No Tolls!

Letter to editor; NZ Herald, published Monday, 16 October, '06
Transit NZ says new roads will be delayed for a decade if Aucklanders do not accept tolls. Auckland road users are being held to ransom. Who will be next?
Road building should be funded out of taxes, as it always has been. If road user charges need to be raised, or road taxes increased, then that is a political decision that needs to be faced up to. We do not need to create a whole new private profit-making tolling industry to raise funds for roads.
Transit is planning to spend $150 million to set up toll gantries and other tolling infrastructure in Auckland. This would pay the interest for at least three years on the $800 million loan Transit says is necessary to finish the planned roads by 2015.
Working class people will bear the brunt of road tolls. They often have no choice but to use the roads to get to work, and this is likely to be at times of peak toll rates. Toll avoidance will mean new roads for the rich and traffic jams for the poor.
There needs to be an all-out campaign to stop Transit NZ implementing road tolls.