A balanced approach

Stuff reports:

On a bus in Wellington yesterday, the Green Party announced it would scrap Transmission Gully, the Kapiti Expressway and the Basin Reserve flyover roading programmes and reprioritise the $2.4billion spending.

I don’t know why the Greens just don’t come out and ban cars, rather than mess around with half measures. Their strategy is for roads to become so dangerous and congested through lack of spending, that people will abandon their cars, which will of course save the planet.

Road Transport Forum spokesman Ken Shirley disputed the Greens’ figures and said that over the next three years National had proposed spending $10b on roads and $7b on rail, despite roads taking 75 per cent of freight while 15 per cent of freight was moved on rail. The Greens were politicising the national highway process because of their love of other transport modes, he said.

This is what I call a balanced approach. You needs both roads and rail.

Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett called the Greens’ policy “madness” and said Transmission Gully and the Kapiti Expressway were essential to help develop the economic capabilities of the region.

A sensible chap that Leggett.