Letters: Toll roads - where is the fairness?

Cars using the Tauranga Eastern Link (TEL). Photo / File

M Chandler (Letters, February 16) wrote about toll roads in NZ, why is it that the Bay has two toll roads?

You listed as the new highway Raumati to Waikanae is not a toll road, what about the one nearer home, the Waikato Expressway, drivers allowed to do 110km/h from Cambridge to the outskirts of Hamilton and no tolls on that road.

A while ago I travelled from Auckland to Hamilton and was amazed at the expressway/motorways that are being built there, apparently free of tolls.

Many of us would pay tolls for a road from Katikati to Tauranga, but as this was National Party-driven before the last election and none of the electorates that this road will pass through are, Labour held, hence no road.

On the Southern Motorway in Auckland from Papakura to Takanini work on widening the road was stopped to build a cycleway by the side of the motorway, priorities for some are not the same as others.

Wendy Galloway
Omokoroa

Bus routes

While all this fiasco is going on with the new bus route for Tauranga could I please ask that the Gold Route Bus that passes three retirement villages before getting to Bayfair start an earlier bus from Papamoa Plaza to Bayfair.

The first bus is 10.21am, and then you have to change at Bayfair. The timing of this bus is far too late.

If you are going to the Rialto picture theatre for a 10.30am movie, in this case, you have no option but to walk to Bayfair and get the bus to town.

Many of the residents are just not capable of walking to Bayfair.

The best option would be to have a bus leaving Papamoa Plaza and use the old route down Sunrise Ave and stay on one bus all the way to town.

A much better route.

When we had two representatives from the council talk at Ocean Shores, it sounded all too good to be true, but when it comes into reality, it is just a nightmare.

At Pacific Coast Village we have a bus stop going to Bayfair at one end of the Village and then another bus stop at the other end of the Village going to Bayfair but on the way back there is no stop outside the village at all, and you have to get off at Sandhurst Drive.

Hopefully, the old bus routes will be reinstated.

Margaret Campbell
Pacific Coast Village

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