Editorial: Mayors shine with toll issue

Auckland's anniversary is a good day to applaud the decision of three city leaders who will make a case to the Government for the tolling of roads. Road tolling takes political courage. The mere suggestion has exposed mayors Dick Hubbard, Barry Curtis and Bob Harvey to cheap and short-sighted criticism. Nobody welcomes the prospect of paying tolls, even by modern electronic monitoring methods, but nothing less is likely to relieve Auckland's congestion.

It is a proud decision for Auckland for the same reasons that some decry it. They say the mayors are relieving the Government of its responsibility to fully fund national roading and going where the Government fears to tread. Indeed they are. The mayors have looked at the gap between what Transit NZ has the funds to build and what Auckland needs to complete its arterial roads. And they have decided that rather than continue whingeing to Wellington, they will do something about it.

That is the spirit we should expect of a country's largest city. Auckland is demeaned by local politicians and pundits who continually carp about the supposed imbalances of tax collected and spent in the region. On a national scale it is only natural that disproportionate amounts must be spent on services to less populated centres, simply because it is more efficient to service larger populations.

Road and motor fuel taxes should be invested entirely in roads and public transport, but even that might not close the infrastructure gaps in Auckland. In any case, tolls have benefits that no amount of fuel tax can provide. Tolls are a form of tax that can be easily varied to reflect the costs of using a particular road at a particular time of the day. Fuel taxes are much less efficient in that sense. Fuel is taxed the same wherever or whenever it is used.

Tolls are also the best way of attracting private investment in roads, which will be needed to augment Transit NZ's resources. Tolls are the means by which the private sector earns a return on its investment, and it is unlikely to make the investment unless it is certain a tolled road will be used. That is a test that works to the benefit of taxpayers and everyone in the economy. Roads that cannot attract an economic return in tolls are not sufficiently needed and should not be built.

Tolling mechanisms, of course, carry their own considerable cost, which reduces the net cash return from the road. But that equation ignores the non-cash benefits of tolling: the reduced congestion not only on tollways but on freeways that have to carry all traffic at present. Government policy will permit tollways only where a reasonable free alternative exists, though the mayors' proposal seems to involve tolling existing thoroughfares for the sake of new ones.

Mr Hubbard sounds particularly anxious to pay for a motorway tunnel under Victoria Park, replacing the flyover entirely. That is a needless extravagance in Transit NZ's national perspective. But if tolls were permitted for that purpose it would be a test of how much Aucklanders would pay to be rid of the existing structure. Tolls, however, should not be collected for a purpose distant from them. Mr Hubbard's talk of a cordon around areas where motorists could be offered an alternative of public transport sounds suspiciously like an ulterior motive.

Quibbles aside, it is good to see three of Auckland's mayors offering leadership on the city's most pressing problem, and a pity that the mayor of North Shore and the chairman of the Regional Council do not support them. Tolls might never be popular but neither is congestion. With sustained leadership the city will get moving again.