Vehicle pollution emissions have gone up 80 per cent from 1990 levels.

The Port of Tauranga is now the most efficient port in Australasia and annual profit has increased – a 7.9 per cent gain in annual profit in a year. Total trade rose 10 per cent to a record 22.2 million tonnes and it is the most productive container terminal in terms of productivity, which is 59 per cent higher than the average of Australian ports. It handled a record 1.08 million containers in the latest year, up about 14 per cent from 2016 levels. Log volumes rose 20 per cent to 5.49 million, dairy volumes gained 4.9 per cent to 2.2 million tonnes, oil products rose 10.4 per cent to 1.4 million tonnes and dairy food supplements gained 7.6 per cent to 1.16 million tonnes. Growth in cargo volumes were 8 per cent gain in export to 14.1 million and a 14 per cent gain in imports to 8 million tonnes. That is why our roads are congested with trucks, our emissions are rising and road maintenance costs are escalating. Electric cars will be on congested roads. Simon Bridges is behind the times as a lot of countries throughout the world have increased the use of rail. Rail freight is cheaper than road freight and rail maintenance on the lines is a lot lower than road maintenance. Pollution levels will drop too.

H Burrows, Papamoa.