The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1968. Towards A Policy On Transport

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 14

The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1968. Towards A Policy On Transport

Last week the Government announced that it had approved the setting up of a Ministry of Transportation. When the structure of the new department has been worked out by the State Services Commission the Government should not be long in taking the administrative and legislative action needed to establish the Ministry. Many of the separate functions of the departments of State concerned with transport—the Marine, Railways, Transport, and Civil Aviation Departments—will not be much affected, and each will no doubt retain its identity as the Armed Services retain theirs under the control of the Ministry of Defence. Although it has long been the practice to have two or more of the departments concerned with transport industries under the charge of one Minister, the idea of giving a Minister the authority and the machinery to form fully-integrated policies on transport has never been realised. Yet the desirability of such integration has been recognised for many years. It is now not merely desirable but a compelling need. National policies on transport—particularly on port development, for which legislation has at last been drafted—have become more necessary since the advent of container shipping services. Even without the pressure of the overseas shipping, lines for changes in New Zealand’s transport system/the need for national policies that transcend the interests of individual departments or industries would have compelled this reform. The general acceptance of the principle that revenue from the taxation of motorists should be spent on roads has fostered the belief that private motorists and commercial road users largely pay for the country’s road transport system. This, of course, is a mistaken belief. It ignores the immense sums spent by local bodies on building and maintaining roads; it ignores the cost of policing traffic and the cost of road accidents. While operators of road transport complain of unfair competition from the railways no-one has paid much attention to the question whether commercial road-users pay their full share of the cost of the roads. It is pretty certain that the operators of vehicles which cause most wear and tear on the roads are being subsidised by other taxpayers. Perhaps this is as it should be; but not because anyone has calculated what is best and fairest for all. Nor has anyone calculated the relative benefits of putting more or less capital into the various forms of transport Because our transport system is a mixture of public and private enterprise—in part complementary and in part competitive—capital investment in the various sectors of the industry is little related to the needs of the industry as a whole. The British Ministry of Transport, under the command of Mrs Castle, prepared an unprecedented policy relating all methods of transport to national needs. It has taken into account the tremendous increase in demand for roads, the under-employment of the railways, the self-defeating expansion of private motoring, and the plight of public passenger transport Ultimately, a Minister who intends to effect such a policy will have to deal with many related fields —town planning, the distribution of industries, and changes in trade among them. Just as developments in energy production have transformed whole countries, developments in transport, particularly in the last two or three decades, have wrought a second revolution. New Zealand has no national policies for the development of airfields or ports; roading and railway plans are conceived in virtual isolation from each other. The sooner New Zealand has a Ministry properly equipped to examine, plan, and advise, the better will we avoid or mitigate the problems to which the present divisions of thinking and control must surely lead.