North Shore rail link very popular

An interesting article in yesterday’s Herald, outlining the results of a poll into transport in Auckland:

An UMR Research poll, the results of which are out today, found 79 per cent of 241 Aucklanders in favour of installing railway lines across the harbour – whether on a new bridge or through tunnels – and 18 per cent against.

They were more evenly split over the form of a new harbour crossing, with 38 per cent opting for a second bridge and 41 per cent for tunnels.

Twelve per cent did not want any new crossing.

241 is not a huge sample, although the large majority of people wanting a rail link fell well outside any margin of error. It would have been interesting to ask people whether they preferred another road crossing or for an additional crossing to be rail only (assuming that we can’t afford both).

The article continues:

But the Campaign for Better Transport and the Forum for Auckland Sustainable Transport say rail tunnels would be far more cost-effective than a new motorway link, and would remove capacity pressure from the existing bridge by taking buses off it and encouraging more people to leave their cars at home.

Campaign convenor Cameron Pitches said it was ironic that almost 80 per cent of Aucklanders favoured a rail link, as that was about the same proportion as the Government said drove cars to work and should therefore receive most transport funding, despite growing concern about rising oil prices.

Forum spokesman Bevan Woodward said: “We find it extraordinary that the Government would seriously consider a road-only bridge to solve Auckland’s future transport issues.”

Mr Brown said the poll result reflected feedback he received every day from Aucklanders about rail projects including links to North Shore and the airport, and a central city tunnel.

“Aucklanders understand that we need to unclog our roads by fixing public transport – we need to future-proof the additional harbour crossing for rail to cater for Auckland’s growth.”

While I still have many doubts about the timing of a rail crossing to the North Shore (let alone a road crossing), it does seem as though the rail link is very popular.

Unsurprisingly, Steven Joyce is not so keen:

But Transport Minister Steven Joyce said the trouble with such polls was options were presented as costless, and he had received a rough estimate of $3 billion for a rail crossing from Gaunt St in the Wynyard Quarter to Takapuna.

Officials believed it could cost another $6 billion to $7 billion to run rail tracks to Albany, because of a need for more tunnelling, given that the busway corridor would be unsuitable for trains.

They had also told him that commuter rail for the North Shore would entail huge extra spending south of the harbour, for new underground stations.

“A lot of things sound like good ideas when we have no idea how much they will cost us, whether they be through taxes, big hikes in rates, or more likely both.”

I have a couple of issues with what Joyce says here. Firstly, it seems strange that he’s worried about spending $3 billion on a rail connection but not concerned about spending nearly twice that on a road bridge or tunnel. The second is that the cost estimates for a full North Shore Line are complete rubbish: based on a completely over-the-top costing of the train stations plus a stupid route.

In the long run I seriously think that investing in rail is the cheaper option – compared to all the motorway building and widening (plus the huge environmental effects) associated with a second road-based harbour crossing. Steven Joyce tries to style himself as being ‘sensible’ when it comes to transport policies (supposedly in comparison to the non-sensible Len Brown I guess), but when you actually look at the huge cost of many of these motorway projects that image starts to wear thin very quickly indeed.

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