\u201cNew Zealand is unusually car-dominated,\u201d Woodward told the Herald. \u201cWe have more cars per thousand population than almost any other country. And our transport system for the last 50 years has been built around the motorcar.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s no wonder that so many people depend on driving a car to get to where they need to go. One of the problems is that means we\u2019re also dependent on the fuel that goes into the car. And the great majority of New Zealand\u2019s cars, of course, are driven by petrol or diesel.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Environmental Health Intelligence New Zealand (EHINZ), there were 4.7 million vehicles in the country in 2023, up from 2.9 million in 2004.<\/p>\n
A new report shows how car-dependent New Zealanders are. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
EHINZ also highlighted that \u201cthe number of light vehicles per capita remains high relative to other countries at 817 vehicles per 1000 people in 2023\u201d.<\/p>\n
Woodward said New Zealand\u2019s car culture stems from \u201ccritical decisions\u201d made at various points throughout history \u2013 as well as ones made more recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand\u2019s cities used to have trams, but local government and central government decided to pull up tram lines and rely instead on buses. Of course, that didn\u2019t happen in many other cities around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a deliberate decision to invest early in a motorway network, which again was not the same in every country. And it did mean that we were launched in the American direction of big roads and many motor vehicles and limited use of alternatives such as rail. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo as the transport system was developed and became increasingly weighted towards servicing motor vehicles, then of course people responded by driving rather than moving in other ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current Government has recently, unfortunately, turned in the wrong direction in so many ways in terms of withdrawing incentives for people to move to electric vehicles, in terms of investing very heavily in major freeways and big roads, in reducing or removing altogether investments in footpaths and bike infrastructure … I would hope that the Government will recognise that they\u2019ve taken a wrong turn and move in a different and more sustainable direction in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of motor vehicles in New Zealand continues to rise. Graph \/ EHINZ<\/p>\n
Woodward said the fuel crisis has shown why the country\u2019s reliance on cars for transport is \u201ca strategic liability\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a crisis and obviously in the short term people need to get to work, the kids need to get to school, vital goods need to be transported around the country. So in the short term we need to look for ways of securing our fuel supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s important to recognise that our history as a car-dominated country is a strategic liability. It\u2019s not only a bad thing in terms of climate, we know that the transport system is a major source of greenhouse gases. It\u2019s a bad thing in terms of human health, we know that the effects of the transport system on human health are similar to the effects of tobacco.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s a strategic liability at a time when fuel supplies are insecure. So in the medium to long term, we need to find ways of moving to alternatives. And that includes vehicles that are not fossil fuel-powered. It means looking for alternatives to the private motor vehicle so that we have, for example, a public transport system that is fast, accessible, affordable, high quality and attractive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNew Zealand is unusually car-dominated,\u201d Woodward told the Herald. \u201cWe have more cars per thousand population than almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,6799,2841,537,219,17309,2678,1437,6098,4729,20557,23500,185,2845,13611,117,111,139,69,35481,8822,223,8469,48849,4276,102,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-370983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-country","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-exposed","14":"tag-fuel","15":"tag-global","16":"tag-hard","17":"tag-highest","18":"tag-hitting","19":"tag-impact","20":"tag-is","21":"tag-leaving","22":"tag-nation","23":"tag-new","24":"tag-new-zealand","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-particularly","28":"tag-survey","29":"tag-the","30":"tag-topped","31":"tag-usage","32":"tag-why","33":"tag-with","34":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}