Yes, sadly, it is five weeks to the general election and the Herald on Sunday devotes its editorial to what? Wanting tens of millions spent subsidising cyclists and pedestrians to cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Crime, healthcare, education and the economy aren't as important as wasting a fortune for a few tourists and the ultrakeen to get $40 million of other people's money spent on a cycle/pedestrian way.
As I've said before, and so has leftwing columnist Brian Rudman, this is a colossal waste of money for something that would be barely used. It is especially inappropriate to want to waste precious road users taxes on a project that doesn't stack up.
The sheer banality of the editorial can be summed up in this statement: "A vociferous cycle lobby has good claim to the moral high ground in the debate. Climate change, traffic-choked roads and the remorselessly increasing price of fuels drawn from the earth's dwindling and finite reserves all argue for the value of getting more commuters out of their cars."
Where is the moral high ground is making others pay for something you want people to use? To demand something you pay nothing towards? What nonsense is the claim that fuels are remorselessly increasing in price? Do they not follow the fact that oil prices have been easing downwards for the last month or so? What IS the value of getting more commuters out of their cars except - to those commuters? Actually the NZ Transport Agency DOES value reducing congestion, fuel wastage and pollution, and this project doesn't even come close to producing economic/environmental benefits that exceed the costs.
The only people advocating this project are those handful who will benefit from a new facility they wont have to pay for, and those worshipping the Green Party religion on transport, called its policy. Can't New Zealand get a Sunday paper that's 10% as good as either the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times or the Observer?
As I've said before, and so has leftwing columnist Brian Rudman, this is a colossal waste of money for something that would be barely used. It is especially inappropriate to want to waste precious road users taxes on a project that doesn't stack up.
The sheer banality of the editorial can be summed up in this statement: "A vociferous cycle lobby has good claim to the moral high ground in the debate. Climate change, traffic-choked roads and the remorselessly increasing price of fuels drawn from the earth's dwindling and finite reserves all argue for the value of getting more commuters out of their cars."
Where is the moral high ground is making others pay for something you want people to use? To demand something you pay nothing towards? What nonsense is the claim that fuels are remorselessly increasing in price? Do they not follow the fact that oil prices have been easing downwards for the last month or so? What IS the value of getting more commuters out of their cars except - to those commuters? Actually the NZ Transport Agency DOES value reducing congestion, fuel wastage and pollution, and this project doesn't even come close to producing economic/environmental benefits that exceed the costs.
The only people advocating this project are those handful who will benefit from a new facility they wont have to pay for, and those worshipping the Green Party religion on transport, called its policy. Can't New Zealand get a Sunday paper that's 10% as good as either the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times or the Observer?
1 comment:
Re your last sentence, can't New Zealand get a Sunday or daily newspaper that's 10% as good as either the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer, or for that matter The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald ... we are poorly served by our media and is that because the best of our journalists have left our shores?
Rod
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