The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) say the announced light rail plan for Auckland is flawed and has no support from transport campaigners. \\
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\nThe government’s light rail announcement today provides for a small cohort of Aucklanders and will do little to solve Auckland\u2019s transport congestion and equity problems. \\
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\nPTUA Chair, Niall Robertson says, \u201cThe government have done nothing for most of Auckland\u2019s commuters and have wasted good transport investment capital on a small but very expensive project\u201d. \\
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\nAt an eye-watering $14 .5 billion with a likely 70% (or more) ballooning of the cost, the government have found themselves alone with this project with no support from transport campaigners who support a combination of extending the heavy rail net work and a more modest surface light rail on the Auckland isthmus. \\
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\nThese alternative options are much, much cheaper enabling more capital to be available for other needed projects such as a rail tunnel under the harbour and better connections for South and West Auckland. \\
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\nThe opposition parties are right to criticise this option, but they are not offering any alternatives other than a continuation of the outdated motorway mentality. \\
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\nThe world has changed now. Problems to solve are social equality, traffic congestion, cleaning up our waterways, lowering greenhouse gases and providing safer traffic options. National appear disinterested in these problems and Labour are spending a large sum on one project which will have minimal effect instead of targeting the same money on projects which will deal with these problems far more effectively. \\
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\n\u201cWe\u2019ve calculated to meet the 32 minute journey time from the CBD to Mangere (quoted by Minister Micheal Wood today), the light rail vehicles will need to travel at over 105 kms per hour, taking into account a minimum of one minute per stop at the 18 stations enroute\u201d says the PTUA National Coordinator Jon Reeves. Reeves added \u201cGiven the light rail vehicles internationally only have an operating top speed of 80km per hour this shows that the Minister Micheal Wood has been led up the garden path and has no real clue about what his government is attempting to push through his electorate at the expense of Auckland ratepayers and New Zealand taxpayers\u201d \\
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\nThe PTUA sees the $14.5 billion project as a gross waste of limited funds available for public transport and there are far more projects of urgency across Auckland than this Labour party pet project. \u201cIt\u2019s one public transport project we hope is stopped as soon as possible\u201d Reeves added.<\/p>\n
*Press release dated 28 Jan 22. Authorized by Niall Robertson Chair, Public Transport Users Association (PTUA)*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) say the announced light rail plan for Auckland is flawed and has no support from transport campaigners. The go<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1438,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}