Mike Lee’s latest blog post talks alot about Auckland’s past and how times have changed since the 50s. Here is the snippet of the post about transport. It is very likely Mike Lee will be the Councillor for the CBD (Waitemata and Gulf) so he could have a big roll to play in the future of the CBD tunnel. It is interesting to see how well understands Transport and obviously has a keen interest, unlike two certain candidates “applying” for the rung up the ladder.
One of the most wonderful features of 1950s Auckland was the electric tram network. Due to New Zealand’s huge national effort in World War ll, there had been little money to improve civic infrastructure so the tram fleet of the time was rather run down – though still very popular with the travelling public. In the early 1950s the city fathers instead of comprehensively renewing the tram fleet were persuaded that electric trams were ‘old-fashioned’ and needed to be replaced with diesel buses. As a mark of how popular and effective trams were, up until that time when Auckland’s population was less than 400,000 people Auckland had over 100 million passenger trips per year – and 80 million trips of those were by electric tram. Nowadays with 1.4 million people we have only 60 million public transport trips per year, mainly by diesel bus and at a huge cost in ratepayer/taxpayer subsidies. Sadly the popular electric trams were removed from the city streets in 1956 along with 72km of tracks – a terrible mistake in my opinion but because this was New Zealand of the 1950s there was little questioning of authority.
It was a mistake that Auckland has never recovered from.
This was not the only mistake. The decision to abandon a long planned electrified metro rail system, and the decision to build a four lane – cars-only Harbour bridge was compounded by redirecting SH 1 right though the inner city, with enormous disruption to inner city suburbs. SH1 was originally planned to run along the alignment of where the unfinished SH20 is intended to go now – in other words to loop around the city rather than slice through the centre of it. Of all these decisions though, the removal of electric trams and the tramway was clearly the most destructive. Auckland public transport patronage collapsed virtually overnight and Auckland went from being one of the best public transport cities in the world to one of the worst – a city famous for its traffic congestion.
History, as someone once said, is never over and in one of the last major decisions of the Auckland Regional Council we have decided to build a heritage tramway in the Wynyard Quarter by the waterfront and extend it to Britomart Transport Centre on Queen Street. A small and modest step to be sure. But after this the tramway could go anywhere. The tramway project is being managed by Sea + City, an ARC subsidiary as part of the Wynyard quarter redevelopment. Once it is built as well as heritage trams we can start looking at modern Light Rail Transit vehicles which can carry more than 100 people at a time.
New Zealand’s foremost expert on the 1950s and the history of trams is author Graham Stewart. Graham was the key note speaker at the opening of the MOTAT ‘I Am The Last Tram’ exhibition along with MOTAT CEO Jeremy Hubbard and chair of MOTAT electoral college Cr Vanessa Neeson. Graham was a photographer for the NZ Herald during the 1950s and covered all the major news events of that remarkable decade.
As Graham has kept the memory of Auckland’s wonderful electric trams alive for nearly 60 years, it would be wonderful if we can have him come and open our waterfront tramway next year. Congratulations to Jeremy Hubbard and the MOTAT staff for organizing such a brilliant exhibition.
The 1950s has a special resonance with today I feel – the wheel of history has turned and once again just like the 1950s, sixty years on Auckland finds itself at an historical cross-road. For a number of reasons to long to go into here, Auckland now has the opportunity to make huge advances in our transport infrastructure, projects like completion of the SH20 loop road around the city, electrification of rail, which are under way and new initiatives like the CBD rail loop tunnel, rail to Auckland international airport, and returning trams to our inner city streets. This time we have an opportunity to at last correct the short-sighted decisions made in the 1950s.
I recommend everyone to see the MOTAT, ‘I Am The Last Tram’ which will gives revealing and sometimes insights into the almost forgotten history of Auckland – and reminds us that history is for us to make.
I like the positivity. The whole post is well worth a read.
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I think there is a real chance we will get Alex Swney actually. As think Rob Thomas might split the liberal-green vote.
Lee’s ahead in the polls as I understand it…
Lee has been a regional councilor for 18 years and chairman of the region for 6 years. He has had plenty of opportunities to build tram lines. But all that he has delivered is a plan for an old tram to circle a couple of blocks of marine suppliers and building sites announced in the dieing days of the regional council. If you can use the word “delivered” for an announcement where there is no responsibility for funding or implementation.
That’s 18 years of failure. Why would you think he is going to do any better in the future?
He’s gotta be better than someone with the quasi-businessman mullet and “trendy” glasses.
Not that I vote for anyone on looks ofcourse 😉
Obi, I think that’s a bit harsh and you probably realise that yourself. It’s difficult to name a politician who has done more to rehabilitate Auckland’s public transport system than Mike Lee. Electrification, Onehunga Line reopening, New Lynn rail trench, the list goes on and on…. all projects that he has played a crucial role in making happen.
In terms of the issue itself, I wonder whether Auckland could have sustained its tram system right up to the present day even if we hadn’t been so eager to rip it up in the 1950s. I do think that a few routes could have been kept though, such as Dominion Road, a Ponsonby Route and perhaps a couple of others. If we had kept the trams and upgraded them (and supplemented them with a modern electrified rail system), rather than building a bunch of motorways it would be interesting to see what Auckland’s form would be like these days. Perhaps a bit more Vancouver-like I am guessing.
Harsh? Probably. I was just addressing trams, which were the main thrust of the quoted article. If Lee had wanted trams he has had plenty of time to do something about them. It might be time for someone else to have a crack, altho admittedly I know next to nothing about the other council candidates and I suspect that individual councilors are going to have bugger all influence on strategy anyway.
Personally I think 18 years is more than enough time in any job. I’ve never spent longer than 5 in a job, and even then I’d tried most of my good ideas by the 3 year mark.
Unless you’re a cabinet minister there really is a limit on what you can do as part of a voting body (even as chair)… When I look at ARC bus funding, heavy rail developments (ARC funding for stations and initial Western line duplication, etc), I think Lee has the best qualifications to be our CBD councillor…
I think the negative stuff posted about Mike is just some right-winger trying his best to shoot down Mike’s wonderful record on public transport. I led the campaign to get the Onehunga Line re-opened and Mike deserves a lot of credit for this happening, not to mention many other transport initiatives. Obi needs to stop and think about what the benefits such a tram could have for the waterfront precinct just in tourism alone. Has he not ridden the Christchurch tram which has had several extensions made to it since it first started. Can he not see our tram eventually going to Kelly Tarlton’s and on to St Heliers. I am sure the restaurants and other businesses on Tamaki Drive would do a roaring trade from tourists using the tram. When are these knockers going to support things that will make our city a vibrant place to live. I for one support candiates with a vision.
Garth… I support modern light rail along both Tamaki Drive and Dominion Road. They both make sense for commuters and recreational users, and a clean modern system would be making a statement about Auckland. But that isn’t the tram system that Lee proposed, even noting that he proposed a tram system that he knew he’d never actually have to build.
Instead Auckland MIGHT be getting a third hand tram circling around a couple of blocks of a light industrial area west of the CBD. It MIGHT be joined up to the CBD at some time in the future. Commuters aren’t going to use it. Recreational users aren’t going to use it. It is supposed to be for tourists, but it is insane to think tourists will walk away from the attractive bits of Auckland to ride around the tank farm and the chandlers shops in an old tram. The “heritage” tram isn’t public transport any more than the monorail at Disneyland is public transport. It costs money that could be used for useful public transport improvements. And it sends out a message that light rail is a tourist gimmick rather than an efficient way to transport people around a city.
If Lee thought light rail was a waste of time then he could be forgiven for ignoring it for 18 years. But there isn’t any reason he couldn’t have built both Tamaki Drive and Dominion Road lines in that time. Say a $100 per Aucklander tram levy and he would have had $2billion to spend. Or the Auckland councils could have liquidated their commercial shareholdings and used the money to build light rail. Instead Auckland councils have been investing in airports in Cairns, Mackay, and Queenstown rather than light rail in Auckland.
And lastly, I’ve never been on the Christchurch tram. I’ve jumped on the free Melbourne heritage tram loop a couple of times. But only a couple… it is completely rubbish compared to the cool modern trams that run everywhere else in Melbourne.
Perhaps Mr Lee was focussing his energies on bigger fish first, such as getting the heavy rail system back on track. The tram link to the western reclaimation has been on the agenda for about ten years, but obviously it’s not something that could be started until the main development is started (tram ride to the oil tanks anyone?).
And if I remember correctly it was Mike Lee that pushed for Queen st to be ‘future proofed’ for trams as part of the recent streetscape upgrade. We have him to thank for the fact that the lightpoles are capable of carrying overhead wire.
On a slightly different note, I was riding past Queens Wharf the other day, and noticed that the red gates were open. I rode down into the no. 10 shed, and found a single guard, and asked him when do the gates close? He said that they were open 24 hours a day!! Really? So I could come down at 11 at night and look at the lights? Yep he said! With that happy thought in mind I rode out to the end of the wharf drinking in the salt air and the beautifully coloured harbour water… before being blown back down the wharf by the northerly.
I spoke to Mike Lee last night expressing surprise. He said that he had fought for it to be open 24 hours / day – officers had said people would fall off and there were sharp edges that people might cut themselves on. He told me how he asked the officers to show him where the edges were, and as for falling off – well they could do it during the day as well… I’m bloody pleased he prevailed as I think it would be marvellous to be down there with some friends late at night sharing a bottle of bubbly and toasting the city lights…
On a recent nice day I went for a walk out along the wharf, it is a really nice area and with a bit of an upgrade I can see it being a really popular spot and an assett to Aucklands waterfront. I just hope that we don’t actually build a cruise terminal on it, it would be a shame to clost off such a good public area.
As for the trams, I think that what the ARC should have done is say “We are building this tram line but here are some of the areas we want to extend the lines to using modern trams” and then produce a map showing some potential lines.
Personally I find tram and light rail talk a distraction [see today’s Aucklander] let’s focus on getting the RTN network at least accepted and protected and work on securing that funding. The QTN network is probably best served with bus lanes for now, being so much less capital intensive…. Sensible though Josh’s model for Dominion rd is it’s hard to see that sort investment in track and rolling stock happening at the same time as the kind of investment in proper rail that Auckland really needs…. IMHO.
That is an excellent point, I think talk of projects should be qualified…
I think that trams have a small but important role to play as the middle ground in Aucklands transport system. There are a few places where a full RTN line would be excessive or inappropriate, yet where a simple bus based QTN has insufficient capacity or is not quite the standard of quality required.
To me the two most obvious routes are Dominion Rd and the Waterfront. A railway or full busway is not suitable in either case, but in the first the QTN buslane is likely to prove inadequate capacity in the long run, while in the second buses don’t quite cut it for such a high profile, high quality urban environment.
In that regard, I’m happy to have each level progress in parallel. I think it would be foolish to say that we must wait for the RTN network to be finished before we consider high quality tram QTN, simply because the two have separate and complementary uses. One is not a replacement for the other, so why not progress them both at the same time?
Having said that I do agree that the talk about ‘light rail’ or skycabs or whatever on major lines detracts from the task of extending the heavy rail RTN system, but this is a totally different situation from a street level tram along the new waterfront development.
“I think that trams have a small but important role to play as the middle ground in Aucklands transport system.”
Understatement, Nick R! They should have a MASSIVE role in our public transport as the middle ground.
The benefits are huge, you don’t get the bus lane issues we had this last year, they have a lot more flexibility than heavy rail in what they can serve (and doesn’t on its own, introduce massive new severance effects) and it would be futureproofed for the days when we will have to cut back even bus service (!) because the fuel has become so expensive (as has happened not too far ago when fuel prices rose and many PT authorities worldwide were groaning under it, just as the normal punter in his car did). Oh, and they are sexy (modern light rail is, certainly).
That said, I agree with Mike Lee having placed priority on revitalising heavy rail first. It’s always easier to bolster and extend something that still exists, rather than reintroduce something that was ripped out root and branch.
I am less enthusiastic about the current proposal for the Wynyard Quarter tram. I think even a heritage tram could have been done in much better places.
I meant small as in relatively few lines/km of route (compared to heavy rail or buses), not small as in insignificant.
Any route less than about 5km is too short (should be bus), more than about 15km too long (should be rail), but in that sweet spot they could be very useful.