In pure­ly coin­ci­den­tal tim­ing just before an elec­tion, the Nation­al Par­ty is hand­ing out new roads in an Oprah-like fash­ion. You get a road, and you get a road and YOU get a road. How we’re going to get a cou­ple of bil­lion dol­lars of new roads out of a bud­get full of holes for the needy to fall through is an inter­est­ing ques­tion.

So we’d like to pro­pose a (par­tial) solu­tion to Welling­ton’s traf­fic prob­lems that won’t cost any mon­ey. Let’s encour­age more busi­ness­es to offer flex­itime to their employ­ees and actu­al­ly mean it. Imag­ine if a quar­ter of all work­ers were removed from the roads between 8am-9am. There’d be less traf­fic. There’d be more room on pub­lic trans­port, mak­ing it a bet­ter option for those who take it. Peo­ple with kids might have more time to walk them to school rather than drop­ping them off then rac­ing to get to work. Some forms of pub­lic trans­port are cheap­er in off-peak times too. That’s a lit­tle extra mon­ey in your pock­et.  Walk­ing or cycling is nicer to do when you’re not in peak time fumes.

And while we’re doing this, let’s make sure to empha­size that start­ing late and work­ing late is just as vir­tu­ous as start­ing ear­ly and fin­ish­ing ear­ly. Yes, it’s not an option for every­one. But it could be, and should be, for a lot more peo­ple than are cur­rent­ly work­ing flex­itime.

Won’t some­one please think of the roads?