this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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The significant austerity measures around the country strongly disagree with you.
Auckland just canceled a significant number of its infrastructure projects, and the regional fuel tax along with significant cuts in maintenance - 30% reduction last I heard
Hamilton is nearly being mothballed to save money.
No idea about other major centers.
So noe ypu ask yourself: why?
Where is that money going?
Why are we having tax cuts of various types... only to borrow more money?
Ooo, I got quite good at this game. Let's see...
A low GDP per capita economy, significant logistics chains and costs, low nation ownership of productive assets and banks, lack of economies of scale from infrastructure spread over a wide area with low population, surprisingly lack of accountability for project over runs....
And yes, class divide which funnels money upwards rather than reaching investment in the country.
Howd I do?
Terribly, with a layer of sneering smugness to boot. The austerity justifciations are national party spin, swallowed whole. The govt is throwing billions to landlords and mega roads while cutting funding for public housing, critical infrastructure and even fucking food banks at a time of record demand for them.
They're also dumping costs onto households by cranking up user charges and abandoning councils to pay for decades of infrastructure underinvestment.
So no, they've chosen to loot and plunder.
Yeah, you can't use austerity as evidence of economic problems when austerity is NP policy. Self-fulfilling prophesy.
And the only real reason for austerity is to make the rich richer and drive inequality even higher.
Except the austerity measures started when Labour was in. Admittedly not to that level, but they were aware of the issues that national took and run with.
Fully agree the landlord one is bullshit, but I find it interesting you don't consider roads critical infrastructure, especially considering we are still diffused throughout the country and don't have the density for lots of mass transit.
Finally, everything you have said is a symptom, not the underlying cause - you've told me Nat is cutting costs on key areas (yes), but you asked why it happened in the first place. Its the country wide symptoms I mentioned, and these can't be fixed in 3 years no matter who is in.
I didn't say I don't consider roads as critical infrastucture, I specifically said "mega roads", i.e new multi lane motorways that are a waste of money because they will encourage more driving, more sprawl and make traffic even worse in the long run (and I imagine local roads will deteriorate as they did the last time this happened).
Three waters, the ferries, state housing, public transport are all better options right now that are woefully underfunded and in fact actively sabotaged by this govt.
The "we don't have the density" argument is often pulled out against funding public transport and it's unfounded. We're one of the most urbanised countries in the world. We could absolutely build more PT if we chose to, we've had far more extensive networks in the past than what we currently do.
Overall, saying what's happening is a symptom is just an attempt to claim what's happening right now is inevitable imo. Different choices can be made that would be far less damaging, they'd be positive even and actually address the underlying problems you highlight instead of this "better things aren't possible" fatalism.
Unfortunately the time to deal with the alternative here was 30 years ago. We aren't a 15 min city (none if them are) and changing this will take decades.
Agreed, moving on.
Sydney has 6 million people compared to Auckland 1.2., Melbourne 5 with similar land area. If you look at % then yes, look at people per sqkm we are no where close.
Yes, better choices can be made, they will improve the country in the long run, but people struggling now get to vote. Balanced books get votes on confidence, ease of lifestyle and business as usual get votes, getting kicked out if my car and more regulations lose elections.
Yeah like I said, "better things aren't possible" fatalism.
So you don't need as many buses to achieve the same coverage. Public transport infrastructure costs are not fixed for a certain land area, they are also proportional to potential ridership.
Backwards- if you want to cover areas your network needs to be the size to cover it. Its much more comparatively expensive when you have 3 people riding each route rather than 18.
You're correct on main lines, however you can also run larger busses.