ACT promises to axe millions in roadside art spending

ACT is promising to stop motorists' money being spent on roadside sculptures, cultural monuments and decorative artwork, saying fuel taxes and road-user charges should pay for roads instead.Under the party's new transport policy, announced on Friday, such "non-functional art" would no longer be eligible for money from the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF).ACT infrastructure spokesperson Simon Court said iwi, businesses or environmental groups could pay for them instead through sponsorship or fundraising.He said motorists should not have to pick up the bill."Communities can still add extras - just not on the road user's tab."Court pointed to $3.7 million spent on 35 pou (carved wooden posts) and two taonga artworks on Te Ara Tupua cycleway between Wellington and Lower Hutt.Hine te Iwaiwa sculpture designed by Warren Warbrick on Te Ahu a Turanga Highway.Supplied/NZ Transport AgencyHe also highlighted $2.2m for a cultural artwork trail along the Oaro-to-Clarence corridor and $1.88m for five sculptures on Te Ahu a Turanga, the new highway replacing the closed Manawatū Gorge road.'No-frills, fit-for-purpose design'The crackdown was one of six key changes promised by ACT as part of its election transport policy.ACT would also require officials to properly investigate the cheapest safe option for all major transport projects, and publish it alongside their preferred design, showing the price, construction time and expected benefits of each."No-frills, fit-for-purpose design will be the default," the policy said. "Not every project needs to be bespoke or gold-plated at the expense of the people paying for it."ACT would also introduce automatic traffic triggers designed to get road upgrades underway before congestion became entrenched.On major two-lane growth corridors, 10,000 vehicles a day would trigger moves to protect surrounding land. At 15,000 vehicles, consenting and design work would start, and at 20,000, extra lanes would start being built.The party would also ring-fence road maintenance funding to stop it being "raided" to cover cost blowouts on new projects.ACT would block Crown funding from going to projects which gave preference to contractors based on ethnicity, making "equal treatment" a condition.It singled out Auckland Transport, pointing to a $1.39m marae carpark contract which was tendered only to registered Māori-owned businesses."Public contracts should be awarded on price, capability, safety and delivery - not ethnicity," the policy said.ACT's final pledge was to scrap any "anti-car rules" relating to emissions, testing or age.