Transit New Zealand (

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

: Ararau Aotearoa), which existed from 1989 to 2008, was the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Crown entity A Crown entity (from the Commonwealth term ''Crown'') is an organisation that forms part of New Zealand's state sector established under the Crown Entities Act 2004, a unique umbrella governance and accountability statute. The Crown Entities Act i ...

responsible for operating and planning the

New Zealand state highway network The New Zealand state highway network is the major national highway network in New Zealand. Nearly 100 roads in the North and South Islands are state highways. All state highways are administered by the NZ Transport Agency. The highways were ...

(10,894 km, about 12% of New Zealand's roads). It also concerned itself with developments close to state highways, as it considered the potential additional traffic that these would create, and it was responsible for state highway landscaping. Transit New Zealand was merged with

Land Transport New Zealand Land Transport New Zealand was a Crown entity in New Zealand, tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, and includes responsibilities such as driver and vehicle licensing. It was created on 1 December 2004 by the Land Transpor ...

to form the

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (commonly known as Waka Kotahi, and abbreviated as NZTA) is a New Zealand Crown entity tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, including the responsibility for driver and vehicle licensing, an ...

(NZTA) on 1 August 2008. Transit's website was still active up to 9 December 2009, when the new NZTA website was launched with streamlined information from the Transit website.

Structure

Transit had an annual operating budget of over NZ$1 billion and about 450 staff, with much of its actual planning and design work contracted out to construction companies and consultancies. Almost all of its funding was approved by the government's land transport funding agency

through the

National Land Transport Programme National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

. Until 1996 Transit approved subsidies for passenger transport services contracted by regional councils, before this was devolved to Transfund and then Land Transport New Zealand (now NZTA). However, the government proposed that Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand be merged again, with some functions devolved to the Ministry of Transport. This eventually took place in 2008, creating the NZTA.

History

Transit New Zealand was the successor to similar previous entities. The ''Main Highways Board'', created on 1 April 1924, to facilitate the overall planning and control of roads on a national basis, especially arterial routes, under the control of the

Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...

. Initially it divided the country into 18 highway districts. After World War II, the ''National Roads Board'' was formed. During this time, deferred maintenance and a great need for bridge works were complicated by a lack of manpower, plant and materials at a time when traffic volumes rose steeply and rural areas were opened up to road traffic.More about Transit - History
(from the official Transit New Zealand website. Accessed 7 February 2008.) During the economic reforms of the 1980s direct Government control of service provision was reduced, and new methods of providing for roads were developed. On 1 April 1988, the Ministry of Works and Development was corporatised and the National Roads Board's operational arm, the Roading Division, was incorporated into the Ministry of Transport. On 1 October 1989 it became Transit New Zealand. The agency also came under some criticism for being 'anti-development'. It often lodged objections to resource consent applications which in its opinion created safety or capacity problems on close-by motorways (such as large retail developments like

Sylvia Park Sylvia Park is a large business park and shopping centre in the Auckland suburb of Mount Wellington in New Zealand. Less commonly known, the area around the centre (which includes some residential and other commercial developments) is also ca ...

) or required substantial consultation and mitigating measures for them before they were allowed to go ahead.

Rodney District Council Rodney District was a local government area in the northernmost part of New Zealand's Auckland Region from 1989 to 2010. It included Kawau Island. It was created from the amalgamation of Helensville Borough and Rodney County in 1989. The seat ...

once threatened court action, alleging that the agency was effectively preventing any substantial development within its area.

References

{{authority control Government agencies of New Zealand New Zealand Crown entities Transport authorities in New Zealand