Well following on from my last blog post, about Auckland’s transportation, I got a comment on this blog by Joel Cayford from the ARC. I was going to post a reply, but it became rather long so I think I’ll just write a whole post in response.
The comment was:
Josh,
Have been thinking about the proposed Britomart tunnel project for a while. It seems to have several benefits: increasing the capacity of rail through the station and CBD; having a rail station at Karangahape Rd or thereabouts; reducing the number of buses that have to be driven into the CBD by providing good transfer stations and frequent rail. But it will be at a huge cost – about $1 billion at last count. What alternative rail projects are there that might achieve similar benefits – maybe excluding a K Rd station? Like increasing the number of lines into Britomart (from 3 to 5). I saw in other forums there has been discussion about the capacity of other Auckland rail corridors being increased or enhanced. That might require some property purchase etc – but might be a better alternative. What do you think? Who else might have an informed view on that?
OK well a few really interesting issues there. Yes I agree that the CBD rail loop is a giant transportation project for Auckland. The $1 billion price tag seems to have doubled in the past few years, but I guess that’s the cost of delaying the project (it would have been built in the 1970s if it wasn’t for the 1975 National Government, by the way). When one compares it with other transportation projects like the $330 million Manukau Harbour Crossing Project, or the approximately $300 million ALPURT B2 project (the Orewa-Puhoi toll road that opens soon), the cost is pretty staggering. Although, when you compare it with the $1.89 billion Waterview Connection project (for one road), I guess the price seems a little less. I guess we should look at the benefits of the CBD loop first.
The capacity of Britomart is freed up. To me this is probably the biggie. Because Britomart has only two railway lines in the tunnel from Quay Park into the station, it’s limited to something like 18 trains coming in and out of the station per hour. Apparently signal improvements coming in the next year or so would improve this to 24 trains per hour (as trains could come in or out on either of the two tracks, though you need to trust your signalling a lot so a train coming in doesn’t smash into a train leaving). 24 trains per hour is actually not very much at all. I think currently we’re at around 16-17 trains per hour during peak times, which means that we’ve got hardly any spare capacity for future development.
To me this is a pretty hopeless situation. I think of Auckland’s rail system as being in its infancy. Sure, the number of people catching trains has increased dramatically in the past few years (something like 3-fold since 2003), but in the end it is only about 10% of our public transport users, which themselves is only about 10% of all transportation trips made. So, to me that means that rail is basically serving about 1-2% of Auckland’s population each workday, and we’re stuck around that level? That’s pretty hopeless. In a world where peak oil is an inevitability, I can see Auckland in 2030 needing to transport 20-30% of its population via the rail system (at the very least) considering that our electrified (yay, that was finally confirmed this week) system may well be the only transportation that is de-coupled completely from oil prices.
So potentially a system that can have the capacity to handle 10 times its current passenger numbers might be needed. This isn’t too unrealistic when you look at the rail systems in Perth and Brisbane, two fairly similar sized cities to Auckland that have immensely more rail users than we do. Unfortunately, having Britomart as a terminal station is going to severely limit our ability to handle those additional passengers.
If our system is going to struggle to handle much more than 25% more trains at peak hour than it currently can, then it really puts in jeopardy all the other steps that have been taken, or are being taken, to get more people out of their cars and onto public transport. Integrated ticketing is likely to be a huge factor in increasing the use of rail when it eventually happens: as one imagines most people who catch long-distance buses from the south and west of the city will switch to catching feeder buses into stations and then hopping on a train. Especially if trains are running at the 10 minute frequencies planned for by 2011, there will be a general feeling from the public that one can just ‘turn up and go’. This level of frequency has been seen internationally as crucial for a big increase in patronage, as people really like not having to worry about timetables, or whether if their feeder bus is slightly late they’ll miss a train and have to wait half an hour for the next one.
New electric trains, which should be coming in from 2010 onwards, should make catching a train a far more attractive option. They’ll be much faster, much more reliable and much quieter. This should lead to further significant increases in the number of people catching a train. It currently takes about 25 minutes to get from Avondale to Britomart on the train, compared with about 10-15 minutes by car – offpeak. Shave 5-8 minutes off that journey by having more powerful electric trains that can accelerate faster, and you have a journey time that competes agains the car to a much greater extent off-peak, and probably kicks its ass completely during peak hours. Once again, coupled with all other improvements I’ve outlined to the rail network, you get further increases in patronage – and potentially further pressure on the bottle-neck of Britomart.
The final way in which train use will increase in the medium-to-longer-term is through greater integration with land-use planning. A number of policy documents in the past few years have sought to align transportation policy with land use planning policy to a far greater extent. What this really means is that around train stations, areas will be encouraged to become higher-density. You’ll have nice little growth nodes of apartments and townhouses within walking distance of each train station. Transit-oriented developments (TODs) have worked hugely successfully overseas, and are a great way of increasing transit usage (just think, if you can’t bring the rail to the people, you bring the people to the rail). There are relatively few areas around Auckland where the train stations are actually located in decent areas : Newmarket, Kingsland, Mt Albert, New Lynn, Henderson, Glen Innes, Panmure, Manurewa and Papakura. Intensification in these areas, and around other railway stations, is really only just beginning. Upgrades to key stations such as New Lynn and Newmarket, is underway – and will surely lead to further increases in the number of people using trains from these locations.
For a very long time Auckland’s rail system was terribly under-used. We had masses of spare capacity, but because there were hardly any trains and the central train station was located in a stupid place, nobody used the system. This led to even poorer frequencies, and it was a terrible downward cycle of cumulative causation. However, over the past few years this cycle has been reversed, and as I have outlined above, we’re now in the situation where the rail system is reaching capacity and is potentially going to exceed it, even if our rolling stock numbers keep increasing and other capacity improving projects like double-tracking of the western line are completed. I guess it’s a bit tricky to get our head around the idea of too many people using the rail system, as for so long it was seen as something used at a level far below its capacity. But really, I strongly get the feeling that – at least at peak times – we’re pretty much at that point. A lack of rolling stock has largely been to blame for overcrowding on trains so far, but that problem is slowly disappearing, and with Britomart as a terminal station, there is of course that limit to how many trains can actually be run.
OK, enough with detailing why 24 trains per hour serving Britomart is going to become woefully inadequate in the fairly near future. Let’s look at other reasons for the CBD loop. Firstly, the existing Britomart train station is located at the far southern edge of town. Queen Street is actually a surprisingly long street, and many many people work, live or study further up it. When I catch a bus into town it seems like a quarter of the bus gets off at the corner of Symonds Street and K Rd, about half of it gets off at the university precinct for Auckland Uni and AUT, and about a quarter of the bus stays on until it gets into town (and that’s only to midtown). I get the feeling that the university precinct and the K Rd area are pretty massive attractions for people who would use public transport, and therefore having train stations in close proximity to them would open up the use of rail to many more people in the city. It would also take a lot of pressure off Queen Street buses. Ideally, I think we should eventually hope for Queen Street to be pedestrianised, but the main thing stopping that at the moment is probably the large number of buses that run along it. I get the feeling that a lot of these buses are necessary for people who catch trains to Britomart, and then bus up Queen St to the K Rd area. Having a train station closer to university (ie. Midtown station) would also benefit a huge number of public transport users (generally about half the people on buses I catch at least).
I think the final way in which the CBD loop would be really useful is to create “through-routes” for rail much more. If you look at London Underground routes, or even most routes on CityRail in Sydney, they do not terminate in the central city, or even anywhere near the central city. They run from one side of the city, through the middle, and then out the other side. This actually makes public transport useful for people who don’t work in the city. Apparently only about 10% of jobs in the Auckland region are in the CBD, and while public transport usage for people who work in the CBD is reasonable (it should be 70% or more like Melbourne really), public transport usage for people working out of the CBD is horrific. Having ‘through routes’ means that catching a train makes sense if you live in Mt Eden but work in Glen Innes, or if you live in Ellerslie but work in Henderson. At the moment Newmarket is the only half-possible transfer point, but the trains often don’t coincide, and in any case the current station redevelopment has split the two stations apart. That will further encourage train use.
Well I think that’s a pretty strong case for the CBD rail loop. However, as Mr Cayford says in his comment on my previous post, it is one heck of an expensive project. A project that nobody has committed funding to in any shape or form (except for the Green Party, hence they’re getting my vote at the upcoming election). So what are some ways to alleviate the problem without going “the whole hog?” I guess perhaps I should start by looking at some potential issues I have with the CBD loop.
Firstly, it doesn’t really look like it would help improve access to the university precinct that much. With something like 50,000 people going to either Auckland Uni or AUT – and them being a demographic that traditionally uses public transport a lot – a dedicated university station would be enormously popular. Secondly, I have heard that the only way the CBD loop could be built would mean that where it links with the western line near Mt Eden, only a west-facing link could be built. This means that the loop could only be served by trains coming from the west at this point. It also means that all trains heading into Britomart from the southern or eastern lines would have to either turn around like they currently do, or head through out to the west. The western line just doesn’t need that many trains, especially when you consider it also needs to serve Boston Rd station and Newmarket. In order for the CBD loop to work, you’ll need to have the loop able to go west (ie. Britomart-Midtown-K Rd- Mt Eden-Kingsland) and east (ie. Britomart-Midtown-K Rd-Mt Eden-Boston Rd-Newmarket). I’m not sure if Mt Eden station would be served by both, and it’s not that essential. Southern line trains would need to be able to go around the loop (maybe all would go clockwise and become eastern line trains), as would eastern line trains (go anti-clockwise and become southern line trains). That would take a lot of pressure off the Newmarket to Britomart line, which would be used for some southern line trains, some western line trains (those that ended up serving Boston Rd and Newmarket) and trains from Onehunga.
Anyway, sorry that did get way too confusing. The last points raised by Mr Cayford look at alternatives to the CBD loop that would help ease congestion. I’m a bit mixed in even considering them, as I believe the CBD loop is so important, but as an intermediary step I guess a lot could be done to imrprove things. Firstly, the main capacity constraint is the tunnel into Britomart. It only has two tracks, and that limitation creates the current bottleneck. Given that construction of the CBD loop is probably at least 10 years away from completion (even in the best circumstances), widening this tunnel is probably an essential step in the meanwhile. However, this is no easy task as the trench which the two tracks come into Britomart are located in is squeezed between Vector Arena and a pile of other big buildings to the south, and Quay Street to the north. It’d probably be necessary to add two more tracks under Quay Street. How’d you do this I’m not sure, as I’m a planner and not an engineer. But it would be possible I’m sure. Maybe two extra tracks into Britomart would significantly increase the number of train movements it can handle, but you still end up with capacity constraints elsewhere. The Otahuhu to Papakura part of the southern line really needs to be 4-tracked, as you’re probably going to end up with trains at 3-4 minute frequencies along that stretch of line in the fairly near future. Four-tracking also means that you can run express trains without messing up timetables – significantly increasing the attractiveness of catching a train for people south of Manurewa, for example.
The other possible solution is creating a rail “balloon loop” past Britomart. This would enable trains to continue straight ahead as they reach Britomart, turn a full circle underneath Westfield downtown, and then come back the other side. This set-up means you would always have “arriving platforms” and “departing platforms”, which combined with two clear “incoming lines” and two clear “outgoing lines” may significantly improve capacity without the need for the CBD rail loop. However, you obviously dont’ get the other benefits of the CBD loop.
So Mr Cayford, I hope that answers some of your questions. I suggest hanging around the Campaign For Better Transport forum as that’s where most of my ideas have come from. If you ever need a transportation planner for the ARC… I guess it’s my dream job for the future.
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