Road toll's or not.

[jimbo600]

Toll roads be fucked. We already pay for roads through tax on fuel and rego etc. Why the hell should we pay again? I'm selling up and moving closer Wellywood anyhow and am going to start cycling to work. BP Mobil & Co can all fuck off I aint putting up with their profiteering anymore.

[Odin]

If I took the bus, the 30 km return trip would probably add 2 hours to my day. At my age, I can't afford that much. So you can prise my keys from my cold, dead hands when I'm cold and dead.
At least I ride a bike.

I have the same problem. If i lived within 15Km of work i'd gladly ride i bike (bread engine i'm talking here) but 33Km's at each end of a 12 hour shift it to dam much.
Train takes an hour and then add 1/2 hour walk each end and simular for busses. Not to mention that i don't think they would start early enough as i'd have to leave home before 5:00Am

But if i could take any public transport taking say 1 hour from door to door i'd love it. One can read or sleep or what ever.... No parking hassels...

[Wolf]

If I took the bus, the 30 km return trip would probably add 2 hours to my day. At my age, I can't afford that much. So you can prise my keys from my cold, dead hands when I'm cold and dead.
At least I ride a bike.

I've got no complaints against bikes, especially on long hauls - it's moving over a tonne of metal to get one person a distance they could walk in half an hour when they have no call to use the car except "convenience" that shits me. Fair enough if they're carting their kids to school and back again as well or having to pick up something bulky or fragile, but one bloke I can think of drives his car rather than walk 20 minutes - and he's on a well-trafficked bus route. He's not the only one. If you could magically remove all the cars from central city that didn't absolutely have to be there, the centre of pretty much any city you care to name would look a lot emptier.

Motorcycles, bicycles, public transport, walking - all would use less petrol and cause less congestion on the road.

These days I catch the bus if it's wet, if I had a functioning bike I'd ride the bike because I'd be drier (full wet weather gear vs standing out in the rain waiting for the bus and walking from the bus stop to work in the pouring rain) and I would be able to set my own times to leave. But the bike does not cost anywhere as much to run as a car and takes up less parking space. (imagine how many bikes you could park if you redesignated 10 car parks to bike parking.) Also takes up less space in the queue than a car.

One of the things I liked about central Wellington was the number of bike parks and the number of bikes in them. The roads are still busy and congested with cars but nowhere near as much as they would be if all those bikers drove cars into central Wellington. I also noticed the "trams" (more electric busses as they're on tyres not tracks) doing a booming trade and the Unit was not exactly empty, either and we went there mid morning, not during peak travel time.

Big ups to the Wellington region - a lot of the people down there have got it sussed. Would love to see central Hamilton with as many full bike parks as I saw in Wellington - or at least as many per capita.

[Dadpole]

Being a cynic, I could imagine them stiffing bikes al least 50% of the car change then installing 20 parking meters in each bike park. The $ signs light up over their heads when congestion charges are mentioned

[What?]

Some analysis I've seen shows that collection costs take the great majority of any revenue. The Tauranga tollway is a good exaple. If they do build toll roads, a lot of cagers will then be using untolled roads to avoid paying. That's our roads folks, the twisty ones.

Got it one, Lou.
Tauranga council should have learned when tolls were lifted from the harbour bridge - traffic numbers soared beyond expectations. But No, they built Route K and decided to use tolls to pay for it at $1 per car and up to $4 per truck. The council borrowed 47 million clams to build this road and now the debt is well into the 50's because people will go to great lengths to avoid paying a toll, an because admin & collection eats up most of the revenue. Therefore, it is a good bet that the Harbour Link project and Auck's Northern Motorway extension will also be fiscal failures.