There’s an extremely interesting article in today’s Herald about Auckland’s CBD Rail Tunnel. Now, to be honest I think it’s great simply having articles in the newspaper about the CBD Rail Tunnel no matter what tone they have – simply because it raises awareness of this project. Just about everyone I know who has ever become aware of the CBD Rail Tunnel immediately realises it’s such a fantastic idea – and absolutely critical too when you start explaining the capacity constraints of Britomart.
Here’s the article in full:
Mayors’ extra rail plans worry minister
4:00AM Wednesday Oct 07, 2009The Government is becoming rattled by calls from Auckland Super City mayoral contenders for ambitious rail investment beyond the $1 billion electrification project.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce is trying to dampen early hopes for airport trains and for a central Auckland rail tunnel as officials continue to grapple with how to pay for electrification.
“What we are seeing is an attempt to create a bidding war to see who can wish for these things quicker,” he said after announcing new ownership arrangements through KiwiRail for electric trains the Government has yet to start ordering for Auckland.
“We are a long way from that stuff, and we have got to be careful we don’t get into a bidding war whereby the electrification is conflated together with the CBD rail tunnel or an airport rail link.”
His comments follow strong support for a tunnel to double Britomart’s rail capacity from the two contenders for the Super City leadership, Auckland City Mayor John Banks and Manukau Mayor Len Brown.
Mr Brown also rates airport rail as crucial for Auckland’s development, although Mr Banks has yet to be persuaded it will be economically viable.
KiwiRail and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority have commissioned a $5 million route investigation study for a 3.5km rail tunnel from Britomart to Mt Eden, but Mr Joyce said he had yet to see any cost-benefit assessment.
“I am prepared to be convinced it’s a good idea, but you need to know how much it is going to cost, which we are nowhere near knowing, and what does it do in terms of improved services and travel across the lines,” he said.
But although the transport authority has yet to firm up an initial cost estimate ranging from $1 billion to $1.5 billion, it predicted last year that an inner rail loop would make downtown Auckland accessible to 370,000 people by train trips of 30 minutes or less.
Mr Banks re-affirmed yesterday that the project would be an important part of his mayoral campaign.
He says Britomart could become constrained by 2015 if it is left as a dead-end terminus, but turning it into a through station would double capacity to almost 40 trains an hour.
“Those are 40 good reasons – this is not about a wishing list; those comments are offensive,” he said of Mr Joyce’s words.
“The people will elect me to lead, not to follow. I don’t follow the Minister of Transport, I lead the citizens of Auckland and will do my best to convince this Government and successive governments of the need for it.”
Mr Banks said although he was confident the tunnel would be built “sooner rather than later”, and he was looking forward to Auckland’s ability to speak with one voice as the Super City, he could not promise it by 2015 because of New Zealand’s heavy international indebtedness.
Mr Brown urged the minister to leave Aucklanders to debate their transport needs over the next 13 months before delivering a strong mandate to their new Super City leaders for a 15-year to 20-year work programme.
“I think it is important for the minister to not be overly-involved in this campaign – he is overly-enthusiastic on this issue.”
He said Mr Joyce should take a “watching brief” until the Super City was ready to engage with the Government over its residents’ priorities.
Regional chairman Mike Lee said it was absurd that the Government should want to spend $2.3 billion on a “holiday highway” between Puhoi and Wellsford, a route carrying about 15,000 vehicles a day, when Auckland was desperate for public transport to ease urban road congestion.
“Auckland needs the money for investment on the isthmus to enable more efficient use of all transport corridors, rail and road,” he said.
“It is ridiculous having under-utilised rail corridors next to jammed up road corridors.”
It is pretty damn unusual to get John Banks, Len Brown and Mike Lee to all agree on something, so this is quite amazing and bodes really well for the future of this project. In fact, it’s really not a political football at all within Auckland anymore, but rather something that all three of these important politicians (and one has to assume that the future mayor of Auckland’s Super City will be one of these three people) agree is critical – even given that it’s an enormously expensive project.
It is also, in my opinion, rather isolating Joyce. And, in terms of him demanding a cost-benefit assessment – need I mention Puhoi-Wellsford? While I imagine/hope that there will be a rigorous cost-benefit assessment of the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway, $100 million has been dedicated to it over the next three years for investigation and land purchasing without the tiniest bit of analysis into whether the project is justified. On the other hand, the CBD Rail Tunnel has been on the plans for 80 years, and ARTA have already done quite a bit of analysis of its benefits to the CBD (estimated at around $2 billion by the way).
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That was a fantastic article… Made Joyce look like a bit of a dinosaur in love with fossils, if you know what I mean…
I do wonder if Steven Joyce is feeling a bit bemused by all this support for rail in Auckland. It does look like he didn’t expect it. There really does seem to be a lot of widespread public support for this, there have been pro rail letters to the Herald just about every second day for the last couple of weeks.
Great to see John Banks and Len Brown joining the chorus.Praticularly Banks. Mike Lee has been doing a great job of keeping the pressure on Joyce, it needs to continue. Something tells me the Minister is going to drag his feet all the way on this one.
The funny thing is, John Banks was at a roading project I worked on talking about how great the Rail Tunnel will be. He won alot of my respect at that meeting.
Um, the investigation into Puhoi-Wellsford is precisely to be able to DO a BCR analysis. What do you think an investigation is for? Land purchase is hardly wasted when if it does not proceed it can be sold (and given this time in the property market cycle it isn’t entirely foolish to start buying land).
The CBD rail tunnel does NOT have a fully surveyed route and would also need a similar level of investigation and land purchase as well. Until ARTA has done a NZTA compliant appraisal, then its analysis is far from complete. You really shouldn’t believe everything ARC/ARTA tells you.
You simply cannot produce a robust business case for a CBD rail tunnel until you can have some better indication of demand post electrification. If you demand rigour in road projects to be funded by road users, you ought to expect the same from rail projects you want road users or general taxpayers (anyone but the rail users themselves) to pay for.
I am not necessarily demanding a highly detailed analysis for Puhoi-Wellsford at this stage. Anything will do. Considering it carries 1/6th the number of vehicles as Waterview Connection is expected to, and according to my calculations will save a maximum of 10 minutes per vehicle compared to a 15 minutes per vehicle saving for Waterview, it seems like a waste of time from the start. At least preliminary investigations of the CBD rail tunnel show significant potential benefits.
I’m all for rail users to pay for the upgrade through ticketing, however I do ask for the same sort of investment there was in roading to get rail to the point where they can sustain themselves.
Also it is under my opinion that local roads still recieve funding by the rate payers? So roading is still not fully sustained by road users either. I wonder if light rail would be rails equivelent of local roading?
However getting the route surveyed is not a big problem, Land purchases a little harder but if this is the time to buy as u suggest in the Puhoi-Wellsford example why are they not? Cause land purchase is hardly wasted when if it does not proceed it can be sold (and given this time in the property market cycle it isn’t entirely foolish to start buying land).
Liberty – I agree all transport projects, roading, public transport or otherwise must be have thorough analysis done on them before public funds are committed there must be as you put it a “robust business case” put forward. I agree The CBD rail tunnel cannot be committed to until this analysis (currently underway) is completed and the estimated benfits are known. Even though as has been pointed out the preliminary numbers look promising.
However i think what Josh is getting at here is the inconsistant stance of the Minister. He has said(rightly) that rail projects like the CBD cannot be promoted without further analysis undertaken. However at the same time Joyce has pledged a large amount of public money towards land aquisition for a roading project that has had no analysis done on it whatsoever. He’s also suggested that it should be promoted up the list of the region’s transport priorities. What this says it there is a inherent bias in his thinking because he is happy to commit to an unanalysed project just as long it’s a roading one.
Joshua, the last route proposed for the CBD tunnel involved very little land acquisition, and very little substrata impact too for that matter, as it basically all ran under the road corridor and council owned land. The only significant purchaces will be of a few large industrial units and a newish (but shoddy) apartment building where the southern portal and junction will be.
In no way is the road network fully sustained by road user charges and petrol tax if that’s what you mean, a lot comes out of rates and the tax take. However if you consider the fact virtually all ratepayers and indeed taxpayers in Auckland are road users in some way, the arguably then roads are entirely sustained (directly and indirectly) by road users. As a public good it is easy to justify the general populace as a whole paying for the road system, the issue now is whether the rail network and the rest of the public transport system can be afforded the same justification.
Right now, probably not, except on the basis of the assumption that every person on a train or bus is a person not taking up roadspace in a car, and therefore they benefit road users.
Thanks Nick R, also my main arguement is that you are not giving the people proper choice unless you equally invest. And was also twisting Liberty’s words to show that it works both ways.
Cam, yes indeed the point is that Joyce seems to have one rule for public transport projects and then another rule for his pet roading projects. It doesn’t make sense.
Of course road users benefit from and should help pay for any improvement of non road PT, as it is the only tool against congestion. Every school kid and nana on a train is one off the road and out of the road users’ way… That was the one elegant thing about the petrol tax; it is both carrot and stick. Anyway we already subsidise the full cost of road travel and it’s time, way past time, to rapidly push the balance the other way. Joyce’s heart may be in 50s America, or even 30s Germany, but we have to drag the debate into the 21st century…. I won’t say where I think his head is.
Cam, yes fair point. I believe in applying the same criteria across the board. It was lost under the last government and now flipped the other way with this one.
Joshua: How long does rail want to be sustainable? It has existed in New Zealand since the late 19th century, it has been bleeding money directly since the early 1970s.
Nick R: NZTA is fully funded from all road taxes now, so you are wrong. Local roads are part paid by ratepayers, which could arguably be considered an access charge to properties (though hardly an economically efficient one). Bear in mind the entire ratepaying component could be eliminated by around a 8-9c/l increase in fuel tax and equivalent RUC increase. There is a case for this.
This assertion “every person on a train or bus is a person not taking up roadspace in a car” is patently untrue. In the absence of the bus or train the person could either have:
– Driven;
– Been a passenger in a car that was already being driven;
– Cycled;
– Walked;
– Not taken the trip at all, consolidating multiple trips.
Many users of public transport do not have access to a car for that trip, some would have shared with others in a car.
Vincent: Rail based PT is not the only tool against congestion. Demand management is a more effective and cheaper tool, particularly price. It started being used in the 1970s, and is now a core part of the debate of urban transport policy in North America, Europe and even Australia. That is the debate in the 21st century in the rest of the world, Auckland is playing with the sort of policies that have been tried and failed in the US in the 1970s – big rail projects.
Liberty – need I mention the huge cross-subsidies of free parking and minimum parking requirements? Furthermore, what use are fully funded state highways without locally subsidised roads to access them?
And never mind the uncounted externalities caused by vehicle air pollution, CO2 emissions and the like… Have you ever thought why rents on Vulcan Lane are so much higher than those on Customs Street? Could it have anything to do with how unattractive such a busy wide street is to potential tenants? Where’s the wealth destroyed by traffic’s effects on urban quality measured?
Admin: Do taxpayers pay for free parking? If so, how? Like I said, increase FED and RUC to get 100% local road FAR and it will make little difference to modal share.
They are NOT uncounted externalities. STCC counted them. Local air quality is an issue, but other than in Auckland, it is primarily an issue of household fireplaces. Don’t see too many of the public transport movement campaigning on that, could it be that they are less concerned about environmental outcomes and more concerned about bashing private motoring?
The “wealth destroyed” by traffic’s effects is internalised in property prices. Along with wealth created, depending on the business. Lots of people don’t like living beside railway lines either, rarely are property prices higher for being beside any major transport corridor. However, caveat emptor.
Liberty: Yes the rail has been around and ‘bleeding money’ since the 1970’s. However since the 1970’s there hasn’t been the investment applied to rail to make it sustainable, they haven’t been able to compete with the roading and SH investments from government thats has made roading such a success (now too much of a success). All the money has been doing is keeping it alive. If they had invested in rail earlier we wouldn’t have to spend money to keep it alive as it would be fully sustainable paying for it’s own improvements. However what I’m saying is that it’s not to late to get rail to the point where it can look after itself, all it needs is an equal investment simular to what the roading network was able to obtain.
How much wealth is destroyed per year in traffic accidents?
The NZTA estimates an economic cost to the country of $1.4 million for every life lost on our roads (in Australia it’s $6 million, so you’re worth more over there) so with an average road toll of about 400 hundred that is an economic lost to NZ of $560 million, $2.4 billion if Aussie figures are to be believed…
That does not take into account emotional loss or any injuries in traffic accidents all of which is an economic loss too, in the case of physical injuries probably much larger than the deaths…
In comparison there is 1 death per 300 million rides on London’s tube and most of those are suicides…
So all up, the CBD tunnel would probably cost less than a couple of years worth of road carnage.
The best way to lower the road toll and to reduce congestion is, without a doubt, higher petrol prices. Last year’s road toll was the lowest in decades while congestion on Auckland’s roads in particular was far far less than it has been for years too.