Tolls are best

The Herald reports:

Aucklanders face paying to drive on city roads unless they are prepared to swallow hefty rates or fuel tax rises.

On Monday, an advisory group assembled by Mayor Len Brown is set to announce its recommended solutions to plug a $12 billion funding gap and fix the city’s ever-growing traffic jams.

The mayor says he will back whatever the “consensus-building” group recommends, even if that means tolling motorways or charging motorists to use arterial roads by 2021.

The principle is that users should pay for the costs of their transport. Hence tolls and/or congestion charges are my preferred approach.

Petrol tax is a form of user pays. It is imperfect, but much simpler to impose and collect. As technology gets better I’d like to see more congestion charges and toll roads and a lower level of petrol tax.

Rates are my least preferred method of funding transport projects. Motorists and public transport users should fund transport projects – not homeowners.