Ian McLean Green candidate for Tauranga

It is one of those known facts that politicians tend to over-promise before elections, and under-deliver afterwards.

Right now, as we build up to the election, there is pressure on government to make good on a misguided promise made before the 2008 election – to 'fix” traffic-flow issues at the intersection of SH 29 and Welcome Bay road by building infrastructure at enormous expense.

NZTA has just one perspective, which is to keep traffic flowing AFAP (as fast as possible) on SH29. Having lights and traffic circles at regular intervals on a 100 km/h road is an irritant for NZTA. Actually, it is a danger to all of us and SH29 really ought to be an 80 km/h zone until vehicles are east of the Welcome Bay intersection. But I digress.

We can now benefit from hindsight. The state of the government books – almost certainly worse than they tell us - means that under-delivery on infrastructure developments of marginal benefit is the appropriate response.

Things change, and election promises may no longer be the best solution even when the land is fat, which right now it is not.

The Welcome Bay tunnel is such an example. Why? First, because there are cheaper solutions; second because it would not be economically responsible; third, because most of the problem has been solved; and fourth, it will achieve nothing in terms of traffic flow from Welcome Bay to the city without the associated 4-laning of Turret Rd (which would not be undertaken for some years, if ever).

The economic downturn has resulted in our government running on empty, or more specifically, on debt – the tank was emptied some time ago. In addition, some unexpected costs have emerged in the last three years – the buy out of failed finance companies, the Canterbury earthquakes, and the Pike River mine disaster spring immediately to mind.

But there is more. The real costs of PSA have yet to emerge and be accounted for, but it seems that government support for an ailing industry is likely soon to be a much higher priority than a tunnel.

I suspect that free buses, running at peak times from and to Welcome Bay from Monday to Friday, would solve most of the residual traffic hold-ups that are experienced today. We are told that $100 million is needed for the tunnel and 4-laning. 12 free buses for 5 days (one every 10 minutes for an hour, morning and evening) is a total of 60 bus trips a week, each trip taking about an hour.

I don't know the cost of a bus, but surely 60 bus-hours could be provided for much less than the weekly interest costs on $100 million. At 5%, that is around $100,000 – every week. At $200/bus-hour, that would be $5000/week, a 95% saving.

Why free? Because our non-free buses are under-used. An incentive is needed to get people on to them.

We could then request government to send the balance to Canterbury, or invest it in the response to PSA, or perhaps just not spend it at all in order to avoid adding to our unprecedented level of debt.