Day: 25 March 2009

Nat’s transport funding plan puts New Zealand into reverse gear

The Mar­itime Union says the Gov­ern­men­t’s trans­port fund­ing plan is an envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic trav­es­ty.

The Nation­al Gov­ern­ment has changed spend­ing com­mit­ments of the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment and and released a state­ment on mon­ey it will put into devel­op­ing land trans­port (includ­ing sea trans­port) for the next ten years.

The new plan includes a three year com­mit­ment to spend­ing over sev­en bil­lion dol­lars on road relat­ed expen­di­ture – and even includes $51 mil­lion for cycling and walk­ways.

In com­par­i­son, it puts for­ward $1 mil­lion for “rail and sea freight” and $3 mil­lion for “domes­tic sea freight devel­op­ment.” (Yes — the fig­ure is mil­lion not bil­lion.)

That’s about one cent on rail and sea freight devel­op­ment for every twen­ty dol­lars on roads.