I don’t really know why Michael “Napoleon” Wood is the Transport Minister. Everything he announces or does just ends in a complete mess. It isn’t surprising really, because his sole qualification and work experience was in measuring the inside seams of bankers buying cheap suits at Hugh Wright.
Where’s the second harbour crossing? What about the light rail to the airport? Not a single millimetre of track has been built on his watch. Then there is the ‘rapid’ rail to Hamilton, which is neither rapid nor a service and didn’t even get to Auckland, pegging out at Papakura. That result shouldn’t have been at all surprising after the ‘service’ was named after an extinct bird.
Now this absolute waste of space is telling us that some roads need to be “abandoned”:
The Transport Minister admits some roads may need to be abandoned as a result of climate change, and the extreme weather it will bring.
Last week, RNZ revealed Waka Kotahi had, until recently, not been factoring climate change and the need for resilience into its transport projects.
The agency was said to be swamped by the need to respond to crisis.
Newshub
This is what happens when you divert road user charges, which are meant to be spent on ROADS, into pet projects like cycleways, walking bridges and other equally pointless projects.
But wait… the solution is ships and rail!
Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said investment in rail and sea shipping should be a focus in future for cut off communities, and Wood agreed.
He said sea shipping had been a lifeline for the East Coast after Cyclone Gabrielle, and that would be explored further.
Wood said it was “beyond time” resilience was properly factored into infrastructure spending, and tough conversations were now beginning with communities that will be affected in future.
“We need to do it carefully, and work it through with communities in those areas to make sure people have what they need to live their lives well.
“Where we have to make decisions about where assets are and where that might need to change, we need to work that through with the communities.
“But as I said, we have to move forward with this because if we don’t we actually expose communities to more vulnerabilities in the future.”
Newshub
Let’s get this straight. Basically, if a road has a single pothole due to a total lack of maintenance, then the whole road will be abandoned. But they will be replaced by the least resilient thing of all in a storm, railways! Got a pothole? Easy fix, slap a train over it!
Yes, railways were awesome for the cut off areas in Muriwai, Piha and Esk Valley weren’t they? They just quickly flew in emergency trains and train tracks by helicopter, and boy can those 200-metre-long cargo ships deliver emergency supplies inland to these small towns or what?
These people really do live in fairyland. A place where money grows on trees, everyone is kind, there is no crime and transport in the 21st century can be solved by the application of 19th-century technology. Righto!
The bottom line, however, is that the Minister of Transport either needs to resign or rename his ministry the Ministry for Non-Transport.
Waiting for Michael Wood to get inspiration for solving our transport crisis is like waiting at a wharf for a jumbo jet to get you to your destination.
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