The thorny issue of billing motorists to drive at rush hour target="_blank">has been talked about in Auckland for years. Cross-party support has been growing in Parliament with Labour drafting legislation, which National broadly supports. The Greens are in favour and Act supports variable charges during traffic jams.
With incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon promising to scrap Auckland’s 11.5 cents a litre Regional Fuel Tax as part of National’s 100-Day Action Plan, Auckland Council will lose $150 million of revenue to invest in transport each year, and matching subsidies of $150m.
That’s a big hit for the cash-strapped council, and a big headache for Brown as he sets out to develop a new 10-year budget with transport accounting for a third of expenditure.
Traffic queues on Auckland's Northwestern Motorway. Photo / Michael Craig
Brown’s idea, coming up at today’s transport and infrastructure committee meeting, suggests charging on SH1 between the Penrose and Greenlane on-ramps, and SH16 between the Lincoln Rd and Te Atatū on-ramps, during the morning and evening commuter rush.
The levies, says Brown are “time of use” charges rather than “congestion charges” with a ring around, say, the central city.
He claims travelling when the roads jam up is “easily avoidable” and scotched concerns the charges will capture parents taking kids to and from school because in his day “you got to school on your own”.
Auckland Transport wants to speed things up to design and implement a scheme to be in place for when the City Rail Link opens in 2026, which in Brown’s mind is too slow and needs to be in place once the fuel tax is abolished.
The parliamentary process and implementation of a charging system make that nearly impossible. National says half the $500 million collected from the fuel tax remains unspent and is effectively a buffer until a charging system comes in.
Congestion charging has worked in a handful of cities with excellent public transport, but not in a city, like Auckland, where commuters from outer suburbs with limited bus and train services stung twice a day could easily turn against the mayor.
The Government also needs to ensure the system does not unfairly penalise low-income earners, many of whom don’t have the flexibility or transport options to avoid the roads at rush hour.
