Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris

Is that the sound of bulldozers I hear on the horizon?

No, it's the sound of bull dust!

Construction of the four-lane Tauranga Northern Link was due to start last month under the previous government.

The Labour/NZ First government (under pressure to confirm whether they had cancelled the project) made an announcement in October regarding the future of the new road.
They said it was needed one day, but that it would depend on growth (already here) and other funding priorities (free university fees?) and it would be only two lanes because apparently you don't need four.

The media dutifully reported this as a ‘green light' for the TNL project.

Sounds like the traffic lights that made a brief appearance at the Barkes Corner Roundabout - you know the ones, where ‘green' actually meant ‘give way' or ‘stop' and confused the heck out motorists before being pulled out.

How to gently tell people something has been cancelled by pretending it is not; a superb example of spin.

'Kids, I know I said we were going to Disneyland last month. We're still going to Disneyland, if I think you need to, depending on how much beer money I have left, and when I say Disneyland I mean Fantasyland in Hastings.”

Due to the money and long timeframes involved, transport planning is no joke.

If political parties were able to have a cross-party agreement on long-term transport projects like they are attempting to do with climate change there wouldn't be these stop/starts.

Councils and communities would have more certainty too.