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The road through the Manawatu Gorge was closed in 2017 after successive slips made the route impassable and now a new road is due to open in 2025. The Transport Agency claims the new 11km long, $620 million road will take nearly 15 minutes off the present alternatives - Pahiatua Track to the south of the gorge and the Saddle Road to the north - both slow, hilly roads which wind over the ranges and are hardly roads of choice.
Up until just a matter of weeks ago there was no hint that the new road would be tolled and it was assumed that it would just replace the old Manawatu Gorge Road. So not surprisingly there has been an angry outcry when out of the blue NZTA announced that they had assessed the new road as meeting its assessment criteria for introducing tolls. This would see a light vehicle py $4.30 per trip and a truck $8.60.
Tararua Federated Farmers president Thomas Read - a dairy farmer from Dannevirke - says that he's in the process of getting feedback from his members to see if Feds as an entity will oppose the proposed tolling of the new road.
Read say while his milk goes to the Fonterra plant at Pahiatua, much of the goods for farms such as his on the eastern side of the ranges come from the Manawatu. He acknowledges that if trucks used the toll road, costs would go up. There is also concern about stock coming across from the Tararua district to the Fielding saleyards - yet another cost.
"I'm just in the process of making sure our people are aware of the implications of toll propsal and will support any action we take," says Thomas Read.
It's not just farmers who are affected. Many rural professionals travel regularly to the Manawatu as do students to Massey University and the main hospital for Tararua is in Palmerston North.
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The 'out of the blue' announcement on tolling the new road has drawn an angry response from the Tararua district, led by Mayor Tracey Collis. The council has launched a 'stop the toll campaign' and held a public meeting where residents vented their anger at NZTA and the Government for allowing the toll proposal. Collis is quoted as saying she is very unimpressed with the short consultation period. Submissions close on October 7.
The final decision on whether to toll the road will be Cabinet's, but if the tolling goes ahead, National MPs in the surrounding regions may find their popularity drops just a bit.
