Transport plan good news, or not?
Great news last week about the Government’s commitment to key transport projects particularly down here.
Major trumpeting and back slapping about the Mill Rd corridor and electrification to Pukekohe, fantastic news! Or is it? Let’s look at things a little closer.
Electrification has been in the 10 year budget for many years, the previous Government had committed to it and I have not seen any indication that this has been bought forward or anything has changed.
We still don’t know when it will be started or finished, so we are no better worse off than we were.
The disappointment in terms of the rail network is the plan to add a third track between Otahuhu and Wiri.
If the Government wanted to be signalling a step change and point of difference from their predecessors, they would have committed to a third track to at least Papakura which would have provided for the much needed separation of freight and passenger trains and with it the ability to accommodate trains from the likes of Hamilton and Tauranga as well as peak time express trains from Pukekohe to at least Otahuhu cutting significant time from the journey.
So for us, nothing new or liberating to jump up and down about in regard to trains.
I do have to applaud the way in which the commitment to Mill Rd has been reported and described.
Firstly though, congratulations to local MPs Andrew Bayly and Judith Collins, and those who got involved with the petition to keep the Mill Rd project in the work programme. And specially to Bill Cashmore, who has worked tirelessly to ensure the south is getting as much as possible.
Looking at how this project conflicts with the Government’s policy statement that takes such a negative view of roads, you cannot help to wonder if the petition has had some influence.
We will never know though, that would be weak politics. But the Mill Rd project is to go ahead, well at least stage 1. Isn’t that the same stage that was always going to go ahead from Redoubt Rd to Alfriston, that has been planned, land purchased etc?
So again nothing new or amazing about this. Ok, there seems to be a commitment to build the new motorway interchange at Drury South but isn’t there something missing?
Oh that’s right, the connection from that interchange to the end of stage 1 at Alfriston. And I won’t even talk about the Pukekohe expressway that the previous Government had been pretty keen to include in the overall project.
Likewise, the additional lanes on the motorway from Papakura to Drury are old news. So what is new? The way these things are going to be paid for, fuel taxes for all and tolls on the new roads.
No issue for me on tolls but instead of building a small section, commit a time frame for the whole lot and toll it. The uptake will be huge. What is planned will do nothing in my view to address the congestion issues we face here. This is like being served up cold leftovers for lunch.
- Andy Baker is deputy chairperson of the Franklin Local Board