by Russel Norman
Eating fugu, prepared from puffer fish, is one of the great delicacies in Japan, apparently. The puffer fish has a neurotoxin to which there is no antidote and incorrectly prepared fugu does still kill people on occasion. Hence it is a dangerous but apparently tasty treat.
And just as eating puffer fish is a dangerous activity with a culinary payoff, so fighting Cullen in order to get some support for public transport is a dangerous activity that may have some sustainability payoffs if we can get away with it.
We have been eating fuju for public transport for a long time in parliamentary question time – putting pressure on funding public transport while avoiding Cullen’s poisonous barbed tongue. So far with some modest success – see the suffering of Cullen when he had to agree to partially fund electrification of rail in Auckland.
And now the danger zone has moved to the debate over whether the regional petrol tax must be used for roads alone, or public transport alone, or a mix. Cullen of course wants to allow regional councils to use it for roads alone because he is for roads at any cost regardless of cost overruns, while we want to address the pro-roads funding balance in all his budgets by keeping the petrol tax solely for public transport. Cullen’s response is to threaten to pull the plug on the funding for the electrification of the Auckland rail network – a project he has opposed at every step in every possible way.
Now there is no guarantee that we will win this argument because Cullen is working very closely with his good friends Peter Dunne and Winston Peters, with whom he has rather a lot in common. But we will continue trying because public transport is central to making our cities and towns more liveable and more sustainable.
Meanwhile it seems that roads in Auckland are more congested than ever.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Fri, May 25th, 2007
Tags: environment
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
So you are both agreed you need to take more money from the tax payers, you just cant decide what’s best for us then?
Why don’t you both just agree to take double of what you were planning to anyway. Then we’ll be really well off. It’s not like fuel is already taxed for transport things already, is it?
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The reason land transport funding has always been pro-roads is because of the willingness of the early motorists to pay for better roads.
Crucially this meant that unlike railways, roads have not had to compete with the housing lobby and the electricity lobby for money from the Public Works Fund.
The “10 year plan” for Auckland announced by the Ministry Of Works in 1946 shows just how powerful the housing lobby was. Whatever they wanted they got, including a motorway to connect the Te Atatu Housing Area to the CBD. With such stupid land use planning its no wonder people have to use cars to get around. Its as though the housing lobby had an abiding hatred of apartments and anything associated with them, such as public transport.
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/images/AK-1947.jpg
They had the same power in Wellington, but not quite the same degree of hatred.
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/images/WellingtonPlan1946.jpg
Unfortunately as car ownership became more widespread this willingness to pay declined markedly. Since politicians decide the price to be payed for using roads democracy has resulted in roads being priced ever further below the cost of good roads. You don’t get Volvo safety at Morris Minor prices, so we’ve got the road toll that we’ve paid for, as well as having bridges that were not designed to survive earthquakes because it was cheaper that way.
However roads are now having to compete with railways for a share of the revenue from roads. So it is not a question of whether regional petrol taxes should be spent on roads or railways. The real question is why the government thinks Auckland, Wellington and Tauranga are the only places with serious roading problems. And why tourists on the West Coast are now subsidising roads and railways in Wellington and Auckland, or Christchurch for that matter. It made sense when the flow of money went the other way because cities with international airports benefit from good tourist roads and railways.
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Kevyn,
Interesting post. What is your opinion on privately owned tool roads (and/or public/private toll roads)?
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Heh….typo…”toll roads”…
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PeterExitsLeft,
My opinion is that we shouldn’t treat roads any differently from ferries, trains or buses. And the petrol tax and RUCs are essentially a toll without toll gates hence the decision to abolish toll gates when these fees were introduced. The problem of paying twice for using the same road can be avoided if these fees are paid to the operator of a toll road instead of the Land Transport Fund.
We have had toll roads and bridges and tunnels in the past. Most provincial councils tolled their major roads and bridges and Taranaki tolled its tarsealed main roads between 1906 and 1925. Most other countries still have toll bridges and tunnels, some even form parts of “free”ways and some Californian freeways even have toll express lanes.
The petrol tax and RUCs have the advantage that they operate nationally and until 2000 this was utilised to acheive egalitarian objectives, ie Auckland assisting Northland, Waikato assisting East Cape/Gisborne and Canterbury assisting West Coast.
If the petrol tax had been indexed to inflation so that it had always had a real value of 60cents/litre none of our rural roading problems would have occured and there is no valid reason why the petrol tax can’t be increased to 60cents/litre provided the revenue is dedicated to the Land Transport Fund. I don’t think the fact that motorists and truckies will squeal like wounded pigs is a valid reason not increasing the LTF tax. External costs to the Crown are covered serveral times over by the GST on vehicle operaing costs so there is no reason why the Crown should skim any more than they already do.
I would prefer to double or triple the petrol tax across the whole country so that all regions benefit rather than having either regional taxes or tolls.
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PeterExitsLeft,
The short answer is I don’t have a problem with roads being funded the same way ferries, buses and trains are funded, but we should triple the petrol tax and corresponding portion of RUCs first.
This would be a more egalitarian solution as all regions would benefit.
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Kevyn have you ever read anything about the history of toll roads? If we neglect our history we are destined to repeat it. Anyway a new road by any other name smells just the same. Transit Gully – which is what the argument is all about – would be redundant if there were adequate public transport. “Local” road traffic would be diverted off the already congested Highway. Its not an argument about rich verses poor or ripping off tax payers its about accepting the fact that we cannot continue to build more and more roads to lead into a small space (Wellington – in the case of Transit Gully) for them to sit in traffic jams when they (eventually) get there! It’s simply madness, wasteful of scare resources, and contrary to the declared intention of this govt (and the next if todays Herald Poll is to be believed) to reduce Carbon emissions.
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macro,
I have written a brief history of toll roads in New Zealand.
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/tollroads.html
You are so very right about the need to know our history, not merely to avoid repetition but sometimes to make sure the repitition is positive. For instance:
The earliest toll roads that I am aware of were the turnpikes in Britain. They all went broke because of competition from canals, which in turn went broke from competition from railways, which in turn went broke from competition from notor-roads. New toll roads are likely to go broke from competition from rapid transit within the next 20 years.
My argument is that the argument must not be about Transmission Gully. Or Spaghetti Junction. That just focusses the debate on urban issues, which are almost entirely different from rural transport issues. And it creates the false idea that a balanced approach to transport just means treating roads and public transport equally. A truly balanced approach means we address climate change as well as the road toll and seismic security, not instead of.
Hence my argument that the first step is to double or triple the petrol tax, or replace it with electronic tolls on all roads which would allow for congestion pricing and eliminate parking fee evasion. Historically politicians have pandered to our fixation with petrol prices by keeping the petrol tax well below what is needed to provide a balanced land transport funding package, for the whole country and not just for Wellington and Auckland.
Tolling individual roads instead would be a real missed opportunity.
PS. The car industry is racing to get automatic braking systems into production. This could be adapted to make driverless trains. That would revolutionise commuter rail by allowing trains to travel closer together and come close to providing the on-demand service that cars users are so fond of. Bang goes the main “advantage” that cars have over trains at the moment.
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Bit of a sneaky way of getting extra roads funding it seems- but hey at least the electrification is going ahead in Auckland, Wellington is getting all new trains and buses, and it’s at least partially due to the Greens. Hopefully we will see real action on all these projects in the near future.
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uk_kiwi
Honesty is never sneaky. The extra road funding I mentioned is for things the public have either not been told about or have been persuaded to lay the blame elsewhere, such as on “bad” drivers rather than bad roads. Safety and seismic improvements wont induce extra traffic because they arent discouraging travel at the moment. The same cannot be said for “fixing” congestion. The list of road safety survey subjects at the LTSA website explains why improving safety neednt involve improving the part of the road that motorists actually drive on.
http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/roads/rss/
Increasing the rates of subsidies to local authorities would be a useful way of soaking up any “extra” roads funding, as would higher environmental standards especially water run off. And more money could pay to use hotmix instead of chipseal to reduce noise, tyre dust and improve fuel efficiency. And get rid of ugly overhead power lines (that always break during snowstorms when you need them most).
Maybe Im thinking too far outside the square and not being serious enough but overall I think thats better than erring on the side of conservatism.
If there is anything really sneaky in my suggestion it is that it will introduce a meaningful carbon tax without arousing public opposition and without giving Cullen an even bigger surplus.
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“I would prefer to double or triple the petrol tax across the whole country so that all regions benefit rather than having either regional taxes or tolls.”
How many inefficient road projects do you want to build in Canterbury then? Canterbury already cross subsidises the rest of the country because its roads are cheap to maintain and it has few needs in terms of safety or congestion relief – by contrast the real problem in Auckland is that road use is priced the same regardless of demand. Fuel tax bears little relationship to the costs imposed by road use.
“New toll roads are likely to go broke from competition from rapid transit within the next 20 years.”
Only true in that there are few viable toll roads able to built in NZ anyway (Transit is pursuing tolling with little regard for financial viability of it) – the most viable would have been the 2nd Tauranga Harbour Bridge, but Winston got that toll-free as the price for backing Labour after the last election. I doubt Melbourne CityLink will go broke, and Sydney Harbour Tunnel/Bridge are thriving despite very good competition from public transport. Public transport will still only comprise less than 5% of all trips 20, 50 years out from now – private mobility is far too flexible and attractive for it to be priced out of reach for most trips.
Rates funding of roads should be phased out (but will need structural reform so councils don’t waste Land Transport NZ money on their networks with no accountability for spending money they don’t raise), with perhaps landowners paying an access fee for driveways on networks to supplement road user charges (including fuel tax).
Of course, from the Green party perspective, motorists should be expected to pay for their roads and all of the externalities that could be identified as road related, but public transport user costs should be paid for by everyone else.
Kevyn, your history of toll roads in New Zealand has quite a few holes in it, “In 2003 the road fund petrol tax was increased by 4cents per litre to return the money taken away from roads when “efficient” was dropped from Efficient Alternatives to Roading” is not true. The amount being spent on ATR was $0.5m per annum, 4c/l raised $120m p.a, they were quite unrelated, except that of that $120m p.a. it was hoped that $30m would be spent on ATR – nowhere near that was spent.
also “In 2004 the Land Transport Management Act raised the environmental high jump that major roading projects (including Black Route road safety projects) have to get over.” it did, but it is not proven that this is the reason why ALPURT B2 costs increased. It has more to do with Transit wanting a better highway if it was to be a toll road and its desire for scope creep.
However, you certainly have some interesting comments which I agree with.
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Libertyscott,
Yes my comment on ALPURT B2 are incorrect and need to be updated, the enquiry in construction cost increases does identify that the project was originally costed as a two-lane expressway and is now a full motorway.
The increase in ATR should really state that it is both ATR and PT operations and capital. Comparing the actual projects funded with the output class summaries in the NLTP reveals that the North Shore busway is classified as a State Highway project rather then a PT investment. Some of the PT capital expenditure (such as $50 million for Britomart)is only clearly identified in the performance agreement between Transfund and the Minister. There definitely was a decrease in State Highway capital investment of $120 million between 1999/2000 and 2002/03. The “regional developement funding” included in that 4c/l went to Northland and Gisborne regions but even in the last financial year they were still not receiveing any more funding than in 1999/00.
In the 80 years that we have had the petrol tax Canterbury has lost approx. 33 cents in every dollar, Waikato 26 cents, Auckland 21 cents and Taranaki 15 cents. All other regions are within a few cents of breaking even, except Northland, Gisborne and West Coast which have always received extra funding due to their lack of ratepayers and tourism potential.
The consequences of this underfunding for Waikato can be measured in roadside crosses. According to the LTSA Canterbury has one of the highest seatbelt wearing rates and one of the lowest drunk driving rates which should give it one of the lowest fatality rates. It actually has one of the highest fatality rates and most of these extra crashes are blamed on sober speeding drivers, especially in Kaikoura District.
Christchurch has one of the worst urban serious crash rates in the country, mainly at intersections and mainly involving pedestrians.
Transit’s travel time surveys have found that Christchurch has more travel delay than either Wellington (all the time) or Auckland (except moning peak), this is because Christchurch has no urban motorways and its few expressways have no grade seperation at major intersections. This failure to invest in flyovers at key arterial cross-roads is a major factor in both the high serious crash rate and the serious travel delays.
Canterbury also faces a serious risk from the Great Alpine Fault (see http://www.gns.cri.nz/what/earthact/modelling/index.html
) and has tens of kilometres of bridges that are will reach the end of their design life within the next couple of decades.
But you are right that has strong soils and ready access to gravel so costs are lower than in the North Island. But Auckland also has the advantage that it has less than 10% of the countries roads (measured in lane km) to maintain but has 27% of the nations traffic to pay for it. And since 1994 Auckland has been receiving more highway contruction funding per vehicle km travelled than any other region and has not been below the national average since 1961, whereas Canterbury and Waikato have never ever been above the national average.
You have nailed Auckland’s problem. Electronic tolling of all roads rather than just new motorways seems to be the ideal solution. It was the lack of an equivalent to eletricity meters for cars that made the petrol tax the only viable user pays mechanism in the 1920s. GPS or some other modern system actually does give us that electricity meter for cars, in fact leap frogging the older electricity meter technology and going straight to the latest generation computerised electricity meters with the flexible real-time pricing options they offer to the environmentally concious electricity consumer.
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