Beehive messages mixed on greening our roads
Wby 68 per cent in its 2018 Government Policy Statement on land transport.
The Climate Change Commission has taken a very different view. Unlike transport officials, who place emphasis first on reducing the amount of transport that people need to do, the commission has made increasing electric vehicle uptake a ‘‘priority area for action’’, emphasising the decarbonising of trips overall, rather than first seeking to reduce the need to travel in the first place.
The commission is sceptical that the sort of behavioural change transport officials would like to see can be achieved in the timeframe we need it to. ‘‘Behaviour change also takes time,’’ it says. ‘‘Urban form and planning is a long-term and evolving process and public transport systems take time to build up.’’
The Government currently has a dollar each way in this game. Its new urban planning rules encourage cities to become more dense, reducing the need for travel; but it’s also pouring billions of dollars into new road projects encouraging cities to grow outwards.
One thing the Government is clear on is decarbonising freight by greater use of rail and shipping. Last week it published a report by consultancy EY into the value of rail, no doubt to justify the $5 billion investment made in the network in the past four years, and signal future investment to come. True to form, EY found rail to be worth $1.7b-$2.1b to the economy each year.
That might suggest more investment in rail to be prudent – and no doubt some is – but both transport officials and the commission are sceptical that much more freight can be moved to rail.
Transport officials said the opportunities to shift more freight to rail would be ‘‘limited’’, given the just-in-time supply chains and lack of coverage of the rail network. The commission agreed, which begs the question of whether the billions of subsidies are worth it, or whether that investment would be better suited elsewhere.
Last week the Government recommitted to a new policy of making track users pay for using the rail lines, money which will be reinvested in the rail network. That’s a change from the past three years in which road users have been subsidising a small amount of investment in track.
This seems in keeping with the existing user-pays philosophy of transport funding in New Zealand, but a step away from what could have been a model to incentivise people to shift their freight to rail by making road travel comparatively more expensive. Charging for tracks is equitable, but it could cut against the principle of subsidising something for the purpose of reducing emissions.
It’s indicative of a wider confusion in the Government’s climate strategy, which is whether we should drag people, kicking and screaming, from their private vehicles – and if so, whether such change is even possible.