There is a lot of poorly informed criticism of public transport out there. While this is frustrating, it has its advantages in that most people who critique PT – and rail especially – can have their arguments easily rebutted and dismissed. What’s more challenging, yet more interesting, is coming across someone who makes coherent critiques of public transport. A blog post by Liberty Scott (scroll down a bit to the middle of the post, this post is also on the same issue) – posted back in early June – provides a reasonably well informed critique of the City Rail Link project. While I ultimately disagree with Liberty Scott’s claim that the project is a “boondoggle”, there are some interesting points raised that require a thoughtful rebuttal – and also highlight further things we need to do to ensure the City Rail Link project is the success that I think it should be.
The post was written a few days after the Ministry of Transport released their review of the City Rail Link project, so obviously this review formed the basis for the blog post:
The Ministry of Transport and Treasury have reviewed the Auckland underground rail loop business case and found it wanting. It is hardly surprising. Auckland rail has been a faith-based initiative from the start, primarily because the enormous cost premium to move people by rail, compared to bus is not justified by the change in behaviour it provokes. Auckland rail advocates think because it is attracting lots of passengers (all of whom pay less in fares than the cost of operating the service, let alone the cost of capital) it is a good thing, but scrutiny about where those users are coming from indicates some pretty clear home truths.
As I explored in quite a lot of detail at the time, the MoT’s review had some fundamental flaws – their acceptance of it being possible to run 200-300 buses an hour along most of the central city’s bus routes being the most obvious.
Liberty Scott then looks at the PT mode-share for the city centre at the moment, which is supposedly quite high by international standards at around 50%. It would be interesting to compare this to various Australian cities, as I think they have much higher PT modeshares myself:
First, around half of all trips into central Auckland in the morning peak are by public transport today. This mode share is high by the standards of any new world city, and most of them are travelling by bus. Trying to increase this in the absence of any form of congestion pricing is difficult, as the current strategy is to take money from all motorists to subsidise a minority of trip. The number of trips by public transport has increased by 50% in ten years. However, 40% of that increase has been by rail, 33% by the Northern Busway alone (bear in mind this is one route that has cost around a tenth of the cost of the rail network which has 2.5 lines) and the remainder by conventional bus and ferry services. Rail has been important, but for the money spent on it, has not delivered compared to the other modes.
The notable figure is the 15% decline in car trips, which are partly a function of increased fuel prices. This will have had an effect on reducing congestion, although not as much as the figure may suggest.
The point to make here is that the number of jobs in the central city isn’t static – it is growing and it will continue to grow quite substantially over the next 20-30 years. The reason why all the increase in people travelling to the city centre in recent years has been on public transport is because there’s no more roadspace available for cars. That fundamental issue is not going to go away, and as buses need to travel on roads too, their capacity to carry further passengers is limited in the long run. The only part of the transport system with capacity to carry a vastly greater number of people is the rail network – but it needs a fundamental bottleneck removed (which of course is what the City Rail Link project does).
Liberty Scott then argues that because very little of Auckland’s employment is in the CBD, the opportunity to further increase PT patronage is quite limited:
Given only 11% of employment in Auckland is in the CBD, this modeshift is minor in the scheme of transport in Auckland. However, the officials and politicians involved are totally CBD focused. In short, the impact of more trips to the CBD by bus and rail is very low on congestion.
Furthermore, the scope for significant increases in public transport usage is limited, most new world cities would be thrilled to have this sort of CBD mode share.
This jumps on one of the most fundamental mistakes that has been made in the ‘sale’ of this project so far: that it’s supposedly only about finding ways to get more people into the CBD at peak times. If you read through both the original business case and (to an even greater extent) the review(s) of that document, you hear an endless amount about what different the project makes to the number of people travelling into the city centre. But that misses a huge point of the project – its ability to enable higher frequency trains throughout the network, which improves the rail system for everyone, not just people working downtown.
The shift away from calling the project the CBD Rail Loop/Tunnel/Link and towards calling it the “City Rail Link” is a good sign that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are finally beginning to recognise that it has benefits for the whole city. Let’s hope that those benefits start being measured, and also that they are explained more fully as part of the process of building further support for the project.
After discussing the issue of whether the rail tunnel (and electrification) have business cases based on a whole heap more intensification, Liberty Scott notes the following:
In other words, it [patronage] will come only if Aucklanders choose to live in medium to high density housing near railway stations AND work in the CBD AND choose to commute by rail. A bold assumption, that is not exactly plausible. It is part of the planners’ wet dream that Aucklanders are gagging to live in London, Paris or New York style apartment conditions near railway stations in the suburbs. Yes, apartment living has appeal for some, by only typically for living near the city so one can walk. Quite why people in Auckland would want to live in such housing in the suburbs is unclear.
In essence, a fortune is being spent upgrading Auckland’s rail network based on patronage forecasts that are fanciful and difficult to believe. If they prove to be correct, then the network will be constrained without an underground loop (although the constraint will only be in the morning and evening peak – a few billion dollars for a few hours a day). If wrong, then not only will an inner city underground loop be a destruction of wealth, but so will the electrification.
It is true that Auckland’s rail network only serves a relatively small part of the city. I forget the exact percentage of Auckland’s population that would be within a 10 minute walk of a train station, but as we have a pretty small network I can’t imagine the number is particularly high. Furthermore, along parts of the rail network (especially the Southern Line between Newmarket and Middlemore) we don’t exactly have a particularly high patronage generating catchment. In the north the Southern Motorway seems to be an enormous barrier to higher numbers of people using Remuera, Greenlane and Penrose stations (Ellerslie manages to be reasonably popular though), while south of Penrose the rail network runs through a pretty horrible industrial wasteland until it reaches Middlemore.
There are certainly opportunities to significantly boost the number of people living with walking distance of the rail network – especially along the Western Line, the Eastern Line and the more southern parts of the Southern Line. The City Rail Link will make an enormous difference to trip times on the inner part of the Western Line in particular – so redeveloping areas around stations between Mt Eden and New Lynn seems a pretty obvious no-brainer. Of course we’re not going to force people to live in these areas, a seven minute train trip from Morningside to Aotea Station should prove pretty attractive – even if it means living in a terraced house or apartment building, instead of Auckland’s mythical ‘quarter acre paradise’. There are already a growing number of apartment buildings around Morningside station – even without it having planning regulations that encourage this type of transit-oriented development.
But what the obsession with “getting more intensive redevelopment around stations” misses is what I think should be in the longer run the most common way people get to a train station – and that is on the bus. It would be interesting to analyse how much of Auckland’s population is within a 10 minute bus trip of the rail network (and the Northern Express) – I suspect that number will be much larger than simply the walking catchment. In Toronto well over half of passengers using the subway system arrived at their station on the bus, in Perth it is the feeder bus system that has made rail lines through suburbia (much lower density suburbia than Auckland by the way) such a success. And, as I pointed out in a fairly recent post, by using our buses as feeders to the rail network instead of long-distance competitors to it, we can usually offer a trip time that is significantly quicker.
Ultimately I agree with Liberty Scott that there’s a risk of the City Rail Link becoming a ‘boondoggle’ that is under-utilised. The main cause of that risk is the question of whether or not we design our bus network around making the best use of the rail system or whether we continue with the current situation of having a bus network that completely ignores and generally duplicates the rail network. With the rail system having the huge capacity boosts the City Rail Link will provide, there should be no reason to operate many buses at all from west or south of the isthmus directly into the CBD. This should provide huge cost savings, while also making public transport work faster and more reliably (long bus routes are horrifically unreliable) for passengers.
Possibly the other risk is whether or not employment in the city centre grows at the rate expected by many of the background documents to the original business case. Debate on this matter was a major cause of disagreement between the positions of the government and that of Auckland Transport and Auckland Council throughout the business case review process. To ensure the CBD does grow, it is likely to be necessary to restrict office developments in auto-dependent parts of the city to a greater extent in our future planning documents. A recentralisation of employment in Auckland should bring massive benefits – through better agglomeration, through reduced auto-dependency and ultimately through the greater productivity that international studies show takes place in the city centre compared to outlying areas.
I do think we can ensure the City Rail Link is no ‘boondoggle’, as Liberty Scott puts it. But that will require us to do some things differently from the past. It will require a vastly overhauled bus system (though there’s nothing stopping us doing that now, it’s bound to improve the business case for the CRL if many more bus routes become feeder services) and it will require a greater concentration of office activity in the city centre and Newmarket. But ultimately that will benefit the city too.
So I’m not too worried, there are good counter-arguments even to a pretty well reasoned critique of this project.
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On the last point, in a presentation to the transport committee in June there was a slide that showed rail patronage was matching predictions
About 2/3 down of this presentation http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/committees/transportcommittee/meetings/transportcomminatt220110607.pdf
I’m surprised anyone would question the success of electrification given the results of the recent investment in Auckland rail. Patronage has grown massively and the old trains are reaching capacity.
With rail, the service keeps getting better year after year too. Can you say the same about Auckland’s motorways after many times the amount of spending? Unfortunately not, and if you’re looking for wealth destruction that is the hole nearly all of our money is being thrown down.
Yeah he’s wrong we he mentions fanciful patronage projections. If anything they were previously on the low side. One you mention but don’t emphasise is time-of-use pricing (both road and PT). I think AC/AT has to go down this road before the City Rail Link is built. It just makes so much sense to increase fares at peak times, and now with the HOP card it’s dead easy, at least on PT.
TOU pricing has two effects that are crucial to the City Rail Link:
1) it will increase the relative attractiveness of PT over driving, because time-of-use differentials on the road network will be much higher than those on PT. Vickrey (Nobel prize-winning economist who first suggested TOU pricing) suggested that peak road prices should increase 12 fold, while peak rail prices should increase only 4 fold. This differential will drive people towards PT and reduce operating costs … and
2) by getting people onto the train now, we have a larger base of existing users that will derive the full direct benefits of the travel-time savings delivered by the City Rail Link. As I mentioned earlier the switch from “existing” to “new” user is not semantic: Existing users derive full direct benefits, whereas new users only get one half (see wiki page on rule of a half).
It’s my understanding that Auckland Transport is looking at peak pricing for the rail system at least.
Good luck pushing time of use road pricing though. We are so far away from that being implemented at the moment. Perhaps the only thing that could bring it forwards are continued reductions in NLTF funding from lower petrol/diesel sales.
Hold on there folks. If there is one thing that will drive people away from PT in droves it is overcrowding. Yes I know that some extra carriages are being added to a few trains shortly but the last thing you want to do is to alter the busses now to feed the trains until you have the real capacity that the new EMUs will bring. And I would not bank on having them until about a year after the schedule if your Matangis and our Waratahs are anything to go by. By the way does anyone know where the old TransScenic cariages will go when the new ones come on line shortly?
It is true that rail capacity is close to maxed out until 2014 when the EMUs will really start to come into operation. The EMUs will give a pretty massive increase in rail capacity, being much longer and larger trains than we have now – so the real big shift in bus routes should look to have a completion date by the time the EMUs arrive.
We can still do stuff in the meanwhile though – particularly in terms of improving off-peak services and getting more feeders to parts of the network that have spare capacity or capacity that can be easily increased (like lengthening platforms on the Onehunga Line so it can take longer trains).
To me we will probably need a few different versions of bus routes in the areas surrounding rail lines over the coming 5 years
1. A streamlined version of the one we have now. Basically it has to cater for our lack of integrated fares (this seems to be the process that AT is effectively doing at the moment)
2. A version post integrated fares which probably involves sending peak buses on routes to town but off peak just feeding rail stations (late 2012 – probably 2015)
3. A final version feeding most peak and off peak buses to rail stations. This can probably only happen once the majority of the EMU’s are up and running which most likely won’t be till 2015 some time.
I would hope that AT are thinking about this kind of thing now and I actually think there would be some merit to showing people some of the long term plans so that they know there is a big picture to get things sorted.
The big spanner in that potential plan is the implementation of PTOM (new operating model for bus contracts). We may have one opportunity over the next year or so to completely rework the bus route system while a new set of contracts are signed – and those contracts may be in place for a very very long time.
Yes I agree but I wonder if AT have the ability to keep some routes on the existing contract system. Remember that not all routes are going to be turned into feeders, routes like Dominion Rd and the most of the North Shore buses will probably be unchanged during this time with the exception of integrated fares. That would mean AT could still use PTOM for these routes but keep the routes that will be turned into rail feeders in the future as they are for now. The other thing is that if they have a long term plan of what the routes will eventually be then that could always be built into the contract
all the Tranz Scenic carriages are stuffed, the best of the old ones will go to the charter fleet.
However as they are manual door opening no use on subbies.
Thank Luke. I keep trying to think of a feasible stopgap because I can see the momentum of rail patronage being lost. Let me try another tack. There will be some Ganz-Mavags becoming surplus in Wellington soon. They have remote closing doors and could easily be converted to trailers by removing the motors and pantographs. Does any one know if the door controls are compatible with the Auckland trailers? If they were then a train could be formed with an existing driver trailer, 2 Ganz-Mavag pairs and a loco. The released trailer carriages could then be used to build up other shorter trains.
All the Ganz Mavags will be refurbished for continued use in Wellington – only the English Electrics will start becoming surplus, and they’re so ancient I don’t think we would want them in Auckland.
Its irrelevant anyway because Wellingtons network is powered using direct current whereas Auckland’s network is going to be using an alternating current system, they are also going to be different voltage. Wellington’s trains can’t run in Auckland.
“Quite why people in Auckland would want to live in such housing in the suburbs is unclear”
Ok so admin has dealt with the main fallicy here, the fact we are talking about the backbone of the public transport system
intergrated with buses (also cycling and park n ride can play a role) but…
I would love to live in a terrace or apartment in one of Aucklands established suburbs. The noise and congestion in the CBD doesn’t appeal to me so that rules out an apartment there, but I don’t want to live in the ‘quarter acre’ suburbs particularly because I don’t want a huge yard to maintain, a big house to clean, few services nearby and a huge mortgage for the privaledge. An affordable terraced townhouse with a small yard near a town centre and rail station in a nice established suburb sounds great to me. I figure I’m not the only one?
I’m with you.
re: station catchment: yes, feeder buses are important, but there is a lot of oportunity for access by bicycle too. 2km or so radius is easy cycle range. you just have to have sufficient, secure and preferably covered bike parking facilities. and it should be cheap to use.
@admin, 2014 for EMU’s is very optimistic! If the Matangi delivery timeframe is applied to the Auckland EMU’s, the first will enter service in February 2015. I do think the timeframe will be a bit faster, but we’ll probably see the first delivered in 2014, and at best as a token gesture, they might get one into public service before Christmas 2014, but otherwise the bulk of them will enter service during 2015 and 2016. This is why AT is now looking at keeping the ADK’s going until 2018.
I really don’t think anyone appreciates just how bad the patronage problem is going to get between 2012 and 2016. We are facing a 4 to 5 year period of stagnant growth, and of course the current failings of the tired and worn diesel fleet is going to be much worse by the later part of this period.
Geoff do you think that much of Wellington’s problem is been trying to match up new trains and an old network? In Auckland we will have a pretty much brand spanking new network on which to run the new trains.
LS’s claim is unsupportable. A boondoggle is a project that doesn’t work, won’t fulfill it’s aims. Does he really imagine that insufficient numbers will use the CRL? All of the evidence points to the reverse, the stunted AK rail network is filling every train it can currently provide and still growing more rapidly than any other mode. The CRL will clearly make the whole network faster, more connected, offer higher frequency and have greater reach so will make use of the whole network exponentially more attractive. So really he must be making another claim, perhaps that the only new users of the network are current bus users. Well this too is currently untrue because gross numbers are growing for both modes, and therefore is unlikely to be the only or even the major source of the millions of new journeys taken. But also there is a suppressed premise in this idea that it is somehow a terrible waste to spend money on improving the service for current bus users. And this gets to the core of LS’s real position, a complete failure to understand cities and how they work, which is of course quite an act of willful daftness given he lives in London. A place that would grind to a complete halt tomorrow without the millions moved everyday under the ground and on other grade separate electric rail. And no AK isn’t as big as London but it does now have the population, the density, the geography, and the existing partial network to benefit greatly from it’s expansion. The success [as predicted] of the Northern Busway is of course proof not that buses are always best but that investment in separate right of way is what is needed. Not more motorways. And in fact in order to accommodate increasing numbers of buses from this direction in the city its continued success makes getting more people traveling efficiently underground to and from the South, East, and West. LS’s support for this project is only because it is cheaper to build than rail, which betrays his core view.
His position really is that the horrid and decassé business of PT is so completely offensive that spending any money on it must be railed [!] against even from the other side of the world. He wishes, unintentionally of course, for us Aucklanders the Liberty of the slow decline of a dreary vehicle [car + bus] choked and dissipated city. A centre-less deracinated place failing to thrive under the burdens of an imprudent over reliance on the fossil-fuelled vehicle transport and all the inefficiencies of a spread out and un-intensive urban form that this brings. Increasingly unaffordable and inefficient.
And why? Because of a Tea Party-like and unexamined faith in the loopy view that any form of collectivity is bad, in this church all PT is bad, but the efficiencies of high capex projects that support the growing success of unionised and state owned rail is like the devil himself and to be fought at all costs. This view is sweetly uncomplicated, unsupportable by observation of the real world, but like many faiths all the more firmly held because of this. Touching and childish and not really worth your generous response, admin.
Boondoggle? from Wiki: ‘A boondoggle is a project that arguably wastes time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy motivations’. Eg: RoNS.
I guess the most salient point is that by the time we’ve built the CRL we would have spent at least $4 billion on Auckland’s rail network since the opening of Britomart station. That’s pretty serious money, even over a 15-20 year period (depending on when the CRL is opened). That cannot really be justified if Auckland’s rail network continues to carry only a small proportion of the city’s population each day.
Of course patronage is growing quickly and another ten years of 10-15% growth each year will mean significantly higher patronage, but we need to ensure that happens for the investment in rail to be worth the money we’ve put into it. Perth’s rail network carries around 55 million rail trips a year – those are the kind of numbers we need to be aiming for.
Sydney’s metro built in the depression, London and NYC’s older still….. Over what period should the capex of these projects be spread? Of course they will have opex and upgrades but rail ROW, especially underground seem to be particularly long lasting and valuable investments. Especially as they offer such fantastic liberation for all other activities at street level, including of course, free space for all sorts of vehicles.
The first section of New York subway opened in 1900 and still forms the backbone of some of the busiest parts of the network. There’s a good argument that the cost-benefit analysis of rail projects should take into account their very long-lasting benefits.
I am interested to know if anyone has considered what difference would be made to times and capacity if the entrance to Britomart was revmped with 4 lines instead of the current 2? Surely this is a logical, cheaper and quicker to build alternative, in the short term, to building the proposed ‘city link’?
This was looked at. Firstly, there’s no room to easily widen the tunnels and secondly you still only have one point of access to the CBD so capacity is still going to be constrained along the Newmarket-Britomart section of track in particular.
In short, you don’t improve capacity by that much, you don’t improve access to the rest of the city centre, you don’t speed up trips from the Western Line and it’s not particularly easy (you’d probably need a completely new tunnel under Quay or Customs Street).
And it’s still a terminus. This is the biggest problem, we need metro not a garage.
It’d still be quite expensive – nine figures, surely – and then what? We’ve still got a dead-end station at the bottom of the city that will need to be opened up if it’s to stop taking 10-plus minutes by train from Grafton to a rail station in the CBD.
If we say that 10 minutes’ walk is the biggest practical catchment area for a railway station, only a tiny sliver of University of Auckland (and none of AUT) is inside the practical catchment for Britomart. It’s quite remarkable that so many students do take the train, given that it’s a 15 minute walk from AUT and the western parts of UoA. The rail link would bring all of those areas, and so many more, to within an easy 10 minute walk of a train station, and shave at least five minutes off the Western Line times.
I know it is a very boring piece of infrastructure, but no-one has mentioned car parks. If I live away from a decent bus route and too far from the station to walk to it, then much as I may not really relish the thought of driving into the CBD and parking there, I will.
If we want to encourage commuters who by necessity have to start their journey by car to forgo the ‘joy’ of driving through the rush hour to and from the CBD combined with finding and paying for somewhere to park, then they need to be provided with a viable alternative. Provided ample decent station car parking and it will fill. Don’t provide enough and it will only take an individual a few abortive trips where the car park is found to be full before they stop trying. If the station car parking is free (or significantly less expensive than that in the city centre) then that saving will also be seen as a benefit to offset against the cost of the rail fare.
Good point. Without people’s willingness of using it no matter how good the system was boasted it would become a bad project at the end.
@Richard D
there are several problems with this. A major point is we desperately need to rejig our bus routes so they do feed the stations (and other buses too) much better, and this will involve giving most potential rail commuters a decent bus connection. Even if we sudsidise these bus trips is till cheap compared to building multi-storey carparks next to each station.
This is also a waste of high quality land, most stations in Auckland are next to town centres, so land adjacent shoudl be used for mixed use developments that create a welcoming environment around the station, and help feed patronage too.
Large car-parks are useful for Swanson, Papakura and Pukekohe, but outside of these areas not much use in urban areas.
To ensuring the City Rail Link is no “boondoggle” we need to learn from the past. I feel that the CRL has got very similar characters comparing with Northern Busway.
According to Auckland transport committee report the designed capacity for Busway is 12000 people per hour. What is the patronage now?
I read that from APB&B report the BCR for CRL is 3.5-6.6. The BCR from Auckland transport Committee is 1.3-2.3 and from Ministry of transport is 0.3-0.4 how could those figures be used for funding purpose?
The most important thing we need to know is what the real BCR would be after it had been built and running for a certain period of time. So we need to look at the real benefit / cost ratio for some of the projects already built such as Northern Busway.
The Busway has been running for over 5 years so we should have some kind of idea on how good the project is running comparing with the projected target (based upon the investment of over $300 million).
However I could not see that the Auckland city council or Ministry of Transport were having any plan of doing it from what I know of. Or whoever knows please tell me.
The Northern Busway was primarily an NZ Transport Agency project and for some bizarre reason they have a habit of never post-auditing their projects to determine whether they were value for money or not.
However, the fact that nearly 40% of people crossing the harbour bridge at peak times now do so on the bus means that I reckon its dead obvious the Northern Busway has been hugely successful.
Funny they don’t post audit… can’t be wrong, eh?
Big difference between NBW and CRL is of course the capex, 300m plays 2bil… Still rail tunnels have incredibly long lives, I’m sure it will still be running trains when the Busway is needing to be built into something else, probably a rail line. Motorways seem to be rebuilt constantly too. Length of project life is certainly one area that NZTA’s BCRs look suspect to me.
According to the figure appeared on report of Auckland Transport committee the increase in public transport patronage on Northern Busway is as below: 2001—4381 and 2010 –7570. (The report did not say what this data means but I guess it is one day patronage data). We all know that the Busway started on about 2005. So if all the number increased is due to the effort of Busway this means that the Busway only picked up about 3189. Bearing in mind that this is one day’s data and the full capacity of the Busway is 12000 people per hour. In addition just imagine what would happen without Park and Ride facilities at Albany (550 parking spaces) and Constellation street (350 parking spaces)? Look at those numbers I would not say “its dead obvious the Northern Busway has been hugely successful.”
Your numbers are wrong as you are only counting Northern Express passengers. Many many other routes use the busway. Around 11,000 people come over the bridge on the bus each weekday morning. The equivalent of nearly 3 traffic lanes. Sure, it can take more and that will happen over time.
You can only say that my calculation could be wrong because all basic figures are provided by Transport Committee report. All I had done is recalculate it. In fact 4381 and 7570 are for “North Shore” not just Busway. I would assume that those figures contain the patronage where the buses did not use the Busway such as Birkenhead etc. which means that the Busway did even worse job.
Auckland Transport’s KPI reporting to council said that around 11,000 people crossed harbour bridge at peak times on a weekday. That’s 11,000 people between 7am and 9am. Sure some will come from Onewa Rd but a big majority would use the busway.
I am sorry but your numbers are just plain wrong.
Those figures appear here were both provided by the authority and it suppose to be right but they are not making sense. Whatever the numbers of 4381 and 7570 mean it would not match with the number 11,000 provided by KPI report.
Let’s assume that KPI’s number was more accurate then it still only one quarter of the full capacity of the Busway supposed to have.
Please could you ask Auckland Transport Committee what the data (4381 and 7570) means on page 19 of their report on 7 June 2011? Please also check with them about the capacity of the Busway of 12000 people per hour (page 17 of the report) so be sure we are talking at the same ground.
As I said above, the lower figure relates to only the Northern Express.
I am sure that either you are wrong on this or the report was wrong one way or another. From the report it clearly stated the numbers are for “North Shore” not just Busway. Secondly 4381 was the number for the year 2001. And the Busway was starting running from year 2005 by my memory. How could this make sense? Please check the report on page 19.
Thinking about it I would bet serious money that the NBW would have by far the best real BCR of any project NZTA has recently built. How could it not? Low cost and very high numbers of humans shifted…. if it didn’t it could only be their dodgy math again.
So of course they wouldn’t want to know, the case for another on the North Western would become irresistible…. make them very unpopular with the big chief. Although I’m sure the real reason we never see any post audit is how low so many highway projects would come in as…..
What are you proposing here? More horrible buses? Please no. Just build the CRL for Pete’s sake.
And from the leftfield department: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/auckland-region/news/article.cfm?l_id=117&objectid=10738066
Seriously?
I work with one of the most dedicated cycling advocates in Auckland and he won’t ride to work- it’s too dangerous in his mind. Another guy from work was knocked off his bike on the 400m of road he traveled on each day (mostly was able to ride on a split cycleway/footpath) and is off work still 6 weeks later. Certainly your aerobic fitness will improve with cycling but the motorists in this city are not competent enough to allow cyclists the space they need or just can’t see them.
yeah and why instead of the CRL?, why not instead of more daft motorways?, phaaark, the Herald, what a bunch of bumbling inadequates.
Not to sound too glib. But what if it rains. Commuter cycling in fine summer weather is one thing. Doing the same thing in a howling gale during torrential rain is completely different. I like her idea. I just think we need to do it with a decent rapid transit system.
Or you’re one of the many people who sweats at the slightest hint of exercise, and you work in an office. Like me. I’m very fit (my VO2 uptake would be good for someone a decade younger than I am), but I still sweat readily. Cycling to work would probably take me 15-20 minutes, and by the end I’d need a shower. So I’d have to carry a suit with me, arriving in such a state that it would be wearable in a high-presentation-value environment, and get changed at work. Sometimes that’s not practical, and I’m definitely not convinced that I could actually bring a suit on a bicycle and have it come out of the bag at the other end in a presentable state. I don’t do cheap polyester crap, I wear natural fibres. They’re not conducive to being transported in bags on a bicycle.
The idea is totally f’ing ridiculous, but publishing it’s a great way to make alternative transport advocates look like a bunch of nut-jobs.
Did you ever think of simply putting some clothes at work? On the days that you do DRIVE in to work? Like many of my co-workers? It’s not magic. Like remembering to fill up your car, cycling to work needs the odd moment of planning.
But to call cycling to work the idea of “a bunch of nut-jobs”… not sure, mate, but I have this feeling you may just not LIKE the idea, or the people who do it. That’s fine – nobody’s forcing you to cycle. But please don’t bring up problems that have been solved long ago by the many people here and elsewhere who DO cycle to work, and then express them as if they somehow undermined the whole concept.
i used to cycle 55min/20km to work twice a week. left a suit, ties, etc at work. took the rest with me (towel, shirt, etc). it’s basic planning. lot’s of people do it. what is the issue? good public transport AND lots of people cycleing, surely are what you want to aim for.
Yes, Arnie – seriously.
Anecdotes =! data. Cycling in Auckland is definitely less safe than driving (doh!) but there are various data sources that show that it is nowhere as dangerous as people (even your cycling advicate friend?) make it out to be. below some stuff that I (a cycling advocates myself) have gather recently:
– Accident Compensation Corporation: ACC compensations per cyclist per year in New Zealand are about as high as the ACC compensation paid out per Outdoor Cricket player per year. I don’t know but I don’t think lots of people will say “you must be crazy” if you tell them you play outdoor cricket!
– Crash data: There are 46 injury accidents for every 1 million “school children cycle trips” in New Zealand. Or 1 for every 21,739 trips. So if a child travels to school by bicycle 200 times a year (=400 trips), it would have to go to school 54 years until (!), on average, it had an injury accident (one that requires a hospital visit – one assumes that they don’t count the odd kinned knee that every kid gets, cycling).
– Continuining on, a look at likelihood and severity of crashes. The good news (with apologies to those who were in fact hit) is that it’s not nearly as bad as it looks from a casual glance at the news. In the last five years, the number of cyclist deaths on Auckland roads has hovered around one per year. In 2007, we had none. Serious injuries hover between 30-40 a year. Not exactly life-threatenin to me, if you see how many people now cycle out there.
– Further, we look at whether Auckland is really so dangerous for cycling compared to New Zealand itself. We have seen surveys that show that Auckland is indeed *perceived* to be that way, partly because of motorist attitudes. But what do the statistics say?
Auckland has approximately 33% of New Zealand’s population, but only 25% of New Zealand’s cycle crashes occur here. That alone however is not an indicator yet, because we also have a lower cycling rate than the rest of the counrty (approximately 1% of Aucklander’s commute by bike, compared to 2.5% nationwide).
More relevant here is that despite having 25% of the cycle crashes, we have only 18% of the social cost (deaths, injuries, lost wages and medical costs) that occur nationwide through cycle crashes. In other words: cycling in Auckland is actually SAFER than average in New Zealand – if you get hit, you are likely to be better off here than in most other places.
But to get back to your incredulous initial stance: Yes, seriously. Because every cyclist on the road makes the road much safer for every other cyclist. It is a well-known (and much studied, in case you wonder) fact that as cyclists come out of the valley of 1% mode share, safety improves rapidly, as they, and drivers, learn to coexist better. At 2% cycle mode share, your crash risk has halved. At 4%, it halves again. So the best thing we can do for cycling is actually not build lots of cycle paths, but magically make lots of people cycle, to make them all safer (we are getting there, but admittedly partly by building more cycle paths!)
Sorry for the spelling mistakes. Too much in a hurry!
Max, all the data in the world is not going to change attitudes. Even if 99% of drivers were capable of safely driving with cyclists, it’s the 1% that is going to get you. And when you are on a bike, as you know, you have no protection against a car. My colleague had his leg broken in 3 places (including his knee) by someone running a give way at reasonably low speeds. In a car he would have been swapping insurance details with no injury at all. It’s nice to ride to work (especially when you have a total downhill ride to work as I do and hence can keep the sweat levels down) in Jan when traffic levels are low and people are relaxed, but by Feb it’s all gone feral again.
“Auckland has approximately 33% of New Zealand’s population, but only 25% of New Zealand’s cycle crashes occur here. That alone however is not an indicator yet, because we also have a lower cycling rate than the rest of the counrty (approximately 1% of Aucklander’s commute by bike, compared to 2.5% nationwide).”
I’m afraid that shows cycling in Auckland is much more dangerous that the rest of the country. We should only have 13% of crashes given the participation you quote. So even the 18% you highlight as a positive is higher than it should be. My maths could be out, but basically it doesn’t appear to be the cycling haven you believe it is.
I’d love a network of cycle lanes, especially one that crosses the city, but not as an alternative to the rail link. That simply is not realistic.
We may be able to solve this issue by setting up four so called transit centres around CBD. One will be of course Britomart for which we do not need to do anything on it. Not much change on Newmarket station. Convert Kingsland station to one of the transit centre. Build a new bus centre at Viaduct. Somehow we connect those 4 centres using land transport means at constant frequency during peak hours. (Sorry I wrongly posted it at the end of the comment area. I have to somehow rewrite it so that I can post it here the right place.)
And that achieves what?
First let me suppose that we could have a brilliant land transport method (to be discussed later on) to efficiently move people around CBD. So with 4 transit centres more than half of the commuters could get off trains or buses before they approach Britomart station (I am guessing that only one third of commuters would get in and out of Britomart station under this situation). This means that we would have three times capacity of Britomart to accept commuters travelling to CBD.
Only when you are willing to listen something different and agreed with me on above benefit the 4 centres could bring to us on the issue of capacity then we could continue to discuss how to make the buses not running horribly.
Do not give me wrong. I am not totally opposing the idea of building CRL. However I do oppose to build it as top priority and trying to get it done within 6-7 years rather do it after 30 years or earlier when we have enough population to support it and use it.
I firmly believe with current transport facilities plus some minor alterations and better management we could cope with the demand for transport for population over 3 million. No matter who would pay for CRL, by local or central government, that is all our money anyway.
Here I assume that you agreed with me on the benefit the 4 centres could bring to us in the term of capacity.
So let’s take Kingsland as an example to explain this proposal. First the reason I choose Kingsland instead of Mt Eden as a transit centre is that a lot activities would happen at the Eden Park during the weekend and public holidays so our public transport system could be better used at “off peak hours” as well as it would not interfere the future development of CRL at Mt Eden rail Station . Secondly this transit centre could share the car park with Eden Park and be used as Park & Ride. Thirdly, this maybe the most important reason, the western commuters (possibly up to half of them) could get off the train about 18 minutes earlier than Britomart (This is very critical 18 minutes) before they travel to their final destinations in CBD by another means of transportation.
Your idea makes no sense and would do nothing to help capacity. If someone wants to get to the middle of town, why would they want to get off at Kingsland to catch another form of transport, presumably a bus when they could do that now?
A couple of other things, we have the population to support the tunnel now, also Britomart will be at capacity within the next decade and there is no way the city would cope with double the number of people in its current form, even with “some minor alterations”
Perhaps you haven’t been to Kingsland? where do you propose to put your mysterious new system, what are you going to demolish? And no I don’t agree with the idea of four ‘centres’ on the edge of town, not you’ve really explained it. Furthermore I completely reject the idea that there are insufficient people to use the CRL, 1.5million heading for 2million and we can’t use a train? Nor do I believe it is too expensive for what it will achieve. Nor do I agree that the current transport system is sustainable, with or without minor improvements. The current system is a dog, and is holding Auckland back on many levels; inefficiency, fossil fuel dependency, poor urban form and intensity, ugly streetscape and poor accessibility.
Also your ‘critical 18 minutes’ is completely removed by the CRL, so what’s not to like? The point of the CRL is to reduce the all-importance of Britomart as THE city destination by adding to it with three new ones. Park and rides so close to town are a poor land use compared to interconnecting buses, they also encourage driving which is self defeating.
But mostly I think it would be good if you explain what you have in mind fully, who knows, perhaps it’s brilliant?
Maybe four giant teleportation devices? That would work.
Hi Patrick: Please Check the following lists of hardware and software for constructing the UFO and let me know whether they have answered your questions or not. If not or if you havwe some more questions I will be happy to hear it.
Good questions. I will try to answer one by one as soon as possible.
Thanks Admin. It looks like you have better understanding on the benefit that the 4 transit centres would bring to us. But you doubted the possibility of moving such large number of people around CBD without CRL.
We do not need giant teleportation devices but I do need an UFO which would contain about 200 mini teleportation devices—200 horrible buses as well as the combination of some other software and hardware. This UFO will move not only people in CBD but also the people around greater Auckland region from Hibiscus coast to Papakura and from halfmoon Bay to Waiteker. 100 of those buses will only work 4.5 hours a day (2 hours in the morning and 2.5 hours in the evening) another 100 will work 6 hours a day (2.5 hours in the morning and 3.5 hours at evening). All during peak time 5 days a week. Be aware that we are here only discussing the solution of solving traffic congestion during the peak hours.
To do the same job with CRL under current plan I believe that you need hundreds of giant teleportation devices or thousands of mini teleportation devices to bring enough people from their homes to each train stations. And then you could make the CRL running efficiently. Bear in mind that you cannot simply ask the majority people who are living away from the station shift to the area where having walking distance to it nor ask them to walk or cycle there from several kilometres away. The dream of getting new immigrants to live along the train line is ridiculous. The dream of attracting people to live around train stations by providing CRL in CBD would only be a dream. At least this would not happen until the Auckland population reaches 3 million.
Even if you do have such devices what would happen to the people who living in North Shore? They may have to wait at least another 20 years to be able to enjoy such devices and CRL which means that they have to continuously suffer for another 20 years.
Sorry I posted in a wrong place, Here I have to post it again. Please could delete another one? Tanks.
To construct the UFO I need the following hardware:
1. 200 buses (indicatives only. Maybe the combination of buses and other means of land transportations such as “BAM” as you just introduced)
2. Four transit centres with each having 1000 car park spaces located within 500-1000 metres of the distance from the centre. At Kingsland we could afford it as Park and Ride free to users because it normally empty during the week and it belong to the council anyway. The rest of three will have some charge to the users but subsidised by the council say $3 per day?
3. About 60 Park and Ride stations citywide including train, bus and ferry. (Totalling 14000 parking spaces. First stage I need about 8,000 then add 6000 with the ability to be expanded to 25,000 spaces.)
4. Exiting train network with electrified facilities and two more ferry points.
Problems with that at first glance include the huge urban effect of giant carparks in our town centres and the question of why this would encourage people onto PT. Let’s say I catch a train from New Lynn: having to switch to a bus for the last bit of my trip will really piss me off.
Plus that’s not nearly enough buses, and you get the same problem of clogging the city up with buses if you run more.
As a high tech device this UFO need more software than hardware. The software I need is listed below:
1. The Mayor Mr. Len Brown shall declare that during the peak hours (7am-9am, 3pm-6pm) Auckland CBD shall become “Car Pool Only Area” (CPOA) meaning only vehicles for goods delivery, transferring people around or having 2 or more people in a private cars could be allowed to run on the land of CBD.
2. Mr. Len Brown will appoint a panel to negotiate with NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to open up one of its Motorway lane, where having three or more lanes, to be used as “Car Pool Only Lane”. (If I was Mr. Brown I may start negotiation with central government regarding the control of the SH1 and SH16 within Auckland City boundary). If not successful on this, this scheme still works but would not be so efficiently.
3. Change “bus only lane” to “Car Pool Only Lane” (CPOL) citywide, where it is necessary and possible, including Northern Busway.
4. Define 16 Local Connecting Networks (LCN). Very little alterations of building work are needed for LCN.
5. Define about 12 continuous CPOL citywide towards CBD such as Highland Park—CBD through Pakuranga. Westgate directly to CBD, Glenfield and Birkenhead etc to CBD wherever it is applicable.
6. All residents living within CBD will have non-transferable special single driver permission card to be displayed on their cars. All business within CBD will have some transferable special single driver permission cards (maybe 10-20% of the number of their employees based upon the type of the business).
7. Approach the Business owners around the stations such as New Lynn to get their consent of leasing their car park to be used as Park & Ride facilities. This could be done for Sylvia Park, Albany, Whangaparoa, Glenfield, Birkenhead, Sunnynook, Highland Park, Botany Downs, Manukau, Newmarket and some other places. I am expecting not to build many parking spaces at the first stage (for 8000 car park spaces)
8. I am also expecting some of the car parks would be built on top of the rail line or use the cheap land around the rail line and the stations.
9. A circular shape, with a cross inside, bus routes shall be designed to connect the four transit centres in CBD and cover about 95% of CBD using 500 meters radius from the bus stops along the routes as a standard.
10. A circular shape, without cross inside, bus routes shall be designed to form LCN outside of CBD.
11. When a commuter purchases a weekly, monthly, yearly ticket or simply set up an account for permanent ticket he or she shall have a secured car park place at the designated P&R station for free. However he or she may be charged if they do not use it during the designated days unless they notified the Office of the system before hand or given reasonable explanation for later nitification so that it could be relocated to other casual users.
12. Casual users can also get parking space by purchasing the ticket on line to make sure that the park space would be available at their designated P&R station before leaving their home.
13. Considering some other commuters may not convenient to use either the train, bus or ferry to go to CBD for some reason they have to park their cars at one of the car park alongside one of the Transit centres then using public transport to their final destination in CBD unless they have the permission card with them.
14. All buses need to be run constantly and “on time” at a fixed time table from start and for each stop along its route. The “on time” here means that they shall be allowed to be late for couple of minutes for some uncontrollable reason but not leave earlier from each stop if arrived at earlier.
15. Free bus services within CBD at least for first one or two years to make it more attractive and get commuters’ habit being changed.
So you want a whole pile more vehicles downtown by encouraging people to drive rather than catch the bus and train? Kind of weird – where are you going to put all the parking buildings?
Good question admin.
In fact this UFO is all about how to stop the current situation of “a whole pile more vehicles (in) downtown”.
Somehow the bad habit of some of the working commuters should be forced to change. That is why we need:
software No1. The Mayor Mr. Len Brown shall declare that during the peak hours (7am-9am, 3pm-6pm) Auckland CBD shall become “Car Pool Only Area” (CPOA) meaning only vehicles for goods delivery, transferring people around or having 2 or more people in a private cars could be allowed to run on the land of CBD.
If you could not drive in CBD what can you do? Why cannot you drive your car to one of the Park and Ride facilities near your home and then use the public transport? You will have no choice but do it this way. And this way is much cheaper and faster for you as well.
In another hand the council need to provide what the working commuters’ needs. Check all the “hardware and software” listed above. If you think we need add more I will be very happy to hear about it.
Where are we going to put all the parking buildings? I have pointed out that:
Software No7. Approach the Business owners around the stations such as New Lynn to get their consent of leasing their car park to be used as Park & Ride facilities. This could be done for Sylvia Park, Albany, Whangaparoa, Glenfield, Birkenhead, Sunnynook, Highland Park, Botany Downs, Manukau, Newmarket and some other places. I am expecting not to build many parking spaces at the first stage (8000 car park spaces)
Software No8:I am also expecting some of the car parks would be built on top of the rail line or use the cheap land around the rail line and the stations.
If you just mean the parking buildings around four transit centres here is the answer: As I have pointed out that there will be no problem at Kingsland as it nears the Eden Park. (hardware No2) Software No7 would solve the problem for Newmarket. We may have to acquire some land at Viaduct to build one as required. To be honest I just feel that we do need some parking space somewhere near Britomart but I do not know how to achieve it. I have to assume that the city council would find the best way to do it.
I am expecting more criticism on the UFO. I know this UFO is not perfect, nothing is perfect anyway, but I am comparing it with CRL and the wider economy effect. Hopefully we could find out better solution. That is what this debate all about isn’t it?
Really…. two questions:
1) What are you really trying to achieve?
2) Is the gain really worth the pain?
Take a while to think about the answers to those questions.
James, when it rains, you go back to using your car! Also, if you look outside these days, you will find that many people DO cycle in the winter and in the rain. No, most won’t do it in howling gales (doh), but how many times of the year do they occur? Even if you don’t cycling in rain and wind, or scorching sun, you probably have about 3 out of 5 days of the year left where you can cycle. If you’re not in the mood, take the train or car that day instead. It’s about making Aucklanders able to have a choice. Every morning.
Matt, please. Don’t insult cyclist’s intelligence by talking such stuff, as if you were facing an insurmountable problem with the things you raised. Of course it’s not always practical to cycle, and of course a welder has an easier go at cycling to work than an office worker. But I DO work in an office, and 4-5 of my 20 coworkers regularly cycle in, and then they change into suits and shirts and ties. Which they mostly keep at work. Yes, it needs a workplace with showers, but that’s not magic. It just needs some support from the employers – who regularly spend megabucks on providing car parks and staff cars, so why should they not provide showers as well. It’s not “a bunch of nut-jobs”, it’s common sense.
Denmark and the Netherlands are much rainier than Auckland, mate.
“No, most won’t do it in howling gales (doh), but how many times of the year do they occur?”
About the whole of the last week 😉
“when it rains, you go back to using your car!”
So we have to have enough carparks in the city to support all the cyclists when they are unable to ride because of poor weather? Sounds a bit inefficient.
I don’t disagree with putting in better cycle lanes. But to suggest that we don’t need to invest in public transport and just focus on cycle lanes, as this doctor is, is incredibly stupid.
Which is why Cycle Action Auckland did a press release stating that we need better PT, as well as better cycling. She was simply using it as a comparison example. She probably should have chosen to talk about Puhoi-Wellsford instead, but hey. Still no need to call her idea stupid. Also,you are conflating two issues – access and parking. Even if we still needed tons of car parks and public transport in the city (not really questioned), the fact that cycling can reduce the need for more multi-mega-highways to and into the city is unquestioned.
Further, I said you CAN go back to your car if it rains. You will find that once people start to cycle, they will cycle in pretty bad weather! Europeans do all the time, and Kiwis aren’t that thin-skinned. All I am saying is that the cycling revolution will never FORCE people on bicycles (just as the PT revolution pretty rarely puts a gun to anyone’s head and said “Today, you MUST leave your car at home”).
It is about giving people TRUEC choices, not choices like “risk your life cycling on a shoddy local road with heavy traffic OR drive on a wide, well-maintained motorway”. If you give them only that kind of choice, no wonder that only 1% of all people cycle.
rail loop…..hmmm? let’s see. Good for the regional economy??
If you consider the sectors that drive our regional economy and ask, are they in the CBD? Answers probably No.
If you consider the number of Aucklanders employed across the region (within those sectors) are they in the CBD? No.
What about people who live in Auckland (region), do they in the CBD? No.
What about people who recreate/play in the Auckland region, do they in the CBD? No.
Lots of people who come by Bus, train and car are already at their destination on arival (mostly with a little walking)….. I just can’t see then how spending money on something like the city rail loop helps the Economy… and so if it dosn’t help the wider economy why would I as an Auckland ratepayer want to pay for it?
It is a No from me.
Sorry Zane wrong on every count, including your assumption that the CRL is only about the CBD.
1. First thing the link does is unlock the potential in the whole of the existing system by turning it into an interconnected network instead of a downtown focussed narrow terminus system. It in fact shrinks the greater city and facilitates cross town movements as well as speeding up connectivity to and within the centre.
2. Clearly you have no idea about cities and how they work and why NZ’s only one is growing so fast and why it is vital to the nation’s whole economy, it’s our biggest market, highest rents, highest salaries. Clogging it up with cars and buses just means stagnation.
3. Do you assume that only farming makes money, and that those farmers don’t need a thriving local market, a successful urban economy? Are you in fact Stephen Joyce?
4. Of course the most vital sectors in the economy are in the CBD, including Fontera HQ, the Banks, telecommunications, what on earth do you mean?
As Patrick said, you are wrong on all of these points.
The CBD is expected to double in size over the next 30 or so years yet the transport corridors into the CBD will be at capacity in about 10. If we don’t build this either people don’t get to work or the CBD doesn’t grow at the same level. As to why not let the city develop elsewhere, there are huge economic benefits of businesses being located near to each other, this allows them to be more productive and pay higher wages:
So is it good for the regional economy, yes
Is it good for the people who live in Auckland, yes
Is it good for people who recreate/play in the Auckland region, yes
Can you name a project you think would be better for the region.
See his Penlink post. LOL. Because I can really see Stanmore Bay being the next economic powerhouse in Auckland.
Exhibit A for why we should not call it the CBD Loop?