Labour announces rail retention policy at public meeting

22 01 2013
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A Gisborne public meeting hosted by Mayor Meng Foon was the platform for Labour Party MP Moana Mackey to announce her party’s intention to reopen the Gisborne to Napier railway line if they are in power after next year’s election and the current Government abandons it.
“Having read the BERL report the Labour Party can now see the economic opportunity the rail provides and we are convinced it makes sense to retain the line, keep the extra trucks off the road and keep East Coast products competitive” said Ms Mackey.
“The National Party received a real bollocking at the meeting” said organiser and District Councillor Manu Caddie.
A member of the public moved a vote of no confidence in Anne Tolley and Chris Tremain that was almost unanimously supported by the more than 100 residents present and speakers suggested while the provinces have been loyal to National, the party leadership seem to have forgotten about rural New Zealanders.
Forest owner Roger Dickie said he had 18 million tonnes of trees to be harvested in the region and he wants to send at least 7.5 million tonnes south by rail. Mr Dickie also criticised Juken Nisho who own a mill in Gisborne and Eastland Port for lobbying the Government against retention of the line in an effort to bolster their own businesses at the expense of others in the region.
Mr Dickie responded to KiwiRail Chief Executive Jim Quinn’s claims that short haul railways are uneconomic by pointing out a number of similar and shorter lines carting logs profitably for KiwiRail.
Green MP Julie Genter said the $500,000 for a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis was small change compared to the $100 million of taxpayers funds the Government has spent on consultants for a $3-5 billion motorway in Wellington.
“If the Government wants to take this public asset away from the region then they need to be able to justify the decision with accurate figures” said Mr Caddie. “BERL have shown the numbers are much closer than KiwiRail suggested and that doesn’t even take into account the massive extra cost to road maintenance, road safety issues, environmental benefits and the cost to regional jobs if Gisborne products are less competitive.”
“$4 million is the cheapest the repair is ever going to be, so fix it now” said Ms Mackey.
“Many of the regional roads in our district would not exist if Council applied the same economic rationale to them as KiwiRail has to” said Mayor Foon. Gisborne deserves to have services and infrastructure similar to every other part of the country. We deserve good schools, good hospitals, good roads and a good railway line.”

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Categories : Connected Tairāwhiti, Local Issues, Prosperous Tairāwhiti, Regional Economy, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Over $5,000 already donated in 24hrs!

7 10 2012
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East Coast rail supporters are trying to raise $10,000 by Tuesday to have the KiwiRail report independently peer reviewed by one of NZs most respected independent economic analysis companies.
 
“Of course it should be KiwiRail and/or the Government that pays for such a review but we don’t want to wait another six months for that to happen” said Gisborne District Councillor and Rail Action Group member Manu Caddie. After sending an appeal last night, Mr Caddie said about $3,000 has already been pledged and he is hoping Gisborne, Wairoa and Hawkes Bay residents will help reach the goal.
 
“It seems like a lot of money to find in a short time, but expert analysis is expensive and we believe an independent review of Kiwirail’s figures and conclusions will be the best way to force the Government to relook at the situation and the Government has ignored overwhelming public support so far.”
 
Mr Caddie said he has been working with a group of analysts who believe the numbers, process and conclusions in the KiwiRail report do not stack up. “We want to double check these alternative conclusions with a reputable independent organisation providing robust economic analysis and we want the people to have access to an accurate assessment.”
 
Instead of focusing on adding a few passing lanes to the highway, Mr Caddie believes pressure needs to remain on ensuring rail is retained because products from Gisborne and Wairoa region are going to become less competitive if the efficiencies of rail freight are not available for local producers.
 
The Tairawhiti Environment Centre is holding funds for the Rail Report Review. 
 
If anyone wants to make a donation towards the report review, they can make a bank deposit at ANZ or online, the account number for donations is 01-0641-0058800-00.  Cash or a cheque can be sent to PO Box 1376, Gisborne 4040 (cheques should be made out to Tairawhiti Environment Centre, but enclosing a note that the donation is for the Rail Report Review). Tairawhiti Environment Centre is a charitable entity, so donors should include their name and address, so they can be sent a tax deductible receipt.
 
More information is available at: www.rail.org.nz

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Categories : Prosperous Tairāwhiti, Regional Infrastructure, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Business case to close Gisborne rail link needs independent review

31 08 2012
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Photo: KIERAN CHISNALL : “This is train 687. One of the weekend fert trains that were running before the squash trains started. This was taken just south of Black’s Beach winding back down to Nuhaka.”

Gisborne District Councillor and Regional Transport Committee member Manu Caddie says KiwiRail needs to provide the Council with a copy of the full business case that has led to the decision to close the Napier to Gisborne railway line.

“KiwiRail may have skewed the figures to justify closure rather than invest in what is at present a marginal business proposition for them but a lifeline for us. The communities of the East Coast need an independent review by reputable economists of how KiwiRail arrived at its claim that there is no alternative. I think that is the least the Government and KiwiRail owe our region if they are going to strip us of this billion dollar investment.”

“Make no mistake, mothballing is not a temporary arrangement – look what happened in the Bay of Plenty when the line was mothballed, it doesn’t take long to deteriorate to a point where its unsalvageable.”

“Hard on the heels of provincial roading cuts, this Government is clearly abandoning the regions.”

Mr Caddie said his grandfather worked on the railway line in the 1940s and 22 men died while building the section between Wairoa and Gisborne.

“The Government this week passed legislation that will cost $85m to underground a short piece of Wellington motorway so the national war memorial can have more space – our railway line is the memorial for the 22 men who gave their lives for it and we may be the generation that abandons their work.”

Federated Farmers, Gisborne Chamber of Commerce, Hawkes Bay Chamber of Commerce, forest owners and transport operators have all said it is essential to keep the line open. And before the washouts in March, business on the line was booming.

“Fuel prices are only going to increase and rail will become more and more the mode of choice for exports and imports to the region.”


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Categories : Regional Economy, Regional Infrastructure, Safe Tairāwhiti, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Government Cuts Gisborne Roading Funds

29 08 2012

A three year road funding commitment for the Gisborne District has been compared to the washouts plaguing the region at present.

“With more than $400,000 per year cut from the roading programe, this announcement leaves some big potholes in our road maintenance budget” said Regional Transport Committee member Manu Caddie.

Mr Caddie says the Government has cut funding to the region and ratepayers could end up footing more of the bill to maintain local roads.

“There is little in this package to ‘bolster’ Gisborne’s economy – while road maintenance and repair costs are going through the roof and ratepayers are struggling to make ends meet the District doesn’t even to get to keep what it had, we are getting less than last year!”

Mr Caddie pointed to a study presented to the Regional Transport Committee early this month that showed there was little if any economic benefit to be expected from increasing truck sizes on Gisborne roads.

Mr Caddie said while the Regional Transport Committee ended up supporting the funding bid to NZTA it did so largely because Gisborne District Council was told the amount put forward was the maximum the region had any chance of securing under current Government policy.

“It is good to see cycling and walkways made the cut but if you read the fine print, they are only going to be funded if the major project to allow bigger logging trucks to run from Tolaga Bay through the city to Matawhero costs no more than is budgeted for.”

“Regional roads are essential to the economic wellbeing of the District and the country, which is why our Regional Transport Committee is joining other provincial roading authorities and councils to call on the National-led government to drop its commitment to the seven Roads of National Significance. A few roads in the big centres are sucking so much money that the Government has not only taken funds off the regions but is borrowing more overseas to pay for them.”


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Categories : Connected Tairāwhiti, Prosperous Tairāwhiti, Regional Economy, Regional Infrastructure, Safe Tairāwhiti, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Government needs to explain East Coast rail job losses

17 08 2012

Councillor and Regional Transport Committee member Manu Caddie says the Government needs to explain leaked documents purporting to show job losses on the East Coast.

New Zealand First MP Brendan Horan has said the documents suggest the Government has decided to mothball the damaged Napier to Gisborne line.

Kiwirail Chief Executive Jim Quinn told the Gisborne Regional Transport Committee in May that a decision on the future of the line would be made a matter of weeks.

“Following the presentation of 1,000 signed postcards and 10,000 petition signatures the Government has obviously wanted to make sure it has some positive spin on the situation before Kiwirail announces the closure. The people responsible need to stop fluffing around and give Gisborne businesses certainty one way or the other.”

“New Zealand businesses, particularly provincial exporters benefit from rail. Road users benefit from rail. It is unfortunate Eastland Port has selfishly undermined local support for retaining the rail.” The Gisborne Chamber of Commerce, Federated Farmers, local transport companies and forestry owners have all backed strong public support for the rail to be retained.

“This is a billion dollar public asset that is being taken away from us. Businesses demonstrated with little help from Kiwirail that there is enough local product to make the line viable in the short-term let alone as fuel prices and road maintenance costs increase” says Mr Caddie.

“This is happening at the same time as the Government spent $8 million on public relations to sell its seven Roads of National Significance, allows NZTA to borrow to cover the costs of new highways close to the major metropolitan centres and makes us share the costs of that borrowing, cuts subsidies for Council roads, takes back income from regional fuel tax and relegates our local roading priorities to the bottom of the list.”

Mr Caddie says Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee needs to be more honest about the situation. The Minister yesterday said that 29 per cent of roading funds will be spent on new and improved state highways, mostly the Roads of National Significance and 26 per cent will be spent on maintenance operations and renewal of local roads.

“What Mr Borwnlee neglected to say is that we have 94,000 km of roads in New Zealand, and it’s only 12 percent of that is state highway. The costs of maintaining local roads would be significantly less if more freight was using rail in and out of Gisborne and Wairoa.”

“The National Government is wasting billions of dollars on a few big motorway projects that would never be able to pay their own way as standalone commercial projects. But it won’t invest in getting our rail line operating after poor maintenance let it wash away.”

“Most countries are now investing substantially in their rail networks because of the obvious economic benefits, especially as oil prices are expected to double in the next decade.”


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Categories : Connected Tairāwhiti, Prosperous Tairāwhiti, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Ten Year Plan accelerates cycleways

24 06 2012

It was very pleasing to see Council agree to bring forward the planned cycling and walkways in the Ten Year Plan.

Since we established the Cycling Advisory Group in 2009 with the support of the late Muriel Jones, the group has had ongoing input into Council engineering and road safety activities.

Annual submissions from many residents and feedback in surveys and community consultation has shown overwhelming support for Gisborne to be a more cycle-centric city.

I campaigned on cycling and walking infrastructure and it feels like I’ve been able to see some tangible progress in my first time. We’ve also made alternatives to the private motor car a top priority in the roading programme, so that is exciting.

Gisborne people want to be safe cycling and while the volume of logs on trucks is due to treble in next few years, we are working hard to minimise the number that need to come through the city.

Cycling makes sense for the economy, for health and for the environment. We have the whole package in Gisborne – good weather, flat terrain and a compact city. Research shows that as more people cycle it gets safer, so it’s great to see more and more people committed to cycling as much as possible.

It’s also exciting to hear that new cycle touring routes are being developed in the district – these are the tourists that move slowly through our communities, connecting with people and places as they go – some great opportunities for cycling-related businesses to develop over time.

Residents that may be affected by new cycleway projects should be reassured that they will have every opportunity to be informed about and have input into decisions around the planning, design and construction of new cycling and walkways. They may not agree with every decision and while public reserves are for everyone to enjoy we also need to consider the impacts on residents living close to the cycleways and walking tracks.


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Categories : Community Outcomes, Healthy Tairāwhiti, Safe Tairāwhiti, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

Creating a Cycling-Centric City

22 02 2012

The Regional Transport Committee last week had a lively debate on whether one of the top three goals for the district transport programme should include encouraging alternatives to the private motor vehicle. In the end we agreed encouraging alternative transport options is important and agreed that promoting cycling, walking and public transport is a priority.

Private cars use approximately 60% of all fuel consumed by road transport, New Zealand imports and burns through more than $20million of fuel per day!

A 2009 report by the Ministry of Transport suggests we spend a lot more time in the car and less time spent walking and cycling than we did 20 years ago. Gisborne drivers travel less distance than any other region in the country and Gisborne cyclists spend longer on our bikes each week than any other region.

In the mid-nineties there were about 15,000 motor vehicles crossing the Gladstone Road bridge each day, I suspect the volume might be slightly higher than that now. Around the country only 1% of people travel to work by bicycle, while 94% travel in a private motor vehicle. And only 5% of students – or one quarter of those that cycled when I left school 20 years ago – now cycle to high school.

In 2004 the Gisborne District Council signed up to the ‘Walking and Cycling Strategy for the Gisborne District’.

The vision of the strategy is that:

‘Gisborne District is a walking and cycling friendly region. Walking and cycling are safe, convenient, enjoyable and popular forms of transport and leisure that contribute to community, well-being and tourism.’

Targets for how the effectiveness of the strategy were to be measured have never been added to the empty boxes in document, though some general goals such as 10% of students walking or cycling to school by 2015 and an increase by 10% of commuters travelling to work by walking or cycling by 2015 are goals we now have only three years left to achieve. It is time to review the Strategy.

An iconic project included in the Strategy and championed by people like the late Murial Jones, Kathy Sheldrake, Phil Evans and Richard Coates is the Wainui-Sponge Bay cycleway. This project is designed to make it safer for commuter cyclists coming from Wainui and recreational cyclists from the city to get in and out on, particularly given the rapid increase in heavy vehicles on State Highway 35. We expect a funding decision on this project within the next month.

The Gisborne Cycling Advisory Group was established a couple of years ago and has made some great contributions to cycle route planning in both the urban and rural areas. Focused largely on commuter and tourist cyclists, the group meets monthly and is open to anyone keen on advocating for cycling infrastructure and encouraging the public to cycle more.

As a recent Australian report on the economic benefits of cycling reveals, bicycle travel cuts millions off the national waist line and bottom line. Inactivity is now a major cause of health problems and cycling provides a practical, sustainable and cheap opportunity to help get more Kiwis active and drive down the cost of health care.

Of course the more cyclists there are, the safer it becomes – and while we may be seeing a national trend away from commuter cycling, most Gisborne city residents have few excuses not to cycle or walk to work. The city is relatively compact, very flat, enjoys a good climate and has an ever increasing number of cycleways. It has been great to see so many people on bikes this summer, how can we encourage even more to make the move?


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Categories : Connected Tairāwhiti, Healthy Tairāwhiti, Regional Environment, Regional Infrastructure, Safe Tairāwhiti, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport

End of the Road?

28 01 2012

I would like to read the study Alwyn (26/1/12) refers to that suggested a 1960 Morris Minor may be a better environmental option than a hybrid vehicle. I have found a 1960 Morris Minor for sale in Hawkes Bay for $120. It has no WOF or Registration but is “good for parts”.

Of course the most environmentally-friendly option is to not use a car.

In 1994 I read a paper entitled “The Environmental Consequences of Having a Baby in the United States” by Charles A.S. Hall, et al. (State University of New York).

The study calculated that over their lifetime the average person (based on 1994 consumption rates in the USA) uses around 3,103 tons of glass, 3,288 tons of metal, 2,697 tons of plastic, 1,034 tons of rubber, 1,870 barrels of oil, 233 tons of coal, 370kg of lead, 26,187kg of cement, 4,238kg of nitrogen, 5,151kg sweeteners, 347kg coffee, 1,654 chickens. Each person is responsible for the loss of just under one hectare of indigenous forest, 5,430kg of fertiliser and 119kg of pesticide.

The authors concluded that many people are looking for ways they can protect the environment for the sake of future generations and no doubt controversially recommended that the most effective decision an individual can make to protect the planet is to abstain from making another human being.

The waste management hierarchy of: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – expresses the order of importance of these ideas and practices. So it would be reduce the demand for vehicles as the first priority, repair and reuse existing ones, and recycle the components as much as possible. Perhaps a fourth step is ‘rethink’ the way we create and consume.

In 2007 a report was published by CNW Marketing Research, Inc., entitled “Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles From Concept to Disposal.” It was said to measure in dollars and cents all the energy used in creating, building, operating and disposing of each vehicle over its entire lifetime. The report gained worldwide media and consumer attention, mostly because it concluded a Hummer H3 was a better option than the Toyota Prius. The report was quickly discredited after its calculations and claims were proven from a wide range of sources to be completely false and misleading at best (for example the paper “Dust to Dust Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science” by Dr Peter H. Gleick, Pacific Institute, 2007).

Contrary to ‘facts’ in ‘an American survey’ quoted by Alwyn, last year the US Consumers Union tested a 2002 Prius that had done over 300,000km and compared it to the test they had done 10 years earlier on a Prius with only 3,000km on the clock. The report concluded that the effectiveness of the battery has not degraded over the long run. Hybrid batteries are no worse for the environment than the batteries in every traditional motor vehicle. All the hybrids on the market use NiMH batteries, which contain no heavy metals (so they’re not classified as hazardous waste unlike Lead-Acid batteries) and are more easily recycled than alternatives. And I’m not sure where the ‘survey’ authors got their prices from but in the unlikely event of needing a replacement battery they cost about $2,000.

Alwyn is correct that a battery probably uses more energy and resources to produce than a fuel tank. But while numerous reputable studies suggest hybrids are better than traditional cars, when we take into account the energy and resources associated with all the transport and infrastructure costs of cars, it seems the only option will eventually be learning to live without them again.


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Categories : Regional Infrastructure, Sustainable Tairāwhiti, Transport