Many things
I have been remiss, and there is much to comment on!
The Government’s disappointing decision not to back a rescue package for the Overlander was not entirely surprising, but still gutting. Now it’s in Toll’s hands, but the prospects don’t look great. At least the track will be maintained to allow another service in future, but that is cold comfort. Meanwhile the Dominion Post seems to have run out of ideas for how to cover the issue and seemed to decide that a hatchet job on the Green MPs would be the best way to go. Actually, I think the Green MPs have probably used the service more than most people, but that’s not the point. It’s hardly surprising if it’s not their transport mode of choice when it’s only available in the middle of the busy working day and takes 12 hours for a journey that took 8.5 hours in the 1960s! The service needs maintaining and upgrading, that’s the point. Then the 25,000 who have signed the petition to save it would all use it!
You will have heard about President Clinton’s “combative” interview on Fox News. The full transcript is available here, and is really quite extraordinary. Much more illuminating than the edited clips played on TV here. Though if edited clips are your thing, you could do a lot worse than to watch The Daily Show’s summary. It’s also worth reading this article about the spin machine behind ABC’s controversial Path to 9/11 show, which is the genesis of this whole debate.
Then of course, there’s the Brethren: the Brethren and unions, the Brethren and John Howard, the Brethren and Don Brash. Brother!
And finally there’s Brian Connell. To whom perhaps the best advice is “get a haircut and get a real job.”
September 27th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Looks like Toll has just provided multiple grounds for the immediate termination of their exclusive track usage agreement.
Terminate it and kick these rent-seeking monopolists back to where thay came from.
Overlander fate goes down to wire
September 27th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Frog - Wherever you’ve been, welcome back. - ciao BJ
September 27th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Frog you need your facts checked.
The Overlander and its predecessors always started in the morning, around 8am, not the middle of the day.
There has never been a scheduled passenger train service that took 8.5 hours between Wellington and Auckland, the fastest that any train achieved was just under 11 hours, and that was due to there being very few stops. The alignment of the route is faster now than it has ever been, largely due to the deviations built during the main trunk electrification in the 80s, but there are some speed restrictions on some sections that if lifted might save all up perhaps 30 minutes.
The service is pretty much as good as it has ever been in terms of speed and comfort, largely due to investment in refurbished rolling stock in the early 90s. However, the advent of the Boeing 737 in the late 60s killed off business use of train travel because it could NEVER compete in New Zealand. The issue the Dom Post raises is that the Green Party wants to force all NZers to pay for a mode of transport that few use, including themselves - when other modes are not subsidised.
September 28th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Air Traffic control is not done by the government here? Would that network not count as a subsidy? Building roads is not subsidizing the use of the car? Not sure I understand you properly here. when other modes are not subsidized
Let’s be clear though, Greens want all NZers to pay for making this mode usable, because we anticipate a future in which it will become a necessity and we fear that disuse will bring destruction. This isn’t a matter of forcing a subsidy of a perpetually losing proposition but of something that has been made a temporarily losing proposition.
As for making the trains faster, realigning it and repairing the rail so that the heat restrictions are removed will go a long way. I took that train 2 years ago when I arrived here, and it was over 13 hours crawling through all manner of boring countryside with abysmal food service and intolerable delays. It is also maybe 800 KM if laid out for speed, so a 100 KPH average which is NOT exactly fast, would do the job nicely. If it could be done in 5 hours (160 KPH is quite feasible without going to maglev) it would likely beat the 737 on points after airport baggage checks and the weather delays in Wellington and transport from Auckland airport to the city itself were all counted in.
That’s a possible thing… but only if someone actually invests money in the future… and there’s nobody to do it but us.
BJ
September 28th, 2006 at 2:18 am
libertyscott,
you need to take reading comprehension lessons.
frog never said anything about when the train started.
s/he said “it’s only available in the middle of the busy working day”.
I too am interested in this 8.5 hours in the 1960s claim. references/clarification please, frog?
the simple fact is the Overlander became non-viable because Toll sobotaged its viability. In the last two years passenger numbers dropped from 90,000 a year to 50,000 a year. extremely bad management or a deliberate strategy. which is it l/s?
September 28th, 2006 at 10:04 am
I am sorry but I cannot help but laugh when a green party member has a crack at an MP about the length of his hair, perhaps you might want to have a chat with Nandoor first.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:23 am
But, Nandor’s hair is a result of Rastafarian beliefs… not as a protest against Don Brash.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:31 am
“However, the advent of the Boeing 737 in the late 60s killed off business use of train travel because it could NEVER compete in New Zealand. The issue the Dom Post raises is that the Green Party wants to force all NZers to pay for a mode of transport that few use, including themselves - when other modes are not subsidised. ”
Not susidised? Hang on, didn’t 737s come in when NAC was a loss-making government-run operation? Who paid for the building of a network of airports around the country? Didn’t taxpayers stump up the bill to keep Air NZ in business for years after it took over NAC, and again when the government bought it back when it failed as a business? Do road users pay rent for all the land tied up in roads? Who pays for the health costs associated with car use? Who pays for policing of roads?
September 28th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
is there any strong backing for the ‘overlander’
that is how many votes to change this decision,
what is the cost to keep running,
does anyone know this,
i bet it could be saved, but would need tourist attaction,which is already obvious,
i travelled AMTRAK which is the American train for travellers
and it is being descimated by the Emperors of oil, OIL,
and even the Empoorer himself,
September 28th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
1. Air Traffic control is not done by the government here? Yes it is - Airways Corporation is fully commercial, not subsidised. Next question…
2. Building roads is not subsidizing the use of the car? Yes it is, but the only roads subsidised are local roads - not state highways. State highways are fully funded by taxes collected from road users.
3. 100 km/h rail average on the main trunk line would cost the high side of $5 billion for starters. The highway doesn’t have that and roads are far more tolerant of curves and hills. The Raurimu Spiral would need bypassing, and there would be tunnels galore. No country with high speed railways has the topography there is between Wellington and Auckland. Think Christchurch-Timaru and compare.
4. The Overlander was not sabotaged. Private companies don’t tend to sabotage the capital value of businesses they have been trying to sell. The Overlander lost patronage because Air NZ introduced Express Class, bus companies cut their prices too, and the Overlander lost its market. There has also been a shift of tourism towards self-drive holidays - witness the huge increase in campervans associated with the Lions’ tour of NZ.
5. NAC almost always made a modest profit, unsurprising given it had a statutory monopoly. The 737s were funded through borrowing as I understand it - but then at the same time the railways invested in the Silverstar luxury overnight sleeper train and the Silverfern railcars for the daylight service. We know which one succeeded.
6. The airports were built largely by government money, but then so was the railways (with one major exception - Wellington-Palmerston North).
7. Air NZ did lose money for a few years after the merger, the Railways Department lost money consistently from 1972 until its demise in 1982. The Railways Corporation made a profit for two years (having had its $100m debt wiped) before sliding into bigger and bigger losses, then was bailed out with $1.3 billion in 1990. Rail users never paid that back.
8. The Air NZ renationalisation should never have occurred, but it was a capital injection - one which the government can realise again by privatising it.
9. Road users don’t pay rent for the land tied up in roads, but neither do rail users. Level playing field on that front. Plus most roads provide property access, so most have little residual value if abandoned - the key exception is motorways.
10. The health costs associated with road transport (trucks and buses create far more damage per vehicle than cars) are paid for by general taxation, as are the health costs associated with burning solid fuels (far more significant in many towns than road transport - around 74% of Chch air pollution is from that source), and eating badly, or having no exercise. The positive externalities of road transport are often underpaid - such as the benefits from access.
11. Road policing is fully funded by road user charges, fuel tax and motor vehicle registration fees through Land Transport NZ.
The distortions of road use come from not charging for congestion, not charging according to the varying costs of maintaining different roads and ratepayers subsidising local roads - almost none of this will do anything for rail.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Anyway, Toll has given the Overlander a reprieve - 3 days a week until summer (when it will run daily). This is great news, and I hope its supporters all use it at least once before the end of the year.
The editor of Rails magazine once called for all supporters of passenger trains in NZ to take 2 return trips a year to keep them viable - and he was right - if all those who talked about it, rode them, they would have a future.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
libertyscott,
i see you conveniently ignored my question:
in the last two years Overlander passenger numbers dropped from 90,000 to 50,000 a year.
was this due to extremely inept management or a deliberate strategy. which was it in your opinion?
September 28th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Why is there so much frieght shifted on the road? maybe because you don’t need a exclusive access agreement. These large trucks are ruining our roads ,killing people and costing us so much more in polution, its Helen clarks fault as she is almost as stupid as Bush (bush controlled by big business oil and helen by big homosexuals) and Tolls. Rail if done right polutes alot less than a 737 done anyway.
As for path to 9/11 who cares about them muslims/america christain extremist we got bigger worries e.g. GLOBAL WARMING why is so little being said or done with so little time, Al Gores moving should be a compulsary watch for all school students.
So Labour tried to bribe maori party to go with them and the helen did a “they are last party we will go with” when we KNOW there are many other parties she would hate more e.g. ACT, National, Destiny church (h2 would hate them), and probably the cannabis party, how can anyone believe anything h1 says.
And as for the Exclusive brethern the are the least of our worries they, why are politicians wasting there time with such trivial matters when the big ones are hurting (or going to hurt) New Zealanders. Get rid of keith locke hes the biggest waste of space in the green party (and the (almost) sole reason i would not vote for them in the next election) quote
” But even back at home in Mt Eden, Auckland, he’s not one to let things go. When he discovered NZ Post was planning to close the local postboxes, he distributed 200 leaflets round his neighbourhood - and received 88 responses. The postboxes are still open.” = http://www.greens.org.nz/people/locke_k.asp = WASTE of SPACE
“notorious Communist family in New Zealand” and “rt Soviet action in Afghanistan” = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Locke = probably right
All i got to say SORT YOURSELVES OUT
September 28th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
libertyscott wrote:
“No country with high speed railways has the topography there is between Wellington and Auckland.”
Not true.
Japan. Has. More. Mountainous. Terrain.
Far more. Even the only large flat coastal strip has serious mountains.
please refer to the original Overlander thread for discussion of this.
And I’m not implying NZ has the population to afford Japan’s rail network.
I’m just pointing this out because your pronunciations are not necessarily accurate.
September 29th, 2006 at 12:07 am
libertyscott wrote:
“Airways Corporation is fully commercial, not subsidised. Next question…”
well, since you insist:
who paid for the air traffic control infrastructure to be built? only air travellers and airlines?
as with the airports, ports, telecoms and electricity distributors, it’s easy to flog this stuff off cheap to your mates once the initial investment has been made by the taxpayer over decades, and then point to it and shout: “Fully commercial, no taxpayer money needed!”
Well, when the new owners are extracting monopoly rents from their captive customers (or asset stripping), it’s not such a big deal, actually.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Hey, Scott, I never suggested that the railways weren’t subsidised, I just refuted your claim that “other modes are not subsidised”.
It seems to me that there is a complexweb of economic interactions, many involving the government/taxpayers and i’ve no idea who comes off best. For example: if AirNZ can keep prices low to undermine Origin Pacific, safe in the knowledge that if things get tough they can cry for another taxpayer-funded “capital injection”, that is going to allow them to compete more effectively with the railways.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
“!in the last two years Overlander passenger numbers dropped from 90,000 to 50,000 a year. was this due to extremely inept management or a deliberate strategy. which was it in your opinion”
Tochigi - Businesses can lose customers for reasons other than their own fault. In this case it is due to competition - and the poor state of the track in several locations on the main trunk affecting the reliability of the service. Toll, by the way, has never had anything to do with the track - that was TranzRail - and the reliability affected freight as well. I don’t believe it was deliberate, 2 years ago, Tranz Rail only owned 50% of Tranz Scenic.
Japan’s high speed railways tend to follow the coast, and yes there are mountains, so your point is fair.
The air traffic control infrastructure IS paid for by air traffic control users, because the current infrastructure was built in the last decade or so. The original systems are long gone, fully depreciated and history.
Please explain where monopoly rents are being extracted from transport infrastructure and why the “victim” hasn’t taken action under the Commerce Act? The nearest example would be airports, and they are regularly under scrutiny from the Commerce Commission.
Sam - I agree about Air NZ. Which simply supports why it should be privatised, and it should have been allowed to be 49% owned by Singapore Airlines which would have born the costs of restructuring Ansett etc, saved the jobs of many (certainly not all) of the Ansett staff.
The key point is that - in respect of Wellington to Auckland transport - no modes are subsidised. The air route has always been highly profitable and has two operators, the bus route is unsubsidised, the highway generates more revenue than it costs to maintain and upgrade - the railway ought to be the same.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:49 am
libertyscott wrote:
“Businesses can lose customers for reasons other than their own fault. In this case it is due to competition - and the poor state of the track in several locations on the main trunk affecting the reliability of the service.”
1. Competition: in the last 2 years, have bus/air transport prices dropped dramatically? Have bus/air services improved dramatically?
2. Poor state of the track: in the last 2 years, has this deteriorated dramaticlly compared with the previous several years?
I’m sorry, but your suggested reasons seem a little unconvincing at this stage, so I await further evidence.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:54 am
libertyscott wrote:
“Japan’s high speed railways tend to follow the coast”
That was only true in the 1960s. Since the 1970s this is definitely not the case.
Also, there are convensional (non-Shinkansen) intercity services running at moderate speeds (100-130 k/h) through central mountainous areas (e.g. Chuo Line). The rolling stock is similar to that on Queensland’s rapid long-distance service.
September 30th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I presume that when you say “Brethren” you mean Exclusive Brethren please do not get confused.
October 1st, 2006 at 12:08 am
Wheres the next comment? this green site is slack as the party? not that it matters Global warming will kill us all, not directly ofcourse I think the chinese /russians will invade us when the northern hemisphere freezes in 7 years and take over NZ, The USA will allow it because they will be taking over australia, atleast all the rich will. Why do the politians talk about such little things as the EB, speedgate, benson pope and brashs affair when our lives are at stake with other things like a flooded medical service due to diseased immigrants (who haven’t payed any tax), all our businesses going to Australia (probably because of tax reasons, free trade to china, or to america wonder who will buy more of our stuff) I say Go nuclear, Go trains and Go kick out all the lamer animal slavers.
October 1st, 2006 at 10:52 am
on whoar this morning i have had a bit of a moan about the (lamentable) lack of attention/care/nurture directed at this (increasingly drying-up) lily-pad..
this was on the back of a news story i did on the (green?) leader of the tories in britain starting his own vid-podcasts…
these to be used to promote/explain conservative party policy..
anyone would agree..this all sounds commendable/useful/efficient..eh..?
and meanwhile here..
we have a green party with the perrenial moan that ‘the media dosen’t pay enough attention to us..’..
a party with a leader who has been (virtually) invisible since his election..
(’russell who..?.’..said the general/voting public..)
a party that itself has largely been invisible since the last election…
this at a time of massive change/import..(cf…the almost total disintergration of the war in iraq..the mid-term elections in america…the u-turn greening of murdoch/branson et al..and a new global focus on climate-change..
what do we get from the greens..?
we get their only public forum/media outlet being neglected/starved..
w.t.f. is going on over there..?
is it because your media-people/advisers came from print journalism..?
your only other web outlet is a website that has had nothing done to it since being built eons ago..
and that is about as user-friendly as a haemmoroid cream…
here you have frogblog…(a mini-multi-media world) at your fingertips…and a forum for the greens to ‘lead/show the way/explain policies/ideas..’
instead of not even being able to get it together enough to emulate the bloody tories..!..for feck sake..!
i repeat…w.t.f. is (not) going on over there..?
(others opinions/thoughts on this are welcomed)..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
October 1st, 2006 at 3:37 pm
It seems clear that since this blog is being run by the parliamentary staff of the Green Party, for whatever reason the resources are not available to do a decent job in maintaining it. It has been in “going-through-the-motions” mode for about four or five months now. Most of the old users have long gone. New users appear regularly, soon figure out it is about as dynamic as a wet lunchtime, and do not return.
Can the party not find other (non-parlaimentary) people to (voluntarily) run it and/or contribute posts? It seems to me that nearly all the really good blogs are an evolving team/community effort. Not run by one person assigned to do it by their boss and who has zillions of other work duties that take priority.
All said and done, in its current state this blog is an embarrassment, an insult to its users and creates a bad impression of the party, IMHO.
October 1st, 2006 at 3:45 pm
it does seem a shame that this blog has not been maintained, resulting in noticeably less interest and posts from visitors to it… if the Greens aren’t going to take a stand in promoting and highlighting the issues such as the conservation and protection of NZ’s environment, then who is?! I can’t help but think of David Lange’s quote that “He’s gone around the country stirring up apathy”, when i think of the current use of media by the Greens. What a shame.
October 1st, 2006 at 7:57 pm
I agree we should go nuclear.
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:15 am
It might work as a team effort, but it’d have to be a reasonably organized team. It does help Frog when we feed stuff of interest back in… See something of interest, push it into the contact link and let it be seen by the blogmeisters. They then decide whether the content is relevant.
A moderated forum might work better for us than a blog, as we all could then be contributors… with moderation and membership to keep out the riff-raff trying to sell stuff to help our performance…
Which is my $0.02 - what’s that worth after rounding?
respectfully
BJ
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I am in 100% agreement with bjchip. I very rarely visit here, and prefer to discuss environmental issues on other blogs/fora given that it is so infrequently updated.
I think a forum-type idea is great, given that the community-created content could become a greater component as opposed to relying on the currently infrequent updating. Rigorous moderation would of course be necessary, but it would be a much more lively and current environment for discussion and debate for a much lower input of time and effort by the party.
It’s the most energy-efficient solution! How could the Greens not opt in!
DenMT
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 pm
i posted a comment to this site 48 hours ago..that would have gone to moderation/censorship..because it contained the word bullsh*t..
that it has not appeared yet tells me the person who moderates/maintains this blog hasn’t ‘got around to’ checking the comment moderation..
(btw..didn’t tim shadbolt de-demonise that word bullsh*t some decafes ago…?..)
it’s almost a bad/sad joke eh..?..this blog..?
and we all know what it isn’t..(an alive forum for green ideas/discussion)
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Liberty Scott: “10. The health costs associated with road transport (trucks and buses create far more damage per vehicle than cars) are paid for by general taxation,”
So in other words they ARE subsidised. Trucks are part of the problem, and freighting would be less damaging by rail. Do buses create more damage per passenger-kilometer, a more sensible comparison?
And who is paying for Bushes’ wars in the middle East to keep the flow of cheap oil going for road users?
kiore1
http://www.epf.org.nz
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Just finished a car trip to parts of the East Coast and drove alongside the rail line to Opotiki. The rail line bore signs claiming that the line (mostly very senic) was not in use,while I was sh*t scared of heavy trucks breathing down my neck. To have heavy trucks “sharing” the road with private cars in Karangahake Gorge is obscene.
For the bean counters out there, rail is five times more cost efficient than road per tonne of goods freighted, so seeing logging trucks alongside rail lines is just dumb, dumb, dumb! The fact that tourism revenue has risen faster than the average of our commodities means that the crowding of senic routes with heavy trucks is not a smart move. Is there any political party with enough backbone to buy back rail and appoint someone to run it effectively and imaginatively?
Give Prebble his due (and it sticks in my throat to do so) because the freight arm of rail ran profitably after it was made an SOE and BEFORE the National part govt. sold it. A parliamentary question to Jim Anderton please:”What are the statistics of truck-related accidents per year in NZ for the last ten years? Is there a trend up or down in raw numbers? What are the annual costs in lives lost?What are the costs in lost/damaged goods? What are the costs of traffic management for these accidents? What are the costs to other motorists/businesses in time lost because of road closure due to such accidents?” If the taxpayers pay for traffic control we need to know these costs.I really want a Green MP to ask these questions formally so that the answers produced will not be just guesswork.
October 4th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Many good questions
Add to them -
What is the cost of road repairs incurred per truck per year?
- because they do WAY more damage to a road than a car does.
ciao BJ
October 5th, 2006 at 1:09 am
In 2001, the cost for all truck induced road damage was $322m, it was $426m for cars ($7m for buses). Road User Charges revenue from trucks was $575m, so it more than paid for it.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
libertyscott
You’re pulling figures out of thin air yet again … how about providing your source ? And we want peer reviewed studies, not those dodgy right-wing think tanks again!
In the interim, here’s some real data:
1. “Surface Transport Costs and Charges: Main Report” Ministry of Transport March 2005
2. “Surface Transport Costs and Charges: Summary Report” Ministry of Transport March 2005
3. “NEW ZEALAND EVIDENCE FOR HEALTH IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT” commissioned by the Public Health Advisory Committee (by Professor Tord Kjellstrom and Dr Sarah Hill) Dec 2002
This report studied adverse effects of our current tranport mix:
- Safety
- Air pollution (vehicle emissions)
- Noise
- Physical activity
- Community disruption and social isolation
- Environmental and other factors
I recommend reading it, especially the summary. You’ll see how our current car and truck centric transport dependencies impose massive social and economic costs on individuals and society.
October 6th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Thanks for that report fastbike!
November 21st, 2006 at 1:04 am
“NEW ZEALAND EVIDENCE FOR HEALTH IMPACTS OF TRANSPORT� commissioned by the Public Health Advisory Committee (by Professor Tord Kjellstrom and Dr Sarah Hill) Dec 2002.
The upwardly rising morbidity associated by a linear causative relationship [with a zero zero origin] to sub PM2.5 (mostly diesel emissions with pah/metal on activated carbon) is a direct subsidy paid disporportionately by selected groups of people… Asthmatics, Diabetics, Immunocompromised, thoracic function impairments and other co-morbid conditions was predicted long ago by yours truly. Many prevalent medical conditions are exacerbated by vasorestriction alone, stroke and heart failure are . The WHO recently acknowledged that there is no margin of safety with PM10 and reduced the WHO standard for 24hr exposure at 20mgm3, down from 70. NZ standard is
November 21st, 2006 at 1:55 am
Somebody else is sleepwriting. Blair, your post is
November 21st, 2006 at 3:14 am
Weird.. I cut, moved and pasted three or four times.. Online spell check There is a paragraph completely missing at the end, some words are missing and an entire sentence missing….well didn’t paste! I give up on these online editors…
Apart from the above, it should have concluded
NZ standard is 50mgm3, now 2and a half times the recommended WHO margin for safe levels of PM.
The problem is even at that level the cost is STILL disproportionally borne by those who don’t have a voice. Further, while we all have some measure of advantage from this x-subsidy, the most advantage goes to the high consumer, ie: rich people. Not a healthy strategy really.
Whereas, steel wheels are so much more efficient. Even more than buses. (its the stop/start thing again) Rail can move thousands. Notably it did so for footy matches. There is no way buses could compete at real rail costs.
Factor in the health inequity, and it almost makes trains compulsory.
Toll, like NZ-Rail has been priced by an accountant. Even aircraft were not so dumb as to price all seats the same.
IMHO - The solution is obtainable if pricing rail and other public transport is by auction of every journey and to have it seamlessly fungible. I can sell my seat into the city that I don’t want next Monday at 8:30. If I miss the bus, i forfeit unless someone bids for that journey or part thereof. This ‘freedom’ to travel via public means will always maximise revenue while moving the most people across the most efficient modes.
The commuter/traveler gets the option of delaying (or travelling earlier as the case may be) for the price break.
Let the market micromanage itself. -> Get accountants out of the way and let Queuing theory reign.
Then AirQuality will improve outa-sight. Roads will decongest.
Health will improve.
Win Win!
November 21st, 2006 at 3:15 am
Fastbike, I am using the same report you are quoting, would be nice if you quoted a bit more, maybe read the main report too.
Let’s take your point 1:”The best estimate of total provider/external costs is $5.59 billion p.a., i.e. just over double the current charges” is followed by, “However, almost half these costs relate to the target return on road infrastructure assets. The majority of these assets have no viable alternative use (opportunity cost) and it is arguable whether a return should be charged on these.”
Given that such a return is not charged on similar rail assets, it would be absurd to expect that a return is sought on the rail infrastructure that has no alternative use. So we get back to road charges being roughly equivalent to road costs. The recovery of costs from trucks vs cars is a point, but a key component of that is the maintenance costs on local roads which are disproportionately caused by trucks, but of which half are recovered from ratepayers. I support recovering these costs from road users, but it wont make an iota of difference to road vs rail as it is LOCAL roads.
2. The cost recovery you talk of also includes assets that are non-recoverable, so once you take that into account your figure goes up enormously. You should also note that as the figures are 2001, the sulphur and benzene levels in diesel and petrol respectively have dropped dramatically (sulphur being most important as the levels have gone from 1500ppm to 500ppm to 50ppm this year over this time). This is a positive move which should reduce this net cost by over 50%. Things have moved on.
fastbike you might not recall, but the rail network was nationalised, it no longer has to make a commercial return. The road network does generate a return in that there is a surplus of revenue generated compared with that spent on maintaining it at current state, that surplus is currently largely spend on improving roads and public transport.
If you read the STCC main report you will also see that buses in Auckland contribute 19x the pollution cars do per vehicle km, so have to attract 19 car passengers per trip to break even environmentally. You will also see that the case study on freight that the environmental cost per tonne km of road vs rail freight between Napier and Gisborne is the same, and between Wellington and Auckland, road had an advantage. Presumably you’ll rethink your ideological blinkers about trains good, trucks bad or else junk the parts of the report you don’t like.
If you read the MoT review of the Cost Allocation Model, you will find that it confirms that trucks, at that time, overpaid the RUC necessarily to fund the costs they imposed on the roading system (excluding local road share) by about 20%. This has probably now come close to even given inflation. If you ask for Cabinet papers on vehicle charges you see this noted.
Go to the MoT website, download the full Surface Transport Costs and Charges report. Remember there have been some major changes since then such as:
1. Dramatic cuts in sulphur and benzene in transport fuels;
2. Significant increases in public transport subsidies and subsidies for rail infrastructure, removal of rail from commercial private ownership;
3. Three fuel tax increases and two RUC increases (albeit for vehicles only up to 7 tonnes);
4. Significant increases in roading construction.
I don’t care whether people use road or rail, I think both modes have enormous comparative advantages doing particular tasks, but you are absolutely dreaming if you think that the competition between them is anything but at the margins. You, and so many in the Green party adopt an irrational childish attitude to transport that does not reflect the facts. The most reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the STCC report is that urban congestion is a major source of economic and social cost and should be addressed, and the only answer to that is to price all modes efficiently. Neither roads nor public transport should be privileged.
The key point remains, the STCC report quotes the total climate change cost for rail in NZ at $10m p/a and the Greens want to spend easily $2 billion to eliminate this - it is madness!
November 21st, 2006 at 10:35 am
Interesting they only look at the costs not the benefits. How many people would have died if not for the availability of rapid transportation? Be that of goods or people.
The numbers for air quality impacts are extremely dodgy. They are highly sensitive to minor changes in assumptions or technique. That has been demonstrated by two NZ reports which had quite different numbers for premature deaths - the HAPINZ Christchurch study and the earlier MOT one that covered all NZ.
And of cours elarge quanitities of pollution come from heating using biorenewable fuels…