New Zealand Election 2020: Phil Twyford unveils final transport plan, pledging $48b over 10 years
The Government has released a final version of its 10 year transport plan, which looks at where $48 billion in money collected from places such as fuel taxes and road user charges will be spent over the next decade. Road safety, rail and cycleways are the big winners, with each getting a substantial portion of funding. The Government also reaffirmed its promise not to raise fuel taxes or road user charges in the next politcal term. The funding is set out in a document called the Government Policy Statement on land transport or GPS.
It doesn't fund any specific projects those decisions are made by officials at the NZTA but it does suggest how much money should be spent on different parts of the transport portfolio. The Government put out a draft policy earlier this year, which has not been substantially changed in the final version.
Transport Minister Phil Twyford said, feedback to the draft plan had led him to increase the amount of money made available to state highways and rail. Based on feedback on the draft GPS, we have decided to increase the upper range of funding for state highway maintenance by $510 million to help address the neglect under the last government and keep our roads safe. Rail also gets a $500 million boost in the upper range to keep the network on track, which will help us reduce emissions, accidents and the costs of road maintenance by shifting more freight to rail. Road safety remained the top priority for the Government. We are aiming to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on the road by 40 per cent by investing $10 billion in our Road to Zero strategy.
A GPS looks out over 10 years, but governments make a new GPS every three years, making the first three years of any plan the most important. Big changes include rolling funding for light rail into the wider public transport program.
Light rail was given its own funding category in the 2018 GPS titled rapid transit and given a maximum of $760m over the three years from 2018-2021. It's now been folded back into a new envelope of funding for public transport infrastructure. For the first time, the Government will also allocate money to coastal shipping services, which will get a maximum of $45 million over the next three years as part of a move to take freight off roads and onto other forms of transport like ships and trains.
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