How did Wellington get so screwed over on LGWM?

Stuff reports:

But Foster said the ratepayer had ended up worse off from the original designs of LGWM.

What started as a $1.2b, largely road-focused proposal that was going to be 94 per cent funded by the government, had ended up several billion dollars larger and 40 per cent funded by the ratepayer, he said. 

So the local authorities and NZTA were on board for a sensible package of road improvements than would be funded from petrol tax. And then Labour and the Greens got involved and it became a programme to do almost nothing for roads, and to cost way more.

Jenny Condie said the promise from government was just “a little pot of money with our name on it – in pencil”.
Diane Calvert said the package was “not guaranteed”, and Norbert Hausberg said the whole plan was “slightly underwhelming” and the city didn’t need the “gold-plated” version.

What Wellington needs is very simple. It is also what the Lower North Island needs. Four lanes from the airport to Levin.

For this three things need to happen in Wellington. The Basin Reserve needs to have East-West traffic separated from North-South traffic. And the Mt Vic and Terrace Tunnels need to be made four lanes.

But what we have instead is no solution for the Basin, a vague commitment that maybe in 10 – 20 years the Mt Vic tunnel may be expanded and the Terrace tunnel will never be expanded.