Re: Re: Light rail heads up 25/4/18 – Transport policy summit marks a policy sea change; LRT submissions; Auckland; Los Angeles, Charlotte and Europe
  Brent Efford

(BCC to Wgtn light rail core list)

No doubt Prof Newman is now back in Oz anyway – but what intrigued/dismayed us over here is how he made much of his academic background when a light rail advocate but departed entirely from academic rigour when he converted to evangelising for the unproven sham tram! The false impression created re Perth and Parramatta is one example, as is the ‘ambiguity’ over right of way cost.

The real problem here in Wellington is we have had a succession of mayors and other civic leaders in recent years who come into office supporting light rail in theory but then prove gullible enough to be entranced by false promises of BRT and/or ’trackless trams’ on the basis of pretty computer graphics (i.e. the current mayor and his predecessor) or else are mendacious motorway promoters who manipulate transport investigations to produce an ABR ('anything but rail') result (e.g. the two mayors prior to the last two and their acolytes).

For rail to succeed, the City Council, the Regional Council and central Government have to agree on and fund a sensible plan simultaneously (two out of three isn’t good enough), and our chronic failure to do that explains why Wellington will shortly be the only city in the world with a main rail mass transit system that doesn’t penetrate its CBD.

Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn

On 11/07/2019, at 8:48 AM, Prescott lenkaprescott@...> wrote:

What a pity you have to be saddled with this outdated debate in NZ. Fortunately it seems to have evaporated at least in SE Australia. Perhaps NZ could find some reason to lock up Prof Newman and not allow him back to Australia!

Tony P