Winston Peter's last political gift to the people of Tauranga, a toll-free second harbour bridge, was slammed by Tauranga city councillor Larry Baldock this week as something that has cost the city millions in on-going transport funding.

If the government hadn't paid for the harbour bridge and the Chapel Street overpass the city council would have been able to use the bridge tolls to carry on funding the transport network, says Larry.

'It hit me again just how much Winston stuffed up our plans really by getting everybody that bridge,” says Larry.

'Everyone thought it was a great deal but we are now looking at the northern (arterial) and these others are a long way out because we gave up one of the best funding mechanisms for our whole network that we could ever have.

'Auckland is where it is now because its politicians haven't got the courage to put a toll back on the bridge, which would fund everything in Auckland. And we were in the position where we could have had tolls on the new bridge, on both sides of the new bridge. We would have our northern, eastern, everything inter-linked.

'We have got to get back to Wellington with the message, that we can't stop spending money here or we will end up like Auckland very quickly.”

Larry's comments were made in discussing the draft Tauranga Transport Strategy 2012-2042. The report is ready for the start of the New Zealand Transport Agency support process. A final version of the strategy is expected to be presented to the Strategy and Policy Committee for adoption in September 2013.

The report is basically an update for the NZTA of the Tauranga Urban Network Study , which now gets agreement from the government road agency as the way road and transport issues will be dealt with in Tauranga over the next 30 years.

The advantage Tauranga has is a robust framework where transport, land use, and growth predictions are all linked via SmartGrowth, says transportation planner Philip King.

The transport model doesn't go as far into the future as the SmartGrowth predictions. The traffic predictions go to about 2031-2036, while SmartGrowth is looking out to 2040-2060, with growth in the Bay of Plenty continuing. He's hoping they will be able to align the transport growth with SmartGrowth after the current SmartGrowth review.

Councillors noticed there is a danger parts of the Tauranga transport network will become congested in the next three years unless money is spent.

'From my experience if you have the strategy in place and the land use, and you are prepared to help NZTA - successive governments both Labour and National and New Zealand first have invested heavily,” says Mayor Stuart Crosby. 'Get them in the tent and working with us, then the resources will keep coming.”