Auckland Transport announced today that progress is being made on what’s weirdly been called the “South-Western corridor multi-modal transport study” – or something along those lines. This is certainly good news, as we need to ensure the route for rail to Auckland Airport is secured as quickly as possible – and it would seem this study is a key step in achieving that.
Here are some extracts from their media release:
Work is underway on identifying the transport projects needed during the next 30 plus years for the airport and the area surrounding it.
The contract for the investigation of airport transport solutions has been awarded to GHD. The international consultancy plans to draw on the experience of its partners around the world who have worked on similar strategies for cities like Hong Kong and London.
The first phase of the study, due to be complete in mid-2011, will identify the preferred routes and projects for rapid transit (for example bus or rail), state highways and local transport improvements. By the end of the year it is anticipated that the process of protecting routes will begin.
Auckland Transport, Auckland Council, the New Zealand Transport Agency, Kiwirail, and Auckland International Airport Ltd have agreed to undertake the joint investigation.
The project is looking at the local, regional and national transport networks as one system. Auckland Transport, NZTA and its project partners are working closely together to deliver this project.
The investigations will have a strong focus on how transport links with good land use outcomes in the surrounding commercial, industrial, residential areas and town centres.
Auckland Transport Chief Executive David Warburton says the outcome will be to give certainty about what transport infrastructure is needed and when it needs to be built.
“The mayor has identified transport links to the airport as a key strategic project for Auckland’s growth.
“The work will build on previous studies of transport options for the airport area.
“To move forward we need to build a strong case and must consider all the options for transport in the area, these investigations will look at the transport network in the area as a whole.
“The investigations will look at how to move freight in the area as well as people, as the airport gateway area is significant for Auckland’s economic growth.
“This project will take a similar approach to the spatial plan, by taking a look more than 30 years into the future and identifying opportunities for integrated transport and land use,” Mr Warburton says.
In actual fact, what the Mayor has repeatedly championed is rail to Auckland Airport from both Onehunga and Manukau, forming a southwest connection that significantly adds to the extent of Auckland’s rail network. Now I’m certain that Auckland Transport understand this, and I’m certain that the study will eventually turn into sorting out the designation for rail to the airport – but why can’t we simply call it “The Airport Rail Study” or something like that?
Furthermore, why are we potentially reinventing the wheel by analysing whether the rapid transit corridor should be provided by rail or bus? ARTA did a big study on this issue a few years back and the answer was extremely clear: rail was the preferred option. This wasn’t because of any bias towards rail over bus, but simply because we have an existing railway right-of-way between Onehunga and the CBD: we don’t have a dedicated bus right-of-way and it would be incredibly challenging to create one of rapid-transit standard (a full busway). In other words, sure you could build a busway between Onehunga and the Airport, but that wouldn’t really achieve much because the buses would still get stuck in traffic once the reached Onehunga: just like they do now.
I’m guessing that all this “multi-modal” mumbo jumbo, and the mention that bus options are being looked at, is simply so the study could get a bit of NZTA funding (as NZTA tend to run a mile from funding anything that mentions the word “rail”). I suppose that as long as we come out at the end of this study – or subsequent studies leading on from this – with a designation from rail to the airport it doesn’t really matter what we call the various studies along the way.
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Well there are plenty of people out there that think this is all about an express link from the airport terminals to Britomart, so calling it ‘airport rail’ would probably just perpetuate this fallacy when they are really talking about a fourth (and arguably fifth) main suburban line for Auckland. How about “The South West and Airport Rail Study” then 🙂
I did have the same “why are they doing yet another bloody study when the last one was quite clear” moan over on AKT, but as rtc pointed out this might be more about getting a concrete economic evaluation with BCR together rather than selecting the mode and route.
You’re right Nick – I guess my point was more about the “rail” word than the “airport” word 😉
This study is actually meant to finally put an exact detailed route on a map, similar to the CBD tunnel study last year rather than a rough line like what was in the study a few years ago. This is needed before any work progresses on protecting the route (they need to know exactly which parts to protect). As mentioned it is a multi modal study which I actually think is a good thing, rather than look at roading or rail links in isolation this will is planing a complete transport package including what roading upgrades are needed. I think we should be trying to encourage more multi modal studies as if they did one for Northland we could have seen some of the P2W money diverted for rail upgrades.
As for the bus issue, I don’t think they would build a dedicated busway but it might result in better bus priority until a rail line is completed in 10-15 years.
What are the chances that a freeway or motorway to the airport has been slipped in there?
Hmmmmm… “multi-modal”, could that other mode be … car?
Nothing about further highway developments, except a bit of future planning (~30 years) for predictions around road corridoor footprints (which I predict will stay pretty much exactly the same). Was a bit about cycle ways and pedestrian facilities though. And the cycle way stuff even looked like more than tokenism! 🙂
Also strong emphasis on exploring the possibility of freight rail from the airport as a preferable option to road frieght.
The airports long term plan is actually to shift the road east quite a bit to make room for the new northern runway so unless this study determines that it is best to bury the road under the runway I would guess that this is what will happen.
Good point, those brackets should have been a bit earlier on in that sentence, right after further highway developments.
Had heard about the airports future runway plans generally, but not what they were planning to do site wise to accomodate it. Interesting stuff.
Bris, there is already a motorway through the area and plans to upgrade the last stretch of expressway to full motorway standard soon.
Indeed this one bit of ‘multi-modal’ that is a very good idea: they can design the new interchanges on the expressway to also overpass the the rail corridor and maybe even design in some bus transfer links at the same time.
“I suppose that as long as we come out at the end of this study – or subsequent studies leading on from this – with a designation from rail to the airport it doesn’t really matter what we call the various studies along the way.”
Presumably unless the study reveals rail as not being optimal. You don’t want to be accused of rail bias yourself. Bearing in mind that a rail service should be financially viable in its own right as travellers to and from an airport are currently paying the full costs of their trips, as these are not primarily commuter trips. People who can afford airfares can afford full cost recovery rail fares.
Except Liberty, you fall into the trap of thinking about it only as a way for travellers to get to and from the Airport. In actual fact this line is probably going to have more use from people who work at the Airport and people who live in places like Mangere and travel to other parts of the city.
I wouldn’t be surprised if travellers only made up 25% of users along that line.
I’d be surprised if travellers made up even 25%, to be honest, and that’s not running on the assumption that it’ll be a low-volume line.
There’s a lot of residential and commercial/industrial between Onehunga and the Airport, and with the cost of petrol doing what it’s doing those low-income residential areas are currently pretty starved of high-quality transport options.
Liberty the last study already found heavy rail to be optimal, not least because it requires the route to be built only as far as Onehunga to connect with the existing network as opposed to busways and trams or whatever that would require much longer routes to give adequate connection.
If I remember correctly the last ARTA report calculated about 20% of peak hour users would be air travellers, the rest would be people heading to Mangere, Favona or the airport precinct to work, or people who lived in SW Auckland heading elsewhere for work or whatever reason. That’s at peak mind, I’m not sure what air travel demand is like in terms of peakiness, presumably it does have early morning buisiness peaks but stays fairly strong across the day?
Also I wouldn’t say travellers currently pay the full cost of their trips, like all state highways in the country the route is built and maintained from an account that is subsidised by the taxpayer as petrol taxes fail to cover the full costs.
Nick: The last study was not done to NZTA standards I understand, so it is rather important to have an objective assessment by the entity that is to fund it, not the entity wanting funds.
The idea there could ever be sufficiently density of users to justify a rail line to Auckland airport from south Auckland is ludicrous. The road isn’t congested, buses could easily provide adequate service at adequate speeds – it would just be paying for a big heavy comfortable train instead of a smaller lighter comfortable bus. Who should pay for this?
Air travel demand has an early morning and evening business/long haul international trend in demand.
All state highway maintenance and all renewals (besides some of the RONS work) are fully funded from the NLTA (fuel tax, RUC, MVR). Indeed, even when Labour was pouring surplus money into the NLTF a few years ago, it paralleled roughly the Crown account fuel tax revenue, which is why ultimately the latter was simply directed into the NLTA, evening out the Crown contribution.
It is disingenuous to claim that state highways do not generate a financial surplus. They do, substantively, far more than is enough to maintain them at a steady state. The surplus is used to pay for capital improvements, public transport and the like. Local roads are different because of the rates contribution, but in the context of railways this is irrelevant in more cases.
Liberty – the NZTA won’t be funding any rail lines because the GPS has barred them from doing so.
One thing that could end up happening as a result of this study is the roads get upgraded and at the same time the NZTA build all the bridges and basic earthworks needed for the rail line so that when funding is approved for it, it is just a case of building the formation and installing the track. This would be similar to what we see now between Hillsborough and Sandringham Rd and should greatly reduce the cost of building a line out there while not adding substantial costs to the roading project.
And Liberty you once again miss the point by assuming that the rail link will be used primarily by airport travellers. Have you just ignored what was written above? Studies suggest that there could be around 38,000 people working in the airport area by 2031: that’s an enormous concentration of people travelling to the area for work and would probably be the primary market for the line (along with people in Mangere going to work in town, Newmarket and Manukau).
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that southwest Auckland will need a rapid transit line in the future (it probably needs one now actually). Once we accept that fact we start looking at what technology would be most suitable for that line. The existence of the Onehunga Line and a dedicated right-of-way between Onehunga and the CBD gives rail an enormous advantage over buses.
I’m still waiting to see design ideas for a rapid-transit standard busway between Onehunga and the city.
The last study was an objective assessment conducted by Parsons Brickhoff and Beca, and reported to Arta. If you think its not objective because Arta contracted the work then another report contracted by NZTA is hardly going to be any more objective..
Why is a rail line to the south west of Auckland having enough users so ludicrous Liberty? During the 2006 census there were 52,000 people living in the census area units for which a station is proposed, plus just under 40,000 working between Mangere, the airport industrial area and the airport itself… with a lot of job growth projected in and around the airport. Just how many jobs and people do you need clustered around four stations before it becomes un-ludicrous?
Actually to run the same route by buses would amount to paying multiple buses and drivers to do what a single train can achieve. On a busy corridor like this the operating costs of buses are huge. At the projected two thousand people per hour at peak that’s about three trains vs. forty buses. Personally I think it is a much better idea to pay for three “big heavy comfortable trains” and three train drivers than for forty slow uncomfortable buses and forty drivers!
However the Tender documents for this bid call for rapid rail transit including station locations (along SH20, SH20A and SH20B). So unless the winning bidder finds a strong argument to do otherwise (economics being that likely argument) they are going to comply with the scope.
Airport passenger are likely to want to travel at least north of the Manukau harbour, so what service will be provided for the residents of Mangere etc? They are unlikely to want to / be able to pay for full fares. So do we just cut to the chase and call this the airport rapid rail, with our condolences to those communities?
Why do you think the residents of Mangere Bridge, etc, “are unlike to want to / be able to pay for full fares”? They’re hardly the only low-income area served by rail (much of the Southern and Eastern Line catchments are very thoroughly working-class), and Mangere’s considerably closer to the city than Papakura. All the discussion I’ve seen has pointed out that Sydney airport rail’s fatal flaw was to price for the tourist market not the local one, and that if the SW line is to work it needs to price the airport as just another fare stage in line with the rest of the network.
Also, with petrol prices going up, any alternative to circuitous driving routes will be attractive.
Yeah I agree. I was responding to Libertyscotts post with regards to pricing for the tourist market. Seeing rail fares are subsidised, I reckon the fare structure should be kept in line with the rest of the network.
liberty seems to be contradicting himself again. His point would be true if there was a congestion charge, but there is not. Therefore road users are not paying the full cost.
Having a high quality PT link will mean that the roads are freed up for freight deliveries, plumbers and essential business travel. Its to these travellers that the time savings benefits actually accrue to.
Agree, road users do not pay the full marginal costs of their activities at peak times, but the fully recover their operating costs, and fully recover (and more) the long run infrastructure costs. Rail can’t come close to doing both. Economically efficient congestion charging would just result in reallocation of costs. In urban contexts like Auckland I see it as replacing rates funding, and also resulting in discounts at off peak periods for motorists driving say 10pm-5am.
The urban public transport problem is less acknowledged, but still obvious. Peak time public transport users are grossly undercharged because the infrastructure and vehicles/rolling stock exist at capacity levels to handle their demand, with around two-thirds of that capacity sitting idle for most of the time. Motorists bear the fixed costs of owning cars themselves, the road network additional capacity should be marginally priced at peak times, and discounted off peak. Rail and bus should be the same. In other words, off peak travel is overpriced, and peak time underpriced. Herein lies the reason why overcrowding is an issue.
The long run efficient answer is for peak commuters to pay their true costs, which would significantly alter labour patterns and the economy in cities, as it should. Peak commuting arose during the industrial revolution when people needed to be working equipment and production lines in unison, and offices for meetings and effectively production of documentation. This is all largely obsolete today, so the trend should be to move from the highly inefficient bulk commuting.
This is why, unlike intercity passenger travel (and all freight), urban passenger travel suffers chronically from massive subsidies, lack of easily available capital and severe congestion and overcrowding – the price signals heavily subsidise those using roads, trains and buses on urban commutes.
Pricing reform on roads and public transport should be aiming to address this over time.
After all, people who make intercity trips tend to fully pay (and are capable of paying) the operating and infrastructure costs of all their modes (road, rail, sea and air), why should cities be different?
The “multi modal” moniker is for NZTA. They’d like to be able to manoeuver as much of the eventual funding away from rail as possible. Don’t be surprised if a large percentage of the projects involve grade-separating and widening roads, flyovers and anything else NZTA can think of to provide higher-capacity roads anywhere near the vicinity of the ever-delayed rail line.
This sounds a lot like Brisbane Airport. We have a new motorway tunnel, a 6-lane freeway bridge duplication and a proposal for more motorway tunnels
in the vicinity of the airport. Its very surprising.
Indeed. And then if you arrive after 8pm in Brisbane (as I did), you’re forced to pay for a taxi because the airport trains don’t run at night.
Interestingly the group doesn’t include the treasury or ministry of transport. Are we slow learners? The CBD tunnel wil be decided by these two agencies and Auckland is keeping them out of the airport rail study. I guess they will be involved at the last minute and we will go through the whole CBD tunnel review debacle again.
much better to ignore the MoT and Treasury at this stage, they’ll just try and obstruct things. What we really need to do for airport rail is protect and designate the route before anything else gets built in the way. Construction would commence after the CBD rail link is built I would imagine, so this would not be a detailed business case like the CBDRL.
You might find this item on international experience with airport links useful: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/04/getting_airport?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/somethingamericagetsright