Letters: Congestion charging - look to Singapore; Coalition negotiations and the latest Covid wave

Morning traffic heading through Newton Gully in central Auckland and (inset) Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s congestion charges have some merit, although one would question the legality of the council introducing what is essentially a toll on a state highway.

As far as I understand, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency own, run and maintain the state highways and encroachments, no matter what council they are in.

On top of that, I would argue a lot of the congestion in West Auckland in particular has been created by Auckland Transport themselves in an effort to prioritise buses. From stupidly short traffic light phasing to removing lanes on dual carriageways and making them bus-only, instead of having bus stops off to the side, they now block a lane of traffic.

Clint Francis, Te Atatū Peninsula.

Look to Singapore

Road pricing is a very useful tool, primarily to regulate traffic while at the same time raising council revenue.

Everyone is better off through regulating traffic and cutting travel time. Singapore seems to have a perfect system, which has been in place for 25 years. You prepay your road fee, and the system takes an amount off your credit every time you drive through the charging mechanism. If your credit is empty, you will be issued a fine.

This system allows the charging rate to altere to peak when normal traffic peaks and shrink when there is no congestion. It’s a brilliant system that works well and frees up roads for those who must travel in business, like tradies and commercial traffic.

Frank Olsson, Freemans Bay.

Cogent carbon arguments

I was delighted and greatly encouraged to read Mike Joy’s cogent arguments (NZ Herald, November 17). At last, some serious, science-based information which exposes the folly of “offsetting” carbon emissions.

When this idea was first proposed some years ago, I could not believe what I was reading. The idea that money changing hands on Earth could somehow mitigate the damage to the atmosphere caused by burning fossil fuels seemed so unrealistic that only the extremely gullible (and politicians) could believe it, I thought.

Joy’s thorough and valuable work should be required reading for all who care about the planet.

John Hampson, Meadowbank.

Cost of negotiations

Leaders of three political parties are currently conducting negotiations to form a coalition government.

The expenses for these negotiations are apparently being met by the taxpayer. Each of these parties raised considerable funds for their election campaigns. Each party also campaigned strongly against what they called excessive government spending.

They are not even the Government yet, but they are using taxpayers’ money for their own political ends.

Greg Cave, Sunnyvale.

Different skills

The protracted coalition negotiations suggest National still hasn’t learned that politics is more complex than the business world and requires a different set of skills.

Raewyn Maybury, Tauranga.

Time to mask up

With the recent surge in Covid cases, I would have thought it prudent to encourage people to mask up in confined, populated places.

In particular, there should be compulsory visitor masking in hospitals and GP surgeries. It may not provide perfect protection, but the small cost and inconvenience involved pales into insignificance compared with the disruption and risk caused by staff and patients catching the virus.

Doug Armstrong, Glendowie.