Funding for roads
Ben Wooliscroft mangles many facts in Time for private cars to give way on our roads (Feb 13). Big roads are funded from excise on fuel through use, not PAYE and not business tax. It also includes a tax to cover emissions. Drivers don’t need to feel guilty.
Excise is also used to subsidise the cost of public transport and maintaining local roads, usually about 50 per cent, with the rest from fares and council rates (renters cop this through rent). If we agree taxes should be used for the purposes on which they are collected, then some of what Ben proposes is fair argument.
We are not close to solving our transport woes without spending billions of dollars in the transition. We need to do this wisely, with consideration to those who are coming after us. Idealistic opinions that do not reflect current realworld impediments and requirements need to be heard with caution.
We in Wellington City have drastically inadequate commuting options for whatever purpose now or in the future we wish or need to them to be. We need to resolve our current congestion with solutions that cope with our immediate, our transition and our future needs. Nobody is offering these yet.
Chris Gray, Newtown
Ben Wooliscroft’s opinion piece wasn’t just well-titled, it was a breath of fresh air because he would place the private automobile behind public transport and active transport (cycling, e-scooting).
But the problem remains as to who would be driving a car, and who wouldn’t.
Restrictions on private car use would have to be put in place, otherwise every person and their dog would be justifying why he or she must be able to continue with operating a private car (which, effectively, is what our able-bodied citizens are already doing); and I can’t see how such a measure would ever gain widespread public approval, let alone any political party actually daring to put forward the necessary legislation document.
No, I’m afraid Mr Wooliscroft is simply another well-meaning commentator who is happy to continue to argue for the bane of the private car to clutter up our roads and our lives. His piece was yet more status quo stuff.
The only solution, really, then, is to go cold turkey on the car. But we won’t; and I strongly suspect that Mr Wooliscroft is smart enough that he already knows this.
Jo Barrett, Christchurch finest restaurants from her
$13 million mansion while her legal defence by Canada’s best lawyers proceeds in open court.
In facing a bully like China, small countries like New Zealand should recall Benjamin Franklin’s reputed warning to his fellow revolutionaries in 1776 that, ‘‘We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.’’
Watch out, fellow Kiwis, when China tries similar tactics on our own citizens. Depend on it, it will happen.
Keith Bradley, Nelson resources are to be taken as ‘‘gospel’’. That’s not good!
A major problem with science today is that opposing vested interests interpret selected data to suit their own agendas. You could say the days of ‘‘fake science’’, like ‘‘fake news’’, have arrived, and that is one good reason why today’s budding science students choose not to pursue a career in science. Scientists have a conscience too, you know.
Ray Richards, Trentham