Subscribe to RSSStand By For More & More Roads
Never let it be said that Uncle Steven does not splash money around. It will be an early Christmas on Thursday – for those in National’s favoured lobby group, the roading and relevant construction industries.
The Transport Agency’s three-year national land transport programme will be issued and there will be grins all around the road transport world as money gets allocated for major roading projects especially for the Auckland / northern region.
This is the signalled move from the previous annual handouts to a more sensible three-year plan covering 2009-2012 with the transport agency taking over the functions and responsibilities of Land Transport and Transit NZ.
Meanwhile the outlook for rail is becoming grim. I’ve been told more information today about how the government’s enthusiasm for spending on rail is waning and how we’re in for a cut-price $2 shop deal – in other words as little as the government can get away with.
So all we can do is watch the big roading announcement on Thursday and only wish we could be taken as seriously as the roading lobby.
2 Comments
“As little as the government can get away with…” — they won’t get away with it. It is, and will always be a major election issue. If they want to stay electable, they need to make promises they can -keep-. It is up to people like us to keep them accountable for their “promises”.
Sadly William they can and will get away with it.
They have at least a 20% lead in the polls and to a large number of voters public transport and Auckland rail in general is not an important issue.
As long as they keep paying lip service to PT most people will not even really notice. The way they are portraying it they are keeping their promise.