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Jul 24, 2023

Greens want Chch, Wgtn light rail in $12bn transport plan

The Green Party wants to downscale the Government's plans for light rail tunnels in Auckland and instead spend the money on prioritising trams for Christchurch and Wellington, as part of its $12

The Green Party wants to downscale the Government's plans for light rail tunnels in Auckland and instead spend the money on prioritising trams for Christchurch and Wellington, as part of its $12 billion transport policy.

The party wants to return to original plans for street-running light rail in Auckland, and also re-allocate $500 million from urban state highway improvements towards walking and cycling.

It comes after a series of big spend-ups promised by Labour and National to expand road links — alongside public transport improvements.

Under the last 1News poll that saw the centre-left bloc able to rule, Labour would need the Greens in order to form a coalition.

Recent polls have shown the National-ACT bloc in a position to govern.

Speaking to Q+A, the Greens' transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said that doubling the minimum level of investment in the transport project from $500 million to $1 billion would benefit motorists the most.

Last week, National's transport spokesperson Simeon Brown said that he wanted central government's funding for walking and cycling to be "flatlined" instead.

Genter said today: "[Drivers] benefit the most. Every time kids are able to walk and cycle, or take public transport, that means fewer parents clogging up the roads when dropping the kids at school.

"And that does so much more to decongest the roads than a new link somewhere in the roading network."

Julie Anne Genter. (Source: Q and A)

The money would come from central government's National Land Transport Fund, which is primarily funded by fuel excise duty and road user charges, paid by drivers.

Genter pushed back on the suggestion that the fund should only be used for motorists.

"Currently, the direct charges for using the roads don't cover the cost of the roads," she said.

"Fifty per cent of all the traffic is on local roads, 50% of local roads are funded by rates. We currently have a huge Crown funding injection into motorways — so it's just not true that road user charges and petrol taxes cover the cost of the roads."

The Greens' pledge for more cycleways comes after the Government announced a big boost to walking and cycling projects — with investment in the activity class jumping nearly 80% to a minimum of $500 million over the next three years.

Brown told Q+A last week that the jump was unjustifiable as many more people drove to work or took public transport.

Under the Government's land transport policy statement, walking and cycling improvements would amount to 2-4% of overall investment from the NLTF over the next three years.

The Greens' new transport plan is focused on delivering "modern trams" instead of tunnelled light rail in Auckland, which Genter said would free up billions to spend on new systems in Christchurch and Wellington.

"What we are talking about is actually more achievable and more affordable than what the Labour Government is focusing on," she said.

"We've seen this delivered in comparable cities overseas, very recently, in Sydney, Canberra, and the Gold Coast in Australia. You know, they have had a plan that's been able to be rolled out relatively quickly, it's more affordable, it's less disruptive."

The Government wants to spend $14 billion on a semi-tunnelled light rail system between the city centre and the airport, which the Greens said could be cheapened by $5.6 billion if it ran at street level instead.

In Christchurch, the party wants to build a train line with stage one from Church Corner to Papanui via the city centre, and then later outwards towards Hornby and Belfast.

Genter said: "Right now, the Government is spending much more on public transport in Auckland and Wellington.

"Christchurch is growing faster, and Christchurch has got great development of protected bike lanes, which has led to a huge uptick in people using bikes to get around, but the public transport has really languished."

The Greens have given a $4.7 billion cost estimate for the Christchurch line.

Meanwhile in the capital, the party's $1.8 billion plans for light rail — based on Let's Get Wellington Moving work — come at the expense of an extension to the Arras road tunnel.

Genter contended: "Extending a tunnel isn't really going to solve congestion. It costs billions of dollars. It creates disruption while it's being done. And at the end of it, people don't have great new options for getting around the city.

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"It moves the bottleneck to somewhere else. You can add another lane or two for a few kilometres in the centre of Wellington, but it doesn't stop the fact that the city centre is constrained. There's a limit on how many cars fit in there at any one time."

Q+A with Jack Tame is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air