Minister of Transport Steven Joyce has just announced the new ownership and operating model for metro commuter rail services in Auckland and Wellington. In a nutshell: KiwiRail subsidiaries will own the rolling stock (that means neither ARTA or the Greater Wellington Regional Council will own rolling stock, as currently proposed); […]
Steven Joyce
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Rudman pretty much sums it up in today’s Herald: Mr Joyce now seems to be deliberately taunting Aucklanders, promising all will be well, while slowly and publicly plucking the wheels off the trains, one by one. He seemed to be deliberately mischievous last weekend when, while enthusing about roads, he […]
The Press reports that Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, is backing the largely tourist-oriented TranzAlpine long-distance passenger train, which runs daily from Christchurch to Greymouth.
The Herald’s Editorial asserting that the ARC’s transport plan “ignores reality” for its focus on public transport is remarkable for its poor grasp of what current realities actually are. The reality is that significant roading projects such as the revised $1.8bn Waterview extension and the $2bn+ Puhoi to Wellsford motorway […]
Good to see the Regional Transport Committee isn’t blindly accepting the Government priority on Roads of National Significance. The Herald reports: One of seven Government “roads of national significance”, a $2.3 billion highway north of Auckland, has been placed at the bottom of a list of regional transport priorities. The […]
As Josh Arbury blogs, and the Herald reports, the order for electric trains is under threat. A basic summary of the situation is that ARTA had an orginal budget of $512m, broken down in the table below: Now, however, the Government has capped the electrification spend for rolling stock at $500m and […]
Following on from the ARC’s media release of last week regarding funding for rail electrification in Auckland, Brian Rudman comments in the Herald: When the new Government pulled the plug on the regional fuel tax six months ago, killing Auckland’s ability to buy itself a modern, electrified rapid-rail system, Transport […]
Responding to the announcement that the petrol excise tax will increase by 3c in October, ARC Chair asks the obvious question in this media release: Auckland has renewed its calls for Government action on funding for electric trains before fuel taxes rise on 1 October. “When the Government cancelled regional […]