Charge the vehicles causing the damage
First off, we are supporters of NZ
Farmer and great to have it back in the postbox, but... the idea that New Zealand emulate Singapore in the development of its roading network deftly leaves out the primary reason for the quality of Singapore’s roads – taxation. Maybe your next article on roading should expand a bit on the actual costs to drivers in Singapore ..?
The vehicles are taxed, the drivers are taxed, and there are tolls and other charges. I suggest most NZ Farmer readers have no actual idea what it costs to fund a proper roading network.
Singapore has something like 5.5 million people ... it’s just they recognise roads don’t come for free.
To run a similar system in New Zealand, we would have to increase fees to larger trucks massively and the whinging truckies would struggle to accept it.
You see the damage to the New
Zealand highway system is not being done by your average car or SUV. If you took every heavy truck off the road, and then fixed the potholes etc, the network would be fine because the road surfacing used here is easily strong enough to put up with the average wear and tear.
Northland Chamber of Commerce says it’s willing to work with all stakeholders – what it should be doing is specifically identifying how the damage is occurring, and charging those vehicles that do said damage. Instead, what we have in your paper is the same old truckie/farmer moaning, without the recognition of where the fault lies.
A couple of pages on in NZ Farmer you have a headline Export earnings from agriculture set to increase. Maybe some of those new profits should be diverted into public infrastructure used by farmers to transport products using heavy vehicles which damage roads?