Councillors considered the next steps for 20 transport projects planned for the region after 16 new service improvements the council wanted to get under way did not receive funding from NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA).
Council chief executive Richard Saunders told councillors in Balclutha this week staff generally recommended not going ahead with the unfunded projects.
"We're certainly not recommending anything that requires us to rate more to make up for the lack of funding," Mr Saunders said.
"By and large we are recommending that we don't do any additional [transport projects] at all and we actually remove those rates from year two [of the long-term plan]."
The council would be in an "interesting position" if it chose to go ahead with services that were not being co-funded by NZTA, he said.
Doing so could make it difficult to attract funding for those projects in the future.
"Under the current government direction, it is becoming very clear that it is incredibly difficult to attract funding for any form of new public transport service, and if this council chooses to fund things on its own and they are up and running and they are part of our budgets — if I was sitting there with a very limited pool in my National Land Transport Fund, I would be saying, ‘Well, actually, there are some services here that are already up and running and they are already being funded and we can just leave them to it’."
Councillors decided to scrap plans for increased services between Dunedin’s Pine Hill and Calton Hill, and Opoho and Shiel Hill.
They scuppered additional Queenstown ferry services.
An Oamaru to Dunedin bus service will still be trialled, but proposed public transport within the town was dropped.
A trial bus service connecting Alexandra, Clyde, Cromwell and Queenstown was scaled back to an investigation into the best way to get commuters from Alexandra and Cromwell to Queenstown.
A Wānaka-Upper Clutha public transport business case was taken off the table.
In a statement yesterday, the council said earlier this year, Otago and Southland regional councils sought co-funding for a total of $1.78billion from the government for all transport projects across the regions but was allocated $1.4b — a shortfall of about $380m.
The funding round included projects for councils in Waitaki, Gore, Invercargill, Southland, Central Otago, Dunedin and Queenstown, as well as the regional council.
The major focus of the government was on "roads of national significance", resulting in a reduction in walking and cycling funding, the council said.
There were no roads of national significance in Otago or Southland, and the Otago shortfall for public transport was about $9m over the next three years.
However, at the Balclutha meeting, public and active transport committee co-chairman Cr Andrew Noone said there was demand for an airport service connecting Dunedin and Balclutha.
"Clearly there is a desire to have some form of a connection," Cr Noone said. "And we can talk around this table until we're blue in the face, but until we've actually got some data around whether it's feasible, etcetera, we'll never get any further.
"This is a relatively modest amount of funding to be able to get some more information, to be better informed, to be able to say yay or nay in terms of the connection."
A report to councillors at the meeting said the investigation would not require the planned rates collection of $164,682, but instead would require a smaller amount estimated to be about $50,000.
Yesterday’s council statement said staff would assess whether the changes would require consultation through the 2025-26 annual plan process.
