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?