Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dom Kalasih: Fast tracked roads may be tolled

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Dom Kalasih: Fast tracked roads may be tolled · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The clerk, and it's looking more likely the fast tracked
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: roads of national significance are going to be told procurement
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and construction will start in the next three years, but
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: exact time frames and costs are still not yet known.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So what does it mean for our freight and transport companies?
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Joining me now? Is Transporting New Zealand Interim Chief Executive
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Dom Calasi, Dom, Welcome to the show. What do you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: make of this? The fact that, I mean, we always
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: knew that there was going to be tolls, right? Does
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: this surprise you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Morning, Ryan? Well, scarcely. Absolutely, it doesn't surprise us. It's
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: been signaled for a long time.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And how do you feel about it? You'd rather the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: roads would get built, presumably?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Look the efficient movement afraid it's essential, and as
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: is connecting communities, which allows people to connect. And we
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: are in a bit of a hole at the moment.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: You know, the AA's reckons. The cost of congestion and
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: ortment alone is over a billion dollars and our current
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: routing system simply can't cope and we need to do
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: something about it sooner rather than later. And there's clear
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: evidence that Tolan can help.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: There there's a whole list of expressways and motorways, and
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: we won't go through them all, but Belfast to Pegasus
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: for example, the hawks By Expressway, you've got Walkworth to Wellsford.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Do you guys have a priority list?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: We think the list that has been provided is actually
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: pretty good. You know, there's always going to be more
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: than what can be done at any good time, but
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: we think that list is pretty good.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Do you have a preference in terms of order? Because
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: from what I have read, from what the minister's statement,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: it sounds like they're going to try and do them
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: all at once.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Oh right, sorry, now I think doing them in parallel
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: is the way to do it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Because give them all the parts, construction and consenting. It's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: all a complex approach, right, and if you only did
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: one at a time, right, then it's going to actually
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: take much longer to deliver them all than doing them
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: in parallel.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: How much do you think Let's assume let's look into
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the future and think of a beautiful world where all
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of these projects have been completed. How much more efficient
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: would we be would you be?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Oh not sorry, I haven't done the math on it,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: but it would be significant. I mean just off the
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: top of my head, right, in a lot of those areas,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: there will be not just hours, but tens of hours
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: every year saved for truckers. Right. And if you talk
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a rough number of say two hundred to two hundred
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: and fifty dollars an hour, that's what truck and cough, right,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: then you're talking about millions of dollars.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Dom, Thanks very much for your time that storm. Calasi
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: is the Transport of New Zealand Interim Chief Executive talking
• 3:05
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• 3:08
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• 3:11
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