Editorial: In a crucial policy area, the Government is making some headway

A second harbour crossing is a likely future target. Photo / Michael Craig

The Government has struggled with some major reforms on its policy list, drawing opposition that has bogged them down.

On Sunday it was forced to withdraw the entrenchment clause in legislation for the already very messy Three Waters reforms widely unpopular with councils and the public. There’s also the state media merger, health system reforms, fair pay agreements and agriculture’s role in climate targets.

Also on Sunday, the Government released details of funding to help councils with transport projects, which has significant backing from local body officials.

If there was a policy area the Government needed to make progress in to help its overall goals, it would be transport.

The transport portfolio involves a complex combination of projects that aim to make up for underinvestment in the past but also need to collectively cut carbon emissions in rapid time.

Improving transport in Auckland is crucial for climate change targets; to modernise New Zealand’s biggest city; and to advance key pieces of an infrastructure puzzle. These decisions feed into the country’s economic performance and other areas of life.

Transport accounts for 17 per cent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas gross emissions, according to the Ministry for the Environment.

With transport, the Government is making a decent stab at delivering long-term benefits. It absolutely needed to with New Zealand behind comparable countries on transportation systems.

The Government, the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, and local authorities have managed to build momentum on transport through specific projects and the clear goal of diversifying transport choices.

There have been setbacks, criticism, and decisions considered mistakes, such as the Waitematā cycle and walkway bridge proposal. Wider visions for transport often get stuck in disputes at a community level over what people who live locally prefer.

Yet the general direction of transport policy and what is trying to be achieved is clear.

The $350 million outlined on Sunday is for transport infrastructure nationwide to enable councils to provide new bus lanes and bus stop upgrades, cycleways, and school safety measures.

The latest funding is a drop in the bucket in the context of the wider $8.7 billion being invested in infrastructure projects, across rail, public transport, walk and cycleways, and road upgrades through Waka Kotahi and KiwiRail. The National Land Transport Fund has a further $4.5b in annual funding.

In Auckland the main project is the $14.6b light rail with a second harbour crossing a likely future target.

Auckland Transport will get $75m from the package announced on Sunday. Mayor Wayne Brown said he was “pleased about the planned improvements to northwestern busway feeder routes, to increase public-transport use by making our bus system better rather than by trying to make our roads worse for private vehicles”.

Brown added that he and Transport Minister Michael Wood needed to agree on an overall plan for a “single, joined-up transport system [that] must include every mode, maximise returns from big new projects like the new City Rail Link, and be informed by clear decisions and timelines for the future use of Auckland’s publicly owned waterfront land, currently being used by the port company”.

In the midst of dense government changes that people struggle to understand, transport developments are bringing about changes people can make sense of in their daily lives - that would have seemed highly unlikely a decade or so ago.