Because we are taking the mickey with the state of our roads, and we need to get smart about this fast.
We have a $210 billion dollar infrastructure deficit in this country, and if we want to keep our young people here, we need to get back to looking and feeling like a first world country, and no first world country would put up with the state of our infrastructure.
You shouldn’t hit two lane roads only 1.5 hours out of our biggest cities.
Depending on where you live, you will have your views on the most important roads announced by the Nats today. But for me, the big ones that are incredibly important to our efficiency and productivity are:
Turning Mill Road into a highway so motorists heading south of Auckland have an alternative to State Highway 1.
Adding the Warkworth to Wellsford chunk onto the new highway heading north of Auckland.
Building a second Mt Vic tunnel to relieve the gridlocked traffic in Wellington.
I do not care what these roads cost.
Labour’s trying to throw shade, saying National’s got its numbers wrong. For example, saying Warkworth to Wellsford will cost $4 billion instead of National’s $2.2 billion.
I don’t care. Frankly, they’re probably both wrong
National’s incentivised to price low so it doesn’t look extravagant and Labour's incentivised to price high so it can justify not building the road.
As far as I'm concerned, we need the roads, so build them. I don’t care what it costs. We will never regret it.
And how to pay for it seems pretty simple to me:
Cancel the Light Rail stupidity. Just getting rid of the Auckland project saves $28 billion, and I'm not even counting the cost from the Wellington project.
I don’t about you, but I've had absolutely enough of dropping speed limits, of being told to walk, of dodging potholes and of driving windy backroads when we should be and could be on world class highways.
This is ambitious and it’s building New Zealand for future generations.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
3 comments:
One glaring omission in Nationals plan, that being the only one way bridge on State Highway One between Christchurch and Picton. The Hurunui bridge should have been replaced years ago. Maintenance costs in the past few years alone show its past its best.
National promote replacement of one lane bridges between Westport and Karamea (a labour stronghold) with a low traffic volumes but ignore the obvious in a safe National seat.
We actually need to resurrect the Ministry of Works which operated without modern CEO and educated idiots vernacular .
MoW constructed a major percentage of the nations large infrastructure and was a huge productive workforce , Yes there were always cartoon captions of the MoW but NZ did not realise what quality we had till they were disbanded .
unfortunately the sheen of first world is wearing in more places than highways :(
most of the AT buses are creaking and sound more like the third world. recently, one of the drivers was using a stick to close the door after every stop! #8 wire is nice, but this was pathetic.
most of the roads look like they have not been repaired for ages. the cracks and puddles certainly were not there before covid hit us so hard.
most of the pavements are littered so badly. it looks like regular cleaning has been off the menu in many places.
dog poop on walkways is neither shocking nor surprising anymore.
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