Phil Twyford: Yes, fixing our killer highways is years overdue

COMMENT

I agree with Rod Vaughan's analysis that fixing our killer highways is years overdue.

Since 2013, the number of people dying on our roads every year has increased by nearly 50 per cent. That's why when our Government came to office, we knew we couldn't sit back and do nothing after years of neglect. We made safety our top transport priority and we're investing $4.3 billion into safety infrastructure and programmes to bring down the number of deaths on our roads. This is a 37 per cent increase compared to the previous government – which translates to $1.2 billion more to save lives. The road toll won't come down overnight, but we're pulling out all the stops.

Where I don't agree with Rod is that the solution is to build a handful of four-lane highways in a select few locations, which is the National Party's policy. The fact is that only 3 per cent of all deaths and serious injuries in the last 10 years have been on the few routes the National Party wants to spend tens of billions on. We can't go back to the days of spending 40 per cent of the transport budget on just seven projects while the number of deaths and serious injuries increase every year.

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Our Government is investing $1.4 billion over the next three years in targeted road safety upgrades, like median and side barriers and wider shoulders, across 3300km of state highways. This is expected to prevent 160 deaths and serious injuries every year once fully rolled out. I know that Rod doesn't think much of these targeted upgrades, but the research shows they save lives. For example, flexible road safety barriers can give a 70–80 per cent reduction in road deaths. Shoulder widening can reduce crashes by can reduce crashes by up to 35 per cent. Wider centrelines can do the same by 20 per cent.

We're already engineering up highways all over New Zealand. Construction on life-saving upgrades have already started at places like Dome Valley and SH2 between Waihī and Ōmokoroa. Seven projects have been finished in the Waikato, and the barriers on SH3 between Ohaupo and Te Awamutu have been hit around 40 times – potentially preventing at least that many deaths and serious injuries.

But it's not just about installing upgrades, we know that we have to bring our roads and state highways up to scratch across the country. We're spending around $2 billion to operate, maintain and renew over 80,000km of local roads – 22 per cent more than the previous government. This is on top of the over $2 billion we're spending maintaining our state highways, which is 18 per cent more than the previous government.

Rod also says that there is $3.7 billion set aside for Auckland light rail and this could build six or seven four-lane highways similar in length to the 37km between Tauranga and Katikati. There are a couple of issues with this. Firstly, given that a four-lane motorway between Warkworth and Whangarei could cost around $5 billion, there's no way you could get six or seven. Secondly, we have actually set aside $1.8 billion seed money for Auckland light rail. It will be able to ease congestion by carrying up to 11,000 commuters per hour – the equivalent of four lanes of motorway while taking up a fraction of the space.

The reality is, we are taking action to prevent ongoing carnage on New Zealand's worst horror highways. We're also spending a record amount on roads in our regions to boost opportunity and in public transport in our cities to get them moving.

Instead of focusing on a few handpicked highways that only take four per cent of vehicle journeys, we're taking a balanced approach and investing in safety upgrades and infrastructure across the country.

• Phil Twyford is the Minister of Transport