Dontcha you just love this. Johnnyboy telling his MPs to run publicly with the spin, and not reveal the secret agenda.
And the best bit is that new roads equals massively increasing land values. And guess who owns all the land where they know a new road is gonna go?
“new roads equals massively increasing land values”
Better transport infrastructure increases the value of land that it goes to as it improves quality of life for those living further out from the city centres.
But that’s the same no matter how it’s achieved – much better public transport would do it too.
Um, I thought environmentalists supported road pricing.
If people have access to affordable transport alternatives, L-S.
If they don’t, they just have to pay the tolls regardless. National’s got it all arseyboo.
toad, One big advantage that tolls have over petrol taxes is that only those who use that particular road have to pay regardless. Under the current system Canterbury farmers are paying for trains in Auckland. Labour’s got it even more arseyboo.
But I do object to tolls only being levied on new highways. With modern technology we can have a comprehensive toll system that charges for road use including parking according to the marginal cost of providing the capacity required at any given time and place.
Yep, Kevyn, in areas where we have a public transport system with the capacity, frequency and affordability to provide people with a realistic option to commuting by car, I would agree.
But, almost everywhere, we don’t. So the National Party is putting the cart before the horse.
toad,
I still disagree.
You won’t get decent public transport alternatives if you continue to have the govt subsidize people who are commuting by car. Charge people the cost of roads and they’ll start behaving rationally and demanding public transport. “Free” roads are not free, they’re bloody expensive and they’re charged to every taxpayer instead of to the road’s users.
I’m no libertarian loon. I like a decent social welfare system, state funded health care, etc, etc. But as a green I oppose having the govt encourage and subsidize the wrog things, and long commutes by car certainly count as the wrong things.
sean, the difficulty is that the public transport infrastructure doesn’t just suddenly appear – it has to be funded and developed, and this takes time.
Sure, if you just toll roads, it will create a demand for public transport. But if there is no infrastructure, it is a demand that will not be met, and people will just have to pay the tolls anyway.
Kevyn, I didn’t mean to imply that Labour didn’t have it arseyboo too. They both have – just that my initial post focused on National because it was their proposal that was topical at the time so it was easier to take the piss at their expense.
sean, Roads are not charged to every taxpayer. They are only charged to petrol tax payers, and to adjacent property owners – who are the other major beneficiaries of good roads. In days gone by the petrol tax was an excellent means of recovering costs as fuel consumption is affected by weight, speed and diistance travelled in much the same way that damage to gravel and dirt roads are affected by those same factors. On tarsealed roads that relationship is only true for heavy vehicles. Of course fuel consumption is totally unaffected by adding extra lanes and doesn’t reflect the marginal costs imposed on all road users by peak period travellers. That’s one good reason why we need to replace the petrol tax with GPS-RUCs. The other is that within a couple of decades RUCs will be the main source of roading revenue from light vehicles so we need some thing more reliable than odometer readings.
Toad, Shouldn’t the top left square be “free” parking, to reflect Nat’s tax policy? There isn’t enough space for words that encapsulate Nat’s PPP parking policy: “No Parking – offenders will be clamped.”
g.blog 
Dontcha you just love this. Johnnyboy telling his MPs to run publicly with the spin, and not reveal the secret agenda.
And the best bit is that new roads equals massively increasing land values. And guess who owns all the land where they know a new road is gonna go?
“new roads equals massively increasing land values”
Better transport infrastructure increases the value of land that it goes to as it improves quality of life for those living further out from the city centres.
But that’s the same no matter how it’s achieved – much better public transport would do it too.
Pingback: The Standard 2.01: National Monopoly
another good one..
say it simple.. say it often.. say it
Um, I thought environmentalists supported road pricing.
If people have access to affordable transport alternatives, L-S.
If they don’t, they just have to pay the tolls regardless. National’s got it all arseyboo.
toad, One big advantage that tolls have over petrol taxes is that only those who use that particular road have to pay regardless. Under the current system Canterbury farmers are paying for trains in Auckland. Labour’s got it even more arseyboo.
But I do object to tolls only being levied on new highways. With modern technology we can have a comprehensive toll system that charges for road use including parking according to the marginal cost of providing the capacity required at any given time and place.
Yep, Kevyn, in areas where we have a public transport system with the capacity, frequency and affordability to provide people with a realistic option to commuting by car, I would agree.
But, almost everywhere, we don’t. So the National Party is putting the cart before the horse.
toad,
I still disagree.
You won’t get decent public transport alternatives if you continue to have the govt subsidize people who are commuting by car. Charge people the cost of roads and they’ll start behaving rationally and demanding public transport. “Free” roads are not free, they’re bloody expensive and they’re charged to every taxpayer instead of to the road’s users.
I’m no libertarian loon. I like a decent social welfare system, state funded health care, etc, etc. But as a green I oppose having the govt encourage and subsidize the wrog things, and long commutes by car certainly count as the wrong things.
sean, the difficulty is that the public transport infrastructure doesn’t just suddenly appear – it has to be funded and developed, and this takes time.
Sure, if you just toll roads, it will create a demand for public transport. But if there is no infrastructure, it is a demand that will not be met, and people will just have to pay the tolls anyway.
Kevyn, I didn’t mean to imply that Labour didn’t have it arseyboo too. They both have – just that my initial post focused on National because it was their proposal that was topical at the time so it was easier to take the piss at their expense.
sean, Roads are not charged to every taxpayer. They are only charged to petrol tax payers, and to adjacent property owners – who are the other major beneficiaries of good roads. In days gone by the petrol tax was an excellent means of recovering costs as fuel consumption is affected by weight, speed and diistance travelled in much the same way that damage to gravel and dirt roads are affected by those same factors. On tarsealed roads that relationship is only true for heavy vehicles. Of course fuel consumption is totally unaffected by adding extra lanes and doesn’t reflect the marginal costs imposed on all road users by peak period travellers. That’s one good reason why we need to replace the petrol tax with GPS-RUCs. The other is that within a couple of decades RUCs will be the main source of roading revenue from light vehicles so we need some thing more reliable than odometer readings.
Toad, Shouldn’t the top left square be “free” parking, to reflect Nat’s tax policy? There isn’t enough space for words that encapsulate Nat’s PPP parking policy: “No Parking – offenders will be clamped.”