To whom it may concern
This is a submission made on behalf of the Greenhithe Residents, Ratepayers and Community Hall Association Inc.
Individual comments are as follows:

1. Lack of alternatives - mainly public transport. Auckland can't be compared with London -- London's public transport system started about 150 years ago and has comprehensive coverage with the underground rail and buses. If you do not need to go to central London it is easily avoided, however to go from North to South will be an automatic toll in Auckland. There are no 'free alternatives' one can expect to use. You have to get the public transport system in place and working prior to any tolling. Also, the geographical make-up of Auckland is totally different to all the other cities that the transport system is being compared with.

2. Also gathering tolls to build more roads only encourages more traffic onto the roads thereby increasing congestion on the local networks.

3. Why should NS residents be charged more to go over the harbour bridge, that has already been paid for?

4. The present chaos is because successive governments/councils have not addressed the issue decades ago.

5. The increase in GST with the rise in fuel costs and extra taxes should go a long way to funding the roads tolls. Other forms of cash collecting is inherently not cost effective -- the majority of money will go in admin costs. This tool is already in place.

6. Extra tax on fuel will be more cost effective-- the collection system is already in place. In addition the whole country will contribute -- this will upset non Aucklanders but who contributed to their roads in the past?

7. No mention has been made of the cost of the transponder for fitting into cars -- this will probably be at least $200.

8. The North Shore bus system has been a good concept but not fully thought out -- parking seems to be a problem at the park/ride stations which negates some of the benefits of the scheme. We can only see costs increase as the NSCC will have to build more car parks, probably a multi layered parking building where you will have to pay to leave your car. Councils often do the economic thing first, make it free, then extend it and say you will have to pay. All of this possibly after tolls and other taxes have been applied.

9. It seems that many of the advocates of the charging regime will not have to pay the fees themselves as they have taxpayer/ratepayer expenses/vehicles to cover this.                           

10. There has to be a way of reducing congestion in Auckland but willy nilly charging the public is a cop out for inaction in the past -- surely some of the highly paid public servants could come up with something better.

My comments have been enclosed on the enclosed WORD.DOC.

As an Association we are of similar minds on this issue.

If you need further information please contact me by email or on 09 4139498.

Yours sincerely

Peter Bickle

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Road Pricing evaluation Study

There are 4 road pricing options:

1. Single cordon – crossing a single defined area, $6 at the bridge and $3 at other points. Vehicles that start & stay within the cordon escape charges. Max charge $6/day per vehicle. Approximate continual  points are:

• Harbour bridge, Henderson, Titirangi, Mangere, East Tamaki, Howick and all inner eastern suburbs and CBD.

2. Double Cordon – 2 rings. Vehicles that stay within one cordon will not be charged. Max charge $6/day per vehicle. Inner cordon is Mt Albert, Remuera and the city. Overall area is smaller, does not go as far west but the revenue will be when traffic pass from 1 area to another.
3. Area Charge – all vehicles entering or travelling within a defined area will be charged. Based on London model. Max charge $5/day per vehicle.
4. Parking Tax – charging for parking on both public & private property within Auckland/Newmarket, Manakau, Henderson and Takapuna CBDs. Cost poproposed is $10/day on top of normal parking charges.

Problems and issues:

• Unfair on shore residents going to Auckland, I think it is a bigger burden than other areas where people work closer to where they live.
• Being thin, there is no alternative to go from north to south other than SH1. In London if you don’t need to go to the city it is easy to avoid and avoid charges. IMO using London as a model is comparing apples with steak.
• There is a lot of businesses in the inner city area. These will be greatly affected with extra costs and parking cost problems. Who pays for the extra costs. Will wages suffer?
• The cordon looks rather large, is this a case of revenue gathering?
• Families with 2 cars will get charged $10-12/day
• Public transport is poor in Auckland and people do not want to do 2+ trips to get to work. Also, you cannot transfer tickets between 2 different organisations. This is a real put off for a lot of people. Also public transport takes longer to get to where you want to go than a car in a traffic jam.
• Existing roads should not be tolled.
• Who is to say that the extra revenue will go on building roads? ARTA seem to want to take road funding and build more bus lanes.

Pros:

• People who work/live on the shore will have no extra burden via these options except for the Takapuna CBD area.
• Cordon charges only apply from 6-10am.

I estimate that since petrol was $1/litre 3 years ago the government has gained an extra $7 per 50 litre fill in excise and GST. Surely this needs to go to the network.