Auckland Mayoral candidate John Palino says he will review the projects in the Auckland Plan and call a public referendum on any new tax proposal. "The report of the Consensus Building Group into funding Auckland’s future transport needs has recommended tolls on existing Auckland roads, but what it should have investigated was why the Mayor’s programme costs so much and yet delivers more congestion. "I think Aucklanders would consider paying a bit more if it got them better public transport, less congestion and faster trips. But that is not what is planned. "After an astonishing $68 billion of transport spending over the next 30 years, or just over $2 billion per annum - equivalent to one-and-a-half times the entire region’s annual general rates - Auckland will not only have worse congestion than it does today, it will have worse congestion than the very cities we are already struggling to compete with - Sydney and Melbourne. "That’s not an opinion, that was the finding of the Council’s own transport experts earlier this year. "How can we be more liveable than these and other cities if people are stuck in congestion? And not just at peak times, Auckland Transport also finds drivers will be stuck in traffic throughout the day. "This is a terrible result and first job of the Consensus Building Group should have been to evaluate the projects and why they deliver so little benefit to commuters. It should have been given the opportunity to consider how we can get better value out of our motorway and public transport systems to make travelling either cheaper or faster - not slower and more expensive.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 05:51:57 +0000
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