Ever been to Japan and seen the infamous Roads to Nowhere? They make Rob Muldoon's Think Big projects look like sand castles, and they're basically what happen when public officials and vested private-sector interests get a little too cosy. In America, it's the same with the proposed Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska.
The proposed Puhoi-Wellsford highway - otherwise known as the Holiday Highway - threatens to take NZ down the same path. The good folk at Auckland Transport Blog have already done the fisking, and the general idea is that all that has to be done is fix a few blackspots.
The gold plating proposed for the Holiday Highway and certain other 'Roads of National Significance' has little to do with actual transport needs and safety, and much to do with old boys networks and a compliant Prostetnic Vogon cosying up to Big Trucking (who were recently successful in getting their 53-tonne wish, but that's for another post). Just like in Japan and Alaska.
Feel free to circulate this poster far and wide. Better still, go one up, and print and enlarge it.
UPDATE - 29 May 2012: The ante has been upped and the figure is now up to $14 billion, from recent news reports. Also available as prints from CafePress.
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