Transport Announcements Need to be multi-faceted

19 May 2009 8.48pm

Transport Announcements Need to be multi-faceted

The announcement by the Minister of Transport confirming investment in State Highways and commuter services in Auckland and Wellington is supported, but IPENZ is concerned that there is reduced funding for other key areas compared to last year’s Government Policy Statement.

This includes reduced funding for travel demand management of 11%, walking and cycling activities 27 %. Whilst this shift might have short term congestion reduction benefits, it might compromise other important longer term goals.

“Our transport system is a network which is inter-connected and to reduce congestion there needs to be a concerted effort by not only building more roads and improving public transport services, but also encouraging people to use public services and to walk - and cycle to work,” says Tim Davin, Director of Policy for the Institution of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ.)

“The new Government Policy Statement suggests that “moving too quickly on modal shift will have a negative impact on environmental and economic efficiency”.
We (IPENZ) are not sure where this claim comes from – encouraging people to move to transport modes other than roads has never been seen as an instant fix – this is about changing people’s mind sets and behaviours which takes time,” says Mr Davin.

“Numerous studies, both internationally and in New Zealand’s major metropolitan areas have demonstrated that to improve travel times, a balanced and multi-pronged approach is required. Therefore initiatives such as walking school buses, school and business travel plans, cycle ways, education campaigns - and integrated ticketing need to be part of the package,” he says.

“We are also concerned about the intention to place a greater emphasis on benefit cost ratios. This is an overly simplistic way to think about our roading system – it is not a series of individual projects but an integrated network and it needs to be planned and funded on that basis. This was part of the problem with Auckland’s congestion – where Benefit Cost ratios tended to favour smaller projects and safety projects – at the expense of congestion projects and planning the system in its entirety.”

“The Government needs to realise that to improve our transport systems, they need to think about it as a whole and take a multi-faceted approach - and not overly focus on a single but important issue of roads.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media