Does Christchurch need light rail?
The Government’s policy signals over the reprioritisation of land transport funding has emboldened a swift uptake in the political pitch-forks.
The prime minister hasn’t done herself any favours by implausibly arguing that hiking up petrol excise duty is not a tax rise.
If it’s involuntarily being extracted from your back pocket, it’s a tax.
And this is a particularly nasty, grasping and regressive assault on a low-income earner’s household budget.
In fairness, National increased fuel excise by 17 cents a litre over its nine years. But why should that multi-billion dollar funding pipeline be supersized a further nine to 12 cents a litre over three years? The money’s already gushing in.
Under National’s rein, Canterbury’s roading network profited handsomely from those petrol taxes.
The Christchurch Southern Motorway, the Western Belfast Bypass, the Gateway Arches overpass and ongoing improvements to the Northern Motorway are all tangible cases in point. A third southbound lane, near the Waimakariri Bridge, will soon expedite high occupancy vehicles in the morning peak.
As much as the likes of Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter fiercely deny that building more roads or widening them reduces congestion, our highway network improvements have slashed travel times.
Furthermore, the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) projects the Northern Corridor projects, currently under way, will remove 50 per cent of cars from the Main North Rd by 2020. And Stage Two of the Christchurch Southern Motorway, providing a four-lane corridor as far south as Rolleston, will be a bonanza for southern commuter, in 18 months time.
But the completion of that Road of National Significance project may well herald a very abrupt end to the programme. Four-laning State Highway 1 from Rolleston to Ashburton sadly looks dead in the water.
In conversation with National’s leader, Simon Bridges, in Christchurch last week, he’s adamant the Government’s policy signals for transport funding is ‘‘bad news for the South Island, because you’ll be paying more for less’’.
I canvassed the views of the region’s mayors, who are busy manoeuvring.
Selwyn Mayor Sam Broughton says his council supports any improvements to SH1 that make it safer and more efficient, but fourlaning to Ashburton was ‘‘not supported through the recent business case to NZTA’’.
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel was particularly blunt. ‘‘I was personally surprised when National chose to make the project an election manifesto commitment, especially since it hadn’t been raised before then and didn’t match the cost-benefit work that NZTA do.’’
Broughton is particularly keen to see the priority go on ‘‘targeted works improving safety like a roundabout at Burnham and getting Hoskins Rd across SH1’’.
As much as Dalziel and Broughton welcome the enhanced focus on public transport, it’s notable they are both lukewarm about the merits of commuter rail from Rolleston.
Dalziel says she is ‘‘not yet convinced that the cost-benefit stacks up, but I’d like to see the results of the business case first before forming a view’’.
With the southern motorway extending to Rolleston in 18 months, a commuter rail service plying the same route increasingly poses as a feel-good ideological folly.
Similarly, the giddy enthusiasts who’d love Christchurch’s major arterial streets to be laced in lightrail lines, should first try and convince the court of public opinion that ripping up the likes of Riccarton, Fendalton, Papanui and Pages roads to lay tram tracks, fresh after earthquake repairs, is really such a swell idea.
Dalziel rejects she’s been a light rail advocate. Rather, she is focused on ‘‘securing transport corridors ahead of exponential changes in technology . . . that can run autonomous shuttles. I’ve been asking who is designing the bus that can run on the existing rail tracks and also drive on the road?’’
Meanwhile, as the Government eyes up splashing more cash on cycleways, a big admission from Bridges: ‘‘I’m in the awkward position . . . we did it in a big way. Have we seen some fiascos? Yes. You do it with care. And gently. I don’t think there’s a case for the massive cycleways injection the Government is proposing.’’
Beyond the shambles of St Asaph St, the mess that is Rutland St is a prime specimen of an exorbitant, unwieldly, overengineered suburban cycleway.
If they are to proliferate, a less obstructive design model should be pursued to stop the debacles and fracturing of public goodwill.