Sleepy silly Hobbits, TDB told you National were trying to privatise the roads…
Officials tell Simeon Brown to consider tolling existing roads
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is being encouraged to look at tolling existing roads to relieve pressure on strained transport funding.
At present only new highways can be tolled to help pay for them, and only when there is a free alternative route.
But officials have told Brown they wanted to talk to him about exploring congestion charging “and/or relaxing the constraints on tolling legislation to include, for example, the tolling of existing roads”.
“Currently tolls can only be applied to new roads where there is a free alternative. Legislation could be changed to allow tolls on existing roads,” they said in advisories released to RNZ by the minister under the Official Information Act (OIA).
These also show the officials have taken this further.
“We have identified potential changes to legislation that would help us to simplify our systems and in turn reduce costs of the tolling system,” a briefing in February said.
The Government has already promised to reform tolling laws and spread the technology. RNZ has asked Brown if as part of this, he was considering tolling existing roads.
…this mutation of a road policy that National have trotted out slashes public transport infrastructure and is a naked attempt to push poor people off the roads!
This is user pays privatisation of our Roads, exactly as TDB warned you!
Bernard Hickey is scathing…
Simeon Brown’s road-taxing bait-and-switch
Govt unveils unmentioned $50m rego fee hike & fuel tax hike from 2027 to raise $650m and help build 15 new motorways; Funding for cycling, biking & walking slashed; Climate impact unmentioned
…he’s right!
Simeon only mentions Climate Change twice throughout his 43 page ‘plan’.
NZ is one of the few countries that sold our public transport systems and the nonsense underfunding of our public transport system sees entire rail closures because it’s too hot…
Thousands affected as dozens of Auckland trains cancelled due to hot weather
…this heat that shuts down underfunded Rail networks is also eroding the ground with huge rainfall…
Discovery of 3m cavity closes part of state highway in Tauranga
Barely a year after the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle, we are seeing what catastrophic climate change looks like in real time as roads develop mass erosion caused by extreme rain dumps caused by climate change.
We don’t have the adaptation capacity because we refuse to tax the polluters more.
You appreciate things are only going to get worse from here on in right?
Despite the climate denial from the Right in NZ, it is real and it is here now.
The $14billion dollar damage of Cyclone Gabrielle and our inability to rebuild highlights how little resilience we have in our underfunded system…
National’s response to all these threats to our roading infrastructure is user pays.
When the Boomer King Wayne Brown is struck dumb by the Government destroying the hopes of public transport infrastructure in our groaning gridlocked city, you know shit just got real.
I kept asking questions to candidates about roading privatisation during the election debate series because the obviousness of where National’s roading platform led to seemed an important issue, but it never caught a wider focus.
Now we not only get the privatisation, but we get the pain of user pays inequality.
It’s all stick, no carrot.
What the petrol tax did was generate revenue from as wide a group as possible to fund infrastructure, National have dumped that in favour of privatisation of roads with tolling and congestion taxes that will burn the poor with no expansion in public transport infrastructure to provide alternatives.
Remember our subsidisation of public transport was supposed to be an emission reducing tactic as well, so by dumping them will not only make gridlock more likely, it will produce more emissions that are feeding the climate change extremes we are watching burn our country this Summer.
So we open the taps on immigration (250 000 in a year) and rather than build the infrastructure for that level of migration, we simply impose user pays as the solution???
Whatever decision is cooked up will be for the benefit of a Right wing donor somewhere.
We are in the age of consequences now and we will choke on our denial.
Look at these numbers…
…road crashes were 4% of GDP!!!!
Our roads should not be privatised and they should not by made user pays. Roads should be seen as a common good with huge state investment focused on climate change adaptation, better engineered for safety and vast upgrades for public transport.
Nothing National have planned here will solve anything in the short term, medium term or long term.
This is simply about pushing poor people off roads and hoping no one notices.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Roads like Transmission Gully should have been toll roads, at least for a set period. I use it a lot and would have no problem helping pay for it. I can still use the coastal road for free if I didn’t want the convenience of using it.
Other countries have had toll roads forever, and when I was a kid you paid to go over the Harbour Bridge in Auckland
Transmission Gully is like a rollercoaster with its large hill climbs and descents.
Users should be compensated for the unnecessary wear and tear it puts on our cars – not charged.
Roads like Transmission Gully should have been toll roads, at least for a set period. I use it a lot and would have no problem helping pay for it. I can still use the coastal road for free if I didn’t want the convenience of using it.
Other countries have had toll roads forever, and when I was a kid you paid to go over the Harbour Bridge in Auckland
They are lining up to toll Transmission Gully. Labour decided not to toll it even though National had planned for it to be a toll road when they were in.
Toll roads are a regressive tax that affect the poorest households the most. It would be slightly more bearable if we had a decent public transport network but even that is being slashed by this government.
So congestion charging and toll roads, but with crap alternatives. Great!
You don’t have to use Transmission Gully though, there is another perfectly serviceable route (that just wasn’t suited to the amount of traffic that was being pushed through it). I’m not saying make every road a toll road, but this was a case where I think there’s a good case for it. I’m also not saying to privatise roads, just that tolls can be a good way of helping the cost.
I would also say there is a train line running to Kapiti but I won’t pretend that that works at all.
There has been some horrendous reports re the train.
Yes, people can and do use the original route. And that would further increase if Transmission Gully were tolled.
Nevertheless, as I’ve mentioned before (in this thread) roading should be paid for via income tax.
A tolling system is regressive. Moreover, cost us more due to the additional setup (investment, running cost and collection) required. Whereas the tax system is already up and running.
I don’t support duplication and having to pay extra, do you?
What the petrol tax did was increase the tax burden of the poor as it’s not a progressive tax.
Road user and congestion charges will of course add to that burden.
So the goal of the left should be returning those taxes/charges back into progressive income tax.
You don’t get the point P.C.
Martyn – Auckland Council, via Auckland Transport, is giving some though about congestion charges on some parts of Auckland’s road network…shame Labour never completed the Light Railway scheme.
Shame Labour never completed anything.
Still waiting on Bridges, bridges…shame National never complete anything.
Great picture of you and Im right with your hard hat and singlets on Bob.
Bob the first – So true.
So now we have a polished turd head who is undoing everything that wasn’t done
What about all these gaseous plip plops bursting forth in brown shirts with blue and yellow bow ties
Toll roads occure in all countries so why not NZ .We need good roads so those that use them should pay. Public transport should be improved and it should be as cheap as possible to take pressure off roads.
We all largely use the roads whether indirectly or directly.
And yes, we do need good roads. It will improve productivity and reduce the carnage.
This should be paid for via income tax. A tolling system is regressive. Moreover, cost us more due to the additional setup (investment, running cost and collection) required.
Capital Gains Taxes occur in most developed economies Trevor. Most developed economies don’t freak out about government debt being higher than 30% of GDP. Let’s not start with overseas comparisons.
The laughable thing is that any tax cut for most kiwis will well and truly disappear with increased tolls and fees. These guys are con artists. They’ll make sure public transportation is not a cheaper alternative so you may as well call these tolls and fees what they are. A tax with another name.
RUCS for all are a scheme to make people with small cars and motor bikes subsidise the large utes and suvs .The number of suvs at schools morning and afternoon is disgusting .Back in the day when families had 4 kids no one had such vehicles and managed perfectly well on sport days etc.
If you believe that the cost of road crashes amounts to 4% of GDP (as invented by some random crank on Twittter), please lay off the pipe.
After moving everyone onto this RUC for all, petrol prices “should” come down, but watch as the fuel companies sneakily replace the fuel excise duty over time with profit margin so consumers will get whacked with high petrol costs, higher registration fees, RUC’s, tolls, congestion charges, and more gst on all of that.
Tolling roads is not privatising roads. The roads still belong to the government, as does the toll revenue.
https://www.afr.com/companies/infrastructure/transurban-net-profit-quadruples-but-dividends-will-disappoint-some-20240206-p5f2w1