Concern Government’s National Land Transport Programme will lead to more congestion - The Front Page

Traffic congestion on State Highway 1 between the Basin Reserve and Mt Victoria Tunnel in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There’s concern the Government’s National Land Transport Programme (NLTP), which prioritises new roads, looks more like a budget from the 1960s and one that will lead to more congestion.

The NLTP sets out where NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi spends the national transport budget.

The big winner in the plan is the state highways improvement budget, with $7 billion going towards building additions to the state highway network, including the 17 new roads of national significance (Rons) promised by the National Party during the election campaign.

The big loser is the budget for walking and cycling improvements, which goes towards helping councils build new cycleways. This has been halved from $910 million in the 2021-2024 programme to $460m in this plan – a large cut when factoring in inflation that has occurred in that time.

The plan said there was no money available for new walking and cycling projects as there was a “significant carry-forward of projects” from the previous NLTP.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown has said: “New Zealanders are sick and tired of the amount of money going into cycleways.”

University of Auckland urban planning senior lecturer Tim Welch told The Front Page the Government has always been clear about its plan to prioritise roads.

“So, that’s not unexpected but the level to which roads are funded at the expense of other modes is a bit of a surprise.”

It was out of step with what most other countries were doing, Welch said.

“A lot of countries and cities are really focused on building up alternatives to driving, knowing that building one more road or one more highway isn’t going to relieve congestion. It’s only going to increase demand for more driving over the years and lead to further congestion,” he said.

“The flow of budgeting in transportation across the globe has been to balance out other modes – public transport, walking and cycling – with road infrastructure.

“This budget looks like something that we would have budgeted for in the 1960s, 1950s.”

Brown said the Government’s transport projects will reduce travel times, improve public transport options, and build and maintain the roading network to the safe and reliable standard Kiwis expected.

Welch argued more roads meant more driving which meant more emissions.

“When we add more road space, it makes a trip seem cheaper in terms of your time use.

“So, it encourages more people to do it more often and as a result, we have more driving and more congestion.

“These effects happen rather quickly. It’s not like a 10-20 year time horizon when this happens, it happens within months to years of the construction finishing.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more from Tim Welch about what a 30-year national infrastructure pipeline could mean for the Government’s planned highways.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The episode is presented by Georgina Campbell, a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.

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