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$22 billion on just one 95km road ($232 million per km) (www.greaterauckland.org.nz)

submitted 6 days ago by rimu@piefed.social to c/politics@lemmy.nz

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(everyone knows roading budgets usually blow out - the total final cost of Transmission Gully appears to be $2.5bn – double the projected cost of $1.25bn).

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

How many years of free public transport would $22B buy?

I recall the 50% price cut during COVID (for the whole country) cost the government a few hundred million for a year. This was during COVID so it didn't get higher uptake, but let's assume there was a higher uptake and make it $500M for 50% off per year, or 1B for free public transport per year.

We could have free public transport for everyone for 22 years for the price of this one road.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It buys a hell of a lot of post-parliamentary corporate directorships.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 days ago

We really need a better way of managing this risk. I don't have any suggestions but the blatant bribery is a pretty big problem to democracy.

[–] rimu@piefed.social 7 points 6 days ago

In the article they came up with a few other things 22B would buy:

four City Rail Links ($5.5b)
seven fully equipped Dunedin hospitals ($3b)
seven Cook Strait ferry terminals ($3b)
99 contract-cancellations for no Cook Strait Ferries ($222m)
fully funded 7kwh solar panel and battery systems for all 700,000 dwellings in Auckland and Northland ($21b)
169 times the annual walking and cycling budget in the 2024 GPS ($130m)
Enough funding to run the Te Huia train between Auckland and Hamilton for 3780 years…
… or, how about free passenger rail across the whole country for effectively forever?
four and a half Northwest Busways ($5b)
seven Airport to Botany Busways ($3b)
22 twice-built International Convention Centres ($1b)