by Gareth Hughes
Transport will be one of the big local issues of the looming Mana by-election. The Kapiti Expressway, currently being rammed through as a Road of National Significance project by the Government, is attracting considerable opposition because it is an unpopular, unsustainable and uneconomic 1950s-style solution. Rather than a smart, integrated and affordable solution, this project is like hitting a nail with a sledgehammer though the community.
The Green Party believes the John Key-led Government is wasting billions of dollars on uneconomic motorways like this one, locking us into a car and oil dependent future.
The Greens believe in smart transport investments that balance roads with sustainable transport options (bus, rail, walking, cycling, rail and sea freight) that will future-proof our transport system so that it is more affordable, efficient, and versatile. We’re proud to have been the champions of transport choice. We’re finally seeing the completion of many of the improvements in the Wellington region, such as the fleet of new electric trains and the extension of electrification and double tracking of the lines to take commuter services to Waikanae, that we’ve been calling for years.
The Greens are not anti-car or anti-road. We love to drive. We are pro-transport choice. We recognise building local roads can play a valuable role in stimulating economic growth and smoother roads make it cheaper and greener to drive. We don’t want to stop all road investment, just stop pouring billions into white-elephant motorways that will make congestion worse, and dramatically affect the Kapiti Coast community.
This road is part of the region-wide Western Corridor project, which is one of Government’s seven Roads of National Significance. I think a more accurate way to describe it is a road of National Party significance through a community of national significance.
Two decades ago, in 1990, the then Commissioner for the Environment, Helen Hughes, investigated what would be the most effective way of solving congestion on the so-called Western corridor. She concluded that upgrading the rail service, not building a new motorway, was the solution. She said then, “It is symptomatic of traditional transport planning systems that options that require huge earthworks and disruption for whole communities are seen as realistic, while anything that would require a reordering of priorities or a change in behaviour is seen as unrealistic”. How true, and prophetic.
This new expressway between MacKays to Peka Peka is tremendously expensive. It’s going to cost up to $500 million, which is an awful lot when we are borrowing as a nation $240 million a week. A case could be made if the benefits were great but this project is uneconomic and has a benefit cost ratio of only 1.1, which means the benefits only barely exceed the costs.
If we took into account likely future oil price fluctuations and increases and actually measured the public health, road safety, and pollution costs this project wouldn’t come close to stacking up.
The big question is however, is an expressway even needed? Along with more noise and air pollution the impacts locally are going to be physically cutting Waikanae in two, and crossing the spiritually significant Takamone wahi tapu. Many locals feel betrayed that the originally favoured and widely consulted-on Western Link Road, which was to be a 50-70km local road and walking and cycling route to take traffic off SH1, was thrown by the wayside by Steven Joyce when he announced his new Wellington Road of national significance. It’s going to take a long time to build and ultimately benefits through travellers and trucking companies more than locals.
Many people do want congestion and safety improvements on SH1 but this expressway is an Auckland-style solution that seeks to solve congestion with more motorways. It has failed there, so why do we suddenly think it will work here sixty years later?
The answer locally is a balanced system that invests more modest amounts in public transport, walking and cycling; safety improvements on SH1; and a new local road. This should be a corridor of national significance, not just an expressway.
Rail locally and globally is undergoing a renaissance, in part because it is better for congestion. A lane of motorway carries only 2,400 people an hour, whereas a rail corridor carries 20,000 people an hour. It is greener, less dependent on oil, and importantly is much safer. Trucks are a major cause of accidents on our roads, responsible for 16% of fatal accidents on our roads even though they only account for 7% of the total distance travelled by vehicles in NZ.
A fast, reliable and frequent modern rail system, coupled with other transport choices, would boost local amenity and economic development. Ironically, a key improvement to Coasters’ transport choices would be in Wellington. A light rail system linking the railway station to the hospital and airport would make getting where you need to go in Wellington for work and play easier and faster.
This expressway is a big expensive white-elephant, but it isn’t a forgone conclusion. Even though the New Zealand Transport Agency is ploughing ahead, it is essentially a political decision. As was demonstrated over the Schedule Four mining issues, public pressure influences this government. There are lots of local opportunities to send a strong message to the Government before construction starts in 2012, such as the local body elections, the Mana by-election, the general election next year, and the petition circulating by the Alliance for Sustainable Kapiti. The economics don’t stack up for the project and a little collaboration, analysis and lobbying by local government and community groups could force a big shift. Other communities have halted big, dumb projects like this and Kapiti can too.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Wed, September 8th, 2010
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Great blog Gareth, you describe the important issues extremely well.
For those interested, I will be doing the Soapbox on Back Benches tonight about the same issue.
Check out the Alliance for a Sustainable Kapiti facebook page to keep in the loop.
Many regards,
Jack
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“The Greens are not anti-car or anti-road. We love to drive. We are pro-transport choice
Gareth, how come you are pro choice in transport, but vehemently oppose students having choice whether or not they are a member of a student associatoin/union? Why is choice in one matter good, but choice in another is completely unreasonable?
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The US Greens Party are on the right track,
http://www.monetary.org/greenpartymonetaryplank.html
Dear Friends,
Some exciting and historic news from the U.S. Green Party!
This past week (end of August 2010) the Green Party’s National Committee working on monetary and economic policy matters have approved an historic, comprehensive Monetary Reform Plank in their 2010 Platform which actually does the job, as it includes all three of the necessary elements to achieve real reform. We’re happy to report this mirrors the proposed American Monetary Act.
Monetary Reform (Greening the dollar)
“While the banking reforms outlined in the above 12 points are very important to ameliorate the present crisis in our banking system, to affect long term, transformative change, it is imperative that we restructure our poorly conceived monetary system. The present mis-structured system of privatized control has resulted in the misdirection of our resources to speculation, toxic loans, and phony financial instruments that create huge profits for the few but no real wealth or jobs. It is both possible and necessary for our government to take back its special money creation privilege and spend this money into circulation through a carefully controlled policy of directing funds, through community banks and interest-free loans, to local and state government entities to be used for infrastructure, health, education, and the arts This would add millions of good jobs, enrich our communities, and go a long ways toward ending the current deep recession.
To reverse the privatization of control over the money issuing process of our nation’s monetary system; to reverse its resulting obscene and undeserved concentration of wealth and income; to place it within a more equitable public system of governmental checks and balances; and to end the regular recurrence of severe and disruptive banking crises such as the ongoing financial crisis which threatens the livelihood of millions; the Green Party supports the following interconnected,
Green Solutions:
1. Nationalize the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, reconstituting them and the Federal Reserve Systems Washington Board of Governors under a new Monetary Authority Board within the U.S. Treasury. The private creation of money or credit which substitutes for money, will cease and with it the reckless and fraudulent practices that have led to the present financial and economic crisis.
2. Create a Monetary Authority, which will, with assistance from the FDIC, the SEC, the U.S. Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, and others, redefine bank lending rules and procedures to end the privilege banks now have to create money when they extend their credit, by ending what is known as the fractional reserve system in an elegant, non disruptive manner. Banks will be encouraged to continue as profit making companies, extending loans of real money at interest; acting as intermediaries between those clients seeking a return on their savings and those clients ready and able to pay for borrowing the money; but banks will no longer be creators of what we are using for money. Many new forms of banks will be encouraged such as community banks, credit unions, etc., see 11 and 12 above)
3. The new money that must be regularly added to an improving system as population and commerce grow will be created and spent into circulation by the U. S. Government for infrastructure, including the human infrastructure of education and health care. This begins with the $2.2 trillion the American Society of Civil Engineers warns us is needed to bring existing infrastructure to safe levels over the next 5 years. Per capita guidelines will assure a fair distribution of such expenditures across the United States, creating good jobs, re-invigorating the local economies and re-funding government at all levels. As this money is paid out to various contractors, they in turn pay their suppliers and laborers who in turn pay for their living expenses and ultimately this money gets deposited into banks, which are then in a position to make loans of this money, according to the new regulations.” End
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I have presented the above at Bernard Hickeys’ interest.co blog, with a challenge to the New Zealand Green Party 5.27am comment;
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/govts-savings-group-meets-discusses-deficits-and-low-capita-gdp#comment-575738
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“The Greens are not anti-car or anti-road.”
Why the hell not?
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Because neither cars nor roads are inherently nasty. Recall that we have had roads since about the time we started farming, and roads that the Romans built still exist. As for cars, we have had individual transportation since the domestication of the horse (at least). The nature of the cart and the motive power is germane to the qualities it adds to our existence, but it is not essentially bad.
Cars will get more efficient as a result of cost of emissions, or get used less freely, but let the balance be struck without vilifying the vehicle. If we improve the breed by going to some different mix of transport choices (something with an IC engine powered by natural gas or methane for the long family trips, something electric to get around the ‘burbs)… what then?
No… we are not by policy or design, anti-car or anti-road. Some things are more sensible than others, and we prefer better mass transit as one of the solutions to urban transport problems, but the transport mix must not be defined by being “anti-car”. The reasoning behind such a position has to be sound, and I submit that it is not.
BJ
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That position, or something like it, exists here too, but the party is a bit slow in adopting such things. This is me – in another place.
So it isn’t a challenge to us.. except perhaps to me to find a way to make it move into the party’s mainstream discussions.
respectfully
BJ
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Now that we have individuals operating heavy machinery (car) coupled with their equally individual attitudes and capabilities, we have a escalating dangerous situation. Humans (without personal heavy machinery) are now excluded from these spaces – bar exceptional circumstances (special crossing sequences / spaces and timing).
“Bad” is a very obscure definition. I would not call a car a “bad” thing in and of it-self. What we should be recognising is the inherantly anti-human nature of these facilities (cars and roads) and agreeing that this model may mean continued descreasing of real human-scale qualities of life and environment (health, freedom of movement, air and noise quality, physical safety, social interaction) regardless of how efficient cars become. Cars will always continue to distance people from each other in public spaces.
For these reasons, (and many more), cars are nasty and I am anti-car. I’m not anti-road – I am still a pedestrian, cyclist and bus patron. I am anti “car-only-road” though.
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“Recall that we have had roads since about the time we started farming, and roads that the Romans built still exist. As for cars, we have had individual transportation since the domestication of the horse (at least).”
OK, I admit that I was unfair to roads – admittedly I wasn’t really considering Roman ones for some reason (and as far as I know, only the Roman routes still exist, not the roads themselves).
But ‘car’ and ‘horse’ are not synonyms. Horses are the ones that eat sugar lumps (actually sugar lumps are really good way of reducing your car’s emissions – a handful in the petrol tank and you are suddenley emission-free!).
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I’ve noticed the sheen is of Joyce a bit lately… He is having problems in all his portfolios and a big protest could stop this… We better be planning one in Auckland to stop Puhoi…
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This dismays me also. Cars (as the term is understood by today’s population) certainly are inherently bad because they enable and encourage an unsustainable lifestyle. Of course, people could choose to buy a car and not use it, but that would be particularly wasteful also.
This statement is one of the reasons why I’m still sceptical that the Greens really do understand sustainability.
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I do think there are aspects of car use that will never allow them to achieve a benign status even in NZ if we have a large, integrated, nationwide PT system… Cheif amongst them tyres – each tyre spits out 400 grams of rubber particles in the air every year, no way I know of to build a car without tyres… There are literally hundreds of millions of tyres stacked up around the world – a massive cause of toxic fires… The only car I know of without rubber tyres and with fully recyclable steel tyres is, well a train…
Also their construction is almost as polluting as their useful life 40%/60%, so just changing the fuel source doesn’t tick the enviro-friendly box…
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Great post Gareth, apart from that “We love to drive” line.
By the way, another city under threat from unsustainable road building proposal is Nelson – New Zealand’s cycling capital.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=114157828603134
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“This statement is one of the reasons why I’m still sceptical that the Greens really do understand sustainability.”
Don’t think its a lack of understanding so much as the characteristic of politicians to be reluctant to speak the truth for fear that it will scare people.
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Oh, I understand that it’s hard for politicians to speak the truth but then they expect us to elect them on a lie. Also, if the greens don’t put forward sustainable policies, how can I know that they understand that business as usual, even with a green tinge, is simply not sustainable?
Consequently, I can’t expect the Greens to do other than promote the policies that they put forward to the electorate. Those policies are not sustainable.
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“they expect us to elect them on a lie”
Why not? It’s always worked before.
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“We better be planning one in Auckland to stop Puhoi…’
It’s happening right now in Kapiti, Jeremy. Because of our protest the Labour opposition has promised to rescind the decision, that was not because of our council.
Also we are getting more and more vocal by the day. Many strong council candidates are strongly opposed.
John Key better be watching this one soon, so he can rescind the decision and be mr smile and wave
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Probably Preaching to the converted but, This report is really worth a read…>
http://www.tlpr.com/documents/strategyinsights/tp0510_tpsi_report_005_lr.pdf
Roads of National Significance are an Economic Crime perpertrated upon the New Zealand Taxpayer, Present and un-Born.
Messrs Guy and Joyce are culpable and History will Judge them as backward looking Fools.
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What you’ve written is a fantastic summary of the issues surrounding this precipitous political decision. It’s not the only instance of rushed and misguided decision-making by the current government. The National Standards which have been unnecessarily raced through parliament under urgency and foisted on our school communities is another example. As David Lange said, “It’s time for a cup of tea.”
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