The end of the trail for cycleways

I was one of the people surprised to learn that the National Government of New Zealand had endorsed the New Zealand Cycle Trails proposal in the Prime Minister’s jobs summit in 2009.   We would expect The Green Party or, at a pinch, Labour to promote such policies but, as a party representing business interests, National should not have been interested.

For example, the Minister of Transport, Stephen Joyce, promotes Roads of National Significance and will not support maintaining the rail network or the Auckland Rail Network.  Roads and motorised transport occupy his attention and the goal is to have better, faster roads with less congestion.  The reason is not hard to see, the financial backers of the National Party do not ride bicycles nor do they use public transport.  With guaranteed car parking why should senior executives or board members worry about cycling to work?  The car is probably paid for by the company as well.

Rod Oram, in a column in the Sunday Star Times 22 April 2012, Riding rings around policy, looks at the cycle trails policy with a fresh eye.  The assumption with so many of the proposals for new cycle trails is based on the assumption that they can duplicate the success of the Otago Rail Trail.  This trail is very popular and the riders have generated a new source of revenue for the communities along its route.  Oram points out that routes such as the St James Trail and the Dun Mountain Trail are more costly to construct.  The Otago Rail Trail uses a disused railway line required few earthworks.  It runs through existing population centres where there are existing buildings which can be adapted to tourist accommodation and draws its work force from the same community.  Another trail requiring a road to be constructed and in addition new accommodation as well as bringing in a workforce into what are sparsely populated communities, will require a greater input of capital and so may prove to be uneconomic right from the start.