I live in an area of Auckland where, if you travel by car in peak times, you will sit in a traffic jam on a road feeding on to the motorway for 20 to 30 minutes .
If you travel by bus ( we don’t have light rail in my neck of the woods) you’ll get into the city much quicker and help to reduce the impact on our environment.
One solution I’ve heard being offered is to take out a whole lot of houses on either side of the two lane problem road for maybe 15 Km so it can become a 4 lane feeder link.
No thanks. New roads have a habit of getting filled up with new traffic.
What if,instead, we made public transport free?
What if, at peak hour, you knew that there would be another bus in 5 minutes and a network of buses and trains could take you efficiently to where you wanted to go? What if those buses were electric ?
Last February Luxembourg , the smallest sovereign state in Europe (population 626,978) became the first country in the world to make all public transport free.
Why not us?
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
It’s a perfectly logical argument, Bryan. But remember: politics in NZ is a game, in which sponsored players get to positions of power on the basis of political contributions, and on the basis that those political contributions will buy policy. No matter how bad the policy might be, if it complies with the wants of a vested interest group with clout, it gets implemented.
Who gains from a system dedicated to construction of roads and the importation of vehicles to fill them?
Road designers.
Surveyors.
Road construction companies.
Road maintenance companies.
Vehicle importers.
International shipping companies.
Inter-island ferry companies.
Vehicle salespersons.
Insurance companies.
Vehicle maintenance companies.
Advertising agencies.
Television networks.
The AA (Automobile Association).
VTNZ (and other vehicle testing organisations).
International suppliers of fuel. (Oil companies).
Local retailers of fuel.
Health and safety compliance companies.
Vehicle repair companies.
ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation).
The government -via taxes on fuel, taxes on vehicles,
City and district councils -via planning consent, project compliance, monitoring etc.
And all the people whose income is dependent on the above.
Good luck turning that lot around and getting them to see sense.
Who loses from a system dedicated to construction of roads and the importation of vehicles to fill them?
Everyone. Especially anyone under the age of 70, as planetary meltdown and collapse of the global environment accelerate under the burden of motorised industrialism that pushes chemical, physical and biological factors out of balance at a rate way beyond anything that has occurred in the past 600 million years, and which will annihilate most life on Earth if it continues.
Daily CO2
Jun. 1, 2020: 418.32 ppm
Jun. 1, 2019: 414.14 ppm
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png
Aside from the global warming thing, – fact is we should out of COMMON SENSE be ,- making light rail, public transport more readily available and/or FREE. Or, if that offends the sensitivities of the sad neo liberal, making a token payment in the form of tickets available. A dollar for a week of travel.
That’ll f@ck em.
Its time this country and those shady dealers in the background making a mint out of current conditions got a good hard boot up the arse.
Yes. And petrol is taxed high enough to support this. Great idea here. Well done.
John Minto proposed this for Christchurch.
Wellington City Council fell for a scam that their trolley bus power supply needed fixing so they got rid of the trolley buses and now run diesel in their place.
A later independent report laid out modest costs for upgrading the trolley bus power supply over several years, But too late the overhead lines were removed with indecent purposeful haste.
The oil industry have a history of meddling with reports, deluding the Wellington City Council, first with doing away with trams, reports in recent years relegating light rail behind two forms of diesel buses very unfairly with unequal comparisons, and now trolley buses.
Minto has been banging on about this for years. When he stood for the mayoralty in Auckland and then twice in Christchurch. We have a vociferous road lobby in Aotearoa and politicians blind to the idea of free public transport. Every 8 ton loaded axle travelling along a road is the equivalent of 10,000 cars. A laden 60 ton truck does the equivalent damage to the road of 70,000 cars. Dunkirk, Tallinn have free public transport.
Interesting stats, there Bronwen Summers,- its time we here in NZ grew up and studied our northern European cousins. Esp the Scandinavians , in so many ways. Neo liberalism is an inefficient, outdated and destructive ideology. It really is.
Public transport in Auckland is already subsidized to the tune of about 50% by ratepayers. If we want ‘free’ public transport we would have to add the additional subsidy to the rates bill. In principal it is a bad idea because it subsidizes travelling long distances to work when we should be working from home or moving the businesses out of the centre. Surely Covid 19 taught us that?
Auckland is problematic for public transport because the population density is less than half that required to make any public transport system break even. Making matter worse, despite 30 years of infill housing, the population density in the suburbs around the CBD is dropping because the progeny of boomers have flown the coop. I look down my street in a smart suburb 15 minutes from the CBD and half the home owners are retirees. So we have an inversion where the young inner city workers are often living on the periphery and the retirees are near the centre. This will sort itself out as my generation dies off. Already I’m beginning to see smart young couples with an infant renovating old villas. Fancy a million dollar mortgage anyone?
The clowns running the Council think that cycling is going to be the answer. What a joke! Auckland is classed as a ‘temperate rain forest’ by geographers and it’s as hilly as all hell. Sure, you’ll get a dedicated few (typically white middle class males) who will bike into town, assuming the office has an ample supply of showers, but there is no way we will see a significant upsurge in bicycle riding sufficient to justify the cost of all the cycle lanes. Electric bikes may help somewhat but not enough. Cycling for the most part is a leisure activity, not a form of transport.
They should do free public transport in Auckland for 6 months as a trial to see what the effects are.
Good idea as it will give a guide, but it may take many years for patterns of commuting to adjust with a new incentives for workers to reside more conveniently to bus routes
Great idea Bryan. Particularly as rail increases. Life would be easier for many if most “utilities” were in public ownership and cheap or free of charge. Free Wifi nationwide and power generation and supply returned to full public ownership would make such a difference to working class lives.
But, but, that’s socialism-exactly!
^
THIS.
We actually have free public transport right now all the way through the pandemic. So no reason why It cant be continued.
Exactly!
100% again, Bryan !
Rational, sensible so it won’t happen …. As Afewknow, knows, too many folk paid to not allow it to happen.
Philj. And that needs to be countered as they use mostly lies and propaganda.
oil industry backed mainly at this stage.
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