Amazing to think it has been already three years since the last General Election and now it’s time to do your civic duty again in a few days (although you can already cast your vote now too).
It’s arguably been a tough three years, even more so in the sustainable and safe transport areas; possibly the recent new cycle-friendly Road Rules have been one of the few shining lights of note.
It certainly looks like it is coming down to being a close contest – so how to know who to give your votes to? Here are a few suggestions to help you make your final decision:
- For a few elections now, policy.nz has provided a handy overview of the various election parties, their candidates and their policies. Of particular interest to some of our readers might be the various party policies on the Environment and Transport & Infrastructure. If you don’t want to be swayed by particular parties, you can even toggle on and off whether particular policies are linked to specific parties or just shown incognito.
- If you’d rather start from an unbiased perspective of thoughts about different policy standpoints and party perceptions, then you could have a look at TVNZ’s VoteCompass tool. Work your way through a series of carefully created questions, and see whereabouts on the voting spectrum you end up – possibly surprising even yourself…
- If you’re still interested in transport-related policy responses by the various parties, you could also see what they have been saying courtesy of websites like Greater Auckland, the Sustainable Business Network, and Living Streets Aotearoa.
This website is of course called Cycling in Christchurch, so you don’t need to be a genius to guess which way I will vote this weekend. But ultimately, the choice is up to you to study the various policies (particularly around safe and sustainable transport options) and make your call.
What are your thoughts about the various party transport policies?