This funding cut could derail the Government’s pothole war
Tuesday, 12 March 2024
The Government is proposing funding cuts for railways, potentially providing as little as $20 million per year. Although individual projects could be topped up with Crown grants.
Councils are warning cuts to railways would push ‘super heavies’ onto regional roads that weren’t built to handle massive trucks.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown says it’s not fair to use fuel taxes and road user charges to pay for railways.
The Government has declared war on potholes, complete with a $500 million war chest to combat them. But there are concerns that funding cuts to other areas could derail the pothole mission.
In the Government’s draft transport plan, spending on railways could reach as low as $20m per year - an 80% drop on the Labour Government’s promised minimum investment.
KiwiRail boss Peter Reidy said about $120m per year had been needed to keep the trains running and pay for “basic renewal”.
The Government plan, released by Transport Minister Simeon Brown last week, said KiwiRail should focus on railway lines around Auckland, Waikato and Tauranga - an area known as the “golden triangle”.
That directive, and signalled funding, have led to concerns that there could be fewer freight trains delivering to regional New Zealand.
New Plymouth District Mayor Neil Holdom, who also serves as chairperson of the Local Government Transport Forum, said rail connections were “critical infrastructure” for regions and helped take pressure off roads.
He said a scaling back of the rail network would push huge trucks onto rural state highways and provincial roads which weren’t built to handle them. Already, with KiwiRail running fewer logging trains across Taranaki, Holdom said there had been an increase to “super heavy” trucks which were ripping up the roads.
“There's about 160 heavy logging trucks coming through New Plymouth every day. We did have logs coming in with one train a day and we hoped that could grow that to remove the heavies because they are literally driving past schools through the middle of town,” Holdsom said.
But he said the trains had stopped, with a trucking company undercutting KiwiRail. He said they could push prices so low because trucking companies were effectively “being subsidised”, as they didn’t cover the road maintenance costs required.
“Rail has the potential to take significant pressure off the state highway network, particularly to get super heavies off the road - those are the ones causing the most damage,” he said.
He said those trucks required a two-foot deep road, whereas most roads were about 30cm deep.
“We’ve got a one-foot base and so when the ground’s really wet, it flexes under the pressure of these trucks,” he said. That’s how potholes are formed.
“Effectively, as a country we are subsiding really heavy transport,” he said, as the cost for filling potholes was split across fuel taxes, general taxation, road user charges, and soon an increase to car rego fees.
In the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport, which people call the “GPS” for short, Brown indicated rail funding could be limited to the Track User Charge - around $20m per year paid as a levy by companies using the railways - and specific Government funding.
In the plan, transport ministers set upper and lower limits for spending on things such as highways, local roads, railways, and cycleways. The latest plan put railways on an uncertain track, opening the possibility of massive funding cuts for freight and inter-regional rail.
The lower limit for the 2024/25 year was was $360m this year - itself a cut from Labour’s proposed $490m. In subsequent years, it would fall to just $20m - well below what KiwiRail said was required to maintain the status quo.
The upper limit remained steady, between $550m and $570m per year. Labour proposed between $590m and $620m.
The funding range was decreasing because Brown said it was unfair to use road charges to fund rail
In the draft GPS, he said: “It is unfair to ask people using the roads to fund rail infrastructure. Rail investments will continue to be supported and funded through the Rail Network Investment Programme, as agreed by Cabinet.”
Asked by Stuff if he saw railways playing a role in combating potholes, Brown said the GPS was focused on basic maintenance - for roads and rail.
He said more funding for trains could come from Government grants.
“Outside the GPS there is a huge amount of money that's going to a range of projects on our rail infrastructure,” he said.
For instance, funding for Auckland’s City Rail Link and Greater Wellington’s hybrid commuter trains were coming from other funds.