Thread by @juliefairey

Part of the problem with the continuing investment in Enormous Roading Projects is the huge lead in times for these projects vs smaller safety, active transport or PT ones. They get contracted further out, have huge sunk costs before you even get to that, so v hard to stop. 1/

Whereas smaller projects, like say a pedestrian crossing for a school on a busy road, only get contracted a short time out, have relatively low cost in terms of design, consultation etc. Much more vulnerable to delay that becomes deferral that becomes never. 2/

These smaller projects also generally have much much lower profiles in the community - pissing off a school with 200 kids is lower risk than pissing off a whole suburb or town or region, who have been expecting delivery. This applies to both the politicians and the staff 3/

And with NZ being a quite small country some of the Enormous Roading Projects might be the only chance you think you are going to get to work on An Exciting Thing! So people get v attached to them. There's always another pedestrian crossing to do. 4/

When there is an inevitable budget crunch (currently acute due to Covid but ongoing at a less severe level because of fundamental flaws w current local govt funding model) uncontracted projects go first. Contractor & fixed term workers go first too. 5/

Enormous Roading Project staff will be more likely to be permanent or contractors signed up in a big bundle over years, so more likely to not get cut (contractually committed times two!). 6/

I've been raising with AT, including through the CCO Review, the idea that they must be able to work out they are going to deliver at least X pedestrian crossings a year, so why don't they contract this kind of essential safety work in bundles, so it is less vulnerable. 7/

Response so far is "we'll think about it". 8/8