David Farrar: Almost $800 million on traffic management.

Simeon Brown revealed:

The Government has revealed that over the past three years, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has spent an eyewatering $786 million of taxpayers’ money on road cones and temporary traffic management (TTM), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. …

Bruce Cotterill: New Zealand’s orange cone culture - How we lost common sense on the roads

A few weeks back, I was driving along Interstate 40 between Memphis and Nashville. I was three lanes wide on a four-lane highway and travelling along at the speed limit of 75 miles per hour. That’s about 120km/h in our language.

Up ahead I noticed traffic slowing on the inside lane. A closer look revealed a road working crew. There were two orange cones in front of a small barrier about 2m wide. Behind the barrier were two men working waist-deep in a hole in the road. A third man stood on the verge observing. They didn’t appear to have a vehicle nearby or for that matter, any other workers with them.

Peter Dunne: Vested interests and good public policy

Too often, an apparent concern for good public policy is really a cover for the protection of vested interests. In a small and intimate society like New Zealand this can make it difficult for governments to reach the best decisions on critical issues.

There is no intrinsic wrong in groups promoting their vested interests when issues of public policy are being considered, provided those interests are clearly identified. However, we are often too polite a society to do so. And so, the vested interests become – by default – a more significant part of the story than they deserve to be.

Kerre Woodham: More road cones aren't the answer to workplace safety

I know the road cones might seem trivial, but to me, I've always thought they were a metaphor for excessive spending and over-rigorous regulation.

When you looked at road cones, it wasn't a little cherry orange witches hat you saw, it was costs being inflated and people being overly cautious, the wasting of time and money, which was happening across so many government departments. When National referred to road cones during the election campaign, as they did from time to time, I thought they too were using it as a symbol of excess and a symbol of red tape strangling growth. But no, road cones are in fact in the gun.

Peter Dunne: Health and Safety laws

In 2016 New Zealand instituted comprehensive new health and safety laws for workplaces and other areas of activity. The expectation was that the new regime the legislation introduced would dramatically improve the culture and practice around safety in the workplace, reduce the numbers of accidents and save lives.

Barrie Saunders: NZTA does not know how much it spends on cones

Astonishing as it may seem NZTA does not know either how much it spends on road cones as part of its Temporary Traffic Management system, or even how many companies it uses to supply and manage the cones. See my Official Information Act request and the response below.

Sir Bob Jones: Government departments excesses coneland

There’s no better example of an overstaffed government Department with time on its hands and thus becoming “creative”, than the Health and Safety mob and their ludicrous road cones excesses. Nowhere else in the world does this occur, nor was it ever deemed necessary in New Zealand hitherto.

Alwyn Poole: The Remarkable Achievements and Strategic Value of Waka Konetahi

Star-date: Last Thursday at 8pm.

I left Cambridge with 157k to travel to the North Shore of Auckland. I was aware that I had the use of the 110km Waikato Expressway and the Auckland Motorway. Both my leaving point and destination were close to on/off ramps. I estimated 1hour 40mins for the trip – without troubling the speed cameras.

Peter Dunne: Traffic management

There was a hole in a quiet road near me recently. It was about three metres long. A repair crew came to fix it.

That crew consisted of six people - a digger operator, someone directing the digger's movements, two stop-go sign holders and their two supervisors. And at least 150 ubiquitous orange cones. The road was down to a single lane for most of its length.

Bob Jones: Coneland

The election campaign grinds boringly on notwithstanding the ultimate outcome is not in doubt, namely a change of government.

What’s puzzled me about the electioneering to date is the failure by Opposition parties to raise a problem not only unique to New Zealand but at any time in world history anywhere.

Oliver Hartwich: The war on cone-tamination

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is worried, and rightly so. His city is battling an invasion of road cones, and something must be done about it.

It is not just Auckland that is affected. From our cities to our remote rural areas, cones have become a fixture of the New Zealand landscape, clogging up footpaths, roads and even beaches.

The cone-quest of our islands has become a national phenomenon. It would not be an exaggeration to say that New Zealand is starting to look like a giant VLC media player.

Mike Hosking: Wayne Brown has the street-level politics right

Wayne Brown has read the room right on this one.

He now has Vector on board. They claim the road cone chaos costs them $30 million a year and, on top of that, their maintenance and restoration work is delayed and that affects everyone who wants to turn a light on.

The support will grow. These are the very issues that make-or-break political careers.

Bob Jones: A radical proposal

Our biggest road works contractor Fulton Hogan are reportedly complaining about their inability to secure staff. Here’s how to solve their problem. Lift the percentage of current staff actually working from the present 5% to 10% and thereby double production.

The remaining 90% of roadside cell-phonists, alleged workers provide a ready pool to be drawn from should any actual workers be off sick or in jail or whatever.

Both Stuff and the NZ Herald ran investigatory features on this cone racket in the weekend.

Bob Jones: Coneland

Literally nowhere else in the world are the roads lined with cones as in New Zealand.

A week back as a research exercise, with one mate driving and a senior professional and me observing, we drove 60 miles up the new state highway, turning back once we’d recorded 70 alleged “workmen”. Here are our factual findings.