Cold Hard Look at South Island Rail Needed

16 NOVEMBER 2016

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling for rail and roading links to be examined with equal measure as transport officials examine options in rebuilding transport corridors in the upper South Island damaged in the Kaikoura earthquake.

Jordan Williams, the Union’s Executive Director, says, “In situations like this is very easy for politicians to makes promises of ‘rebuilding no matter the cost’. In fact, the situation post-quake is that it is even more important that every dollar of infrastructure money is put to best use.”

“Cool heads need to prevail. The best option may be rebuilding the rail, but it may also be using that money for a higher capacity, or more secure, road corridor inland from the East Coast.”

Jim Rose, an economic advisor to the Taxpayers’ Union, and author of a number of reports which have examined the economics of rail in New Zealand, says, “We can’t simply write Kiwirail a blank cheque. If the line was economically questionable pre-quake, the relative merits of spending hundreds of millions repairing the line vis-à-vis using the money for a better road, needs to be analysed.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media