Road Politics Cause Chaos

"The traffic chaos in Auckland caused by just 20 millimetres of rain would have cost the city and the country tens of millions of dollars as well as having seriously disrupted people's lives," ACT Leader Richard Prebble said today.

"Aeroplane flights were missed, hospital appointments not kept, workers were late and schools disrupted.

"The government's new Land Transport Management bill, which now adds social and cultural factors into determining where and when to build roads, means that Auckland's traffic is just going to get worse.

One can predict with certainty there are going to be many more rainy days causing traffic chaos and people taking three hours to make what would have been a 40-minute journey.

"The ACT Party has written to Helen Clark offering our eight votes to free the government from the green party's blackmail on this issue.

"It's a failure pf the Resource Management Act that for less than a third of the price of the proposed new rail scheme the Auckland motorway system could be completely overhauled. This is a programme that, if the government set its mind to it - could be done by 2010." said Mr Prebble.

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