New roads to the north, south and west of Auckland may be bankrolled by tolls on motorists if National wins the election.
Party transport spokesman Maurice Williamson has even indicated that commuters may face bills of up to $50 a week from tolls of $3 to $5 a trip on new motorways or similar "roads of national importance".
But he believed that most people, if given a clear choice between tolls or queuing on free roads, would gladly pay up.
"If that was translated into a lot less money than you're currently burning just sitting going nowhere, most New Zealanders will go with it," he said.
Mr Williamson said National had yet to decide which new roads might be built from extra infrastructure loans of up to $750 million a year, possibly to be repaid with tolls.
Although the former Transit NZ (now part of the Transport Agency) backed off tolling the Auckland ring route in the face of public opposition to tolls, Mr Williamson said he believed that was because it did not ask the right questions.
"If you go out to the public and say, `Would you like to pay more?', no-one is going to say `yes' to that - it's a ridiculous type of question," he said.
"You have to consult with the right questions, saying [paying tolls] will mean major reductions in fuel and time."
He believed a major block to public acceptance of tolls had been removed by new legislation committing all money raised from fuel taxes to be paid into the national land transport fund.
"I think New Zealanders will now say, "Well OK. If it is going to provide a solution to a problem I face and you are not stealing my petrol tax, well then I'll go for it'."
Mr Williamson promised more law changes to make it easier to attract investment for public-private partnerships (PPPs) for projects.
Although these have been possible since 2003, the fact there were still no PPP transport projects highlighted obstacles such as a 35-year operating limit.
"Other countries have more realistic time-frames, in the order of 50 and 60 years, to get a reasonable return on your investment."
But he acknowledged that being slow to attract PPPs gave New Zealand the advantage of mistakes learnt elsewhere, such as in Australia, where the state initially allowed private investors "to take all the windfall gains and basically socialise all the losses".
"Now Victoria, New South Wales and even Queensland let the costs fall where they lie, telling the private sector there is no guarantee we'll bail you out where things go wrong," he said.
Asked about a statement he made on Television One's Agenda programme that tolls would be placed only on new roads, he acknowledged exceptions might be needed for such projects.
Tolling a tunnel under Waitemata Harbour while keeping the existing bridge free would otherwise lead to "dreadful distortion" in traffic, against which he believed even Labour would make an exception.
Potential for tolls -
• Auckland's next crossing of Waitemata Harbour (expected to cost at least $4 billion).
• Auckland's motorway tunnels through Waterview on western ring route ($1.9 billion).
• A 19km motorway extension to Warkworth or beyond ($1 billion-plus).
• Completion of Waikato Expressway on State Highway 1 ($1 billion).
• Kopu bridge at gateway to Coromandel Peninsula ($32 million).
