Editorial: Transport policy breath of fresh air

How refreshing to hear a major party leader state simply and categorically that the solution to Auckland's traffic congestion is "building more roads and doing so without delay". It is even more encouraging that National, under Don Brash, has no qualms about charging for road use. For without tolls in some form traffic volumes would increase to the point of congestion on the additional roads.

Of course it is easier to advocate road charges when you are an Opposition leader talking to a Chamber of Commerce than it would be if you were in power and the public believed you were about to do it. The previous National Government was in no hurry to adopt the road-pricing policies being devised by transport officials at that time. Politicians know the public will resent paying tolls on any road their taxes have already paid for, and they will argue, with justification, that new roads ought to built with the hefty portion of petrol tax that is siphoned off for other purposes.

Dr Brash is careful to say that tolls and congestion charges would partially replace petrol taxes and property rates as sources of roading finance, promising that the revenue gathered would be the same. He ought to provide an additional assurance that tolls would not be imposed on any road unless a free alternative route was readily available. That would be no impediment to tolling any new elements of Auckland's road network. Nor would it prevent the introduction of an electronic toll on, say, one lane of the existing motorways.

The public is likely to resist tolls in theory but not in practice. The principle will be vehemently condemned in all public forums whenever a particular toll road is proposed, but if national or local government bites the bullet they could be surprised at how readily toll roads are used. People in a hurry and stuck in traffic are not going to waste more time whingeing about road charges. They will pay what a faster journey is worth to them.

The authorities might be surprised, too, at how much people would pay. Computer assessments for Auckland's proposed eastern highway suggest it could not carry a toll higher than $3 before use fell and revenue declined. But people for whom time is money might pay a good deal more than $3 to cut 30 minutes or more from their journey. If sufficient numbers are prepared to pay twice that much it would enable the project to be built with private investment, which is the only way we are likely to get it. The highway is not a high priority on the national roading programme.

National aims to complete Auckland's network within 10 years of taking office. Dr Brash believes the hindrance to the roading programme is not finance but resource consent procedure. He promises National would rewrite the Resource Management Act within nine months of its election. It would prevent frivolous and vexatious objections to projects. Legal aid would be permitted only for objectors who were personally affected. Cases could be taken directly to the decisive body and special consultation of Maori would be taken out of the act.

Public transport is also part of National's picture, though it is not the panacea for congestion that others imagine. The party proposes to set up a new agency, comprising representatives of central and local government, to co-ordinate the region's public transport. It would complete whatever rail projects it inherits but any additional investment in rail, says Dr Brash, would need to show a better cost-benefit than road transport. That should ensure any rail projects were better planned than at present.

It is a clear, practical policy, devoid of the antagonism to the private car and other obsessions that colour so much transport planning these days. To a city well past the point of frustration, straightforward roading commitments will have powerful appeal.

Dr Brash's undertakings on Friday will be salted away for the day he may be in a position to deliver. We will not let him forget them.