Media focus on small stuff in government's big-budget transport plan

Billions were rolled out for roads in a new national transport plan this week that rolls back the sums spent on other transport.

Some journalists questioned how this would work and who would bear the high costs, while others followed the lead of the minister, highlighting aspects that hardly made a dent in the $33 billion budget.

"There is what Simeon Brown called 'a balancing act' going on - but it is between public transport and roads. Walking and cycling is definitely going to get cut out of that," RNZ's political editor Jo Moir said on Morning Report's weekly wrap-up of the week's politics.

She was summing up the National Land Transport Plan unveiled last Monday by the transport minister, against the backdrop of cars zipping down a Wellington motorway.

"Getting transport back to basics is one of the key reasons why Kiwis voted for this government. They were sick of the potholes plaguing our roads ... and they were tired of the speed bumps, planter boxes and cycleways that made going about their day to day lives all the more difficult," Brown said.

Much of the $33b in that plan was for 17 Roads of National Significance, and some on public transport - but not rail. Funding for walking and cycling was slashed by more than half.

"There's a lot of spin going on in this plan. It's worth remembering that people get so passionate about cycleways [but] it was only ever 1 percent of the transport budget. The focus on it is a little bit disproportionate," Jo Moir said, referring to "a bit of a passionate discussion off air" about the matter.

There was plenty of that aired on talk radio this week too.

Speed bumps and cycleways

"No funding at all for speed bumps. No speed bumps in this plan?" Heather du Plessis-Allan asked Simeon Brown on Newstalk ZB's Drive later that day.

"We're cutting the funding for speed bumps. I call it an infestation of speed bumps that we've seen across our roads whilst potholes have been remaining unfilled. I want to see that money going into filling pot holes," he replied.

"Kiwis are sick and tired of councils up and down this country trying to slow them down and cause congestion. So that's the focus of this National Land Transport Programme."

The notion of speed bumps repurposed to fill in the potholes is a simple image for frustrated drive-time listeners in cars.

"Another announcement that hits the nail on the head," an approving Du Plessis-Allan told her listeners.

"I don't know how true this is, but I heard the other day that Simeon's nickname in caucus is Goldenballs because the man can't do anything wrong. He gets everything right."

Not quite.

Announcing the NLTP, Simeon Brown told reporters that 24 speed bumps on state highways had been scrapped.

"That would be $12 million saved," he said.

When The Post questioned that, the minister's office said he was referring to a single project - not on any highway, but in Auckland's suburban Grey Lynn.

Back in February, Brown seized on the New Zealand Herald reporting that [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/515578/auckland-s-raised-crossings-ditched-for-new-approach-after-criticism Auckland Transport was "pushing on with $500,000 crossings".

Herald super city reporter Bernard Orsman had cited one crossing in Auckland with traffic lights where unexpected stormwater issues pushed the price tag to that level - but neglected to mention the estimated cost of other raised crossings was between $19,000 and $31,000 each. That was even though AT told Mediawatch it informed the Herald of that before the story was published.

The Herald ran a correction in print the following day, but it seems the minister missed it when he recycled the misleading figure this week.

Fact checking the bold claims

This week, The Post pulled the minister up for amping up the cost of speed bumps, based on one anomalous example.

But two weeks ago, The Post's Andrea Vance said Wellington City Council had spent $518 per household on cycleways over the last two years.

The council told Mediawatch at the time that the spending The Post cited was actually borne by households over a number of years - and half of the funding came from the New Zealand Transport Agency.

"The actual cost would be $319 per household for cycleways, while each household paid almost $1600 for roads - and $3,800 for transport in total," the council told Mediawatch.

In 2024, the bike network (including related bus and pedestrian improvements) was roughly 8 percent of the council's total transport budget - and less than one fifth of 1 percent of the 2024/25 rates increase.

But none of that made the news.

Who really pays the big bill?

While the cost of speed bumps and cycleways was not the focus of the three-year $33b dollar transport plan, congestion they supposedly cause was highlighted.

"This is a Goldenballsy move. I know damn well people in the Wellington region will agree with reducing the spend on cycleways and increase of speed for cars, because the cycleways slow them down," ZB's Wellington Nick Mills said on Monday.

(There's no public record of anyone other than Mills and Du Plessis-Allan hailing the transport minister as 'Goldenballs'.)

Almost nowhere is it true that cycle lanes - once built - slow traffic down.

But bikes on the roads amongst the cars do, as do the extra cars on the road that cycle lanes can take away.

While Mills insisted Wellingtonians "would be thrilled" with the minister's plan, he also said some big-ticket items were existing projects like a second tunnel for cars through Mt Victoria.

And the plan made no mention of the underground tunnel towards the airport that Simeon Brown had floated in the capital last year.

Brown also claimed the plan would reduce congestion, speed up travel and pump up productivity in the economy.

"There is no evidence that the solutions they've proposed - building more major roads which are going to take a long time - will achieve those goals. A plan to take cars off the roads by getting more people on public transport ... and to take freight off the road with rail, would achieve those goals. But this plan cuts the money that is available in those areas," New Zealand Herald writer Simon Wilson told RNZ's Morning Report.

Wilson was speaking as a citizen of the super city, which stands to snaffle more of the $33b than any other region.

In the South Island, Newsroom's reporter David Williams said claims increasing the Southern Motorway's speed would boost economic productivity had been rubbished by experts.

Where will the $33b actually come from?

On Tuesday, Newstalk ZB's Nick Mills told listeners people would still pay in their rates if funding for Wellington's unfinished cycle routes dried up.

"Temporary cycle ways are ugly, ugly things that everyone keeps telling us are going to be replaced and fixed. Where do we get the money from? Me and you. Not fair," Mils complained.

But all taxpayers will also pay the big bill for roads under this new plan.

"Road User Charges, fuel taxes and registration fees will provide $13.7b, local government another $5.8b - but taxpayers will pay nearly $13 billion over the next three years," said veteran political journalist Richard Harman on his site politik.co.nz.

Harman pointed out if road construction costs inflate, the government already faces a squeeze on its operating allowance for next year's Budget.

NZTA officials were already warning about that possibility this week.

The following day, the Herald's Thomas Coughlan reported that the government has a hospital-sized hole in its transport plan.

Beyond hiking fuel taxes and RUCs even more, the transport plan can't add up in the 2030s "without further billions from the Crown", he said.

Net roading revenue is forecast to be $6b a year by the end of the decade, but NZTA's costs are expected to be $12b a year by then - in spite of big fuel tax and road user tax hikes towards the end of the decade, he said.

"The transport system is now being heavily subsidised from the money actually intended for the likes of schools and hospitals," he added, noting the Crown subsidy for the NLTP is already more than the $2b current cost of the new Dunedin hospital.

"If road users are unwilling to pay higher costs for some of the costliest parts of the transport network, policymakers need to ask whether those things are worth building in the first place."

But rather than highlighting that for their audience, some media instead mined resentment over the puny costs of cycleways and speed bumps, following the lead of the minister when he launched the plan.