One of the most interesting projects to come out of last Fridays “job summit” a conference organised to discuss protecting and creating jobs during the recession, is the idea of building a cycle way covering the length of New Zealand, to attract tourists and create construction jobs. The plan has brought a variety of responses. The Cycling Advocacy Network says the plan makes economic sense;

Major cycling infrastructure projects overseas have brought significant long-term benefits in terms of tourism. Here in New Zealand the success of the Otago Central Rail Trail has shown how a traffic-free route for cycling and walking can have big benefits for the local economy, creating jobs and new business opportunities

The group is also seeking a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the idea. The cycle way has been compared to the work projects seen during the great depression of the 1930’s. Historian Tony Simpson told TVNZ he isn’t convinced of the benefits, stating “You can’t find your way out of a recession by just doing dozens of relatively small one off projects” Political commentary blog The Standard was more scathing in its criticisms, deconstructing the projects budget of $50 million over 2 years.

$25 million a year? That’s 0.015% of GDP. It’s like if every man woman and child bought one extra Big Mac a year. It’s supposedly meant to employ 4000 people but what the journos miss is that they would only be employed for a few months each. Even if half the money went to employing workers the number of work hours it would buy is only 1 million over two years, and we lost 17 million work hours from the economy in the December quarter alone. It’s less than a pittance, smaller than an irrelevancy.