Julie Anne Genter loves using the term BCR, especially when talking about why roads shouldn’t be built. Here’s an example:
She genuinely thinks, and I happen to agree with her, that a project with a BCR of less than 1 is a waste of money. Except Julie Anne Genter doesn’t actually believe that, especially if the project is a massive and expensive bike bridge for boomers…then a BCR of less than 1 is cool:
A planned standalone cycle and walkway bridge next to the Auckland Harbour Bridge has come under fire for its cost, and a newly released figure shows the cost of it could far outweigh the benefits.
Transport Minister Michael Wood did not provide the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) when he announced the new $785m project earlier this month – but has now revealed the initial assessment by Waka Kotahi is only 0.4 to 0.6.
That meant for every dollar spent on the bridge, there would effectively be a 40 to 60 cent loss.
New Zealand
And here is Julie Anne Genter supporting that appalling BCR, on the basis that other projects are even worse at wasting money!
On top of that, she was also on The Nation defending the bridge:
Appearing on Newshub Nation before Genter, she defended the project’s poor BCR.
“You’re not asking me that about any of the roading projects which often have similar BCRs,” he told host Tova O’Brien, who suggested giving cyclists a lane on the existing bridge instead.
“I suspect if we did that, we’d be sitting in this interview and you’d be telling me how outraged motor vehicle users are. There are always trade-offs and choices.”
Genter said either way, we need more cycling and pedestrian options, especially linked up.
“The cost of the bridge is not the cost of walking and cycling – it’s the cost of keeping all eight lanes on the existing bridge for cars. If that’s what people want, they should be prepared to pay for it,” she said.
“The people complaining about the cost of the bridge would also probably oppose opening a lane for active transport.”
Newshub
What a great idea…if cyclists want an expensive bike bridge, they should be prepared to pay for it! I bet we won’t hear Julie Anne Genter utter those words, will we?
And while she was on The Nation she issued veiled threats about ute taxes:
“We’ve designed the scheme to fiscally neutral – so effectively the fees fund the discounts,” Transport Minister Michael Wood told Newshub Nation on Saturday, saying that “in theory” the fees on high-emissions vehicles could go up to help pay for bigger discounts.
“We’ve said at the moment we don’t intend to up the fees. We’ve set the maximum level of those… we’ll keep to that.”
If former Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter had her way, they might be tougher.
“When people are acting really outraged about a $3000 fee on a [Ford] Ranger, that’s a pretty small percentage – it’s less than a third of the GST. If it’s a work vehicle, that is tax deductible. So I think we need to put it in perspective.”
In some other countries, the levies on high-emissions vehicles are far beyond that – in France they’re as high as €30,000 ($60,000). That might be needed if we want to give buyers of low-emissions vehicles more discounts, she told Newshub Nation.
“In order for them to be higher, we would have to accept higher fees,” she said – noting France has fees 20 times higher than we will.
“Maybe we should be making the case for that over time. Yeah, definitely.“
Newshub
These people are economic saboteurs who contort themselves into astonishing backflips when their rhetoric against roads is turned on their pet projects. They are hypocrites and economic vandals with no real grasp of reality.
I really hope these fools do push their hostility towards the productive sector hard, proposing their massive tax hikes, then they’ll see just how fickle the green-tinged tradie’s missus is when their livelihood is threatened by these fools.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD