Guy Wellwood: Getting transport back on track

There is a conspiracy (my one conspiracy theory) to get rid of rail in New Zealand.

I do not think Hastings District Council gets it right with transport policy.

It is all about trucks and bicycles because the Government gives them funding for these things. I am more keen on walking and rail.

The council's biggest transport project at present is called the Whakatu Arterial. It is basically a new road from Maungateretere to Pakowhai Rd through Whakatu and it is designed to get trucks to the port in Napier.

For some reason the project is bogged down but I assume that NZ Transport Authority and HDC will throw some more money at the problem in the vain hope that it will go away. That is the way they do things around here, it seems.

NZTA are involved partly because the Whakatu Arterial is a successor to the Northern Arterial which, as part of the Expressway development, was going to be a road from the Evenden Rd roundabout on Pakowhai Rd to Havelock North.

That proposal came to nothing when some landowners successfully argued in court that their rights and interests outweighed those of the roadmakers.

I think that a better idea for Whakatu would be as an inland port where rail was used to take product to the Napier Port. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge fan of rail. I think our current rail network is a magnificent but underutilised and endangered resource.

There is a conspiracy (my one conspiracy theory) to get rid of rail in New Zealand. Some say it is led by road transport lobbyists but I actually think the trucking industry does want a good rail system.

No, the conspirators are at government level. Government makes a lot of money out of road transport - fuel taxes, GST, company tax - whereas with rail it only thinks of "subsidies" and "losses".

I have always said government should see rail as a valuable public service like the police. The most expensive part of rail - the laying of track - was done by our forefathers, we just have to harness modern technology to those two steel lines.

That way we start to reduce congestion, burning fossil fuels and eating up more good land with roads. My vision is to have a rail system for people and goods that is like Switzerland where modern electric powered trains take people and goods throughout the country.

Switzerland is half the size of New Zealand, has less plentiful electricity resources, no coastline and 6 million people.

Thanks to my mayoral campaign I have linked in to a wonderful group of rail crusaders, many of whom have been planning and battling for years to get our rail network running properly from Gisborne to Wellington. Guess what is right in the middle of that track for about a quarter of the total distance: HASTINGS DISTRICT.

My rail system could be taking tourists to and from Gisborne - through forests, along beaches, over wonderful viaducts.

I have travelled that Napier to Gisborne rail track - it is world class spectacular.

My rail system would take commuters from Paki Paki or Whirinaki to Hastings or Napier.

It could even go to the airport. It could also shift livestock, timber, even water from one area to another - 1000 tonnes at a time - that is 50 trucks.

My rail system would use modern computerised handling and traffic systems - hopefully developed locally, as with some of the rolling stock.

I am quite appalled with many of our roads - with their strange green markings and speed restrictions and dangerous intersections when roundabouts would work better.

I am sick of seeing huge municipal buses, empty most of the time.

I hardly see any cyclists on the roads despite the millions that have been spent on making the roads so-called "cycle friendly."

I am not convinced "free" parking in Hastings City is the answer. It gives all the wrong signals.

I would like Hastings to be a walker's paradise.

We may have to put some apartments in the main streets and some footbridges over the railway and busier roads so let's do it - or start to do it.

Talking of bridges, I love bridges. I think Rod Drury's idea of a bridge across the Tukituki at the end of Te Mata Road would be fantastic and I would also love to see a bridge at Longlands, crossing both the railway and SH2.

That then makes Te Aute-Longlands Road the way Havelock drivers get safely and quickly to the expressway.

I am not talking new roads and rail lines - just better using the ones there already.

- Guy Wellwood is a Hastings lawyer and candidate for Mayor of Hastings District in this year's election.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz