It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion: Steven Joyce will stand for Rodney now that Lockwood Smith has announced he will stand only on the National Party List at the 2011 General Election.
Key has been grooming his Minister of Motorways for this role since National was elected in 2008. It’s now clear why the Puhoi to Wellsford Road of National Party Significance is being fast-tracked. Why otherwise would a road with a rate of return of less than a dollar be given priority?
But just to show that there are better cost effective solutions to improving this road have a look at this. Transport Blog has a thorough analysis of the economics of the holiday highway.
Key has been grooming his Minister of Motorways for this role since National was elected in 2008.
Maybe they should parachute someone in from overseas.
Don’t you mean ‘road of personal significance’?
Although I agree you about the stupidity of the holiday highway, I dont think it has anything to do with Joyces’ likely candidacy for Rodney. Lockwood won by 14500 votes, and Labour only got 20% of party votes.
I think the Nats thinking is a wider misguided view that motorway construction appeals to the Auckland urban voters.
However thankfully many Aucklanders have moved on from this thinking and realise Public Transport is the only way to go.
Would be interesting to ask the people of Northland to see what other beneficial projects they could spend the $2 billion on. I’m sure Northland could get far better economic benefits from projects that are actually in their region!
Luke – Labour might be thankful for 20% of the party vote throughout the country at the next election.
Im predicting Whinney Peters and his band of merry men to poll better than labour in the next election!!!
Not better than Labour, but it would be nice to have Winnie back in Parliament
Never the less a snap election would go down pretty good right now
As a weekly commuter from Northland to Auckland (and back again) I am thrilled that we are going to see an extension to warkworth. As a regular user of Kerikeri airport I can see why you would not see the value in fixing a dangerous road. The number of list drongos flying in and out of the bay of islands is astonsihing. No slumming it in cars for you lot!
Nice turn of phrase calling it the Holiday Highway but hardly true. Most of them holiday at Pauanui.
Of course you should continue this type of hyperbole and further erode your support in the North. It will be a long time before labour manage to win an electorate between the bridge and the lighthouse.
@ pdm – Mate, yer dreamin’
Talk about buying votes….
Don’t the trolls have anything better to do
There are some right wing and fascist blog site they could go to
Or has the spokesperson for the road transport industry got them activated as trolls?
The other ready to go option can begin right away (not in 10 years) and save almost a billion dollars, the CBT and authors on Auckland Transport Blog think this would make an excellent deposit on the CDB underground…
“The polls, the polls. Listen to the polls.”
With thanks and apologies for the misquote to Quasimodo.
For those who are unconvinced by building a brand new motorway just to Wellsford for up to $2 billion check out the site I put up there. For about 10-15% of the cost we can have 90% of the benefits of a new motorway – but much faster, thereby saving lives.
This isn’t anti-Northland, as you’ll see from our support of keeping the rail link that looks certain to be discontinued – pushing more logging trucks on to our roads. But do we really need 2 roads going north. And who will maintain the current SH1 when a new motorway is built? I sense the bill will be pushed towards Auckland City Council of course.
And while Joyce moving in on Rodney was a bit of a rev up, let’s just see what happens.
They could redesignate the existing SH1 as a local road pushing 50% of the cost on the Rodney (and now Auckland-wide) ratepayer…
I hadn’t thought of that…
Will be interesting to see when the actual prelim engineering work has been done how much going to Warkworth will actually cost. These projects have a habit of costing far more than the initial estimates.
Check out this from 2002 where the Waterview motorway was going to cost from $70 million to max $400 million!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1292795
I doubt they will be able to build a motorway to Wellsford for $2 billion.
Well at least it’s not Banks, who is now running that company he claimed to no nothing about only 8 months ago… investors there must be feeling confidant
Furthermore, if you go with the “Operation Lifesaver” cheaper option you will start savings lives in the next year or two – once you put concrete median barriers through Dome Valley.
Under the current proposal the Puhoi-Warkworth section won’t be finished till 2019 and the Warkworth-Wellsford section till 2022. During that time, at current death rates, 50 (yes FIFTY!!!) people will die on state highway 1 before Joyce’s holiday highway is completed.
Well nothings sure in politics….Joyce is not on the list but some born again fascist appears to have stacked the deck!.-= Easy target for a campaign based on getting the large transient population of Rodney of their backsides…and what better way than a freeze on domestic rent increases before they become endemic!