Green MP Gareth Hughes took on Transport Minister Steven Joyce in another Question and Answer session in parliament today – with the initial topic of conversation interestingly similar to a blog post I wrote a couple of days ago.
A transcript of the debate can be found here.
Perhaps the most interesting question and answer related to the question that I’m dying to ask Steven Joyce: “why won’t he subject the Puhoi-Wellsford road to the same review he’s putting the CBD Rail Tunnel through”. Here’s that part of the exchange:
Gareth Hughes: Will he, as the new Auckland super-city council has called for, review the cost effectiveness of the new motorway north of Auckland?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member seems to be of the view that it is a fantastic idea, as the previous Government did, to bring three lanes of traffic north of Auckland to a halt in a paddock outside Puhoi with one lane after that. I do not think that it is. I think that with the established demand created it is necessary to provide an alternative route. On that basis, we will be proceeding with the project, provided it stacks up on the standard business case analysis.
Ummm.. when was the last time Steven Joyce went up to the Puhoi end of the Northern Motorway I wonder? At the Johnstone’s Hill tunnel the northbound side of the road goes down from two lanes to one lane – not from three to one. I guess Joyce could be talking about three lanes being on both sides of the road (even though it’s actually four), but then one would be talking about State Highway One being a single lane road: clearly not true (it’s one lane each way.)
It’s interesting though that Joyce says Puhoi-Wellsford will only proceed if it stacks up against the standard business case analysis. On current evidence, it doesn’t.
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He’ll be adding in the old road that rejoins on the far side of the tunnel to the 2 lanes of the expressway, even though they have already merged on the city side.
I would say you’re right Ben. From my experience that merge is only problematic one day a year though. At other times Warkworth is far more of a bottleneck.
Yes, I agree.
I just (reluctantly) had to concede that the tunnel is preemptively merged down to one lane so that the 3 lanes don’t have to merge at once on the far side of the tunnel.
Still doesn’t support the point (or lack of one) he’s trying to make.
With some reengineering on the far side that issue could be sorted without blowing billions of dollars, I think.
And I’m clarifying as I don’t want to give anyone the impression I support Joyce’s arguments.
Why does no one still pick him up on the fact that the Auckland rail network already carries more people than the P2W. Even using the most simplistic calculation there are more trips on it than the road.
Also why is no one asking him how he plans to solve the issue of getting more people into the CBD in the future and what PT projects has he initiated? The opposition let him get off far to easy.
just sent off an OIA request regarding this matter.
I thought Aucklands rail network carried 30,000 people a day, while the AADT is 17,298 at Puhoi, 21,752 at Warkworth, dropping to 11,838 immediately north of Warkworth.
Maybe he’s counting all the residents of Warkworth who travel on the highway to go to shops, school etc.
Even then its hard to make the figures add up.
At the most basic calculation it is over 24500 trips per day which is 9,000,000/365 but of course that includes 3-4 weeks a year that the network is shut down. If you look at March 2010 figures, the average is over 29,500 per day and I suspect that weekdays were up around the 35k-36k mark.
One thing to remember is that the figures you posted about daily traffic results is that it is the number of vehicles not people. At a high average of 1.5 people per vehicle that would put Warkworths result over 32k people per day but I don’t think it the occupancy would be that high except on holiday periods, I also think that the Warkworth figure includes local traffic. Another thing I have suspected is that SJ considers the rail network in terms of people but not trips i.e. each person takes two trips per day so he only counts half the figures, however for P2W he considers each of those vehicles as one person/car even though that could be a local passing over the site multiple times a day for work purposes like driving to and from work.
Matt, I guess the only way Joyce could be right is if we think about all the people who use all parts of the Puhoi-Wellsford Road. Someone making a local trip across Warkworth would be counted, someone simply travelling between the city and Puhoi would be counted in addition to that. While the busiest bit is around 20k vehicles a day, Joyce might be meaning the number of people throughout the whole road – which could be more.
Regardless of semantics, the point is that the “bottleneck” at Puhoi is problematic once a year – December 27th. At all other times things are either fine, or Warkworth is causing the traffic jams. I travelled the Puhoi-Warkworth section four times over the Xmas holiday period and the only traffic jams I ever experienced were caused by Warkworth.
How right you are. I attempted that journey on the 27th and it took four hours from Auckland to Wellsford. Wellsford was almost as problematic as Puhoi and it’s painfully obvious that the Puhoi-Wellsford road would simply shift the problem around on those days of extreme demand.
(And yes I knew it was going to be a nightmare, circumstances dictated that I had to be on the road then. Never again!)
Oh dear.
The problem is that Steven Joyce is right, it is about the results.
The flaw in Mr Joyce’s argument with the rail, is that it didn’t consider WHY this was the case.
“Because its rail”, is a description, not an explanation.
Logic would suggest that rational people shun a service that gives them poor frequency.
Any business that doesn’t supply a good ‘product’ can expect to have ‘customers’ shun it.
And any business that continues to supply bad service, poor frequency, poor integration with buses etcetera, can expect to go broke.
In the case of a government supplied service, the government can’t go broke, so this probably means a high subsidy, low quality system.
So is it any wonder that if you build a first class road, and you have a third-class rail option, that people are going to act rationally and drive themselves?
“Blame the victim” excuses such as density can’t explain why Auckland rail patronage is so low- you can compare it to Perth, Sydney or Brisbane and see that instantly.
Rail patronage in Auckland is growing, which is very good news. Further investment in more frequency/wider scope of hours will see it grow more.
I think Steven Joyce needs to consider Auckland’s commuters a little. Not only do 4 train lines end up converging at Britomart, but they come to an abrupt stop. This is much more of an urgent problem than the odd traffic jam on holiday weekends.
It would be interesting if the Green’s called his bluff and did a study on typical weekdays — that’s when the economic activity happens that he’s so worried about, right? — and found out how bad the delays at Puhoi actually are (or not).
Hughes needs to call him on the passengers/day metric. Enough already. In a month’s time, more people will be using the Auckland rail network daily than use Puford on any non-holiday day of the year. The passenger numbers are growing, too, though I noticed today that a casual two-stage fare on the train is up to $3 so I wonder how long that growth will continue.
Was NZTA bullied into building a motorway by the Government, when there were many more cost effective solutions? Its not like the government bullies Transpower into building a new 400kV transmission line between Palmerston North and Wellington, when there is a more cost-effective option to re-conductor two of the existing 220kV lines with higher capacity conductors (the conductor needs replacing anyway).
If there was a “Transport Investment Test” identical to Transpower’s “Grid Investment Test”, then P2W would fail condition F (indicative cost for its benefit) and maybe condition C (practicality to implement). The CBDRL might fail condition B (technical feasibility – with the steep grade). Both would pass A (fit for purpose), D (good industry practise), E (provide security), and G (consultation feedback). Still, even with condition B borderline, the CBDRL is more likely to pass the test than the current form of P2W!
There is a big difference between Transpower, an SOE; and NZTA, a Crown entity. No part of Puhoi – Wellsford was on NZTA’s plans until National got into power.
NZTA is required to follow the Govt Policy Statement, and Joyce rewrote the GPS as soon as they got in, and the RONS jumped to the top of the list.
Before this govt generally didn’t direct NZTA to invest in particular roads, not for the last 20 years of so anyway.
Wasn’t the point of the Northern Motorway extension to bypass Orewa? So the fact that it ends “in a paddock” is surely irrelevant isn’t it?
Joyce: “On that basis, we will be proceeding with the project, provided it stacks up on the standard business case analysis.”
I’ve a gut feel that Puhoi-Wellsford, as a $1.6B project will never fly (the govt books are just not that good) and the govt and mr. Joyce have known that for a long time and that they are currently appeasing the northern community. That statement by Joyce is the wiggle room he or National needs to back out at some time in the future.
By not backing out now, they have 1 extra bargaining tool to try to fight Auckland and its pesky rail-tunnel.
They don’t call it politics for nothing.
Of course, what is “standard” as far as the business case analysis goes??
One would think it is NZTA’s EEM analysis, excluding wider economic benefits. In which case it’s sitting at 0.8 (and a very dodgy 0.8 at that).
My pick is that Puhoi-Wellsford will have years of investigation to go, and wont proceed in the medium term anyway.
Rail tunnel will not proceed until electrification demonstrates demand is equivalent to or better than forecast, and that this is not due to bus-rail modeshift but adequate car driver-rail modeshift.
It was the way NZ used to do transport projects – incrementalism, which in most cases works in terms of maximising benefits by delaying expensive capex until it is necessary. The same should apply to Waikato Expressway in that the Hamilton eastern bypass segment should be built last because it is the least necessarily (BCR 1 at the moment).
Joyce’s claims about the numbers using State Highway 1 fail in any way to show that ANOTHER road next to the existing one is required. If anything they show that the current road is sufficient.
That it could do with upgrading is another issue mostly related to safety.
I thought his spiel could do with some adjustments:
The member seems to be of the view that it is a fantastic idea, as the previous Government did, …to bring four tracks of passengers to a halt in a dead end station. I do not think that it is. I think that with the established demand created it is necessary to provide an through route. On that basis, we will be proceeding with the project, provided it stacks up on the standard business case analysis.
There, fixed that for you SJ.