Carbon Tinge To Transport Funding Programme
July 2nd, 2008
The shallowness of the Govt’s pledge to make NZ the world’s first carbon neutral country has been exposed again with the release of this year’s National Land Transport Programme. The plan will pour $2.7bn into land transport excluding rail infrastructure of which 87% is related directly or indirectly to road building and maintenance projects. Just 13% is allocated to public transport and cycling initiatives. In fact the amount allocated to the latter is so small it doesn’t even rate a mention in Land Transport NZ’s press releases on the funding package in terms of allocated funding.
NZ Slipping Behind In Public Transport Funding. The fact remains in actual dollar terms the allocation of funding for non roading projects is very small and this is in spite of concerns about the rising cost of oil on our transportation system and concerns about the impact of burning fossil fuels on global warming. If the Govt is truly concerned about such issues surely it would not approve such a lop-sided budget as this. The Govt has long crowed about how much it has boosted funding of public transport and while funding as increased it is still less than half the level of funding allocated to public transport in Ireland or Queensland both with similar sized populations to NZ. It is unclear how emissions will be cut in the transport sector with such a poor record on promoting public transport.
Funding Disparities. The Govt through LTNZ will spend more than three times as much just on highway policing than it is planning to spend on the entire railway network over the next five years. Furthermore, the $36m allocated to the Sea Change policy to promote coastal shipping will be burnt up by the land transport budget in less than five days. It seems the more the Govt wants things to appear to be changing the more they stay the same.
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