For the price of a couple of coffees, Labour says Kiwis could get to work all week. But is it really that simple?
The Opposition party’s first election policy in more than six months, which was announced last week, promises to cap public transport costs at $20 a week per person in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and $10 everywhere else.
It’s being pitched as cost-of-living relief, to protect Kiwis’ wallets at a time when global tensions are pushing fuel prices higher, and household budgets are stretched.
But transport experts and political observers say the real question isn’t whether commuters will love it – it’s whether New Zealand can afford it and whether enough voters care.
“A lot of it feels like last-minute, campaign-oriented promises rather than deep public-transport and transport-in-general thought,” says Auckland University senior lecturer Tim Welch, who specialises in transport, infrastructure and urban modelling.
But that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s a bad idea.
“This would actually reduce the cost of living for a large number of people,” he says.
For commuters facing expensive train journeys or daily bus trips, the savings could be substantial, around $25 a week or $1300 a year.
But Welch questions what it means for regions that already have a cap in place, and asks who benefits the most.
“We’re likely to see big benefits going to the most expensive transport services.
“And I ask whether we should have maybe targeted those who are really struggling to pay for their transportation, when there are already mechanisms in place that can more easily and maybe even more cheaply target those individuals.”
Research suggests that people do respond when public transport becomes cheaper, says Welch, who points to previous New Zealand experiments with discounted and half-price fares.
“For every 10 percent increase or decrease in the cost of a fare, there’s roughly a 4 percent change in the number of people using public transport.”
So, cheaper fares generally mean more passengers, and that’s where another challenge emerges. Can our public transport system cope?
“Some of our busiest routes are already getting close to capacity,” Welch says.
Auckland’s Northern Express and Western Express busways are already heavily used during peak periods.
But Welch says when zooming out, the picture isn’t as alarming, with Auckland’s public transport network operating at around 44 percent utilisation overall.
“That sounds low, but it’s actually a pretty good number for a public transport system,” he says. “So overall, the system does have capacity.”
New Zealand Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says that’s one reason the policy is attracting attention.
“It’s a really good deal,” he says. “If it increases ridership, and some modelling suggests it could be 6 or 7 percent, then yes, capacity issues become a possibility.”
And if extra buses, trains or services are needed?
“That’s when the policy starts to cost some real money.”
Ironically, he says, that could be considered a success.
“If people are actually switching from cars to public transport, that’s a nice problem to have.”
The bigger question may be whether enough people will switch – and whether enough people vote based on public transport.
According to the 2023 census, around 130,000 New Zealanders use public transport to get to work.
For Labour, that’s potentially a sizeable audience. But Coughlan isn’t convinced they’re all up for grabs.
“Those voters are probably already inclined to vote left of centre anyway,” he says.
The strongest appeal may be among people who currently drive but are struggling with rising fuel costs.
“You can imagine someone looking at their car and thinking, ‘Gosh, that’s costing me a lot of money to get to work every week’, and then seeing a $20 cap and thinking maybe I’ll give public transport a go.”
Outside the main centres, the politics become trickier.
“This doesn’t do much for you if you live outside Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch,” Coughlan says.
Then there’s the elephant in the room – who pays?
Labour estimates the policy would cost around $65 million a year, with funding coming from the National Land Transport Fund – the same pot of money fuel taxes, road-user charges and vehicle-registration fees flow into.
The problem is that fund is already under enormous pressure.
“The fund is essentially very much over-pledged, vastly over-pledged,” Coughlan says.
“By 2030, it’s projected to be spending about six billion dollars a year more than it receives. It’s difficult to overstate how vast that number is.”
Both Labour and National accuse each other of over-promising transport projects while failing to explain how they’ll be funded.
At the centre of that battle is a growing list of expensive roading projects and public transport ambitions competing for the same finite dollars.
“In the next few months, we are probably going to see a bonfire of promised transport projects which will be kicked out the never never, effectively cancelled, and eventually we’re probably going to have to see fuel taxes rise as well. It is a very grim cocktail of broken promises and tax hikes,” says Coughlan.
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