The Breaking Views blog is administered by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research at NZCPR.com. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
Aucklanders will not have to pay $11.5 cents a litre more than everyone else in the country every time they fill up their cars. Toyota Hilux drivers will save $9.20 a fill and Toyota Corolla drivers will save $5.75 a fill.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
That was a rort, wasn’t it? Remember what Auckland was supposed to get for that?
But surely no one believes Labour’s going to do this.
Not only because they can’t deliver jack- do I need to mention KiwiBuild or Light Rail or Let’s Get Wellington Moving- but mainly because no one rational believes Labour actually wants to build expensive roads for cars.
She is a go-getter who stays informed, keeps up with local and national politics, and donates a lot of her time and energy to helping the community. She was an early adopter to the e-scooter, uses the city’s cycle ways, and is all for saving the planet and getting cars off the road.
But, and here’s the big but, she raised a very valid point the other day regarding said cycleways. Guess who is not using them? The cyclists.
But actually, this isn’t funny anymore, is it?
This has got to be costing the country money now, with people being unable to get to the places where they earn money and where they learn how to do work.
As you know, we are now in March Madness. This happens every single year; it’s the crazy time of year where the roads get really congested with the Uni students heading back to campus and their classes, school kids back at school, and the rest of us back at work.
In one of his first pronouncements after Chris Hipkins became PM, Transport Minister Michael Wood – and Minister for Auckland after the cabinet reshuffle – confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus.
Opponents of the project will hope this makes the project a candidate for Hipkins’ bonfire of unpalatable policies and programmes (Labour’s burning issues, so to speak).
Supporters of the project will hope it is kept alive.
It looks like Auckland’s going to be commuter hell for the next few years.
Yesterday, Kiwirail and Auckland transport announced they need to do huge maintenance work to the rail network. They’re shutting down big chunks of the train network on all three lines for the next three years.
The Eastern line, for example, is going to be down for nearly a year next year.
There is no one to blame here, from what I can see at the moment at least. This work needs to be done. It’s as fundamental as piling your house. They’ve got to do it.
Do you know we can start voting for our mayors and local councillors in about a month's time? Are you going to?
Apathy is the problem with local body elections. Always has been.
We don’t know who anyone is, we can’t be bothered, we don’t care.
But actually, we do care about our communities don't we? Don’t we care about what's happening to our local shops and our streets at the moment?
Have I got my hands on something good for you. Now, you know how we're constantly told by the authorities that there's all this public support for cycleways? And you sit there thinking, well, nobody I know likes the cycleways, so what's going? Where can this possibly go? What?
Well, here's the answer: Looks like they're fudging the numbers. There isn't majority support for cycleways at all. Today, the Ratepayers Alliance has released a public survey conducted by Auckland Transport that I think might be the first real insight that we've had into what Aucklander’s actually think about cycleways. And let's have a little guessing game on this one, right?
I had an infuriating interview with Phil Goff yesterday, and I say infuriating because as a proud born and bred Aucklander, I feel very despondent about what has happened to our once great city. It’s a shambles. That’s putting it politely.
A word starting with cluster and ending in something that rhymes with duck would be more appropriate.
But basically, Mayor Phil Goff has taken a leaf out of the Jacinda and Ashley playbook, of literally denying reality and refuting any facts thrown his way. In Phil’s world, we’re all on buses, trains, ferries, and bikes. We love public transport and only want to use more of it; we don’t need or want our cars. I don’t know what planet Phil’s living on, but it’s not Planet Auckland.
