A recent survey in Wellington (here, paywalled) asked residents how they would spend $100 on Wellington’s transport if they were in charge. The average response from the public was to spend $55 on public transport, $36 on roads, and $9 on footpaths and cycleways.
A few people online were wondering how that compared to the actual figures, so I thought I’d look it up. Waka Kotahi report all the figures online. These numbers capture everything in the National Land Transport Programme – there are some projects that sit outside of that and so won’t be reported here, but these numbers give the best indication you’re probably going to get.
The graph below shows how much money has been allocated to each region in Aotearoa for the three year period 2021-2024.
You can see that Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland towers above the rest, then Te Upoko O Te Ika a Māui Wellington. And they both have healthy chunks of pink public transport in the middle of them.
I’m a proud New Zealander so I’ve also converted this to per capita:
This one tells quite a different story. Tairāwhiti Gisborne now leads the charge, but 84% of that is maintenance and operations. I think this is just due to the long lengths of road they have with hardly anyone in the region to pay for them. Wellington is a strong third. Auckland isn’t as high as a thought it might have been, sitting bang in the middle (7th of 13).
However the thing that stands out to me is the left-hand column. Waitaha Canterbury is the lowest funded region in New Zealand, getting around half what Auckland receive and a third what Wellington receive, per capita. Not only do we spend far less on public transport than Wellington and Auckland, but we also spend less in every other category as well than just about every other region.
I’ve heard people argue that Canterbury got lots of money post-earthquake so it’s fair that the region now gets hardly anything for a few decades. I’ve always felt that argument doesn’t make any sense though. That money was necessary to fix damage sustained in the earthquakes and, with few exceptions, it was simply used to bring the roads back up to the standard they were at before the earthquake hit. It’s not a reason to under-invest in the region now. Additionally, I’m not sure it’s true that Canterbury transport was funded at a higher level than other regions in the years following the quakes, I’d have to check these numbers.
I don’t know exactly who’s fault this is or how to fix it, but I think it’s clear that something needs to be done to reduce the regional funding discrepency somehow.
TALKING TRANSPORT 