“The Auckland Transport Board and the council just like the Central govt, try and shift blame for disasters they helped bring about”. Says Ted Johnston , New Conservative Coleader and Auckland mayoral candidate.

“This is not a perfect storm, because that is a claim, that they had no involvement in causing it”, “AT and the Council caused much of this problem themselves”.

We now see a possible motive for the removal of parking spaces. It looks more like more money gouging for AT to take more money from helpless Auckland driver victims.

We have seen fines, for people accidentally entering bus-lanes, cycle lanes, with AT employees filming breachers. We have seen AT stop people in inner suburbs like Grey Lynn from parking outside their houses, a right we should have. Now imagine all the fines, people will have to pay when there are no parking spaces available across the city due to near non-existent cyclists.

AT has spent its time on ideology, painting colorful circles on roads, and removing parking, (thereby destroying many businesses . eg Grey Lynn etc). The central city looks like a drunken driver veered all over the roads, with ugly concrete blocks falling off the back of his truck.

All AT has done is create worse congestion in an already desperate situation.

What AT failed to do was create a public transport system that people want to use. “AT proved you cannot force people to use a second-rate inadequate system.”

AT can’t beat Auckland commuters with a big financial and inconvenience stick to get them to travel on their in-efficient and ineffectual public transport system. As much as you try to force them they will not use it.

A public transport system to be used, must;

Firstly, to take you where you want to go.

Secondly it must be frequent and not require too much waiting time.

Thirdly It must allow you to link up to it via your car or buses. ( we need feeder buses, and huge parking areas at the stations. ) If it adds hours to travel by public transport and cost, people will not use it.

Wasting $15b for a fast rail system to the Airport from Britomart is crazy, as it is only 6.6 km from the Puhinui station, to the Airport mainly across empty farmland. Simply linking that will allow a leisurely journey to the airport, without wasting billions. Common sense should prevail. And it won’t cost local people and Auckland ratepayers billions.

Also the City needs a ring system of rail round the central isthmus. It needs to link Manukau through Botany to GI and then the City. It needs a rail link from North shore to West Auckland, and also a direct line from the North Shore under the Harbour bridge linking it to Britomart. At all the stations there must be huge inexpensive car parks, to get the people off the roads. The direct Hamilton train needs to stop at Manukau and Auckland City, not Papakura. Linking major arteries by Bus or tram cannot move the massive volume of people required.

The AT board has to go, for a start and all the Council controlled organizations need to be reexamined. We need Board members who are not professionals on many boards, but committed to the Board they are on alone.

What really needs to be done is the govt should review the law and bring in a commissioner to clean up the mess, before it gets worse, and it will.

It is time that we as Aucklanders had full control of our assets and organizations, and they were fully transparent and accountable to us.

The Mayor is leaving us his disaster behind him.

Candidate Collins shows himself to be a disciple of Goff’s style when he recently voted to remove hundreds of parking spaces across Auckland.

Collins shows he is not the solution as Mayor but is part of the problem. He has few useful ideas except council money shuffling, and will tow Auckland along, by the Labour govt’s party line.

We need change and to clear out the old rubbish, to make Auckland Council., efficient, transparent and responsible to the Auckland people.

Ted Johnston will fix Auckland.

© Scoop Media