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National's new roads a trade-off for safety, public transport, local roading - opposition parties (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 2 months ago by purrtastic to c/politics

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"More people are going to have to rely on cars and trucks to get around because we don't have a pipeline of alternatives like rapid transit, inter-city passenger rail, public transport and safe walking and cycling in our communities”

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[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I disagree with you there, the sunk cost fallacy is a real problem, and we are very much prone to it. If light rail had been under construction already, there would have been a solid case to make for keeping it, but Wellington had been planning and consulting for nearly ten years without laying a single piece of track.

The ferries were perhaps less of a good idea to cancel, but the whole project was massively over speced, in my view. One vessel would have been almost the same size as their entire current fleet.

[–] Rangelus 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh absolutely, sunk cost fallacy is a problem. No disagreement there.

However, my point is cancelling a project doesn't remove the need. We need better public transport, we need ferries, we need infrastructure upgrades. All of these things need to happen, and the longer they are put off usually the more they will cost. So it's not so simple as a sunk cost, as cancelling a project then doing it again later may very well end up costing more in the long run than the over run cost of the initial project. Case in point, the ferries.

I will admit, though, I know less about the wellington light rail project. I was under the impression that a lot of the cost being spent was paying for land that was needed for the project, but you can probably inform me more about this. I'll just say, rail is still needed (or some form of mass transit system).

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wellington light rail was to be run along existing streets, so the amount of land purchased was going to be very low, I think most of the land purchased wastes to be for the new tunnels.

I honestly can't explain what happened with Wellington light rail, they did public outreach and surveys almost ten years ago, had overwhelming support for both light rail and a secondary Terrace and Mt Vic tunnel. The council was taken to court over the flyover project, and then... Nothing happened for about a decade.

I'm honestly at a loss to explain it.

[–] Rangelus 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I must be confusing it with Auckland's recently cancelled project, I remember a bunch of money being spent to purchase land.

I mean, I wish they'd build shit. Total agreement here. It needs to be done, just do it!

[–] Ilovethebomb 1 points 2 months ago

You may be thinking of the cycle bridge across the harbour, they spent fifty mil or so on that, mostly on consultants.