The wheels are falling off Labour’s Auckland transport policies. They are steering Auckland in the wrong direction. Their priorities mean that further chaos is inevitable down the road. Hopefully, not Dominion Road, unless the loopy light rail project gets the green light.
The idea of a tram on Dominion Road needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. It is a nonsense driven by the global warming scenario. Perhaps in the nice to have basket but a waste of money. The infrastructure required is very expensive compared to simply replacing a diesel bus with an electric one.
Transport Minister Michael Wood’s announcement this week turned out, like most of Labour’s announcements, to be much ado about nothing: go back to square one and have a talkfest for six months. This will prove to be a complete waste of time because Labour are wedded to the dumb idea. No matter what comes out of the chinwag, Labour will take no notice and barge ahead anyway, probably passing the relevant legislation through the House under urgency.
Labour is increasingly ignoring advice, adopting an arrogant we-know-best stance, when the reality is that the 65 of them collectively know very little. Michael Wood said a tram was needed to take cars off the road and buses were clogging up the roads. How about applying a bit of logic Michael? Double decker buses run up and down Dominion Road frequently for around nineteen hours a day. It would appear from what you say that they are not taking cars off the road. What then makes you think a tram will? Novelty factor? That will be short term.
If buses were successfully taking cars off the road then they wouldn’t be clogging up the roads as there would be less traffic. But they aren’t and the reality is neither will a tram. If I were looking at light rail I would run it from the Wynyard Quarter to St Heliers whereby it would serve both locals and tourists and I would also run it on the Inner Link route. The cheaper option for the North West is again not light rail but replicating the highly successful Northern Busway. This government must eschew its ideology when more practical and cheaper solutions are available.
The major traffic snarl-ups are on the motorways. Parts of the Southern Motorway are like a car park all day. This, and a second harbour crossing, is where the priority lies. The latter is a big ticket item which means money should not be being wasted on things that are just ‘nice to have’. Transport requirements in Auckland need prioritising – a skill in which this government has been shown to be wanting. Their understanding of business, both existing ones and business cases for proposed ones, is sadly lacking.
At a local level, apart from non-used cycleways, we have the ridiculous idea of plywood planter boxes closing off through roads in Onehunga to “make streets safer”. The pilot has backfired: people are complaining that blocking off through roads is making their trips to child care centres or work much longer. I thought we were trying to cut emissions. At least three local board members have asked for an immediate stop to the pilot due to overwhelming opposition. Who in Auckland Transport is paid to come up with these crazy ideas? Again, where is the thought that should have be given to the consequences?
The reality is that Auckland’s growing, dispersed population demands it be a car city. So much cross-city business is done that is not conducive to public transport use, which is the reason so many one-person vehicle trips are made daily by tradesmen, business people, mums shopping etc. Until central and local governments can get their heads around this, traffic problems will only get worse. Light rail to the airport is definitely not the answer. A possible answer is to create city hubs in the north, south, east and west: Albany, Manukau, Botany and Westgate.
By the way, Michael, how about this for an idea? If trams are so good at getting people out of cars as you say, how about running one down Onewa Road instead of Auckland Transport installing 68 traffic cameras?
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