Auckland must pay for what Auckland spends

NZ in Tranzit - campaigning against obscenities!

The Government has announced an added nationwide fuel tax to build its extravagant programme of motorways and - unbelievably - another $140 million  to "fix up some anomalies" in commuter rail systems in Auckland and Wellington.

This is the same Government responsible for cutting about $5 million funding to a (pathetically modest) programme of bus lanes, cycleways and road safety programmes in Christchurch in 2009.

Despite Stephen Joyce's naive fantasy that the rest of New Zealand, the smaller cities, the rural hinterland wants to be milked to feed that bloated spoilt brat,  the the so called supercity, most kiwis have some natural sense of fairness and justice!!

If roughly similar amounts of GDP are generated in other parts of NZ, then they should get their share of the cake - not be asked to subsidise Auckland. Most of New Zealand's wealth is generated in dairy products , forestry, coal, tourism etc -  very little of this directly generated in Auckland or Wellington!

Yet absurd amounts of money are being spent on rail and public transport in Auckland and Wellington while public transport in Christchurch and every other centre is being starved of adequate funding!!

Let Auckland pay for what Auckland spends!

NZ in Tranzit suggests a regional fuel tax be installed as originally planned, similar to that which has had a major effect of creating major new rapid transit infrastructure and boosting transit usage in Canada, now at an all time high of 1.9 billion trips a year.


NZ in Tranzit suggests essentially a simple pattern -  3 cents a litre extra  between the Bombay Hills and Rodney; 2 cents a litre in the central Waikato, Wellington and Christchurch areas,  and 1 cents a litre elsewhere...if a few dickheads drive a few extra kilometres to use country service stations to gain a few cents, good luck to them!

In other words let Auckland pay for what Auckland spends!

And let the three other largest major urban centres generate extra funding to build their own adequate - indeed quality - attractive public transport systems.

And let rural areas generate enough to allow for a modest bus service tofro provincial capitals and towns over 10000  residents a minimum 7am-7pm Mon-Fri hourly orbital (via Town centre) link to support those with no or limited and inconstant car access.


FURTHER TO THE ABOVE POSTING LAST NIGHT -  it appears Auckland is willing and eager to finance its dreams but rate increases and fuel taxes are seen as less effective than small motorway tolls(b) some indication of the huge amount of money needed to finance Auckland's $5 billion transport dreams - a regional tax of 30 cents per litre! would be needed to finance borrowing $5 billion over 30 years!

Of course all this future stuff - the city has already received public transport funding  of over $1.4 billion (pro rata - $195 million from Canterbury taxes! - with some part of $148 million more to come).In return Aucklanders will contribute $15 million towards our New Bus Exchange if it goes ahead - the only major bit of government public transport infrastructure funding our council has been able to secure - well, get promised -  in almost a decade!