Where is the current Government Transport Projects

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ian1990, May 19, 6:50pm
Last Government gave us:

Puhoi to Walkworth
Transmission Gully
Auckland Central Rail Link
Waikato dual carriage way
Motorways in Christchurch?

After 3.5 years, current bunch of Wokesters can only talk about shovels starting a project the rest of New Zealand has no idea about.
blueviking, May 20, 1:56am
Don't forget , The Waterview Tunnel and surrounding bike trails.
blueviking, May 20, 2:01am
They were also looking at giving the Neilson st container port, their own on/off ramp to the motorway to free up all those streets in the surrounding area.
To be fair,this gummint has built a bike path beside the southern motorway between papakura and takanini and have promised 2 extra lanes from Pap to drury within 2 yrs.
kazbanz, May 20, 2:52am
The projects I’m seeing involve closing busy / vibrant roads to create walking roads. Utter shambles
m16d, May 20, 3:11am
Judith is going to build a 4 lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga.
alowishes, May 20, 4:19am
That seems to be a common theme in a lot of cities, sad.
s_nz, May 20, 5:22am
One of the main purposes of the NZTA is for making independent decisions on allocating and investing funds from the National Land Transport Fund.

Governments should be simply allocating funds to the NZTA, and having them independently decide the most efficient way to spend it as efficiently as possible.

Having politicians involved in the process is far from ideal, and can lead to:
- Pork barrel politics (Localized spending in areas targeted for political reasons)
- Monument building.
- Short term focus.

Current situation has lead to politically selected major projects essentially sucking the transport budget dry. Meaning we get gold plated super highways in some area's, and cheap beaten chip seal roads in other places.



I think crediting the city rail link to the Key/English governments is a bit rich. They campaigned aggressively against / to delay this project, it was only when the Auckland council started to move ahead without them that they came on board in 2016. Even then they didn't commit any money until 2020 (which ended up having a different government in power).

Should note some of the other projects listed are a bit dubious:

Transmission Gully, always had issues with a poor cost benefit ratio, and has suffered massive cost overruns. A review published this year deemed that the project was "Doomed from the start" by decisions. In particular noting that the Government tendered the private contract out at an unrealistically low price by essentially “double counting” cost-savings the private sector could bring to the project.

Pohoi to walkworth likewise has issues with cost benifit ratio, some analysis putting this as bad as 0.25 (i.e. spend $1 and get only 25c back in benifits)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/326111/cost-of-warkworth-to-wellsford-motorway-could-double Both the above projects were done as Private Public Partnership's. Essentially the government hire purchases the road from a private entities. The way it is set up the private entities carry minimal risk too. Given the government can borrow money cheaper than private companies the only reason I can see that they would use this model is to keep the debt off the government books.
Regarding the current government they are fairly tapped out building and funding projects that were announced under the key/English government, but they still have a big stack of transport pojects in the pipeline:

https://www.labour.org.nz/big-nz-upgrade#transport-projects

A small selection:
- 4 lane Whangarei to Port Marsden
- 4 lane mill road
- Electrify Papakura to Pukekohe
- Auckland 3rd main (rail line)
- Penlink
- Tauranga Northen link
- Canterbury package
- Queenstown package
3tomany, May 20, 5:23am
That is why rates are out of control. Bike lanes bus lanes etc all costing squillions.
serf407, May 20, 8:49am
The Lake Road junction to the Tamahere Interchange section of the Waikato Expressway should be operational by the end of the year (December 2021).
franc123, May 20, 8:56am
Governments should be simply allocating funds to the NZTA, and having them independently decide the most efficient way to spend it as efficiently as possible.

s_nz that statement shoud send chills up the spine of any taxpayer. Have you any idea of how much this outfit has blown just in the last three years on legal bills alone? Efficiency and Govt depts should never be mentioned in the same statement.
tygertung, May 20, 9:13am
Yes, should just convert some of those excess car lanes for minimal cost.
alowishes, May 20, 12:27pm
And have one or two hundred cyclists using them each day instead of thousands of cars and busses?
tygertung, May 20, 12:35pm
Convert the excess car lanes to bus and cycle lanes. People would tend to use them if they were there.
joanie32, May 20, 2:47pm
Cause use that’s a common problem in NZ
Too many lanes for cars
And traffic moving too freely

😂👉🚲🤡
tygertung, May 20, 3:14pm
I have done a wee bit of driving recently and it is far less convenient than riding.

In the Netherlands 50% of people are riding, despite the weather being way more shithouse than NZ.
joanie32, May 20, 3:18pm
So do you suggest I ride from Matamata to north shore tomorrow?

I’m not sure I could do that in the time I have available to be honest.
apollo11, May 20, 3:27pm
Pedal faster.
kiwilandchch, May 20, 3:36pm
you can please some people most time but you cant please all people all time
apollo11, May 20, 3:44pm
And some people you can never please.
tygertung, May 20, 3:57pm
Cycle ways and bus lanes are typically for urban use, not for long distance. Seeing as most people are only traveling in an urban area on a daily basis, buses and bicycles can be more practical.

For a long distance trip, like you have identified, I would suggest that a motorbike would be a more suitable mode of transport.
alowishes, May 20, 4:19pm
The Dutch don’t have hilly commutes like the Mosgiel to Dunedin CBD one.
tygertung, May 20, 4:28pm
Maybe not, but you can get e-bikes now which make hills no problem.
s_nz, May 20, 5:05pm
Bit more in the budget today:

$1.3B for rail.
$380m for EV's

Note that the current government was already planning to spend a lot on roads as per my previous post, so it's not like roads are missing out.



I trust the public servants and engineers a lot more than I trust the politicians when it comes to spending out transport $$.
joanie32, May 21, 2:30am
No, a car is the only solution, and always will be.
It may be an electric car one day, but that time is a long way away.

😂😂😂
poppy62, May 21, 4:24am
The Gubmint has just put $3.2B into helping impoverished car dealers like Kazbanz & T Gray move some of their older stock. In turn with the increase in number of beneficiaries buying cars etc., We can only hope that roading projects will get a kickback from the tax from car sales so that the 2nd harbour crossing can be done!