Govt will spin the current situation – we`re spending more on transport than ever before, BUT in less places with less contractors (unless what`s good for Fletchers is good for NZ??)

Finally, the decreased funding of maintenance will simply create a bow wave of deferred expenditure – TANSTAAFL

On your “planners forcing high densities” point, I have to disagree. If you read through District Plans you will find 90% of the rules (minimu lot sizes, max building coverage, height limits, setback requirements etc.) actually force down densities. Planning actually forces sprawl much more than intensification.

The overwhelming majority of rail freight in NZ is containerised.

Rail is acually quite a good way of moving containers.

The PT services funding is for subsidising public transport in urban areas, including Auckland and Wellington’s train systems. This is justified because every person on the train is one less person on the road and generates decongestion benefits for road users. In fact, NZTA calculates that each and every peak time rail trip in Auckland generates over $17 in road user benefits. Assuming that half of Auckland’s 10 million rail trips a year are at peak times (which is roughly right), then the rail system generates $85 million a year in decongestion benefits at peak time alone.

Not bad on an investment by NZTA of around $40 million a year in helping to subsidise Auckland’s rail system.

Thanks. That’s a pretty devastating critique.

It’s also somewhat disingenuous to say that this government has contributed $2 billion to rail. That includes the $600 million for Project DART (funded in the 2006 budget), $500 million for the infrastructure side of rail electrification (funded in the 2007 budget), $250 million for Wellington’s Matangi trains (90% funded by the Labour government) and of course the $500 million for the electric trains that I’ve discussed above (effectively the govt is claiming they’re paying for the trains twice over, when actually they’re only paying half).

The “new” spending comment is disingenuous. All capital expenditure on transport over the next six years in the GPS is “new” spending. It’s not money that’s spent maintaining our existing roads or subsidising existing public transport services. It’s all new spend that we could avoid if we didn’t want to spend it. Of this “new” spending, around $8 billion is going into state highways and $272 million into public transport infrastructure.

Setting aside the PT versus roads debate, the real problem with the GPS is its ignorance of roads maintenance. Roads maintenance funding has effectively been frozen for the next decade, both on state highways and local roads. Focusing on building shiny new roads at the expense of looking after what we’ve got in an American approach to infrastructure that’s a recipe for disaster: kinda like building a huge addition to your house but not bothering to paint your weatherboards.

Within public transport funding, the huge focus on PT services and the slashing of PT infrastructure is also pretty stupid. PT infrastructure funding goes to things like ferry terminal upgrades, train station improvements, bus priority systems, integrated ticketing implementation and so forth. All things to make PT more efficient, effective and less reliant on subsidies. So effectively the government’s priorities will mean that we can’t improve the efficiency of the system and, once again, it will cost much more in the long run.

Finally – there’s no real need to expand the state highway network. NZTA’s own data says that traffic flows around the country are the same as they were in 2005. Meanwhile, PT patronage in Auckland grew 8.5% last year. The government’s approach to transport funding is like expanding capacity in your factory for blue socks when demand is static, while slashing funding for upgrading your machines that make red socks – even though demand for red socks is increasing dramatically.

Really, it’s just plain dumb. Of course if David actually read the document he’d know that.

The numbers speak for themselves: they are building MORE – and at most times unnecessary not to mention uneconomic – highways and then, get this, they are dramatically DECREASING the amount they are spending on maintenance for both the new AND existing highways.

A set of graphics from Transport for America of all organisations shows that money spent on maintenance early saves approximately 50% in the long-term. Also, maintenance creates and maintains more jobs than road-building.

How did English let Joyce go down this path?

For the price of Britomart you could have brought all the train uses an apartment

There are about 5 funding categories not two. Also would it not be better to compare capital extenditure on roads with capital expenditure on PT? Or operational spending on both? Instead you have compared capital expenditure and operational spending.

NZ’s first 100% electric car is about to be delivered to it’s new owner, are the Greens really that dumb that they think we will all be driving petrol or diesel powered vehicles in thirty years?

Even electric cars need roads.

Eventually predominant motorists will have to encourage more public transport funding to free up the congestion — we can’t just keep widening the roads.

[DPF: I never claimed it was a huge boost. I was pointing out that the Greens were attacking it for too much money going on roads, when in fact 53% of the *new* funding was for public transport]

A former Greek MP calculated that they could have put every individual passenger in their own private taxi and driven them to their destination anywhere in Greece with out charge… and it would have cost the country less than 600m