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# A Free Bus Would Be Cheaper
- URL: https://goodoil.news/a-free-bus-would-be-cheaper/
- Published: 2026-10-08T21:30:48.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T21:30:47.000Z
- Description: We would be nuts to spend $4 billion to divert freight from rail to road to create a heavily subsidised passenger rail service.
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: NZ Politics, Transport, Greens

[**Richard Prebble**](https://richardprebble.substack.com/p/a-free-bus-would-be-cheaper)  
*Columnist, former cabinet minister and ACT Party leader.*

The Greens want to spend $4 billion bringing back long-distance passenger trains.

They say Infometrics has checked their figures.

I know a bit about railways.

As minister I helped turn railways from losing $1 million a day to earning $2 million a week. We doubled the freight carried and halved the cost.

I have since advised railways in Asia and Europe and was chairman of a joint venture railway company in Vietnam.

I could have saved the Greens the consultancy fee. I would have told them for free that their idea is nuts.

But they do not have to take my word for it.

The Greens campaigned for an Auckland-to-Hamilton passenger rail service that Labour agreed to.

In 2023/24 the taxpayer and ratepayer subsidy was estimated at $92 per passenger. Today the lowest advertised bus fare is about $20\. A free bus service would have saved money.

Green transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter says:

“These tracks are already there, so we should use them.”

And that is the issue. It is a single-track railway and we already use it.

New Zealand has a freight railway. Ninety-three per cent of the network is single track.

A container does not care if its train waits in a siding for an oncoming train.

Passengers do.

Passenger trains need timetables. They need speed. They get priority.

KiwiRail itself says the single-track limits its capacity.

The Greens propose passenger trains through the Kaimai tunnel on our busiest freight track. Their plan says the line can take a passenger service by “scheduling adjustments for freight”.

In English: **stop the freight train and let the passenger train through.**

Do that often enough and shippers will send the freight by road.

We would be nuts to spend $4 billion to divert freight from rail to road to create a heavily subsidised passenger rail service.

This article was originally published by [I’ve Been Thinking](https://richardprebble.substack.com/p/a-free-bus-would-be-cheaper).