John MacDonald: The Infrastructure Commission is talking my language

One of the problems with politicians is that they often stake their political survival on big infrastructure projects. Which is why we’ve got Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey and Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon jumping up and down saying like hell, there’ll be no Woodend Bypass. The thing that’s got them excited is the new national infrastructure plan released by the Infrastructure Commission which, in a nutshell, says we should be building more hospitals and less big roads. They’ll be getting no argument from me. Dan Gordon is rejecting any suggestion the bypass is a lower priority than other projects. But he would say that. He says more than 20,000 vehicles go through Woodend every day, and that’s only going to increase. He says: “The town is quite literally divided in two by the state highway and the risk this has posed for decades is not acceptable. As the community grows this risk only increases.” And he’s not having a bar of the Infrastructure Commission’s push for more tolling charges on roads, either. I think he’s pushing that one uphill. Because, it’s very clear to me that charging tolls to use roads is the way of the future. It has to be. because, as a country, we don’t have the money.  Meanwhile, MP Matt Doocey is saying there’s no way the bypass is going to go down the pecking order. He says: “If experts think the date for exceeding capacity of the current road in Woodend is still some years away, they clearly weren't stuck in traffic last Friday night after work like I was.” He’s not anti-tolls, though. Matt Doocey says if paying a toll means roads being built sooner and faster, then that’s how it has to be. But I think he and Dan Gordon need to show some fortitude and, instead of banging-on about the Woodend Bypass just because they’ve staked their political careers on it, they should admit that we need to make the big calls as to what really is most important. Because I can’t argue with what the Infrastructure Commission is saying. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.