Tuesday, September 14, 2010

By Britomart Station I sat down and wept

The Morning Report Supercity debate [audio - it goes on a bit] was not quite as bad as I had expected. I had expected it to be something like a re-run of the Fifties celebrity panel game What's my personality disorder? But it seems the candidates had a period of meditation before the show, or perhaps it was just a little too early in the morning. Instead of fighting, they entertained us with their unrealistic visions for Auckland's public transport. Since none of these involved airships, submarines or hovercraft, I quickly lost interest.

The tragedy of the supercity mayoral race is that the smartest man in the room - Mike Lee - left the room. I know he goes on a bit - I once left a welcoming speech he was giving at a Labour Party conference in Takapuna, walked the length of Hurstmere Road and back, returned to the Bruce Mason Centre and found he was still talking. But still, he has the smarts. He also runs a Regional Council which might easily have taken on the responsibilities of the super city without the need for creating the mess we are in now. Just think: we need not have had that silly Royal Commission, all that fuss about that idiotic plan to create iwi aldermen, all those boards and wards, Rodney Hide's violence to said boards and wards, the creation of corporate fiefdoms and the state of unpreparedness we now are in. We could have had the ARC, loaded.

Perhaps we might have gotten a monorail as well.





3 comments:

Peter in Dundee said...

Back in the '80s NZ Rail magazine* did a study which showed that more money had been spent, in real terms, on feasibility studies into a Metro for Auckland than the original scheme would have cost. I expect that the situation is now even worse. If you factored in all the energy in the hot air expended . . .

*My father was an engineer with the railway.

Paul said...

Recently, I was looking at designs for the metro network from the seventies: we missed a great opportunity. It was all ready to go - stations planned, trains designed. And then it was cancelled by the Government. And now we are paying the price every day.

Stephen Stratford said...

"Back in the '80s NZ Rail magazine* did a study which showed that more money had been spent, in real terms, on feasibility studies into a Metro for Auckland than the original scheme would have cost."

Here in Cambridge the council has spent more on feasibility studies into a new public swimming pool than St Peters, the local private school, spent on actually building one. A really good one that the public (e.g. my children) gets to use.

Some might see this as evidence for the efficiency of the private sector.