26 September 2013

Generation Zero gives Len Brown’s big new motorway an A grade

It’s difficult to take Generation Zero seriously when it gives incumbent Auckland Mayor Len Brown an A rating for issues of public transport and climate change.

Last year in Auckland public transport patronage dropped by more than 3% after falling the previous year as well.

That’s a poor record for the environment.

To make matters worse Len Brown is a strong supporter of the government’s proposed new multi-billion dollar roading projects for Auckland which will increase car dependency, increase greenhouse gas emissions and even after they are built we will have worse traffic congestion than now.

The mayor tells us we will have to pay an additional $400 million per year for the next 30 years to pay for these roads – congestion charges, road tolls, network charges higher rates and higher public transport fares.

The Mayor and Generation Zero have remained silent on the council’s plans for a big new motorway proposed to bulldoze through hundreds of homes of low-income families in Mangere and Otahuhu while tunnelling under Kings College to save the school’s cricket pitch from the tarseal addicts.

We might have hoped Generation Zero would stand with the local community to stop this outrage against the environment instead of rewarding Len with an A grade.

Auckland doesn’t need these new roads. No city has ever tarsealed its way out of traffic congestion. The greenest policy Auckland could adopt would be free public transport which would save hundreds of millions of dollars each year on new roads we wouldn’t need instead of continuing to damage the city and the environment with 1950s thinking.

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