I have been thinking
I spoke to my brother the other day. He is a well-educated, reasoned individual on a high income who has made good investment decisions. I asked him what he thought of the Te Huia train. He said it was a great service, his kids had used it many times to travel to study in Auckland. I told him it cost almost $100m. He laughed and said that’s BS, that’s just a conspiracy theory. There was no way it could cost $100m. What could they spend that sort of money on? I googled the numbers to show him; $68.7m in capital costs, 29.3 operating costs over five years, with each passenger trip being subsidized $84. All this for an old diesel train. A brand-new electric bus costs around $700,000…
Like most Hamiltonian’s he was just not aware of the issues at HCC and needed a strong and sustained argument to change his current misperceptions. A strong media vehicle with high quality content is required to achieve lasting change. Otherwise, young people in NZ will vote with their feet.