Canterbury commuter rail simple

In your editorial (The Press ,Apr5)I presume you are generalising – ‘‘Rail projects are hugely expensive – and take a long time to deliver’’.

That statement hardly applies to establishing commuter rail from Waipara, Darfield and Ashburton to Christchurch when it is obvious that there is a largely unused rail system paralleling the highways.

For a fraction of the $900 million of the current spending on road access to Christchurch, the aquisition/adaption (going to scrap?) of already available rolling stock (ex Auckland/Wellington) could be up and running within 12 months – if we can overcome the limited, shortsighted intellegence prevailing in the Christchurch City Council, ECan and the Selwyn and Waimakarari councils.

It worked for many years; we are now in the 21st century and it can be even better as long as it does not become a project for the glitzy ‘‘megabucks’’ spenders/planners instead of those of rational common sense. John McCaskey

Waipara

Unnecessary highway costs

The provision of more four-lane highways merely serves to create de-facto truck lanes.

If the speed limit for heavy trucks was returned to 80kmh, motorists would be able to pass much more safely. This would save lives as well as billions of dollars in unnecessary construction costs. Brian Armstrong

Islington

Pondering road solutions

I would agree to 80kmh limits being placed on some difficult roads. The benefit of this can be seen on the Lewis Pass road. However, a reduction to 70kmh would probably result in more problems due to driver frustration.

Driving within Christchurch city is not very good, because of the reluctance of some drivers to give way in a merging or lane-changing situation.

I believe that most open-road accidents are caused by drivers who ignore all road rules, probably due to youthful bravado or machoism, often fuelled by alcohol. More signs or lower limits will not fix this.

To add to this we have foreign tourists who forget which side of the road they are supposed to occupy. We can work on giving them more information.

Roads seldom kill people. It takes drivers to do that.

The only solution is for all of us to become more sensible and courteous drivers, but I cannot place too much confidence in this ever happening. Lawrence Morritt

Sumner

What about flow-on costs?

The Government states that the increases in fuel tax will cost the average New Zealander less that a cup of coffee a week. Probably right, but it doesn’t take in the indirect increases like the increase in food prices, and many other items in daily use.

Rail is the big hope, but how will this work for the likes of Nelson and all the other inland places that don’t have railway lines?

Have they taken into account that historically rail loses money and relies on trucks to service it, so once again the taxpayer will pay as freight costs increase.

The list goes on and on. So it would be helpful for someone to go through and add the costs of the increase and see what they come up with. R Lucas

Papanui

Wish-list tax for Govt

The Government proposal to tax petrol in order to fund rail changes is a thinly disguised means of carrying out their wish to drive people to use rail and other public transport.

Such changes can’t be funded by other means, so let’s pretend it is in order to force the road toll down. And by the way we must stop calling it that.

This idea also has the Mikado-like effect of imposing their will on an unsuspecting public who will pay for a scheme they don’t want but will be forced to use.

Making the punishment fit the crime? Vic Smith

Halswell