$5m airport cash for transport fund

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Auckland City Council has come up with a tax and spend proposal to beat traffic congestion.

Ratepayers will be asked if they would pay a little extra to go into a special public transport fund.

The council plans to kick-start the fund with about $5 million from a bonus dividend it has just received from its airport shares.

After three years the fund would be worth about $20 million and be spent on whatever public transport system is flavour of the month.

Ratepayers are already paying an extra $6 million a year for new public transport initiatives such as park and ride facilities, bus lanes and cycleways.

The transport fund is the brainchild of the finance committee chairwoman, Kay McKelvie, who is worried that councillors want to put up rates for the sake of putting up rates, with no idea of how to spend the money.

Instead of keeping to a zero increase, she said the general mood at yesterday's budget meeting to discuss this year's rates was to put them up by the rate of inflation - 1.8 per cent.

"The money should be earmarked rather than going into a slush fund," Kay McKelvie said.

Councillor Dame Barbara Goodman last night said she supported asking ratepayers to pay a little more if it would help solve the traffic issue.

Not all councillors support all of the $5 million from the airport dividend and a 1.8 per cent rates rise going into the transport fund.

Councillors voted to divert $700,000 from the $4.5 million proceeds of a 1.8 per cent rates rise into extra funding for The Edge, and for an unspecified amount from the $5 million airport dividend to go towards an indoor arena.

Councillor Bill Christian said he was "dead worried" that a 1.8 per cent rates increase would be insufficient to help either the public transport fund or the arena.

Councillor Jon Olsen said capital from the fund was only a "flea bite," adding there was no need for a rates increase.

In a column in the council newspaper, City Scene, Mr Olsen yesterday said that selling the council's $400 million airport shares and cashing up the $900 million of Infrastructure Auckland assets would solve Auckland's transport and infrastructure problems.

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