Bitten by the Frog

I knew that as sure as the sun would rise this morning, that Frog Blog would not let my comments on their Auckland transport policy go unanswered. I was just surprised it took them so long to respond, but guess they had to calm down first after I labelled them enemies of public transport 🙂

Now Frog has helpfully clarified that the Greens don’t actually propose to rip up the existing roads, just basically prevent any new ones being built. Oh yay.

They give examples of overseas cities of similar population which have much better public transport than Auckland, but this ignores the fact Auckland is so spread out geographically. As I said I am a fan of public transport but the figures I keep seeing for Auckland are spending billions of dollars for something which will only cut road numbers by a couple of percent. Again my message is you need both more roads and public transport, not just public transport.

Finally Frog says they don’t like my Wellington example (calling it a red herring) of the $410 million package which will result in only 100 less motorists a day. I am sure they don’t like it. But the Wellington Regional Council has the expertise in public transport (and in fact are very pro public transport) so I don’t think it is fair to call their assumptions “patently ridiculous” just because the conclusions are crippling to your own argument.