Picture a 747 jumbo jet full of passengers.That is a lot of people, right? Well, it is about the same number of people that died on our roads in 2018.Unfortunately, in this context big is not better.380 is yet another increase on the road toll from the year before and marks the deadliest year on New Zealand roads since 2009.
Yes, some would argue that the actual per capita road toll is holding relatively steady but that should be of little comfort to anybody.The number of deaths should be coming down, there are no two ways about it.
Just before Christmas the Government announced a $1.4 billion three-year investment in safety improvements to existing roads.The Safe Network Programme as it is named aims to improve the safety of nearly 900km of existing state highways with infrastructure improvements such as median and side barriers, rumble strips, and shoulder widening as well as an investment in local roading improvements.
Such an investment will be welcome by all Kiwis, and it was coupled with the realistic admission from associate minister of transport Julie Anne Genter, that despite the Government’s actions it would still be “decades” before New Zealand sees a substantial change in the road toll.
Realistic or not, it was a staggering deflection of accountability from a minister who is advocating for the Vision Zero target to be at the heart of this Government’s transport policy-making.
It’s only now we hear that the policy will take decades to work! I fundamentally don’t buy her argument that things should take so long to change – or that we should be accepting that such a large investment would have such a lengthy incubation period.
I do endorse the idea, however, that governments invest for the long term and that often the politicians who make a decision won’t be around to see the benefits.
I stated on Morning Report recently that New Zealand is too wealthy a country to have to face a false binary of new, productive roading projects or road safety.It’s what happens when ideology trumps practical, need-based decisions.
We all know that new, well-designed highways contribute to productivity and ease congestion and that they also happen to be the very safest roads to travel on.
We have seen considerable reductions in road deaths before where improvements in vehicle technology, roading infrastructure, policing and driver behaviour have combined to make a real impact.
In 2007 New Zealand’s road toll was 421 yet by 2011 it had dropped back to 284 and that was also despite a growing population.
I believe positive change can happen pretty quickly if politicians, industry, transport officials, roading engineers and the police get the formula right.
Just take the prevalence of alcohol and drugs in fatal accidents.In 1990, 268 fatal accidents involved alcohol or drugs.
A major push was made during the 1990s to address this problem, including the “If you drink then drive, you’re a bloody idiot” campaign.
By the year 2000 the number of fatal crashes involving alcohol or drugs had dropped significantly, to less than 100 per year.
Unfortunately, addressing the current spike in road deaths and serious accidents is not helped by successive governments chopping and changing the policy emphasis.
Additional median barriers, shoulder widening and greater proliferation of rumble strips are useful improvements and they will certainly help in some areas but this latest investment does not exactly align with progress that the previous government made in building new highways on important routes around the country.
In fact, the Government’s new policy direction seems to be designed in part to make sure it directly contradicts the policies of its predecessor.
The freight industry and the local community in the Bay of Plenty are bitterly disappointed that even the Tauranga to Katikati Roads of National Significance (RONS) project has been put on the backburner.This road is one of the most dangerous in the country with frequent serious accidents and ever-increasing traffic volumes.
While some safety improvements will be made to the existing road, the route desperately requires a modern four-lane highway with appropriately controlled access points and separation of opposing traffic.
The recently completed RONS projects such as the Waikato Expressway and State Highway 1 north of Wellington have proved just how effective such modern four-lane highways are in providing safe travel, relatively free of congestion.
Sadly, the Government’s abandonment of the RONS programme looks like another one-pronged approach based on partisan hostility towards anything done by the previous National Government
Other projects like Otaki to Levin, Christchurch to Ashburton and a new East-West Link are also required but they appear even further away and, in some cases, may not happen at all as money is stripped from the state highways budget and reprioritised to other parts of the transport system.
I strongly support the Government’s funding of safety improvements to existing roads but that should not come at the expense of new safer highways.
Unfortunately, the entrenched partisanship of our major political parties is holding us back from developing a truly modern, fit-for-purpose transport network based on new highways (where appropriate) and the improvement of existing routes.
Major infrastructure improvements require consistency of investment and planning that we are just not getting from our current political leadership.
A far sighted and mode-balanced plan for transport should be a goal for our country, and one that is bought into by all sides of the political spectrum.
The costs are too great if we don’t plan and execute in the areas that support both growth and safety for our nation.
