$500m has been ring fenced for potholes as increased fees and tax hikes loom round the bend for drivers. Big roads will be back on track, while funding for cycling, walking and rail has been cut.
In all this discussion about pot holes and deferred road maintenance there has been little mention of the deleterious effects of heavy trucks on the condition of roads throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.
I live in Matamata and usually visit Tauranga once or twice a month. I travelled there last Wednesday and on a return journey which took about 1 and a half hours I encountered 163 heavy trucks. I counted only those trucks with more than three axles. Based on this count, a 12 hour day might expect to see the passage of up to 1200 of these vehicles over this same stretch of road. It is seldom mentioned in the media that, in 2014 the National government at the time allowed for an increase in the maximum laden weight of heavy trucks from 46 tonnes to 55 tonnes. What consideration has been given to the damaging effect of this increase on the condition of roads. Much of the roading in the Waikato is constructed on sub strates which were formerly swampland and the the establishment of a secure base for strong roading is a constatnt battle for roading maintenance contractors. My observation during my journey to Tauranga is that approximately 25% of the heavy vehicles were transporting pine logs. A low profit product which could easily be transported to the port at Tauranga using the rail line through the Kaimai tunnel. Imagine the effect on a road of two maximum weighted trucks passing in opposite directions at 100 kmph. Sealed roads are not rigid surfaces but, are flexible and elastic, and vehicles create what is the equivalent of a 'bow wave' effect as they move. This is an extreme effect where the vehicles are of such high weight and aggravate the destruction of the sealed surface.
The Minister of transport has made no mention of the future of rail in the provision of transport services. I know the heavy transport lobby is a powerful donor to the political right and the potential for rail development has been down played for years. It does not provide the lucrative related activities which go with motor transport. Vehicle sellers,Fuel industries, Tyre manufacture, parts and repairs registration fees etc. Railway by comparison has few of these lucrative activities associated with its activities. What is more concerning for right wing governments is of course that its work force is traditionally 'Unionised'. The Coalition government's conversation on increasing road taxes make no mention of the disproportionately higher damaging effects on roads of heavy transport vehicles, whereas the passage of 100 cars would not cause the surface damage of even one heavily laden truck.
👍Thanks for this... It is really a no-brainer to understand the down-sides of having heavy vehicles on the road as opposed to utilising rail, and as for the damage to roads I'm sure Waikato is not the only area where the substrates etc. are not suited to constant heavy traffic?
Anna Rawhiti-Connell today describes Austerity thus: "In the political economy, austerity is a term to describe limiting government spending". In my view this is a very limited definition and very much the one that politicians would like us to believe, referencing as it does, apparently self-evident but actually false virtues of 'balancing the books' and 'return to surplus'.
The Keynesian ideas of government taking an active role in the economy to promote public well-being and regulate cycles of 'boom and bust' pulled the USA out of the long recession of the 1930's and created a great deal of valuable infrastructure, such as hydro-electric power generation, whereas the failure of, say, the UK to adopt actively expansive policy since the 2008 GFC has resulted in 15 years of stagnation, falling real wages & falling standards of public services.
While this simplistic definition of austerity may well be favoured by the neoclassical economists who have had the upper hand in public policy and academia for the last forty years, in the view of many commentators, austerity is a trifecta, & fiscal (tax and spend) policy is only one part of it. Austerity is a political weapon in the war against broad-based, democratic, economically active government. The second part is unemployment to enforce industrial discipline through fear of destitution. Note that the pursuit of higher unemployment expressed by the RBNZ as an economic measure to lower inflation at the same time as the government engages in 'beneficiary bashing' is clear evidence of the political nature of the policy. Thirdly, the curtailing of money-creation (either directly or through bond issuance) for public purpose completes the package designed to shrink the role of government as an ideological goal. This is why it's called 'political economy', & not just 'economics'.
I note that Registration fees have not increased for some time, but petrol tax has so...? I understood the idea was to move to fuel tax so that those who were travelling the most paid the most, whereas Grandma/Grandpa whose car sat in the garage mostly apart from short trips to the shops, mostly use streets/roads paid for in their Rates, not Waka Kotahi funded roads...
But the biggest bug bear is an added "tax" from the "no more new taxes" govt and one that was NOT put before their electors.
In all this discussion about pot holes and deferred road maintenance there has been little mention of the deleterious effects of heavy trucks on the condition of roads throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.
I live in Matamata and usually visit Tauranga once or twice a month. I travelled there last Wednesday and on a return journey which took about 1 and a half hours I encountered 163 heavy trucks. I counted only those trucks with more than three axles. Based on this count, a 12 hour day might expect to see the passage of up to 1200 of these vehicles over this same stretch of road. It is seldom mentioned in the media that, in 2014 the National government at the time allowed for an increase in the maximum laden weight of heavy trucks from 46 tonnes to 55 tonnes. What consideration has been given to the damaging effect of this increase on the condition of roads. Much of the roading in the Waikato is constructed on sub strates which were formerly swampland and the the establishment of a secure base for strong roading is a constatnt battle for roading maintenance contractors. My observation during my journey to Tauranga is that approximately 25% of the heavy vehicles were transporting pine logs. A low profit product which could easily be transported to the port at Tauranga using the rail line through the Kaimai tunnel. Imagine the effect on a road of two maximum weighted trucks passing in opposite directions at 100 kmph. Sealed roads are not rigid surfaces but, are flexible and elastic, and vehicles create what is the equivalent of a 'bow wave' effect as they move. This is an extreme effect where the vehicles are of such high weight and aggravate the destruction of the sealed surface.
The Minister of transport has made no mention of the future of rail in the provision of transport services. I know the heavy transport lobby is a powerful donor to the political right and the potential for rail development has been down played for years. It does not provide the lucrative related activities which go with motor transport. Vehicle sellers,Fuel industries, Tyre manufacture, parts and repairs registration fees etc. Railway by comparison has few of these lucrative activities associated with its activities. What is more concerning for right wing governments is of course that its work force is traditionally 'Unionised'. The Coalition government's conversation on increasing road taxes make no mention of the disproportionately higher damaging effects on roads of heavy transport vehicles, whereas the passage of 100 cars would not cause the surface damage of even one heavily laden truck.
👍Thanks for this... It is really a no-brainer to understand the down-sides of having heavy vehicles on the road as opposed to utilising rail, and as for the damage to roads I'm sure Waikato is not the only area where the substrates etc. are not suited to constant heavy traffic?
Anna Rawhiti-Connell today describes Austerity thus: "In the political economy, austerity is a term to describe limiting government spending". In my view this is a very limited definition and very much the one that politicians would like us to believe, referencing as it does, apparently self-evident but actually false virtues of 'balancing the books' and 'return to surplus'.
The Keynesian ideas of government taking an active role in the economy to promote public well-being and regulate cycles of 'boom and bust' pulled the USA out of the long recession of the 1930's and created a great deal of valuable infrastructure, such as hydro-electric power generation, whereas the failure of, say, the UK to adopt actively expansive policy since the 2008 GFC has resulted in 15 years of stagnation, falling real wages & falling standards of public services.
While this simplistic definition of austerity may well be favoured by the neoclassical economists who have had the upper hand in public policy and academia for the last forty years, in the view of many commentators, austerity is a trifecta, & fiscal (tax and spend) policy is only one part of it. Austerity is a political weapon in the war against broad-based, democratic, economically active government. The second part is unemployment to enforce industrial discipline through fear of destitution. Note that the pursuit of higher unemployment expressed by the RBNZ as an economic measure to lower inflation at the same time as the government engages in 'beneficiary bashing' is clear evidence of the political nature of the policy. Thirdly, the curtailing of money-creation (either directly or through bond issuance) for public purpose completes the package designed to shrink the role of government as an ideological goal. This is why it's called 'political economy', & not just 'economics'.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-dawn-of-austerity/
I note that Registration fees have not increased for some time, but petrol tax has so...? I understood the idea was to move to fuel tax so that those who were travelling the most paid the most, whereas Grandma/Grandpa whose car sat in the garage mostly apart from short trips to the shops, mostly use streets/roads paid for in their Rates, not Waka Kotahi funded roads...
But the biggest bug bear is an added "tax" from the "no more new taxes" govt and one that was NOT put before their electors.
I read recently that Google searches for pitchforks has risen substantially.
Beware the ides of march.