The New Zealand Transport Agency, rebranded as Waka Kotahi, is using our taxes to mess up our streets without public consultation. A fund of nearly $30 million is being given to councils to come up with crazy changes to city roads, such as painting polka dots in the middle of intersections.
Publicly, NZTA claims the purpose of the polka dots is to distract drivers so they slow down to improve safety. This is simply not credible. We all know a distracted driver is far more dangerous.
The dishonesty continues by referring to the hundreds of new speed bumps as “speed cushions”. If you have to change the name of something because you think it might be more acceptable, then you know it is not acceptable.
Each of the “transformations” has been presented to the public by local councils as intended to improve streets for users, with new cycleways, pedestrian-friendly spaces, and “pocket parks” (a planter box on the asphalt). None of this is true.
An interview with the people behind the scheme has revealed that NZTA’s consultants (read activists) want to “reduce driving to save the planet”. Planner Jeff Speck admitted that was too hard, so he “had the most success selling bike lanes” to stop cars.
In other words, bike lanes are not about making it better for bikes, it is about making it worse for cars. Increasing congestion is the goal, so that drivers get frustrated and give up driving.
It has already resulted in unintended consequences that are blindingly obvious. Hamilton City Council removed 40 parking spaces from a retail area. Local businesses are suffering. Waipa Council created a one-way system to block vehicle access to half of Cambridge – in front of the town’s only fire station! Emergency response times have been hit.
Possibly the most insulting thing about this is that councils repeatedly call the agency’s funding “free money”. It may not have come from ratepayers, but most of us are taxpayers too.
The agency was originally tasked with ensuring “an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system in the public interest” under the Land Transport Act 2003. Its statutory functions are clearly stated. Reducing congestion was a goal.
But in 2018, the Ministry of Transport under Labour launched the Transport Outcomes Framework. This gave NZTA the excuse to use our money against us by including environmental sustainability. Now creating congestion is a goal.
Logic is as incomprehensible to such people as basic morality seems to be. Surely those people who remain stuck in traffic jams are producing more emissions than free-flowing traffic which gets to its destination in less time?
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