Answer to Jarhead in the comments regarding your address your question re SH 20 funding. From memory the funds would have come from some combination of the Land Tranport fund, general taxation, (Cullen had been topping up from that source in more recent years) local taxation and tolls. The local taxation was the Auckland regional petrol tax that the Tories wiped. It was struck so that a portion of the total Auckland expenditure would be paid locally. A toll can only be struck if locals agree. That’s how Orewa to Puhoi was part funded when I was the Minister but the local consultation had not been started at the change of Govt nor do I recall any decision in principle to start it. So the point is that there are a range of mechanisms to which I should add infrastructure bonds. Yes I agree that you could argue that SH16 could be counted as a SH 20 cost. The point I was hoping to make is that the clever new Minister tried to count those costs against our preferred option but not against his. Tacky.
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From the frontline
Posted by Pete Hodgson on May 15th, 2009Canvassing in Waterview on the day the Waterview motorway decision was announced was instructive. Anger. Resignation. Bewilderment. More anger. All the emotions were at play. A couple of doomed dwellings were in the process of being extended on Wednesday morning. Whether the builders downed tools in the afternoon, I didn’t see.
The tunnel option was of course favoured by the locals. No surprises there. But the announced option raised more questions than answers, because the parts that would be ‘cut and covered’ weren’t spelt out in the carefully crafted letters and maps kindly hand delivered to affected residents in the hours leading up to the 3pm announcement.
Nor was much else. Like how to get in and out of Waterview during the bulldozer onslaught. Like just which houses along Great North Road are going to be in their path. And which others will just miss, but face a future of being over a motorway’s fence.
Further unpleasantry is anticipated.
