Is the NZTA starting to scale back the RoNS?
An interesting development was announcement today by the NZTA. For the Wellington Road of National Significance they have decided on what they will do between Otaki and Levin. Here’s the press release: The NZ Transport Agency has today announced its plans for the next stage of the Otaki to Levin section of the State Highway 1 Wellington Northern Corridor Road of National Significance, proposing a staged upgrade of the existing highway, starting with a series of safety improvements between Otaki and SH57.…
17 Comments Transport Issues Across the Country
The NZTA has just released to me a document they had initially withheld from an earlier OIA request, it shows what the agency consider to be the high and medium impacts for each region around the country. What I found interesting looking at it was not only how intertwined that the many of the issues are but how the current spending and priorities are so far removed from the issues.…
Being Rational About Transport Spending
New Zealand spends a lot of money on transport. More than half our rates are spent on building and fixing roads and footpaths as well as funding buses, trains and ferries. Further to this, close to a third of what we pay at the petrol pump is tax, with the bulk of that money – around $3 billion a year – also being spent on transport, an ever increasing proportion going to State Highways.…
Petrol tax to increase
As expected, today the government announced that petrol taxes and road user charges will increase (by 2c a litre and 4.1% respectively), as of August 1st.
Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee has today confirmed increases in petrol excise duty of two cents a litre and an equivalent increase in road user charges of an average of 4.1 per cent.…
More information about the RoNS
A couple of further documents relating to the Roads of National Stupidity Significance, prepared by NZTA, provide a bit more information on where each of the projects are at.
Ministerial Briefing – February 27th
Investment Outcomes – March 16th
There’s also a good Radio New Zealand piece on the documents, in which both Phil Twyford and Julie-Anne Genter (Labour and Greens transport spokespeople) highlight their fundamental concerns with the RoNS package, whether they’ll actually be able to be funded, whether they’re value for money and so on.…
RoNS and Treasury Guidelines
There was an intriguing question and answer session in parliament today between the Greens’ Russel Norman and Finance Minister Bill English, around Treasury’s Guidelines for Better Business Cases and the various Roads of National Significance. The transcript can be read here.…
Puhoi to Warkworth Video
Another state highway project and another pretty animation, this time it is the turn of Puhoi to Warkworth.
http://youtu.be/k9hceuyND-0
Some of the earthworks in this project are going to be absolutely massive although in this video doesn’t really show them as well as the previous video due to it being zoomed out a bit more.…
NZTA Confirms Puhoi to Wellsford Route
The NZTA has announced its preferred route to build a motorway from Puhoi to Warkworth which is part of the Puhoi to Wellsford Road of National significance. The route makes a few changes to what was announced about a year ago and said to be due to them having refined the engineering and environmental issues along feedback from locals from consultation.…
Brownlee loses the plot
A few days ago there was an interesting piece on Radio NZ’s “Morning Report” programme, which highlighted the funding shortfall in the transport budget over the next decade – largely arising from the proposed $10 billion spend-up on the Roads of National Significance.…
New Waterview Video
The NZTA have released a new video about the Waterview Connection (they actually released it about a month ago but I have only just seen it now). It is definitely a very pretty video but I get the feeling from the ending that it is partly to help push their case for moving the vent stack from the one mandated by the Board of Inquiry.…
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