While only completing half of the TNI project appears to be a delayed April Fools Joke, unfortunately our geography puts the Western Bay of Plenty sub-region at the mercy of the Government's transport policy settings.
Unlike Hamilton's various locally-managed bridges or Christchurch's grid-layout streets, the only practical way to get across Tauranga city is via a handful of state highways, which are managed by NZTA.
NZTA's policies mean our local cash-strapped councils must encourage more people out of cars and on to buses and bikes if they want to retain the Government subsidies for local roading improvements.
Over the next 30 years, the Western Bay of Plenty's population is expected to exceed 210,000 people, requiring 95,000 additional homes to be built and resulting in two million additional transport movements per day.
Our bridges and highways won't be able to cope with that additional traffic, and I don't see the Government supporting a new harbour crossing at more than $200m just for it to be filled up with cars, either.
Because of our geography and the Government holding the city to ransom, Tauranga's ability to manage peak-time commuter congestion will rely on modal shift and other demand-management tools.
The Government's logic is, why should the public spend hundreds of millions on building new highways for commuter traffic when the public can spend $30m on subsidising public transport.
I do not want the job of getting people out of cars to take a bus instead. The reason cars dominate New Zealand's culture is because most household trips are complex, travelling end-to-end is faster in a car, cars leave when you want to, and you have your own comfortable space.
Progress is not going to happen under the current way buses are delivered locally.
The bus services are managed by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, and Tauranga City Council provides the bus lanes and bus stops.
In the short term, all organisations need to work better together. In the long term, we need to have one agency that can work closely with NZTA delivering our local bus and transport solution.
Many businesses are voluntarily encouraging and promoting their staff to take buses or cycle to work as a way of living their corporate values. But for other suburban or industrial businesses, it is impractical for their staff to rely on buses and bikes alone.
Transport is a complex issue and we will all need to work together to resolve it.
- Matt Cowley is the chief executive for Tauranga Chamber of Commerce
