It's time to stop the nonsense with New Plymouth's roads.
For many years New Plymouth needed a new connection road north and south of the city. From the port around the city outskirts south to SH3, and from the top end of Waiwhakaiho Road Smart Road with a new connecting bridge over the Waiwhakaiho river through to SH3 . Providing a ring road around the city from the port to Bell Block and beyond connecting all major arterial roads in and out of the city. Its time to stop chewing the fat with government on road founding, stop fine tuning the existing routes. And take a real bight out of our share of the government surplus for money for a proper government founded roading system around the city. The government by passing the buck over to the local Taranaki Regional Council, allowing them to raise rate's by 10% for roading is an insult to the Taranaki ratepayers who have for years paid road user taxes and levees to the government for this purpose. That the government has instead been diverting into the governments consolidated found. And won't be nearly enough to fix our roading problems now or in the future.. Instead it will only raise rates to unacceptable levels providing more of the same, fine tuning existing routes. It's just not good enough, it's election year next year, it's time to get real. For the environmentalists for which I am akin, a good roading system saves on energy costs, keeps heavy traffic and vehicle congestion out of the central CBD. It's not the vehicles but the fuel they use that is the bigger problem, and that will change in time to environmentally friendly fuels and vehicles.
Rusty Kane NZ
