Hitting the road

Forest and Bird, Issue 282, 1 November 1996, Page 4

Hitting the road

Duane Burtt

ALMOST 120 years after Robert Scott built Australasia’s first motorcar in Christchurch, New Zealand has embarked on the most comprehensive review ever of its land transport system. Although concern for the environment is only a small part

of the drive for change, the review could provide the biggest shakeup yet for the dominant role of cars and trucks in moving people and goods about. The transport overhaul is made up of a range of related reviews, planning exercises and organisational changes including: pb a Land Transport Pricing Study — quantifying the costs and benefits of road, rail and sea transport and identifying who should pay and how

» a National Land Transport Strategy — a ten-year plan for the future of our land transport system » the creation of a new agency, Transfund, to allocate central government funding for land transport. While the Land Transport Pricing Study is "designed to provide a framework for a rational and sustainable transport system for New Zealand into the 21st century",

the initial reports produced by the study have revealed how far away we are from these goals and the extent to which the community subsidises road transport. The reports estimate the annual environmental costs of road transport as follows: noise $290 m local air quality $700 m greenhouse gases $290 m water quality $100m These are only "best estimates" in a range of estimates, and do not include other environmental impacts such as habitat destruction, or amenity and visual effects. And this is only the beginning. The total annual social cost of road crashes in New Zealand is estimated at a whopping $3,400 million, with another $550 million spent by the government on road safety. Currently, government gathers enough money through petrol taxes and other sources to cover the annual costs of maintaining the roading infrastructure. It gets no return, however, on its capital investment. With the road network worth about $25 billion, an appropriate rate of return on investment has been estimated at $1,435 million a year. Road transport is clearly not paying its way. Unlike rail, air and sea transport it does not pay its full safety or infrastructure costs. None of the four forms of transport pay their environmental cost. The government has made it

clear that it expects the overall transport review to produce a system where each transport form pays its full economic, social and environmental costs. That would truly be a great achievement — a world first in fact. Another arm of the transport overhaul was the creation in July of Transfund to provide a funder/provider split in central government administration of land transport. Until then, Transit New Zealand had both funded and implemented the development of the road network. Transfund, however, has been set up with the surprisingly restricted purpose of allocating funds "to achieve a safe and efficient roading system". Transfund is allowed to fund non-road transport projects, but only, it seems, if they have been proven a better option than any possible roading alternative. Fortunately, if we can get transport pricing right, that task might be easier.