Regional council backs push to continue road-pricing study

Sandra Coney

A push by Auckland's four cities for a continuation of road-pricing investigations won regional council backing last night despite efforts by some members, including chairman Mike Lee, to kill them off.

The council voted 6-4 for an amended resolution from transport policy committee chairman Joel Cayford that, although immediate efforts were needed to fill a serious public transport funding gap, road-pricing should be kept under study in case needed in the longer term.

This was despite a warning from Councillor Sandra Coney that promoters of road charges were like "drowning people looking for some panacea" to traffic problems caused by years of under-investment and the Government's policy of allowing unrestricted used-car imports.

Dr Cayford was in the South Island last week when all four regional councillors at a meeting of the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee, which he normally chairs, were out-voted by representatives of the four cities in supporting further pricing investigations.

That looked until last night's vote like splitting the region over a Ministry of Transport study which has already cost $2.3 million, and for which submissions close tomorrow.

Council strategic policy chairman Paul Walbran said that although Auckland's public transport system was being improved, it was still a long way from offering car drivers an acceptable alternative to get to work, an essential pre-condition for road-pricing. He said Auckland should not be distracted from efforts to fill a $700 million 10-year public transport funding gap, and to continue a study which would be out of date before conditions were right was "just an irresponsible use of public money" needed urgently elsewhere.

Mr Lee said ordinary people would find it hard to afford being penalised $6 a day to drive to work.

But Dr Cayford said the study needed to be kept alive so deficiencies in documents could be rectified. Then, if road-pricing was needed in 10 to 15 years, Auckland would have "a fighting chance of implementing it so the whole transport system doesn't turn into gridlock".

Deputy transport committee chairman and Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said the five road-pricing options raised in the ministry's study "deserve to be rejected" in their current form, but that was all the more reason for further investigation.