Labour Fails South Island voters
In an appalling dump on South Island voters, Labour is to spend $159 million on Canterbury transport projects of a total spend of $6.8 billion. The rest of the South Island gets even less As the South Island represents about 23% of New Zealand's population and presumably the equivalent amount in fuel and general taxes, this is a huge milking of the South Island. Labour appears to be even more aggressive than National in this respect Nor does this massive spend-up do anything to build a public transport alternative to cars in the South. Christchurch in the post-earthquake rebuild has opted to create a few on-street bus lanes and no form of dedicated rapid transit corridors capable of attracting and carrying large numbers of passengers, ignoring the success of these corridors in other similar cities and countries. (see footnote) The latest farce appears to be the planned dumping thousands of extra cars and buses onto Bea...