriate use of money? …
An “Insight” into the RoNS package
A fairly lengthy and detailed documentary on the Roads of National Significance projects was aired on Radio NZ this morning. You can listen to the 27 minute long documentary here.
Quite a few comments in this previous thread relate to the documentary – and raise some important points I think: Most of the non-political commentators (NZCID, AA, Road Transport Forum etc.)…
Brownlee is a Roads Scholar …
It’s been quite sad watching some of the recent exchanges in parliament.
The Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee, and the Associate Minister Simon Bridges, have been swimming furiously against the arguments put forward by Julie Anne Genter from the Green Party.…
NZTA spends $8m on RoNS promotion
A press release by Smart Transport notes some interesting information released to them under the Official Information Act:
Over $8 million has been spent by the Government on promoting a series of wasteful motorway projects, according to documents made available through the Official Information Act.…
NZTA borrowing discussed further
A lot of discussion in parliament yesterday around the news that NZTA will be able to borrow money to a greater extent than it has been able to previously.
It seems that Brownlee is playing down the impact of the proposed change – saying that it’s not much change from the status quo and perhaps even that the change is only related to changing the mechanism for funding toll roads.…
Should NZTA be allowed to borrow for the RoNS?
A media release by the Green Party today noted that upcoming changes to the Land Transport Management Act (the bill was tabled in parliament today by the sound of it) will allow NZTA to borrow much more money than they have previously been able to:
Having repeatedly insisted that there is no transport budget crisis, Gerry Brownlee is now seeking the power to borrow to build uneconomic motorways, Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said today.…
Guest Post: RoNS questioned again
This is a Guest Post by “Mr Anderson”
An article in Stuff today questions the Roads of National Significance programme and its economic benefits:
The Government’s $12 billion roads of national significance programme is upgrading routes used by as little as four per cent of the country’s traffic.…
The 2008 Puhoi-Wellsford Study
The TVNZ website is reporting that a 2008 study into the Puhoi-Wellsford project, before it became a “Road of National Significance”, highlighted that it was an expensive and rather unnecessary project – at least in the immediate future. Here’s a snippet of the story:
Four years ago a roading consultancy group now working on the upgrade wrote: “The scope for substantial economic growth…is limited.”……
NZTA use of consultants questioned
Radio NZ broke a story on Monday about the amount of money the NZTA had spend on consultants to look at the Roads of National Significance showing that all up just over $200m had been spent on consultants. Here is the story:
Some $216 million has been spent since 2009 on investigation and design work for five of the seven roads – Puhoi to Wellsford, Auckland’s western ring route, the Waikato expressway, Wellington’s northern corridor and Christchurch motorways.…
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