The government’s plan to build a cycle way the length of New Zealand encapsulates two key themes of this National administration.

• It’s for wealthy tourists, not New Zealanders – it won’t get us to work or study, but it’ll allow wealthy western tourists the clean green NZ experience well insulated from the reality of our car dependency.
• It’ll provide work for the construction industry – mostly men, mostly larger business, returning good profits to wealthy shareholders.

Of the two it’s the first that bothers me most (the second is just business as usual for National), building cycle ways to get people to work or study would make a real difference in our real lives. Whether you’re planning for peak oil, a recession, an ETS or carbon tax, or reducing obesity making it safe for people to cycle commute would have been a huge step forward.

Instead we’re green washing the exhaust fumes to look good to the rest of the world.