Drivers face tolls on old roads to fund new ones

By PAULA OLIVER

Motorists could be asked to pay tolls on existing roads to finance new projects under changes to controversial transport legislation.

The Land Transport Management Bill changes the way land transport is paid for and managed - as well as establishing a framework for road tolling schemes and allowing for public-private partnerships.

After heavy lobbying, MPs on the transport and industrial relations select committee changed the bill to make it more friendly to tolls.

Under the changes issued yesterday, it would be possible for existing roads to become toll roads in exceptional circumstances.

The original bill allowed tolls on new roads only.

The Minister of Transport would be responsible for determining whether exceptional circumstances existed.

The Mayor of Rodney, John Law, said the revised bill could potentially speed up the stalled $160 million Orewa-to-Puhoi highway project.

"There is a strong sense by people that State Highway 1 should not be tolled at all.

"But if we cannot get the road finished to Puhoi unless it was tolled, then we would consider that."

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the toll provisions had been opened up "just a little bit", but not far enough to mean that "any old" existing road would be tolled.

In the past a toll project has needed specific legislation to go ahead. This bill changes that, instead leaving it up to the minister to approve the project.

Tolls have attracted the most attention in the bill, but other areas led Ms Fitzsimons to label it yesterday as "the most important thing the Greens have achieved in this term in Parliament".

"Rather than putting everything into roads, it means we will have provisions for pedestrian facilities, rail alternatives to roads, cycleways."

That is the reason the bill has been labelled "Greenified" by business and land transport groups.

Yesterday, they banded together and attacked it as not going far enough to encourage investment.

Business New Zealand chief executive Simon Carlaw said the level of consultation required by private interests wanting to get involved meant a public-private partnership was unlikely to get off the ground.

"I'm not confident under this bill that years of underfunding of roading stock is going to get what is needed. Even if you restrict it to an Auckland focus, such a large sum is needed."

He said that there needed to be a very attractive public-private partnership arrangement that would enable private capital to augment public investment.

But Ms Fitzsimons said the bill allowed for private input if it was in the national interest.

Opposition parties lambasted the bill as offering little solution to the country's roading woes.

One of their biggest concerns centred on the likelihood that tax money taken from road-users could be used on initiatives other than roads.