What is the holiday highway’s BCR?
There was an interesting exchange in parliament yesterday about the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” – and in particular focusing on the issue of whether the Minister was confident the project still represents good value for money. Here’s the video: Here’s the full discussion.…
43 Comments An amusing cartoon
From yesterday’s Dominion Post:…
Huge problems for the holiday highway
There was an interesting article on the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” in the NZ Herald today – which notes the enormous difficulties NZTA is facing in finding a route that is feasible for the Warkworth-Wellsford section through Dome Valley.
Unstable ground around Dome Valley north of Auckland threatens to rip the wheels off the Government’s “road of national significance” from Puhoi to Wellsford.…
Blowing the motorways budget
Yesterday I received from NZTA all the board papers from their May meeting. There are probably a few posts to put together over the next while that share information from those papers, but one that stood out as particularly interesting was an update on how actual transport spending is tracking against expectations laid out in the 2009-2012 National Land Transport Programme.…
1960s thinking alive and well in Wellington
As much as I think Puhoi-Wellsford is a stupid project and a complete waste of money, I have now been convinced that it is nowhere near the worst of the Roads of National Significance. That incredibly dubious prize must, without a doubt, go to Wellington’s Northern Corridor RoNS.…
National Infrastructure Plan
The government has today released its second National Infrastructure Plan, outlining its expenditure (and the principles behind it) on infrastructure such as transport, electricity, telcommunications, water and social infrastructure over the next four years. In terms of transport, as far as I can see there’s absolutely nothing new in the plan – but it provides an interesting and useful collation of information.…
Where did the four new RoNS come from?
The draft Government Policy Statement document, that was released for consultation a couple of months back, was a highly perplexing and depressing document. Focusing an even greater amount of money on building new motorways, slashing (already slashed) spending on public transport infrastructure and capping money for new local roads and even the maintenance of existing roads is just plain stupidity – and is completely ignorant of recent transport trends both here in New Zealand and overseas.…
Guest Post: The Colossus of Roads
This is another Guest Post from Peter:
This is a good speech by Green Party MP Gareth Hughes, focusing on transport matters for his Budget speech: The Colossus of Roads made me think of putting together a few pictures on Photoshop:…
Outlining why Puhoi-Wellsford is a stupid project
It was good to read in yesterday’s NZ Herald that the Labour Party has committed to cancelling the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” if they’re elected at the end of the year. While the polls indicate that the chances of Labour actually being elected are reasonably remote, if we assume that they retain this policy into the future, the long timeframes for actually planning, consenting and eventually constructing Puhoi-Wellsford should mean that the project never goes ahead in its current form, as eventually Labour will become the government again.…
Guest Post: Why does Labour ignore transport so badly?
This is another Guest Post by occasional blog commenter Peter
There was a lot of response and reaction to my blog post earlier this week, which criticised most political parties for either their transport policy or their general image. I ruffled a few feathers and had a few good debates in the comments.…
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