In recent times I have been very pleased to see that all the main mayoral candidates for the Auckland Super City appear to support significant investment in upgrading public transport in Auckland, most particularly in the widespread enthusiasm for big ticket projects like the CBD Rail Tunnel and rail to the Airport (although I have noted that a North Shore Line might be a step too far at the moment). An article in the NZ Herald today, which reports on a mayoral debate at Auckland University last night, suggests that perhaps John Banks is going to break away from his previous commitments to rail projects.
There are a few relevant extracts, starting with this:
John Banks has cast doubt about his commitment to rail and other major projects in Auckland after accusing his Super City mayoral opponent Len Brown of “ticking off $40 billion of spending”.
“I’m going to hold your rates affordable, I’m not going to promise you six lanes under the harbour, airport links … building this and putting money into that.
“We simply cannot go on in meetings like this and recklessly buy votes and treat you like an ATM machine,” Mr Banks told several hundred people at Auckland University last night.
In the first real testy exchange of the campaign, Mr Brown said he was surprised to hear Mr Banks no longer supported rail to the airport, an inner-city rail tunnel and rail to the North Shore after “parroting” his own support for the three projects until now.
While I certainly agree that we need to ensure the rail projects being proposed are realistic and cost-effective, there is potentially plenty of money available for projects such as the CBD rail tunnel: we just need to have it redirected away from projects that are a waste of money.
The Herald makes a link between Banks’s “change of heart” on large-scale public transport projects and comments made last week by Transport Minister Steven Joyce:
Mr Banks’ comments about major projects follows a suggestion by Transport Minister Steven Joyce last week that the rail expansion hopes of mayoral contenders were linked to the “lunar cycle”.
Mr Joyce told an infrastructure conference that a $1.5 billion central city rail tunnel was “the only serious major project worth considering in the foreseeable future for Auckland commuter rail – and even that’s a big commitment”.
Last night, Mr Brown dismissed the minister’s message, saying Auckland had the opportunity with the Super City to work with the Government to complete the tunnel, rail to the airport and the North Shore over the next 10 to 15 years.
It would be really sad if there is a link between Joyce’s comments and Banks’s “about-turn”. In my opinion one of the biggest advantages of the Super City will be giving Auckland a stronger voice when it comes to negotiations with the government. It’s fairly common knowledge that Auckland has chipped a lot more into general government coffers than it has got in return over the years, and while some of that is justified, with much of New Zealand’s future population growth occurring in Auckland, I think we have a pretty good argument to get a pretty massive chunk of new infrastructure spending. Having a mayor who’s going to argue Auckland’s case, not one that buckles to the wishes of central government, is essential in my opinion.
Now I’m not saying that this is the reason why Banks seems to have gone cold on public transport all of a sudden, but it does seem like an interesting coincidence.
The article goes on:
To another question about the environment, Mr Banks drew boos when he said “we have to complete Auckland’s motorway network”.
“We have to get people out of cars and into integrated public transport but we also have to fix Auckland’s motorway network otherwise we will continue polluting Auckland,” he said.
Oh dear, not the old fallacy that building motorways reduces pollution. Building roads encourages more people to drive, which encourages more pollution. Congested traffic might emit more per car per kilometre, but generally if you have free flowing traffic you end up with more cars and more kilometres.
If Banks really does no longer support advancing these big public transport projects it would be really disappointing.
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You can almost guarantee that he will be getting the hard word from the party leadership that he needs tow the line on transport matters. This election is really annoying me, not because of what is coming out but because I don’t like any of the candidates enough to vote for them. I suspect that there is a number of people out there interested in the job who may actually have a chance of winning but that they have probably held off till the next election to let the dust settle. It was pretty inevitable that most of the current mayors and councilors would be going for the limited places available.
Right, the old “we’ll get on to the public transport business just as soon as we’ve built enough motorways to solve congestion” bit.
How exactly does one ‘fix’ Auckland’s motorways? Will the Waterview link and an nine lane Northwestern fix it? Or will it need another harbour crossing? Maybe the fix come just as soon as they’ve built the Onehunga to Penrose connection, or maybe an Eastern Motorway will fix it? Gah.
Its still nearly 2 months until voting finishes and you can see C and R are already having difficulty re-concilling their popularist statements with their true beliefs. Despite trying to keep it quiet, they’ve had to admit they support user pays water pricing. Now Banks has finally admitted his pro-PT statements were just for show. If I were Len Brown I’d be putting his latest statement up in lights and heading to the bus stops and stations of Auckland.
“after accusing his Super City mayoral opponent Len Brown of “ticking off $40 billion of spending” ”
Is $40 billion an accurate costing, or a bit of hyperbole on Banks’ behalf? Because if Brown is proposing $100k of projects per household then he’s living in a fantasy world.
The $40 billion figure is complete rubbish. Even with the unnecessary north shore line (that Banks has talked about too previously) I can’t see the need to spend even one fifth of that amount on rail projects. Plus we are talking about doing this over a 20 year period.
That’s what I figured… Say $2billion each for the CBD tunnel, airport extension, harbour tunnel, and north shore line to Albany and you’re only at $8billion. I wondered if maybe Brown had proposed landing an Aucklander on the Moon while I wasn’t paying attention.
Add another $2Billion for AMETI and we would have an awesome rail network.
2 billion for the Harbour tunnel? man thats cheap for a project that big.
How much would the Olympics cost to run eh?
Even with the full rail and motorway harbour tunnel, a north shore line , the CBD rail tunnel, an airport line thats still only about $10 billion.
Doing things last minute costs more.
or felt more by ratepayers.
I think this revels Bank’s true opinions, he knows the polling shows people support PT over motorways so will promise PT with condition and as soon as he’s elected – conditions… It was very telling when Banks spoke to the CBT that he said “I know Wellington and will stand up to them” and later he was asked why he supports Puhoi and he said “because Wellington wants it”… Dah, Brown will be getting my vote, mainly as a rejection of Banks rather than an endorsement of Brown…
Maybe he’s been told that the government won’t fund the CBD rail tunnel and other projects and is trying to extricate himself from an embarassing backdown later on. At least then he can say that his support of the tunnel was conditional on governmental support and as it has not been forthcoming then it will have to go on the backburner etc etc.
I think its good that he has shown his true colours, and made it clear that he’ll just tow the line from the Minister for Trucking. Very very clear now that he is the least best candidate. I’m not much impressed with Brown but I’d rather we have an open fight with WGTN than our uber mayor doing a whole lot of forelock tugging in private then meekly rolling over without a public fight on these matters.
God knows we don’t need another Joyce supporter in power anywhere near transport policy. See his letter in the Herald today? Bigger trucks are safer…. the only possible way that that might be true is if it leads to there being fewer of them on the roads, and how could that be safer? Because trucks are dangerous. Now its a few years since I did Logic 101, but does anyone else see a contradiction in this reasoning?
How much more safer would it be for thousands of fewer trucks to be on the road because we have a functioning, valued and maintained rail system that isn’t run on false and debilitating economics?
It’s an election year. Key isn’t going to lose many votes in Auckland by distancing himself from public transport spending. The arguement that it may actually be beneficial to everyone is far too complex and ethereal for The Herald.
As many of you had said before the money is there for the CBD loop, lets hope the business case is good for it. If it is I think it would be quite sad if at the end of this decade we aren’t able to complete it (I wouldn’t be surprised though).
when is the business case due for release? must be soon surely
edit: there are too many jeremy’s posting comments! confuses myself
Preliminary business case findings are due next month. The final report by the end of the year.
An important issue here is the overcentralised nature of government spending in New Zealand. See the information under Item 6 in this OECD statistical summary called “Government at a Glance 2009”: http://www.oecd.org/document/3/0,3343,en_2649_33735_43714657_1_1_1_1,00.html#es . In brief New Zealand appears unique in controlling 90% of its funding at the centre and only 10% locally. Many federal systems have a 1:1:1 division of central, state and local spending, Norway without states spends 1/3 locally and Denmark spends 2/3 locally. So Auckland risks become a talking shop “unable to put its money where its mouth is” (because it doesn’t have much) in the face of a centre that has a different agenda, and that is the real underlying constitutional issue. REAL devolution of money as well as responsibility might be a good idea; however I see the Local Government Act (2002) Amendment Bill proposes a fiscal cap on local government, which may entrench the unique NZ situation.
Why does that not surprise me. It’s been obvious for years that local government is underfunded in NZ. I would like to see the government provide a grant to local councils based on their population that can be used in any way that council desires. Then we’d have the cash for so called local projects like the CBD tunnel (even if it should be of national concern) without having to run cap in hand to the government.
We have to demand it and let politicians know that without changes we wont vote for them… It’s unlikely to happen as politicians won’t give up power easily and in general people don’t care…
And meanwhile Hide’s plan to turn the Auckland Council into a few people controlling poos+roads and nothing else slowly advances…
I don’t think switching central funding to local government will address any issue of local government underfunding. With devolution of funding comes devolution of responsibilities. Any new funding Auckland got would sucked up by its new responsibilities, whether that be building state housing, building state schools, building state highways, or whatever.
Now the fact that more decision making happens locally, by local councilors, accountable to local people, now that is a good reason for devolution.
Mayor Banks showed some common sense when he dropped the rail projects he was promoting. First his proposal to take oldies money to build the inner city rail loop would have required paying 5-8% on the bonds. That would have more than doubled the total cost of running Auckland’s commuter rail. Or raised fares by $10-$15 a trip. Totally unsustainable. The whole rail expansion question needs to have a comprehensive analysis done on it. It is currently being promoted on a piece by piece that each new piece is ‘needed now’ for the system to work. This is not the accepted practice in the USA or the UK. It is also not a way of planning when the country is borrowing $240 million a week just to keep up our standard of living. Prime Minister Key said three weeks ago that Auckland was an anchor on the NZ economy. At the moment every rail project requires hefty capital to build and hefty subsidies to run. Nearly 75% of ARC total funds is going into transport, and most into subsidies. The government has signaled that Auckland will have to pay a higher proportion of the current subsidies. So Auckland is fast approaching the position that all funding will be going into subsidies and nothing or little is left for improving the system. Except trying to get funds from Government.
I believe we need to have changes made in the next three years and that’s why I’m standing for the Mayoralty.
First we need to take steps to lose the $2 billion congestion cost Auckland suffers every year. Your web site bemoans the fact that $1.5 billion is not available for the inner city rail loop. Stopping this drag on productivity in Auckland can start to make Auckland a more wealthy city. One that can afford things. The cost of removing congestion in the CBD area is approx &600 million.
The second step is to have the New Transport CCO select three of the best new transport systems, trial them if necessary, select the best one and build a line from the CBD to the airport. Then extend it around Auckland.
The comparable costs are interesting. If I use the SkyCabs system I designed for Auckland, as an example, as I know it well, (there are many others like the Mister one in the Herald two weeks ago , Ultra, Taxi 2000 or SkyCabs), a CBD to Airport could be built for $480 million which would give a 24 minute trip on demand probably with 30 seconds to 90 seconds wait. The difference between heavy rail and what is called light light rail is that such a line could more than cover its operating costs. A system covering Auckland from Henderson to Howick and Albany to Papakura would cost approx $2.8 Billion in today’s dollars and could be profitable on approx bus fares and be built within 10 years. Before you say such a line can’t equal the capacity of a train, with all seated it allows 4800 per hour per direction and with the 6 lines into the city that nearly 29,000 per hour. But the cabs will cater for another 8 standing making around 56,000 per hour capacity. And it would be covering Auckland, fully integrated with rail and buses. And if the short term congestion costs were included, all for less than one $4 billion tunnel under the harbour but 10-20 years earlier.
The pathway for the inner city rail loop would need to be preserved, as would a option for the under the Harbour tunnel. One always preserves options. But one must realise that wealthy London in 1980 had a plan to build 25 rail and light rail systems by 2010. Two years ago the UK Committee for Integrated Transport in a report on transport in the UK said that plan ‘had been a failure. Only 7 systems were built and they had just turned down three more’ New York, also a very wealthy city, wanted to build a Tunnel under their harbour to connect the JFK airport and Lower Manhattan. It proceeded along the path but in 2003 they found it just too expensive at US$6.4 billion to justify and dropped it before preliminary engineering was started. Today it would cost US$9 billion.
Auckland needs to have a more robust approach to projects. Melbourne I am told had a big problem with its transport. The present transport system is very favourably commented on and it was done by insisting all transport projects had a Cost Benefit analysis done by a group of engineers and economists and if the B/C analysis was over 1.6 more work was allowed to be done on the project. If the B/C analysis was not over 1.6 the project was dropped. Currently ARTA does B/C analysis only on about 50% of the projects and a ‘low’ B/C ratio ranges from 0 to 2, virtually allowing any project to be built as it could be justified by being ‘urgent’.
If Auckland hasn’t received funds for infrastructure projects one must examine whether the projects have been really financially sound. Auckland needs to have its transport working well to survive as a city. We all need to consider the most cost effective way of getting it there. To the 30,000 in Waitakere City that are in the lowest 20% of the poverty classification, extra transport subsidies boosting their rates is not something they need. We need to get Auckland functioning efficiently. Lower operating costs for all Aucklanders and Auckland firms, and we can do this by removing congestion and then supplying affordable across Auckland transport to keep congestion down for 15-25 years. When we start becoming a wealthy city, the city will be able to spend on pet projects. Till then we need to fix Auckland’s problems and the first one that needs to be fixed has to be congestion.
I was especially interested in the skycabs idea. Unfortunately I was not in a position to purchase any shares at the IPO. Has there been any progress with Skycabs since then? The website has been silent (apart from the transport submission) for the last few years.
In your transport plan you describe a number of changes to massively increase the number of cars entering the CBD during the AM peak and leaving it in the PM peak. On your candidate page you also mention a goal of reducing air pollution by 50%. Freeing congestion will caused induced demand, thereby increasing the number of cars entering the CBD resulting in increased air pollution. Induced demand will likely fill your tunnel under Khyber Pass road. Engineers spend weeks optimizing light timings. Placing a 90% Green cycle is likely to cause problems in other directions. I personally think feeding more cars in and out of CBD for commuters will just cause bottlenecks elsewhere, but im not a traffic engineer. Sorry for rambling (its late) but i disagree with your logic that more roading capacity will result in massively decreased emissions.
I know our government is borrowing at a crazy rate, but if there is S1.7b free to spend on the “holiday” highway there must be some money to protect Auckland a little from the effects of peak oil.
With Skycabs I wish u the best of luck and really want to see it succeed. But its not going to be an easy because no city wants to be the first to try a new technology. Tried and true tech is a less risky investment even if it is less effective.
Goodluck with your campaign
Allowing existing traffic to get to work quickly will not necessarily draw more in by car. They still have to find a parking place. Others trying to get in will find that after 9am they will have the same problem if they are extra. But by that time the new mode whether it be SkyCabs or another selected by the CCO will be starting and can allow extra capacity to be syphoned away from car use. There is no increase in road capacity just better use of existing roads so cars spend less than half the time traveling and their engines work up to 400% more efficiently then.
Thanks for your good wishes I will need them.
It is extremly likely that more people will bring there cars to the CBD if the trip is shorter. Induced demand is pritty much proven in large cities, an incresed demand for parkin will lead to increased parking prices so building parking buildings will become more profitable, so more will parking will be built by devolopers. It has been pritty much much proven in large citys building more roads does not reduce congestion long term. I beleve your proposial will have little effect on emmisions. Have you run yout proposed light timings in a simulation? Did it cause problems within the city? Did you inclused any induced demand in your simulation?
The problem with PRT systems like SkyCabs is that they aren’t proven to work anywhere in the world. I would rather not be the city that gambles $500 million on being the first.
SkyCabs used as an example of what is available is not a PRT system but it can use the PRT qualities while still being a collective system. Because a system like SkyCabs can make a profit, only half the capital is required, so it is clear, either as the UK Committee outlined that the ‘so called risks of the new modes of transport are balanced by the much lower capital costs’. Is it better to have 20 years of congestion to get an expensive system that cannot of itself solve congestion or have a for 10 years that can at less cost. Put clearly is it worth $40 billion of congestion cost before spending say $6.5 billion and congestion will still be 50% worse? I believe that in an era where Air New Zealand commits billions on ordering planes sight unseen off the computer, it is a much more reasonable risk to try one out hanging off a rail. If it doesn’t perform to expectations it would only go a little slower. Anyway the history of trains belies caution. Rail systems thru the US were built on crazy people who kept driving speeds up to compete in the press often until the trains derailed.
Hugh you have marched right into the Minister’s trap: There is no need for AK ratepayers to pay more to invest in transit: we are already paying for transport infrastructure, its just that we only investing in one mode: roads. Stop the crazy motorway building and rebalance the investment to rail and we will have a well served city. While it is true that this will take a while and cost is not insignificant because of the decades of underinvestment it still is not a reason to plum for a second rate system, or, as the minister prefers; the gold plated and dysfuctional current road only one. 1.3 billion is being spent in Panmure to not solve the lack of any tarnsit options in southeast Auckland. I repeat the money is there it is just being spent badly, or it could even be argued, fraudulently.
Also it seems to me that your system only has appeal to those you can’t cope with being in the same space as a stranger, these people have cars, or may find that it ain’t so bad when there’s a modern safe and clean service.
Patric, Skycabs is NOT PRT. Each unit has a seated capacity of 8 and a crush load of 16. They do however share some PRT style operating characteristics, such as (I understand) real time route optimization. Apart from being unproven they system sounds awesome.
So it’s a system of mini monorails with up to sixteen passengers going to 16 different places… which pretty much means that you’ll have to catch a particular or scheduled service at peak anyway so that the destinations are all vaguely close to each other. No good having one person going to manukau, the guy next to him to henderson etc.
I think the only thing less efficient that PRT is pseudo-PRT!
It could be run like a bus network with routes, transfers etc. Just the vecheles would be smaller and so would come much more frequiently, they would not burn oil, and they would be grade seperated, so would be able to run at 80km/h for most of the route.
I don’t think any city is going to want fork out hundreds of millions of dolars to trial this but those issues can be sorted easy. I think the eninering requirements to resist torson in the monobeams will present major challenes. But the route planing should be easy to optimise.
Sorry about my spelling above, im typing at uni, and the keyboard has some keys that stick.
Hugh, building more roads only increases congestion and pollution and creates a drag on economic growth, the only thing that can reduce either congestion and pollution and increase economic productivity (and a reduction isn’t likely more like limit future increases in pollution and congestion and spur future economic growth higher) is an integrated public transport system with rail as the backbone…
Anything else is folly… Might want to check polling – Aucklanders overwhelmingly support PT improvements over new roads so good luck becoming Mayor against the public will…
Jeremy,
I havent suggested building any new roads. I have suggested four short tunnels or underpasses to remove conflicts. Both Wellington and Christchurch use traffic light co-ordination to speed traffic through their cities. Why not? If cars take half the time to get somewhere two things happen. The engine operates half the time. And it operates at speed which experts say is up to 400% more efficient than idling in congestion with slow speeds. That is certainly more than 50% less pollution. Unfortunately no one in ARTA has done proper Benefit Cost analyses on our public transport systems. Or if they have they have not published them.
My second policy is of course a massive increase in Passenger Transport, more than doubling the existing patronage. So I can’t see how you can say I’m promoting new roads when I’m not, or not promoting massive new affordable PT when I am. http://www.elections2010/candidate/Hugh Chapman will give you quite a bit of detail. Actually the capacity of the new mode PT system could nearly treble PT capacity.
Hope you read the policy. I’d like your vote.
Also Hugh, this idea that we have to get wealthy first then we can build transit is from the Gerry Brownlee environmental policy handbook. We need to sort transit IN ORDER to lift productivity, accessibility, and interchange and thereby to help us become wealthier. The economy is a subset of the environment. A rich and healthy environment is not a Gucci hand bag that you buy once you’ve felled every tree and sold them off. Likewise an efficient and accessible city will be wealthier.
You also do the classic road lobby tick of fudging the economic and the financial: somehow transit systems are expected to make money like a business but roads have economic benefits that are on no balance sheet and are never expected to pay for there overheads, like repairs, parking, pollution, land waste, death and injury etc etc. We the people cover all that. I just want a level playing field to evaluate all systems, including yours, but especially without roads having special privilege.
If they can afford nearly 40 km of light rail, including about fifty modern Citadis trams, in Tunis, I think we can manage decent PT in Auckland.
Yikes, I just read the Skycabs proposal here:
http://www.skycabs.co.nz/documents/AucklandStrategyForeword.pdf
Sorry but I just can’t take this the least bit seriously after reading that, as the assumptions and and analysis are so flawed its not funny!
For example:
“And only 6% extra funding is for arterial roads improvement even though 85% of trips are by car. Yet their considered strategy still envisages trip times improving and pollution going down!”
(Gah, where do I begin….)
“Their main target is that “walking and cycling improve to 35% of total trip legs in urban areas.” Obviously the main objective of the strategy is to not to have to provide a transport system for as many as possible. As the Main target, one has to say they are providing nothing in their transport strategy.”
(FYI, walking and cycling are forms of transport, and they require a transport system to undertake. Footpaths, roads and cycleways are essential for walking a cycling, and they need to be planned for and built too).
“The current justification, that 200,000 more people will be able to use the rail, is a spurious notion. The 200,000 people referred to live in the city and have little need to travel out of the city. Few if any new passengers will use the service.”
(Ah, 200,000 people in the city, I don’t think so! Try 18,000. Where do you get you ‘facts’?! The two hundred thousand refers to people adjaced to the *regional* rail system who will be attracted to use it due to the service improvements afforded by the CBD tunnel system. These people, and those in the CBD for that matter, have plenty of reason to travel througout the region.)
“The rail system as outlined, with no new catchment area stations, is presumed to have an increased patronage of 582% by 2040. That should have everyone along the line using rail, a scenario consistent with solid congestion on the roads along the route. There is no information as to whether the existing rail corridors actually have that number of people wanting to access the CBD in the morning.”
(Where to start… Ok, Firstly 2040 is three decades from now, there is three decades of growth strategy based intesification along the rail corridors to come yet… And erm, if everyone along the line was using the railway as you chide, why would there be solid congestion on roads along the route (or any traffic at all?). Secondly you’re only assuming walk up catchment, when the strategy specifies vastly increased bus, car and cycle access to stations. Thirdly you’re assuming the rail system would be only used by people who commute to work in the CBD during peak hours , where as the rail system covers everywhere from Swanson to Papakura, runs all day and most of the night, and doesn’t care if you are travelling to work, study, run errands or have fun.)
“When 85% of Aucklander’s trips are made by car, the ARC’s nonacceptance and ignoring of the necessity for car use in Auckland, has led to the ridiculous situation where the strategies considered ignore Auckland’s congestion. Instead that congestion is to continue and worsen as laid out in their Preferred Strategy, despite the present congestion costing Auckland $2 billion each year.”
(Dear lord, these old myopic arguments again… And I see the ‘cost of congestion’ has double yet again and is now at $2 billion! I’d love to see the reference the proves that isn’t just hearsay.
Nick,
Thanks for reading my assessment of the 30 Year Transport Strategy. To start at the end. The cost of Congestion in Auckland has been detailed according to Land Transport NZ’s standard system.. Its a lot of work. It does not have current petrol prices included. It does not include saving in carbon emmisions. If you had read the commentary that was issued years ago with the $1 billion congestion cost analysis, you would realise that it stated only one of the three items that could be included had been included. The calculations have gone to the ARC and have not been disputed as they are totally justified and well founded. The $1 billion was I think first mentioned in 1998 or 1999 I think.
You shouldn’t think I am against rail. I can say I proposed an under harbour rail tunnel in approx 1970. But rail at the moment has the highest subsidy for every trip compared to buses.. Perhaps not totally correct as some ferry trips were up to $17 subsidy per trip.
If the city uses congestion on the roads to build patronage on rail and buses, it like punishing ourselves to one day feel better. We all know the Government funds rail projects so far to the full cost. So it costs Auckland nothing. But we have to pay less than half the cost of running it and we can’t really afford that. Virtually all Auckland’s spare cash goes to the transport subsidy. ARC Holdings money, ARC Transport subsidy. City Council Transport subsidies and developers levies if they build anything else. And on top of that is the $2 billion a year drag on Auckland’s productivity. How much do we put the load on? When do we say, Hey, lets stop wasting the equivalent of $2 billion a year for the next 28 years. Let’s help people to get to work in the morning and get home at night. There are not going to be thousands of new people going to work in the CBD as the jobs will take time to be created. So we use that time to add another transport mode that can get to parts of the city rail currently is not able to because we don’t have the money for it. If that transport mode encourages people from cars (and its travel time will be half that of cars) then we will see increases in all forms of PT as the city expands.
Rail is not the best or quickest PT for short stops. It was a city to city system, and it is great for Papakura to CBD or 3-4 stops only. When it is stop/start it is not very fast and a new mode like SkyCabs is then nearly twice as fast. On a 3-4 stop rail run it would not be. I see my proposed new mode transport as an add on system that can, with the congestion reducing measures, begin accelerating Auckland’s productivity and bringing forward the possibility of Inner city rail tunnels and under harbour tunnels. We are talking of $6.5 billion expenditure. Over a ten year period of lowered congestion Auckland would be gaining approx $17 billion in equivalent productivity. That getting towards a $10 billion equivalent advantage.
You might be interested in another city that is planning to have one of the new transport modes built and extended across their city and regions. San Jose. It is the central city of Silicon Valley. It can’t be such a silly idea.
The one other assumption you touch on is that over the next 30 years the density along the rail lines could grow so the projected patronage for rail could be there. Yes that could happen. We would change Auckland to suit one type of expensive transport. Sorry, as an architect I don’t follow that line. The equivalent is making a person suit the house. Not designing for the family but designing only to suit say minimum sizes, or three story houses, or apartments only, as the socialist states did fantastically well under communism, but they are hardly livable now.
We have always had an element of freedom in Auckland. A new mode transport would of course still allow and encourage greater density along its route, but the increased number of routes would allow increases in density of housing to occur where amenities and views attracted people. Not to routes which were selected solely for a flat rail route away from areas of amenity and views.
Auckland does have ‘problems’ but we need to engage in a conversation that maybe slowly begins to arrive at an overall analysis that can set Auckland on into a good for all and a wealthy future for all its people. We all work, we all want our work to be satisfying and fruitful. If we can enunciate the principles clearly, get our city and Aucklanders working more productively, we can begin to design our future together. We do need to dream about the ideal transport we want for our city. Cars, cycles, trams, trolley buses, buses, rail and light rail all have advantages and disadvantages. As has any new mode of transport. Together we need to reach a balanced use of each of these systems, using them when they are advantageous, minimising their disadvantages and reaching the maximum outcome for the least capital and operating costs. That’s a real challenge for Auckland, but one that we all need to take up. I will be interested to have the Local Boards really consulting residents for their needs, ideas and suggestions. This new super city needs to concentrate on this. I believe we can get an excellent future for Auckland with residents input. Transport requirements will certainly need to be included in those consultations.
I’ve always wondered how that “congestion costs Auckland $1 billion a year” or whatever figure given is calculated. My question would be “compared to what?” It’s unrealistic, inefficient and probably quite impossible to have a city the size of Auckland without any congestion whatsoever. So really the figure is utter rubbish.
Oh, and no city council rates don’t go to public transport. Apart from building bus shelters I guess.
I am familiar with the estimates for the cost of congestion, and I think they are largely b.s. to be honest. It’s nothing more than an exercise in creating a nice big number they can use in the media to justify new roads. The reason I think it is crap is that they aren’t estimating the cost of congestion, they are estimating the cost of travel (including the additional effect of congestion). Even if we magically removed all road congestion tomorrow then the majority of that cost would still be there, it still takes time and money to travel in uncongested conditions
It’s a little more sophisticated that that but they basically take the aggregate amount of time spent in traffic and multiply that by some weighted factor of cost. But for the most part people travelling in traffic aren’t precluding economically productive activity. There is an element of that with delayed freight and business users, but for the lions share of commuters saving them half an hour of travel each day isn’t going to increase their contribution to the economy by 30 mins a day.
They are still going to work like normal, they might have half an hour more free time with their family or for tv however. So that economic gain by removing that congestion is going to be far less than if people worked more for the same amount of time. This is all too common an outcome with time savings based evaluations, they apply a financial weighting to some supposed time cost and them people pick that up and say this is how much money the economy would grow if we saved people this time. So no, we are not wasting $2 billion a year, it is not a $2 billion annual drag on the economy. I strongly disagree with your suggestion that we could boost the economy by $17 billion over ten years by limiting congestion, we might save a lot of people plenty of time and speed up our freight somewhat but that isn’t going to translate into $1.7 billion a year in productivity. To say that assumes that the ‘cost of driving’ is only 15% actual costs in time, fuel etc and 85% due to the additional affects of congestion.
Another key problem with that estimate is that it leads the cart before the horse, it is an estimate of the (economic) cost of ‘congestion’. Immediately that frames the problem as road traffic congestion and the solution as removing road traffic congestion. The problem here is something like a rail line or a skycab guidepath along the most congested motorway might carry 10,000 people along the route in half the time as before, but without a reduction in road traffic levels the project is seen as useless as it hasn’t affected ‘congestion’. This is visible on the Northern Busway, the success of it is judged based on the fact it ‘removes’ 500 cars from the motorway each morning two-hour peak… but this is despite the fact it carries over 7,000 people during the same period, with trip times about half the equivalent of driving. Do we really need to be so concerned with congestion if something like this can move 3,500 people an hour regardless of congestion?!
Of course this line of thinking makes one much greater assumption, that it is easy or even possible to remove congestion by meeting demand. However, if you consider Auckland has almost one road vehicle per adult, very cheap costs of car ownership and operation (by international standards), unpriced access to roads and minimal alternatives to driving for transport, is it reasonable to think that we could ever afford to build anything close to enough road infrastructure to exceed demand during peak times?! Congestion is useful in some regards, particularly in the fact it is self limiting. It doesn’t get worse and worse until people are spending four hours to get 1km down the road, it gets bad and then stays roughly the same.
A few other points, I’ll try not to go on too much:
On the topic of subsidy, it is true that rail has a higher subsidy per passenger *trip*, but this only reflects the fact that people tend to chose rail for longer trips and buses for shorter trips (ferry tends to cost a lot regardless, although it is useful in certain niches where a land alternative is even more expensive). If you look at the subsidy per passenger mile they are almost identical. I agree rail is not the best or quickest for short trips, I never claimed that it is. An effective transit system needs to have an integrated network of routes, with each route using the mode that is best suited to the characteristics of the trip profile. Based on your comments above I see that you agree with me on this point. In the case of longer distance trips in major corridors rail is the most effective, in short more dispersed local trips it is probably a bus. However I disagree with your focus on just the CBD, rail and other transport can and should service nodes across the city, not just those radial commuter routes that represent only about 15% of trips.
It is interesting for you to talk about ‘making the person fit the house’, then talking about the fallacy of not designing housing ‘to suit a family’. Are you aware the mean household size in Auckland is 2.1 people? Are you aware that most households are couples without children, followed by singles without children, then in third place comes couples or singles with children? You seem to want to perpetuate the current situation where the vast majority of housing stock is inconsistent with of the housing needs of the populace. A huge part of the current problem with housing affordability (and associate issues like transport problems and journey to work times) is that by and large there is only one form of housing supplied in Auckland, and one form of transport to go with it, and the small amount of other flats, apartments, terraces, high rises tend to be poorly executed examples.
It’s not about “changing Auckland to suit one type of expensive transport”, it’s about directing growth into transport and built form modes that are sustainable and suitable for the needs of the populace. We need to build homes, build transport and develop the city to meet growth, so why do we have to perpetuate a near 100% focus on the suburban ideal of the 40s and 50s?
How is it so expensive to add people around exisiting rail lines that operate vastly under capacity today? How is it expensive to allow people to walk five minutes down the street to do some basic groceries or get a haircut?
Nick, pity those similar myopic arguments weren’t used to retain and expand trams in the 1950’s when PT had a trip market share of around 50%. Maybe we’d have a CBD that hasn’t been cut off from the rest of the city by a ring of motorways and would have a public transport system approaching that of Wellington, or perhaps better still, something that would be ‘normal’ for a first world city.
While Skycabs is certainly an interesting idea, I do wonder why cities with money to splash about, like growing Chinese cities or oil-rich Middle Eastern cities haven’t given something like that a go.