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I’m calling on the Government to cancel its cycle bridge across the Waitemata Harbour, National’s Transport spokesperson Michael Woodhouse says.
“It appears the cycle bridge, and the projected $785 million it will cost, are based not on mass public demand, measurable environmental outcomes, nor economic benefit.
“The initial benefit-to-cost ratio assessment from Waka Kotahi, which Transport Minister Michael Wood would have preferred to keep out of the public eye, shows that New Zealand’s taxpayers will lose 40-60 cents on every dollar spent on the unpopular bridge.
“The Government should be using the proposed cycle bridge funds to restore that which they cut out of the National Land Transport Programme for regional roads. All up the Government has short-changed the country $760 million worth of funding that should have gone towards maintaining our roads.
“The past few weeks have been a real eye-opener to a lot of Kiwis who perhaps weren’t aware of the extent to which this Government is willing to steamroll the wants and needs of the people in favour of rolling out its pre-set agenda.
“Let’s be honest here, this cycle bridge is not a climate initiative, or at least it is not a good one. It is a Government vanity project that will be welcomed by a very small number of Aucklanders and which takes funding from vital infrastructure projects that would make traveling around New Zealand safer and easier.
“Minister Wood can kid himself that some jiggery-pokery of his numbers will produce a more palatable BCR, but he needs to step back and assess why he is pushing so hard for a project that almost no one wants.
“If Minister Wood doesn’t have the fortitude to admit he got this one wrong, then the Prime Minister needs to step in. It is outrageous that she allowed it to get to this point.
“This cycle bridge and the Labour Car Tax demonstrate how divorced this Government is from what matters to New Zealanders and their worrying ineptitude in regards to management of New Zealand’s economy and resources.”
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