waitemata harbour

I love the Auckland harbour transport plan, don’t you? Who doesn’t want to get across the harbour more easily and doesn’t want some more roads for cars?

But surely no one believes Labour’s going to do this.

Not only because they can’t deliver jack- do I need to mention KiwiBuild or Light Rail or Let’s Get Wellington Moving- but mainly because no one rational believes Labour actually wants to build expensive roads for cars.

Come on.   

Labour's spent the last six years cancelling roads and trying to convince New Zealand to build a bike-only bridge across the harbour and trying to convince us to get out of our cars.

Does anyone actually believe that they’ve suddenly changed their minds and they're all in on roads for cars? 

Not a chance. So what’s going on here?

This is straight out populist politics. They're just announcing what they think we want to hear.

Their heart is not in it. Their heart is in trains and bikes and cycleways. Which means it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

And you’re a sucker if you fall for this. Because they pulled this trick once already.

January 2020- before most of us had even heard of Covid- Labour was on track to lose the election later that year.

They wheeled Grant Robertson out to announce the big New Zealand upgrade programme in which he announced a whole bunch of roads we desperately need.

But then they won the election. And what happened?

By July of the next year, two of the big projects were cancelled, two more have been slow walked so we don’t actually know if they’re going ahead of or not, and only one was started. One out of five.

These guys are like the online Nigerian princes of transport projects.

They asked you for money in 2020 to unlock your inheritance, you sent it and didn’t get your inheritance, and now they’ve come back three years later promising that this time you will get your inheritance.

Good luck if you think voting for them will unlock that tunnel for cars under the Harbour Bridge.

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The Government today announced plans to build an alternative Waitemata Harbour crossing, alongside further upgrades to Auckland's North Shore.

The alternative crossing includes two three-lane road tunnels and a 21 kilometre Light Rail tunnel between Albany and the CBD.

Transport Minister David Parker is confident the second Waitemata Harbour crossing will be built within a clear timeframe.

"We've had extra lines being put in on the railway, we've had the City Rail Link built. Those are political insults, rather than fact-based."

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