Firstly, here is the government's official comparison of congestion in Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch for 2006.

Is it true that Auckland's traffic problems are the result of a lack of planning and funding by recent governments?

Actually the source of Auckland's traffic problems can be traced back to a poll of ratepayers in 1927. This poll sought permission for the council to raise a special loan to fund expansion of the tramways. Ratepayers rejected the plan. This was the start of Auckland's car dependence. It was not the first nor the last time that Auckland ratepayers have revolted against contributing to the region's land transport infrastucture.

We can see from information published by the Ministry of Works, the National Roads Board and the Auckland Regional Authority what the earlier motorway plans were and what the funding arrangements were. From these documents we can see that all of the crucial missing links in Auckland's motorway system were the responsibility of the Auckland Regional Authority. The National Road Fund would have matched the ratepayers contribution dollar-for-dollar but the ratepayers of Auckland never opened their wallets. However, the money that the National Roads Board had set aside for this purpose did not leave the region. The National Roads Board used this money to increase lane capacity on the motorways it had already built and to extend the Southern Motorway over the Bombay Hills thereby eliminating one of the most dangerous sections of State Highway One.

This leads us to the claims that Auckland has not been receiving it's fair share from the National Road Fund. While this is a valid argument from those who believe in a rigid free market economy it is not a valid argument from those who believe in an egalitarian society. This is because the National Road Fund has always recognised that roads and bridges don't last forever and therefore a small percentage of roads (3%) and bridges (1%) need to be rebuilt each year and a much larger percentage (15%) need preventive maintenance to ensure they last as long as possible. This currently costs twice as much as damage from heavy vehicles and as it is a cost per kilometre each region needs to receive maintenance funding in proportion to it's length of roads and number of ratepayers irrespective of its amount of traffic. Additional allowance is also made for the number of ratepayers in each region. As Auckland is the most metropolitan of all the regions it needs to receive a vastly smaller share of the maintenance funding than any other region. However not all of this money goes to other regions to maintain their roads as a substantial amount of the money not needed for maintenance on Auckland's roads has always been spent on improvements to Auckland's roads. The National Road Funds annual financial reports and the National Traffic Database allow us to work out the difference between the roading revenue paid for the use of Auckland's roads and the amount allocated to Auckland compared with the other regions. In essence this is the monetary difference between Auckland contributing 27% of LTNZ's revenue and Auckland receiving only 24% of LTNZ's expenditure. We can apply this same logic to the seperate allocations for maintenanceand construction. Of course, it makes more sense to calculate Auckland's fair share of the maintenance allocation relative to its share of the nation's roads and highways and to calculate it's fair share of the construction allocation relative to its share of the nations traffic.

The final word must go to the editorial writers of the New Zealand Herald.