The different positions taken by Central Government and the Auckland Council over the business case for the CBD Rail Tunnel project are at first difficult to reconcile. The business case process, the calculations of cost-benefit analyses, the work of the various officials should be objective and independent, theoretically at least there should be a right answer out there. But reading through and analysing the vast number of documents produced as part of the review seems to highlight one key point: it’s not an objective process, it’s clearly a subjective one.
Put simply, just as Auckland Council/Auckland Transport officials could never agree to a review that slammed the business case of their bosses’ favourite project, Ministry of Transport and Treasury officials could never agree to a review that showed this project had a high cost-benefit ratio: particularly compared to the Puhoi-Wellsford project. So each party effectively picked and chose the assumptions, accepted or rejected various limitations and accepted or rejected whichever estimates they knew would have an impact on the final cost-benefit ratio in the way that would suit their case.
The fact that the Ministry of Transport review completely ignores bus and car capacity issues in the city centre really makes any of their conclusions laughable. But at the same time, it seems as though many of the business case’s original calculations of regeneration/productivity benefits may have been overblown – although only if you believe this international expert over this international expert. When it comes to whether the City Rail Link will generate 5,000 additional jobs (so says the government) or 20,000 additional jobs (so says Auckland Council) or 22,000 additional jobs (so says the original business case), really the answer is obviously that they’re all probably wrong. Nobody knows. And we probably won’t ever know the ‘actual’ answer to these questions – and therefore to the over-arching question of “is the project worth it?” – by simply undertaking more and more detailed analysis.
What the disagreements between the various teams of experts really does is simply reflect the difference in opinion politically between the Auckland Council and Central Government over the importance of this project. One the one hand, it reflects a Council that is desperate to implement a ‘game-changer’ to help achieve its big goal of becoming the ‘world’s most liveable city‘ – and it (rightly or wrongly) reckons this project is that game changer. On the other hand, it reflects a Central Government highly sceptical about the popularity of rail, worried about the impact of funding this project on various other priorities, and worried about the project becoming a white elephant.
That is not to say the business case review process has been a complete waste of time. The work done certainly clarifies the different options Auckland has when it comes to its transport future. Does the city want its main streets clogged by 200-300 buses an hour along many of its main streets? Does the city want to enable the CBD to grow, encouraging high productivity (and high wage) firms to locate there? Or perhaps, most fundamentally, do we want to be the world’s most liveable city or a provincial branch office of Sydney? The council clearly prefers the former; the government’s review seems to accept the latter.
The video below – a good piece from TVNZ (click for the video) outlines the differences quite well:
Just as we saw two very different visions for Auckland in papers relating to the Spatial Plan, we are seeing two very different approaches to what are Auckland’s transport priorities. Steven Joyce’s main response to criticisms that the government’s shafting Auckland on this matter is to point out how much money the government’s spending in Auckland – on motorways! Perhaps he doesn’t quite see the point that Auckland’s not necessarily arguing for more money to be spent on transport, we’re asking for that money to be spent in a smarter and more balanced way.
All of this bodes very interestingly for the upcoming general election. To me it doesn’t seem particularly healthy for Auckland’s long-term future if we’re forever going to see the Council and Central Government at loggerheads with each other over fundamental issues like how the city should grow and what its transport priorities should be. It poses an interesting opportunity for Labour and the Greens to push strongly on the message “vote for Auckland, vote for us”. While transport is not necessarily often a particularly large election issue, themes of “the government isn’t listening to Auckland”, “Auckland’s getting a raw deal”, “we want a government and council that work together” could gain some interesting traction. The Auckland Council is now a pretty powerful entity, and I certainly think Central Government is playing with political fire if they think they can simply ignore the Council.
I’d be pretty worried if I were an Auckland based National MP and this debate between Council and Government dragged on for much longer. After all, it’s not the Mayor and Councillors who have to face up to the public in November this year.
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We have a situtaion here where the transport minister (a list MP whom nobody elected directly)is trying to impose his will on Auckland over that of the council that was elected by the majority of Aucklanders with a mandate to make these plans. Joyce reminds me of Douglas, Richardson and those other creeps from the 80s and 90s – the attitude is – ” I know what’s best so shut up and take your medicine”
The man cares nothing about democracy or public opinon, he has a plan and he’s going to implement it. The council (and therefore the majority of Aucklanders)to him are just a fly in the ointment to be picked out and flicked away.
The List MP argument is one that Mike Lee has used in the last couple of days. It also applies to Labour’s last transport spokesman Darren Hughes, Labour’s current transport spokesman Shane Jones, the Greens transport spokesman Gareth Hughes, and Jacinda Ardern who has been using the tunnel as part of her campaign to get off the list and in to Auckland Central. It doesn’t apply to Nikki Kaye. A firm majority of Auckland electorate MPs are from the National and ACT parties .
There is no “trying to impose his will on Auckland”. The government is currently declining to pay for an Auckland city project but that doesn’t stop the city building the tunnel. There is no obligation for the government to pay for every local government project that those local governments think up. If Taupo Council decided that an Auckland to Taupo motorway made sense and was vital for the town and the government declined to finance it, then would you complain that Joyce was trying to impose his will on the elected council? That’d just be bizarre.
Obi, like Joyce you are missing the point. We’re not asking for a billion dollar hand out on top of all the existing transport funding, we’re asking for the existing levels of (considerable) transport funding to be spent on projects that are regional priorities. Auckland has a strategic spatial plan and wants transport infrastructure to be consistent with that, not detrimental to it. Bear in mind we are talking about the same government that removed Aucklands ability to fund it’s own rapid transit upgrades and extensions, saying effectively that those funding decisions must only be made by Wellington. So yes they most certainly imposing thier will by creating a situation where only they can fund these projects then declining to fund them, instead prefering to spend the money on projects in Auckland that are contrary to Aucklands plans for it’s own city.
Your Taupo example is quite inappropriate, for one state highways between centres are very much a central responsibility, and such a route would be outside of the Taupo councils juristiction. But the main problem is Wellington isn’t proposing to spend billions in Taupo on projects that council doesn’t want. If welllington had decided to spend the money widening SH1 through the taupo urban waterfront, rather than building the highway bypass of the city and getting SH traffic out of town (which was the regional strategy) I would have likewise called foul.
Nick… The government are currently funding some of their national transport priorities like the RONS. They’re not going to cancel national projects and give the money to Auckland-only projects. So do you want to cancel regional projects like Waterview and Upper Harbour to finance the tunnel?
Regarding the Taupo example, you seem to be saying that the Taupo Council should have a veto on any national projects passing through their boundaries. If the government did propose a Auckland to Wellington motorway or an upgrade of the national grid passing through Taupo then Taupo Council should be able to veto this and get to spend the money on some local project. The equivalent is that Auckland should have a veto on a Northland-to-Waikato motorway improvement because it has to, as a necessity, pass through Auckland. I think NZ benefits from having joined up centrally planned infrastructure, rather than a group of regions acting in their own interests.
Urgh. I see this reporter has done it again in this clip, as has Nick. This Auckland vs. Wellington crap has to stop, we’re not at war. Wellington is a city full of people who love public transport. The national government is full of Aucklander’s who hate it. Stop phrasing the debate as Auckland vs. Wellington. Do Aucklander’s really see the rest of the country that way? It’s dumb. We refer to capital cities in reporting when talking about world events, that I understand. But in national events like this it makes no sense. Would anyone say Wellington vs. Wellington with the current stoush over the Basin Reserve or light rail versus tunnels? No that’s daft.
Erentz you’re going to have to get over this minor point. Everyone understands Wellington in this context means the govt. As in London or Washimgton.
Ok I’ll stop picking on it. 🙂 I’m just concerned that it risks 1) implying that “it’s those uselsss bureaucrats in Wellington causing the problem” and thus diverting from the fact that the blame lays squarely at government policy, something that everyone needs to understand when they go to the voting booth this year, and 2) it tries to get a rise out of the provincial rivalries we have, again diverting from the real culprits. Clearly not the case for avid readers of this blog, but for people not heavily following these kinds of issues maybe.
Nikki Kaye is staying well schtumm on her Facebook linked article and lets her multilingual guard dog do her commenting: http://www.facebook.com/nikki.kaye/posts/205030916199806
“…think Central Government is playing with political fire if they think they can simply ignore the Council…”
This is the government that has given us massive abuse of urgency and the dictatorial powers of CERA. Do you really think they simply wouldn’t legislate to take transport away from the SuperCity and start again if Len Brown looked like he was winning the argument?
But yes – this has the potential to be a major election issue in Auckland. Joyce might be a list MP, but I thought he lived in Auckland? Key certainly does. I have been amazed at how badly this government has dealt with Auckland issues. Key’s popularity means they’ve largely escaped blame for the flawed supercity process, Hide and ACT are going to pay for that with political extinction. Banks was soundly trounced by Brown in another mis-reading of Auckland’s mood. Eventually, National’s constant mis-steps over Auckland will come back and bite them.
Joyce lives on a lifestyle block in Albany and Key lives in Parnell but his electorate is Helensville so that’s where his loyalty lies.
Does anyone here think that perhaps the reason Joyce and Treasury are pushing hard for a bus tunnel is because once it is opened and “empty” they can then push for it to be T2ed?
To put your fears slightly at ease:
Look at the Busway, that was justified for funding using the HOV argument, but it has already been to much of a success for HOV’s to now be added from Constellation (as was planned). Also HOV lanes parallel to the motorway will just remove vehicles from the motorway, which will free up capacity and makeit difercult to increase the number of HOV’s. So logistically it will be rather differcult to justify an HOV tunnel.
Let just say a bus tunnel was put in for example between Vic Park and Symonds Street instead of the CBD “rail link”. The NEX and B-Line services alone would provide substantial frequencies and in fact if it were close enough to the university and linked with the rail system, it should be able to fully justify itself without HOV’s.
Yes but the bus tunnel was shown to cost quite a bit more than the rail tunnel and would just require more money to be spent in the future. Seattle built an underground bus system, and a few years later are now having to close it all down to upgrade it to electric trams. I also wonder who will be willing to have a giant smokestack next to their apartment to funnel out all the fumes from the diesel buses.
Sometimes I really worry, though, how much actual support there is out there for the City Rail Link. You know, from real Aucklanders as opposed to us transport nerds and people who live in Grey Lynn. I’ve heard the argument from people down south “why do we need trains? trains don’t run anywhere near us, how many buses could they buy for that money?” And when you respond with CBD bus congestion arguments, they reply “but ordinary people never go to the CBD anyway”.
Heres a relevant link…
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/auckland-rail-link-figures-massaged-joyce-4203273
Those ordinary people who have memories going back at least 18 years would remember when they and most people went into town in the weekends.
There are a few aspects to consider here. One is the cost. If you offer people something that is free then of course they’ll say “yes”. The TV One report on the tunnel a few days ago noted that commuters at Britomart were in favour of the tunnel, but not if they had to pay for it from rates. A project that people are only in favour of if other people pay for it can’t consider its support to be solid. Then you have the aspect that many people support rail but only because they think it will take other people off the roads and make their drive easier. That is self-defeating if everyone does it.
I think it is worth watching what politicians do. Len Brown knows that Aucklanders are generally in favour of roads, which is why he has consistently supported motorway building. He also knows that Aucklanders like free things, which is why it’ll be interesting to see if he makes some hard decisions around financing the tunnel. I think Auckland will remain solidly National after the election, the tunnel won’t be an issue except at the margins, and most people who care about the issue won’t be National voters any way. I can’t imagine that any Labour seats will fall to National in what I expect will be a Labour-to-National swing in November. But if ACT don’t win Epsom then it will go to National, and only Auckland Central looks marginal.
Len Brown knows that he will have to have to work with National after the election which is why he continues to act reasonably. On the other hand, Shane Jones has come out with his odd “hate crime” comment and Mike Lee has decided that insulting Joyce is the way forward. If their ultimate objective is a frothy mouthed angry soundbite then that’s a success, but it seems a dumb strategy for achieving a tunnel.
I support the tunnel. If I was in the Council and wanted to build it then I’d continue to engage with the government. I’d stump up some Auckland money (maybe $100million a year or so) to carry forward the project for the next few years and get central government’s agreement to pick up some of the bill post the design stage when hopefully the budget won’t look so dire. I wouldn’t turn this in to a Greens flagship issue, because the Greens are a minor party and you’re inviting the government to marginalise the issue. I certainly wouldn’t insult ministers or the government… Mike Lee isn’t going to win a popularity contest against John Key.
Reminds me a lot of Perth, which said “close fremantle line, put in a busway”
http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/76/Files/R005.pdf
And also of the South East Busway, on of the world’s prominent busway, which had a cost benefit-ratio of “just” 0.3
http://www.patrec.org/web_docs/atrf/papers/2009/1834_paper152-Bitzios.pdf
@Obi you are missing the point completely (and i suspect on purpose). What I’m talking about is the wider picture of sprawl vs intensification. Joyce has made it clear what he thinks should happen and why his transport planning is the way it is. remember his rant in the Herald last year about ‘planners telling us how to live our lives”?
Please don’t attempt to muddy the waters he by being deliberatley obtuse.
Can someone explain to me why – or even how – central government can dictate how Auckland grows?
Surely that’s the responsibility of local government?
Because someone holds the purse strings
Using the purse strings to influence local govt from behind the scenes, that’s one thing.
But this is a publicly-released document on their “plan” for Auckland. Since when was that a job for central government? Makes a mockery of “empowering” local govt through the creation of the Supercity.
Someone start a facebook page – I wont vote for National unless the commit to Auckland CBS tunnel. If it gets 100,000 fans, we’ll see some action.
Thats how thinks work these days.
man, that was bad grammer/spelling
What are the safety implications of a CBD with 300 buses an hour and huge car traffic volumes, vs near pedestrianisation?
Gridlock or traffic moving at walking speed? Hence mainly air quality issues for foot traffic.
I understand the govt doesn’t want to pay for it, but then what’s the government’s solution for the transport issue in Auckland? Do they have one or does Auckland have to pay for it alone?
How much does Auckland send to Wellington in taxes, relatively to the rest of the country? (I’m asking for real, I have no clue of who’s the bigger taxpayer in Nz)
If anyone heard Steven Joyce on National Radio last night at 6pm he boasted that he was doing better than almost anywhere else in the world at providing work for contractors (read “roading contractors”) and that he is extracting every dollar he can to keep contracting businesses productive. So I think the Auckland vs Government is less about Auckland per se than Auckland being a very large voice putting as much weight as possible to try to correct decades of systemic imbalance in transport infrastructure funding. The correction is desperately overdue and will require a huge effort to achieve given Central Government’s longstanding commitment to its ‘friends’.
@ doloras. I think the support is gradually increasing. I remember when a survey was done last year and very few Aucklanders saw CBD rail as an impt project. instead everybody listed airport rail as their top priority. Recently they did another survey and figure was much higher – about 35% of Aucklanders. So the message is getting out there, slowly, that we can’t build airport rial until we finish CBD rail.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1106/S00027/aa-releases-survey-results-on-auckland-transport-issues.htm
“82.5% supported Rail to the Airport and 43.3% said it was the most important of the three rail projects (Rail to Airport, Centre City Rail Link, and North Shore Rail Link), while 76.7% supported the Centre City Rail Link and 38.6% said it was the most important of the three rail projects.”