Roads

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• Encourage the introduction of economic pricing for road usage, including removing existing government-related impediments to the introduction of congestion charges, while commensurately lowering fuel taxes.
• Encourage private sector investment in road construction, both through direct ownership and through partnerships with central and local government.
• Progress along the path offered in Better Transport Better Roads for making road providers more responsive to road users' requirements by putting them on a more commercial basis.
• Protect road user interests by encouraging competition between routes and by long-term contracts. Road users rightly do not trust monopolies, government-owned or otherwise. (more here)

• Bring transport fuels into the Emissions Trading Scheme, with compensating income tax reductions, which will reflect the impact of carbon emissions across the economy on the global climate.
• Review the existing system of fuel excise taxes for land transport, with a view to ensuring revenue collection is financially, socially and environmentally sustainable.
• Review the road user charges system to ensure that compliance is dramatically improved and diesel vehicles pay their fair share, and investigate whether it should be extended to other vehicles over time.
• Empower regional and local councils to finance transport spending through charges on parking, as an alternative to rates.
• Retain roads as public spaces under public control and management.
• Ensure legislation and planning recognises that streets are public spaces that affect the way people live, work, play and learn, rather than simply vehicle corridors.
• Require roading authorities to develop road management strategies that reflect the multiple uses of the roads under their control.
• Investigate the role played by road corridors in spreading pest plants, animals, and other organisms, and develop management strategies to combat this.
• Empower local authorities to better coordinate utility work programmes on public roads.
• Instigate a moratorium on building major new urban highways or motorways and use the money saved to fund investment in developing and upgrading more sustainable transport systems.
• Require an independent, external, 'first principles' review of all major roading projects within the funding system against sustainability criteria, including: impact on both communities and the environment; contribution to a sustainable land transport system; and assessment of whether a full range of alternatives was considered in the project's development; and cancel those projects that do not perform well against these tests before lifting the moratorium.
• Oppose the establishment of privately owned toll roads. (more here)

• Labour will consider how much of the $2.9 billion annual National Land Transport Fund might be available for reallocation, and what projects make sense. We will not waste money on unnecessary highways that lock us into a high-carbon future.
• Labour will investigate and prioritise improvements to the “East-West Corridor” proposal in Auckland between East Tamaki at State Highway I and Onehunga at State Highway 20.
• Labour will reinstate its original preference. It will fund this option 100%.
• Labour will also continue to support the Transmission Gully project but only so long as it meets reasonable cost-benefit criteria.
• Labour will also:
• Reduce the legal blood alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05.
• Investigate effective means to prevent child deaths and injuries in driveways, including possibly subsidising rear view mirrors.
• Review international research on child restraints and implement best practice recommendations.
• Introduce labour standards into Transport Operator Safety Systems in the trucking industry.
• Investigate a Safe Rates system for the freight and courier industries, where remuneration and methods of contracting are considered as part of the overall safety requirements for drivers.
• Consider, subject to funding availability, the introduction of driver training programmes, especially for young drivers in poorer communities. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

Not set out on their website.

Not set out on their website.

• Support public private partnerships (PPPs) and other investment options for urgently-needed, high cost highways for which there is significant community support, but continue to treat the National Land Transport Fund as the primary source of funding.
• Increase the Financial Assistance Rate (FAR) that is paid by central government to local authorities for the construction and maintenance of local roads up to 80% of their total costs.
• Complete the Roads of National Significance programme, across New Zealand (including the construction of the Transmission Gully highway).
• Improve traffic flow and road safety by road straightening along State Highway 1.
• Improve the school bus system to assist decongesting roads in the major cities. (more here)