Highway robbery: Cantabrians are paying the price for Government’s indifference
Saturday, 25 January 2025
ANALYSIS: The Government’s 48-page transportation bible contains a subtle but telling detail.
Christchurch, the country's second-largest city, merits a single mention: A passing reference to earthquakes more than a decade past.
The Government Policy Statement (GPS) on land transport, released last June, holds significant sway over funding decisions. Will roads be prioritised, or public transport? Safety, or speed? The answers lie in this document, so it’s worth reading closely.
In his foreword, then-transport minister Simeon Brown summarised his priorities, leading with economic growth and productivity. That meant more funding for roads, including the revived “Roads of National Significance” (RoNS) programme.
He wrote there would also be “targeted investments in Auckland and Wellington public transport” which would “reduce congestion and help to unlock the potential of our main cities”.
Ah, yes. The two main cities.
The document’s list of major priorities does not include a single public transport project in the South Island. The new RoNS, the cornerstone of the country’s infrastructure pipeline for the foreseeable future, includes just two projects in the South Island.
It is a peculiar document, wilfully blind to the existence of a world south of Lyall Bay. Canterbury might as well be Neptune. But to be generous, the GPS doesn’t directly control transport investment.
That fell to the National Land Transport Program (NLTP), released months later, which detailed planned investments over the next three years.
NLTPs are basically an inventory of coming transport infrastructure. They are put together by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), which uses a prioritisation tool to select projects that align with the GPS.
In a press release, Brown trumpeted a “record” $1.8 billion investment in Canterbury through the NLTP.
Much like a flat white costs a “record” $6, this is just playing games with inflation: In real terms, it is less than what Canterbury received in 2015 and 2018. In fact, Canterbury will get the least per capita funding of the 13 regions over the next three years, and the South Island collectively will get 36% less funding per capita than the North Island.
The exception to this trend is the West Coast; its small population and vast roading network means it almost always has the highest per capita funding.
What gives? Was it something we said?
Canterbury has been trapped in this senseless position for nearly a decade.
It is the country’s second-largest regional economy and home to its second-largest city. Its towns are expanding, its economy is humming, and people are moving here in droves. By the end of the century, it is projected to have a million people.
This is true of the wider South Island. ANZ’s recent regional economic scoreboard ranked Otago, Canterbury, and Southland as the country’s top three performers (Wellington was second to last, and Auckland third to last). Kiwibank concluded much the same.
One way to recognise a well-performing region is to invest in it. Canterbury, however, has had its success rewarded with real cuts to transport funding, while road user funding is diverted to the worse-performing “main cities”, as Brown might describe them.
There has been no political will from successive governments to meaningfully address this. After Labour came to power in 2017 it promised commuter rail for Christchurch within a few years. Labour leader Chris Hipkins later said the promise had been unrealistic.
At least it was a nice idea. The current Government hasn’t proposed anything, and seems unaware that Christchurch has more people and a larger economy than Wellington.
Consider its much-touted RoNS programme. Only two of the 15 announced roads are in the South Island, and they’re the smallest in the programme: the Woodend Bypass north of Christchurch and the Hope Bypass in Nelson.
Recent NZTA estimates suggest those two projects combined will cost between $950 million and $1.7b. The North Island projects have an estimated cost between $21.3b and $30b, about 20 times higher.
Wellington’s new roads alone would cost between $3.75b and $6b, which could have been much higher: Brown mooted a mega-tunnel beneath Wellington City that would have cost as much as $7.65b, or two-and-a-bit Dunedin hospitals. This wasn’t a flight of fancy; consultants received at least $1.6m to investigate the idea, which Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called “a really attractive option” (it was mercifully rejected by the NZTA board).
These figures translate to the South Island, a quarter of the population, receiving about 5% of the major road infrastructure.
Worse is that these roads will mostly be funded through the NLTP, which primarily comes from road user charges, registration fees, and excise taxes. Cantabrians disproportionately pay into this programme because they drive more often than average, yet receive the least from it.
In the 2024/27 NLTP, Canterbury — with 13% of the national population — received 7.7% of indicative funding. This was a slight increase from 6.3% in 2021/24.
If funding had matched its population share since 2021, Canterbury would have an additional $2.6b — enough for several motorways, a decade of local road maintenance, or most of a mass rapid transport (MRT) system.
This underfunding wasn’t always the norm. Between 2012 and 2020, Canterbury and Wellington received $3.6b and $3.7b respectively through the NLTP. However, from 2021 to 2027, Wellington is earmarked to receive $5.9b to Canterbury’s $2.3b.
Even the Bay of Plenty — which has half the population, land area, and GDP of Canterbury — will receive more transport investment in the coming years, including $3b to $4b of the RoNS.
This isn’t about pitting regions against each other; all have genuine transport needs. It is to highlight the absurdity of a Government claiming to prioritise economic growth while behaving as if its second-largest economy is invisible, obscured by some mysterious fog.
Another way the disparity is glaring is in cuts to the proportion of spending on public transport.
Of the $6.4b allocated for public transport from 2024 to 2027, Canterbury gets $350m for operations, with no funding for new infrastructure. It effectively locks in the status quo. This comes as the Government wants all regions to increase the “private share” of revenue from public transport. This means hiking fares, cutting services, or both.
The NZTA recently told Environment Canterbury (ECan) to increase patronage, despite limited infrastructure investment and what could be much higher fares.
Can we expect this to change?
Recent moves give reason for cautious optimism. Brown’s ostensible promotion to Minister of Health takes him out of transport, where he showed no vision for, or even a cursory interest in, the South Island.
His replacement, Chris Bishop, is more evidence-driven and likely to recognise the problem of rapid urban growth clashing with chronic underinvestment in transport. He may, for example, see the wisdom in tying some transport funding to housing construction.
The introduction of a Minister for the South Island, though largely symbolic, at least acknowledges that a Cabinet containing a single South Island-based MP cannot adequately represent a quarter of the population. Small progress, but progress.
Most importantly, Canterbury itself has stepped up.
Its leaders have put forward a bold but reasonable $10.8b transport plan for the next decade, balancing maintenance of existing infrastructure with expanded transport options. It includes $4b for road maintenance and renewal, $1.6b for public transport improvements, multiple bridge replacements and a range of safety improvements.
The councils of Greater Christchurch appear to be on the same page, all frustrated with the Government’s apparent indifference to the region. That includes talk of self-funding an MRT business case in the Government’s absence, and requesting a coming review of transport funding be accelerated.
As Christchurch City Council submitted last year, there is a “narrowing window of opportunity” to deliver MRT “at a cost that is net positive for government”.
Unlike the bizarrely untenable light rail plan in Auckland, the Christchurch equivalent is sensible: It has an agreed upon route, a positive benefit cost ratio, and a reasonably modest price tag. It could even be built in stages.
If nothing changes through that review, and transport funding continues to be unfairly allocated, the region has reason to worry.
The Rakaia road bridge, the longest in the country, is approaching 100 years old, the end of its design life. The Rangitata bridge is not far behind. Along with the unexpected variable of natural disasters, such projects could suck up large amounts of whatever meagre transport spending comes this way.
Urban sprawl on Christchurch’s outskirts will put more pressure on increasingly congested roads, particularly as inadequate public transport investment forces more of us to drive and become traffic.
But for now, Canterbury keeps driving, keeps paying, keeps growing – and will keep waiting for its fair share.