Dom Kalasih: Fast tracked roads may be tolled

It's looking more likely the fast tracked roads of national significance will be tolled. 

Construction will begin in the next three years, but exact time frames and costs are not yet known, sparking fears from freight and transport companies. 

Transporting NZ Interim Chief Executive Dom Kalasih joins Ryan Bridge on Early Edition to discuss. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The clerk, and it's looking more likely the fast tracked
roads of national significance are going to be told procurement
and construction will start in the next three years, but
exact time frames and costs are still not yet known.
So what does it mean for our freight and transport companies?
Joining me now? Is Transporting New Zealand Interim Chief Executive

(00:20):
Dom Calasi, Dom, Welcome to the show. What do you
make of this? The fact that, I mean, we always
knew that there was going to be tolls, right? Does
this surprise you.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Morning, Ryan? Well, scarcely. Absolutely, it doesn't surprise us. It's
been signaled for a long time.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And how do you feel about it? You'd rather the
roads would get built, presumably?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Absolutely, Look the efficient movement afraid it's essential, and as
is connecting communities, which allows people to connect. And we
are in a bit of a hole at the moment.
You know, the AA's reckons. The cost of congestion and
ortment alone is over a billion dollars and our current

(01:03):
routing system simply can't cope and we need to do
something about it sooner rather than later. And there's clear
evidence that Tolan can help.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
There there's a whole list of expressways and motorways, and
we won't go through them all, but Belfast to Pegasus
for example, the hawks By Expressway, you've got Walkworth to Wellsford.
Do you guys have a priority list?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
We think the list that has been provided is actually
pretty good. You know, there's always going to be more
than what can be done at any good time, but
we think that list is pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Do you have a preference in terms of order? Because
from what I have read, from what the minister's statement,
it sounds like they're going to try and do them
all at once.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Oh right, sorry, now I think doing them in parallel
is the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Because give them all the parts, construction and consenting. It's
all a complex approach, right, and if you only did
one at a time, right, then it's going to actually
take much longer to deliver them all than doing them
in parallel.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
How much do you think Let's assume let's look into
the future and think of a beautiful world where all
of these projects have been completed. How much more efficient
would we be would you be?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Oh not sorry, I haven't done the math on it,
but it would be significant. I mean just off the
top of my head, right, in a lot of those areas,
there will be not just hours, but tens of hours
every year saved for truckers. Right. And if you talk
a rough number of say two hundred to two hundred

(02:52):
and fifty dollars an hour, that's what truck and cough, right,
then you're talking about millions of dollars.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Dom, Thanks very much for your time that storm. Calasi
is the Transport of New Zealand Interim Chief Executive talking
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