Should All Of NZ Be Giving Money To Auckland?

[GT4-SUM]

ill i can say is deal with it, like mroizo said once auckland roads are fixed they will start on a new city/town and then the bitching will start all over again

[Jools]

Well considering how much money the country is losing by Auckland having crappy roads, then the whole country benefits from fixing it.
Auckland is the hub of New Zealand, it carries most of the major industries.
If Auckland was to cut itself off from the rest of NZ, then NZ would be screwed. Its that simple.
Its not just a roading issue, its an economic issue.

[Al]

If Auckland was to cut itself off from the rest of NZ, then NZ would be screwed. Its that simple.

Got power stations in AKL? Last time i checked the closest was the truly inefficient Huntly station.

[Jools]

If Auckland was to cut itself off from the rest of NZ, then NZ would be screwed. Its that simple.

Got power stations in AKL? Last time i checked the closest was the truly inefficient Huntly station.

Got money to run power stations?
No didnt think so

[Al]

hehe one hydro station at half power would supply all the SI's power needs

[jr007]

A dozen Toyota's using dyno's as generators would create all of SI's power needs

[MrBob]

We dont really give a sh*t about strong points of the economy etc,

Well thankfully people like you dont make these decisions, or our economy would be far worse then it already is, and we wouldnt be fixing any roads.

Maybe if so many people hadnt died on wellington roads we would be the strongpoint of the economy??

um, guess what ? people die on AK roads aswell...
here, look at this, AK has highest # of road deaths 1998 - 2002.
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/fatal5yr.html

....maybe you'd be the strong point of the economy if 1/3 of NZ chose to live there.....but they dont, so get over it.

[BlakJak]

Fact. Auckland has appx 1/3 of NZ's population.

Fact. Auckland has generally unreliable public transport system (check the herald for anything involving trains, heh)

Fact. A disproportionately low percentage of all rates, etc, collected from NZs population has been spent in Auckland on roading. (Eg, we've been sending money to the rest of NZ for quite some time.)

Fact. Auckland is a major commercial and economic hub for New Zealand.

Fact. Auckland does provide a significant resource to New Zealand. At the same time, its acknowledged that the inverse is also true.

Fact. Aucklands roads NEED attention. Just ask any Auckland driver.

Given the facts theres nothing unreasonable with having some serious cash spent on Aucklands roads. Aside from the fact that we've been basically missing out for some time, there is a significant nationwide benefit in this. There should be less of the us-and-them mindset and less of the accusational tone that this thread is headed under - and more commonsense. Spending some money on Auckland is going to have a positive overall effect on NZs Economy.

[Sanxta]

Should We All Be Paying For Auckland's Roads

Yes.

[PumpN]

Fact. A disproportionately low percentage of all rates, etc, collected from NZs population has been spent in Auckland on roading. (Eg, we've been sending money to the rest of NZ for quite some time.)

none of the rates collected from other regions is spent on aucklands roads, and no your council hasn't been spending the income from rates to the rest of new zealand

[PumpN]

on a side note, saturday was busy on SH1 around wellington with people heading into the city, it took me over 2 3/4 hours to get to waikanai which should only really take around half an hour, there was near on gridlock from between levin and ohau all the way to manakau.
this is what state highway one, the nations biggest highway looks like on a busy day





all i can say is its a bloody miracle no one needed fire or ambulance services, SH1 is the only direct route to wellington, with no real alternative route, it is a disgrace, i really don't know what all you aucklanders are whining about having it bad and how we don't have a clue how bad it is up there, least on your motorway you don't have stoplights, or level crossings like mackays crossing

in closing, should money be spent on aucklands roads? yes, do you guys have it bad? yes you guys do, should you people be whining about it?, maybe but not to us we don't want to know, should wellingtonians money be going to aucklands roads?, hell no we have our own problems

[B1NZ]

The way i see it Aucklanders dont give a shit about anyone else in the country unless it affects them in someway (ie power outages) The sooner you guys realise NZ is made up of more than 1 region the better!

Yeah, we had a friends wedding to go to at tatumn park in manukau, took about 20-30 mins to get there (approx 10kms)

On a brighter note i saw a honda integra rear end an L300van in the traffic jams, 1 down 900,000 to go (the honda i mean)

[offensive]

auckland caused the problem itself all those many decades ago by not thinking ahead into its own future. Too many quick fixes.

Does nebody know how much money is wasted on roading? Have u noticed that around this time of year, feb march, theres roadworks everywhere? Its near the end of the finacial year and the local councils and transit haveta spend as much of the money they were given by the government as they can otherwise they arnt given as much the next finacial year. Which imo is a stupid way of doing things. How often do u see a road being top sealed, only to have the new seal virtually dissapear in like a week and its back to how it was, which prolly didnt need to be sealed in the first place! if they were given the same amount of money regardless how much they had left over there would have been alot more money there for only roading available, more of the bigger roading projects would have been completed already

[Dell'Orto]

Something else that slutted me off was the fact you guys are paying less for fuel than we are! Easy of delivery be damned, if your roads need repairing so badly I'm sure you wont mind paying the same pump prices as the rest of the country, and have the extra go towards your roading.

[B1NZ]

auckland caused the problem itself all those many decades ago by not thinking ahead into its own future. Too many quick fixes.

Haha, wellington did this too with the parking situation, but its a lot harder when you have to build houses on hilltops and cliff edges etc..

At least they got it right with the Rail network (to an extent) even if the management side of things (tranzrail) is up the sh*t!!

[BlakJak]

Fact. A disproportionately low percentage of all rates, etc, collected from NZs population has been spent in Auckland on roading. (Eg, we've been sending money to the rest of NZ for quite some time.)

none of the rates collected from other regions is spent on aucklands roads, and no your council hasn't been spending the income from rates to the rest of new zealand

Of course, Rates are collected by Councils, who of course spend within your city. Thus the 'etc' which meant to imply that other things were involved. My bad.

For the record, the 12km or so between Mt Wellington and the CBD used to take me ~50 minutes during rush hour. You havnt seen logjams untill youve seen the Southern Motorway Northbound at *either* rushhour. Wet weather just screws the figures that much more...

Of course reading in the herald about London was funny.. they had 50,000 less cars heading into their CBD and they were still only reaching 12km/hj with the cars left... (50,000 cars == 38% drop...)

[MrBob]

Of course reading in the herald about London was funny.. they had 50,000 less cars heading into their CBD and they were still only reaching 12km/hj with the cars left... (50,000 cars == 38% drop...)

wow, sucks to be them

[AngelTwin]

on a side note, saturday was busy on SH1 around wellington with people heading into the city, it took me over 2 3/4 hours to get to waikanai which should only really take around half an hour, there was near on gridlock from between levin and ohau all the way to manakau.

Traffic congestion happens when a big event happens in Manakau! Like Brendon said, it took us half an hour to get from Levin to Tatum Park!! It's about time the organisers of the Medieval Market did something about it!!

**back to topic**

[IH8TEC]

i think they need to take some of the transit new zealand people to the states, sit them in a car, on either the 101 or 405 highways, then come back and say, damn auckland roads are sweet. then the rest of us dont have to pay. but i think new zealand would benefit from applying new ways of building roads from the likes of america. CHEAPER and faster.

with the petrol prices on the rise i might have to fix up the scooter, strip the yamaha badges and put on some trd stickers run that thing on $2:50 for a week

[jr007]

Americans use concrete for much of their roads, specifically motorways. Of course as concrete has a much higher compressive strength, it doesn't get damaged as easily by the loads of cars and trucks on it.

The Brisbane to Surfers highway had a concrete substrate with chip seal surface. This was built about 15 years ago.

The problem is, this costs money. In the US concrete is cheap, cos plants produce millions of cubes per year, we produce a tiny fraction of that. Economies of scale.

Also, apparently we would rather spend our money on refugees, psychotic foreign children, and other such novelties than our infrastructure.

Thank you for listening to the 'F**k NZ Government' party political broadcast.