A few days ago there was an interesting, if rather anti public transport opinion piece in the NZ Herald, by former North Shore City mayor George Wood – called ‘Upgrading metro rail system incurs huge cost’. Strangely enough, he actually spends the first half of it outlining in good detail the necessity of Auckland’s CBD rail tunnel project. He says:
“We now hear from the latest Auckland Land Transport Strategy that many years will pass before we see major improvements.
The draft document indicates it is expected that the CBD rail tunnel will be constructed within the period 2021-2031. The costs of this tunnel and the building of station deep beneath the CBD is something that has not been addressed at this early stage.
Indicative figures for costs have been bandied around but there are no firm figures. It is clear that passenger trains must negotiate the one lineout of the Britomart Station for many years yet. Britomart has the potential to become a bottleneck that could take 20 years to resolve, especially if the passenger numbers more than double in the next seven years.
Aucklanders should be starting to get very worried where all this work on metro rail is heading. A fully electrified metro rail system, which included a double-tracked city CBD loop, was always the pipedream of our forebears. It would complete the dreams of former Auckland mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson.”
Now if he’d left it there it would have been a good opinion piece. The CBD rail tunnel has actually been around as an idea since the 1920s, and was investigated in great detail again in the 1950s and the 1970s – with the last of these occasions being the one that George Wood refers to. The point he makes about Britomart becoming a bottleneck is a critical issue and possibly the biggest justification for the CBD rail tunnel – and it is an issue that simply cannot be deferred until the 2021-2031 timeframe outlined in the RLTS. It is for this reason that the draft RLTS was rejected by the Regional Transport Committee as ‘lacking vision’.
Unfortunately, George Wood does not ‘leave it there’. He goes on to talk about how such a tunnel will be enormously expensive to build (nobody’s denying that, but it will also have enormous benefits) and also to operate (once again, nobody’s denying that, but it must be weighed up against its ongoing benefits and also against what the alternatives are. Do we just leave Britomart to become hideously congested? Do we look at alternative ways of relieving Britomart’s congestion? (which are all pretty expensive themselves). Do we undermine the $1.6 billion being invested in Auckland’s rail system over the past few years and over the next few years, by not encouraging land-use pattern changes in the city that would bring more people’s homes and jobs within reach of our rail system? Unfortunately these are all questions that Mr Wood ignores.
However, where Mr Wood really misses the point is when he starts talking about the interaction between land-use patterns and transport. His claim is that as Auckland has decentralised over the past few decades, it makes no sense to focus transport investments in the CBD. Of course, one cannot deny the fact that Auckland’s employment has decentralised hugely over the past few decades – to the extent that only around 12% of the region’s jobs are now located in the CBD. However, I do not think that makes the CBD rail tunnel unnecessary – for quite a few reasons.
The first reason is that the CBD rail tunnel would actually provide for suburb-to-suburb rail travel a lot better than the current system. As I have pointed out in a few rail maps showing how I think the CBD rail tunnel’s services should be configured, it would become viable for trains to run from west to south, via the CBD; or from east to a future airport line. At the moment the system really is a big giant dead-end at Britomart – which makes it only really useful for those who work in the city or who live and work along the same rail line. If trains were ‘through-routed’ then someone who lives in New Lynn and works in Ellerslie could have a single-ride to their job, while the train would still go via the CBD to ensure that it was popular enough to be viable (I can’t see huge demand for a current west-to-south service that bypasses the CBD, although I would be happy to be proven wrong there).
The second reason is that if we look at the planning documents for where Auckland is likely to grow over the next few decades, everything points towards a re-centralisation in the CBD and also a concentration of jobs and houses within important growth nodes – nodes that are typically located on the railway system. So while we have seen employment decentralisation in the past, we have learned (through the creation of office-parks that a just about impossible to adequately serve with good public transport) that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. While a lower proportion of North Shore residents need to travel across the Harbour Bridge to work each day than in the past, we now see heavy counter-flows of people on the south-side of the bridge who work in Albany – generally in places that the public transport network finds difficult to serve. In my opinion, this trend has led to huge problems for our transport system – as trips aren’t necessarily any shorter due to decentralised employment patterns, they’re just all over the place and more auto-dependent than ever.
Mr Wood’s argument that we need to simply provide for this process of decentralisation, and that it’s a key reason to not bother investing in CBD-focused public transport doesn’t wash with me. It’s the kind of ‘planning for the past’ that has led to such a disjoint between transport planning and land-use planning emerging over the past few decades. It is projects like the CBD rail tunnel that will enable our Regional Growth Strategy to be realised, and make it possible to avoid Auckland sprawling even further to the north and south. It is focusing on centralising employment within the CBD and development nodes that are well-serviced by public transport that will make it possible to reduce our auto-dependency – and therefore our vulnerability to the harshest effects of peak oil. It will also create more vibrant, people-friendly neighbourhoods that make Auckland a nicer place to live, work and play.
As has been stated a lot recently, when it comes to deciding which major transport projects we should embark upon we have to look at which projects fit best into the kind of city we are trying to create here. I see a clear link between projects like rail electrification and the CBD rail tunnel, and the growth strategies that have been generally agreed upon by the ARC and the various city and district councils within Auckland over the past decade.
If we are to change Auckland for the better then we need to ensure land-use planning and transport planning are both heading in the same direction – not working against each other as has happened too much in the past. To me that means building the CBD rail tunnel, ensuring electrification happens properly, focusing on some important roading project that alleviate critical bottlenecks in the current system (like the Victoria Park Tunnel project and parts of AMETI); but not simply providing for further decentralisation of employment where that doesn’t make sense and not providing for, and encouraging, Auckland to sprawl further and further.
Mr Wood misses this point, and it undermines his argument. We need to have our eye on the future, not on the past.
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The problem for those selling improvements in the rail system is that those living on the North Shore, as well as places like West Harbour, Greenhithe etc have no direct interest in seeing it happen. Hence George Wood as a former mayor and Penny Webster in Rodney are playing to their voters who will never support rail expenditure. Its little wonder that the biggest rail proponents in Auckland are Bob Harvey and Len Brown (who do have their own rail lines).
Contrast this situation to Wellington where every suburb (except the Eastern suburbs-who have a pretty good bus service) including rural districts have a stake in improving the system.
At the moment the North Shore has no-where near the population densities to justify a new rail system but it might in some places (Takapuna and Milford if they get more high rise- very likely given property values there) in 40-50 years. Hence when an underground loop is constructed provision should be made to connecting it to the next harbour crossing (which we will definitely need in the next 40 years).
Or, put more simply, sure the CBD rail tunnel will be expensive to build, but the cost of not building it will be even higher – economically, socially, environmentally.
That’s a good point Topcat and perhaps one of the main justifications for North Shore rail is simply an equity argument – and to get them on side for all rail upgrades. However, the North Shore can’t really complain too much as the Northern Busway is probably more reliable and certainly flasher than much of our rail system. As it’s high-speed and grade separated (at least south of Constellation) it basically is a railway in disguise, but with lower capacity (which isn’t an issue now, or for the next few decades).
Admin: Indeed the Northern Busway is cheaper than a railway and has more potential, the problem is much of its capacity lies idle. Hence my long standing support for allowing other vehicles to access it via paying a toll.
The whole land use premise is a gamble, a huge gamble that no evidence from overseas has yet shown that it works. The gamble is that by providing a railway people will want to move from living in detached houses to attached/apartment style homes near stations. The gamble is this will happen on a substantial scale that will be “beneficial” for them and Auckland as a whole. What hasn’t been adequately argued is why this is good, and whether this will happen.
Bearing in mind we are talking about literally billions of dollars being directed away from people would otherwise want to spend that money on. This is a huge cost for a small economy and is based on many assumptions that if they don’t come to pass, it will be too late – money spent, and those who pushed for it wont be asked to pay it back.
Do Aucklanders want to live in higher density housing? Well, apparently not. The apartment market is the most volatile, and people still strive for quarter acre sections. Why? Well it’s obvious – people want room, they want a back yard for their kids, they want quietness. The “more vibrant people friendly neighbourhoods” exist in the suburbs, you wont notice that apartment blocks or high density housing developments are particularly “more vibrant and people friendly”.
“In my opinion, this trend has led to huge problems for our transport system – as trips aren’t necessarily any shorter due to decentralised employment patterns, they’re just all over the place and more auto-dependent than ever” Well “all over the place” means far more networks are being used, rather than funnelling everyone down a handful of corridors into the centre. With intensification also comes cars. People don’t abandon them, and with more CBD jobs comes a proportion of commuters who go by car, probably as many as a half. In other words, congestion increases. London is chronically congested because of this density.
However, the answer to what you are saying is partly pricing. Imagine if all cars, not just diesel, paid RUC, and paid on a direct usage basis instead of prepaid. ERUC would mean people would make driving decisions based on distance, and think more carefully of how much it costs, not just in fuel and parking, but RUC too, for long driving commutes. Add in a time of day component for Auckland, and you get a very powerful incentive for less distances by car.
The funny thing is you could equip every road vehicles in Auckland for time distance and place based road pricing, refunding fuel tax in the meantime, and do more for mode shift, urban form, congestion and environment in Auckland than this obsession of building big flash railways. A full distance based congestion charging system for Auckland would cost the same as a CBD tunnel, and be revenue positive. This is based on $500 per OBU per vehicle including installation, and around $300m for the back office and related systems (with optimism bias).
You mind find that after that, the business case for a downtown CBD rail tunnel might look remarkably better. Some might even argue you would have found a way to pay for it.
Liberty – I think the busway has been kept for buses only because at peak times all the capacity is required, or at least will be in the reasonably nearish future. Once other vehicles are allowed onto the busway, I see a massive task in ever trying to get them off it. That’s why it has been opposed so vigorously.
If it was clearly signalled that other vehicles could only use it off-peak, that it was temporary and they would get booted if the buses needed the capacity, and if any safety issues were sorted out – then maybe I could see the logic in opening up the busway to other users.
I don’t buy the argument that people don’t want to live in higher-density places. Just have a look at what developers are generally proposing these days and often they’re wanting to squeeze as much out of their site as possible. If only our zoning controls made that a bit more possible, we’d probably solve Auckland’s housing affordability problems.
Liberty –
I think there’s something in-between high-rise apartment blocks and 1/4 acre sections going on. Speaking from experience; most people with two working parents and kids can’t even keep on top of mowing a lawn let alone run lavish flower gardens these days. For better or worse, town-houses with small gardens and the like are becoming the norm and that’s far higher density than what Auckland has seen in the past. This isn’t 1950.
I’d also like to see honest, fully accounted (distance and time-of-day), user-pays applied to private vehicles as well as an end to minimum parking requirements as I _suspect_ this would significantly help fix a very large number of Auckland’s problems in the medium to long term.
cheers.
It’s a huge investment…it will never happen.
Do you 1 billion for electrification is a huge investment? What about $2.3 billion for the “road to nowehere”?
Congestion charges of some form are coming over the next 20 years due to ever cars having greater fuel efficiency and electrics being developed, why not have the alternatives in development now..?
Why would you EVER want the Northern busway opened to cars?
The motorway isn’t congested offpeak anyway and it would just increase the travel time and decrease the patronage that buses are enjoying over cars
Scott, you are suggesting that a railway will only work if a big bunch of people live in attached houses or apartments near stations, this is a common assumption but I would say it is not only untrue but unrealistic on a wide scale anyway. Such an assumption ignores the evidence that some of the most successful suburban rail networks in the Anglosphere (such as most of Toronto and the new lines in Perth and Brisbane) primarily operate on a system of bus feeders servicing a wide area with quite low population density. The population density of the areas serviced by the successful new lines in Perth is far lower than anywhere in Auckland. Anywhere that can support a bus system can support a mixed bus and rail system, with the latter potentially providing whole-of-trip journey times and service standards superior to the former.
Certainly there will be a market for some high density housing in transit oriented developments, I would say among younger couples and singles without children, and perhaps to a lesser extent empty nesters and the like. I won’t deny that that form of housing doesn’t appeal to some groups, but the majority will still want to live in a detached house with a yard and the like. There is no reason a rail line cannot be part of the transport system servicing these houses to.
Jarbs, un-decentralisation has recently occured on a massive scale in Melbourne, I will have to go check my figures but I believe the number of jobs in the CBD has almost doubled in the last ten years. This is apparently the source of the majority of peak hour patronage growth on the rail network. I have seen it argued that the modern western economy in the globalised world is based around creative classes, the service industry and the financial sector, all of which demand location in a place with excellent access to infrastructure and services and are populated by staff who demand access to what the city can provide. I think it is safe to say that people following the move of industry out into the suburbs isn’t really a concern anymore, these days it is people following technology and services into the core.
The question is, will Auckland’s white collars end up in suburban business parks by the motorway like in American cities, or will the focuss on the central city and a few outer business districts? I would suggest the trend it toward the latter.
Nick, that’s very interesting to hear about a “re-centralisation” of jobs within the CBD in Melbourne. I think that something similar is likely in Auckland if we can sort out electrification, and particularly if we build the CBD rail tunnel.
I suspect that if you’re setting up an office somewhere and petrol is $2.50 a litre, there’s going to be big motivation to locate in the CBD where there are many transport options available.
The Northern Busway could have toll access for other vehicles on a continuously variable basis so people pay according to capacity. It isn’t difficult, and would raise money for further improvements along the corridor. If people value time and the road can offer savings, why not let them pay and fully utilise the capacity as long as speeds don’t drop below the speed limit on average.
Nick: I didn’t think the Auckland approach to rail was really about bus feeders to trains primarily, but about intensification. We all know people don’t like interchanges, so changing modes puts off a lot of people, for obvious reasons. I wonder how much of Perth and Brisbane is about park and ride, which may have more potential of course.
Your point on intensification is important, because it recognises that realistically most demographics wont want to live in high density housing. This LA Times report showed how such developments didn’t attract people who drove proportionately less than others and in fact the developments attracted more cars as people wanted to access local retail. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/30/local/me-transit30
The evidence for the “Transit oriented development” dream is flimsy. You see the fundamental problem is that while you can try to attract people to housing near a station, you can’t put their jobs at another station on the same line. It is the unfortunate assumption of planners that people will re-arrange themselves around what they want.
In Melbourne the question I’d ask is whether CBD jobs have grown faster or slower than the rest of greater Melbourne. I don’t know. However, bear in mind Melbourne is not a recent adherent to rail public transport, it always had it, so the marginal costs of running it are relatively low since the infrastructure is a sunk cost. It is different to start from scratch. Melbourne’s rail network (and tram network) are also far more ubiquitous than Auckland’s rail network, and you need to consider whether pouring billions after billions to fix that is the best use of taxpayers’ dollars, instead of having a lower tax economy that attracts business from Australia in the first place. There is such a thing as too much transport. For example, I doubt anyone here would argue that New Plymouth, Wanganui or Invercargill should reinstate tram networks.
Bear in mind the real limit on the CBD is land prices.
Of course people will ultimately choose. I’d be interested to note if there are any trends in real estate that mean people pay more to be near a station in Auckland, now. That will be a sure guide as to whether this is a trend Aucklanders would embrace or wishful thinking among planners who want people to do what they don’t want to do.
It would be particularly interesting to see what effect the Northern Busway has had on house prices in say Sunnynook. I know that I would consider living there now and would not have before.
Watch out Liberty I read something about W(h)anganui doing a study into introducing a heritage tramway and Dunedin a definitely looking at rebuilding a cable car…
Scott: You are right saying that the approach so far hasn’t included bus feeders (or even park-and-ride to any great extent) but I am suggesting it should, together with intensification around stations and eventually new lines.
My strategy for rail would cover those things: integration of the rail and bus systems into one network so that they complement each other rather than compete, which effectively extends the speed and quality benefits of rail to the extent of the bus network.
I would also advocate the easing of planning controls to allow higher density development around existing stations (and where capacity can be make sufficient, bus stops), and the extension of rail or busway rapid transit to service areas not currently serviced. Growth would primarily be met by intensifying around existing infrastructure, however new growth may be allowed if it is developed along with an appropriate mix of transport infrastructure (i.e. not simply connecting to the road network).
I don’t agree with your assumption that people don’t like interchanges and changing modes puts them off. Certainly where changing modes is difficult, expensive or time consuming that is true, as is the case in Auckland now, but there is plenty of evidence to show that people are not deterred where the mode change is simple and without extra cost and it saves them a significant amount of time. For Aucklanders, it might take them a while to adjust to the idea of taking a bus to get to another bus or train, but if people could save 10 minutes off their journey by making a 5 minute transfer, the majority would. Perhaps it isn’t so good for the occasional traveller or odd trip due to the planning involved, but for regular journeys to work or study transferring is fine.
If the feeder system can operate at a high level of service then taking the bus to the station is no more of a burden that driving a car to the station, both are indeed a mode change with an potential element of immediate delay that can nevertheless create a systemic time saving. While park-and-ride tends to be most convenient, a bus feeder could be superior where the bus has priority lanes and delivers the rider directly to the train platform, unlike a car which may involve quite a delay in traffic followed by the task of finding a park and walking across a large expanse of exposed carpark (e.g. at Constellation or Albany). While buses are frequently subject to delays and cancellation, there is no guarantee one would be able to get a carpark either. One deal-maker in favour of bus feeders would be integrated ticketing on a time or day-pass format. If one could get a (albeit convenient and reliable) bus feeder to the station for nil marginal cost over what they will pay for their main train/bus journey anyway, then suddenly the expense of driving to the park and ride becomes much less attractive. In many cases, the significant expense of owning that second or third car in the household might be drawn into question if it is only regularly used for the first leg of the trip to work.
I am a little sceptical of the urban village concept (which assumes that people will shop, work and play at their local ‘village’ in favour of any other in the centre), but I think transit-oriented development has more legs. Indeed it is unrealistic to think that most people would have a job/study/play on the same line as their home, which is why TOD would need to be built around a ‘metro’ style transit network rather than a suburb-to-CBD commuter system. Through the use of rapid headways, easy connections and a more grid like network (rather than purely radial), travelling between any two TOD’s on the network would be quick and easy.
I would see that as a model for Auckland’s future, a series of TOD’s around rail or busway links that are both generally radial but also form a wider grid across the city so that access to the central CBD, out BD’s, other TOD’s and places like university campuses and the airport are quick and painless. Within TOD’s there would be the choice of apartments and flats in the retail/commercial core, attached housing around the core or detached houses on full sections on the periphery up to 400-500m out from the station. Beyond that a rapid bus feeder loop allows the outer suburb to access the core retail/commercial and the station easily. One can still drive relatively easily if one so chooses, but in many cases it is easier and faster to take the grade-separated rapid transit and be free of traffic or parking worries.
The Melbourne CBD/inner area job share had definitely increased relative to the rest of the city. The trend now is for not only a relative decline in jobs in the suburbs but in many cases and absolute one also. It is too early to tell, but this could be an indication that the apparent trend toward suburbanisation of jobs never really took off like it has in many American cities. Certainly Melbourne appears to not really fit the ‘Donut City’ profile as much as some make out, and I would be happy if it doesn’t go any further that way in the future. In Melbourne people definitely pay more for easy access to the tram and rail networks, as I am finding out first hand at the moment. Likewise back in Auckland my otherwise mundane investment property commands quite a rental premium due to its location, which is both on the fringe of CBD, but also very handy to a rail station and high frequency bus services.