Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9668] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 In speaking to Part 1 of this bill I want to address the question of efficiency which has dogged the argument about the Land Transport Management Bill since it was first introduced and has I must say generated a great deal more heat than light. Efficiency used to be the objective of transport legislation but nobody could figure out what “efficient” actually meant. It seemed to mean that we had to meet a cost-benefit ratio and the way that cost-benefit ratio was calculated was a black box that nobody else could get inside. It gave huge weight to the saving by very large numbers of people of fractions of a second but no weight at all to what was happening on rural roads. So I came to this bill with a very jaundiced idea of what “efficient” had actually led to in the past under the previous Government and under the previous legislation. 
The Greens of course wanted to ensure from the beginning that the funding for transport was allocated in a cost-effective way and that I think is a word everybody can understand. So in the bill as introduced the purpose clause states that it “ensures that land transport funding is cost-effective;”. That seemed to us to say what needed to be said. However we have agreed readily to the change in Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain which states that instead of the funding being cost-effective it should be “allocated in an efficient and effective manner”. That is absolutely fine. We want to see the funding allocated efficiently. Nobody wants to see transport money wasted or used inefficiently or ineffectively. I personally do not see that the amendment makes a lot of difference to the outcome but I am perfectly happy to support that change. 
Another thing in the Supplementary Order Paper that I want to draw attention to is the definition of land transport options and alternatives. Land transport options and alternatives have to be considered now at all levels before funding is allocated. This is a piece of legislation that states we should not just rush in and build something until we have looked at the need we are addressing at the various options for addressing that need and at which of those options will address that need most effectively and most efficiently for the least amount of money. It goes on to state that then having looked at those options we should go and build the best one or otherwise we will end up with a lot of white elephants because we did not do our homework properly. So options and alternatives are a key part of the decision making in this bill. 
What the change in the Supplementary Order Paper has done is to clarify that land transport options and alternatives include demand management options and alternatives. Only if we start looking at the demand side of the equation can we prevent the constant increase in demand for transport jamming up whatever roads we build. It is now well understood internationally that if all that people ever do to deal with transport demand is to build more road space they actually induce more demand the road space fills up as fast as they build it and things continue to get worse. So we have to look at some more creative alternatives. There is a whole raft of things that some councils are already doing and they are things that regional land transport strategies will have to look at in order to provide different ways of meeting the demand. 
My favourite example—I know the Minister likes it too but it is only one of many examples—is the walking school bus. We all know that on weekdays when schools are open traffic congestion on the Auckland motorways is much much worse than it is during school holidays and it is that way simply because so many parents drive one child to school. We also know that the safety situation and the congestion outside school gates at half past 8 in the morning is so extreme with vehicles milling around and parents letting children on and off that it has made it unsafe for other children to walk and cycle to school when they would otherwise have liked to do so. We can have the Auckland roads as uncongested on school days as they are during school holidays if we promote all the other safe effective ways of getting children to school rather than each of them being delivered by a parent in a separate car. The walking school buses which provide supervision for large groups of children to walk to school safely have a whole lot of other benefits as well. They are supported by the people who are into health and exercise. They mean fresh air for children rather than keeping them cooped in cars all the time. Walking school buses are better for children’s development than going to school by car. They experience the world around them rather than just sitting in a motor vehicle.