Many of those attending yesterday's opening ceremony at Waikanae were hostile to Steven Joyce's pro-road, anti-rail attitudes and made him very aware of that. The mayor of the Kapiti Coast, Jenny Rowan, also showed it by omitting mention of him in her list of the VIPs attending.
In particular, Waikanae residents who live nearer the beach are very unhappy about Joyce's plans to turn a planned bypass road for Waikanae locals to Paraparaumu, the Western Link Road - so they don't have to drive along State Highway 1 to get there - into a 4 lane expressway for SH1.
Joyce claims that the expressway is needed to relieve congestion on SH1 - he seems to ignore the fact that much of the congestion on SH1 - for example a logging truck every couple of minutes most days of the week - is and will be a result of his desire to move as much freight traffic as he can off the rails and on to the roads.
He is right the expressway is needed the traffic down that end of the island is a joke even if you put more freight on rail there will still be congestion they need another rail line to go further up the island to be able to get the increased freight on rails but it seems cheaper to go by road at present
ReplyDeleteDear Jock,
ReplyDeleteThe last part of your comment is correct and it shouldn't be the case. Overland non-stop freight from one city to another should be transported by rail for a number of good reasons. At present we still have a railway network between every major city and provincial centre, apart from Nelson. In fact there would be a railway connection there too if the National Party hadn't axed the line being built from Blenheim upon gaining power in 1960. Joyce is continuing the party's tradition.
The rail network needs alot spent on it to be able to take this freight also.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the log trucks the volume of logs being exported now has tripled in the last 5 years the demand in china is huge about 500,000 ton of logs went out of wellington last year and its set to increase even more this year trains were tried from masterton but had to be subsidised by the government to work then it came to a holt when they realised they where doing it for australians, Ten carrages at night also wasn't enough but thats all that they could do, i'd much rather cart the logs to a railyard around the manawatu or levin than travel down to the port in wellington i used to do it monday to friday twice a day but got sick of the traffic
We should point out that the Labour Party's record on railways isn't impressive either. Some may remember the Labour Party's "Save Rail" campaign spearheaded by Richard Prebble in the early 1980s - and then when in government....
ReplyDeleteNo-one wants to go back to regulation - the issue is one of costs and fair pricing.