While my analysis of the Auckland Plan’s transport aspects tend to come to the conclusion that far too many roading projects are proposed, which contradicts with the Plan’s transport goals and targets, an article on the NZ Herald today makes it clear that the government is taking the opposite view. The government, somewhat unsurprisingly, thinks that the Auckland Plan is far too focused on public transport and needs to instead focus on building a lot more roads:
The Government has reacted to Mayor Len Brown’s Auckland Plan, by telling him to reduce his focus on public transport and build more roads.
The plan’s focus on a compact city and public transport initiatives cuts little ice with the Government, which is concerned that Mr Brown’s blueprint for the city will fail Auckland where it matters most – getting from A to B and providing the right housing in the right places.
The Government’s formal response to the draft plan says it has the potential to significantly improve Auckland’s economic performance, urban form and liveability and contribute to New Zealand’s wider goals.
But it has reservations about how Mr Brown plans to achieve those goals, particularly in the areas of the compact city model, housing and transport.
There’s nothing particularly new in the government’s approach to Auckland Council’s aspirations for the city – which still seem stuck in a pre-Super City mentality of ‘divide and rule’. Back in March the government’s views on the Auckland Plan’s discussion document were released early to trump the Council of its glory, while more recently Herald columnist Brian Rudman reported on the abuse from government ministers that many councillors had to sit through.
Today’s article continues:
But the emphasis on public transport worries the Government, which says it wants a more effective response to the expected growth in demand for travel.
“Careful decisions are needed to ensure that the future mix of projects provides sufficient new capacity to accommodate forecast growth” – a clear signal that the Government expects Mr Brown and the Auckland Council to put more emphasis on roads.
The Government has quoted figures in the draft plan showing vehicle traffic will remain dominant, vehicle trips will account for half of the growth in morning peak trips to 2041 and Aucklanders will make 5.5 million vehicle trips a day in 2041, an increase of 1.5 million trips over 2006.
Mr Brown’s strong desire for tolls and congestion charges to help pay for the rail loop and other public transport projects also attracts a warning from the Government about the affordability and benefits to motorists – formalising concerns by Transport Minister Steven Joyce about the use of tolls to pay for public transport.
I’m honestly not sure what additional roading projects the government wants included in the Auckland Plan that aren’t currently there. Pretty much every roading project for Auckland ever thought up has made it in there. Perhaps Steven Joyce really wants to complete our 1950s motorway plans – complete with Quay Street viaduct and Dominion Road motorway?
What’s really interesting though is Len Brown’s response, included at the very end of the article:
In a written statement, Mr Brown said that having set up the Super City to speak with one voice, the Government needed to listen with both ears.
Do you think he’s starting to run out of patience?
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Those figures predicting vehicle growth must be bogus, or be a self-fulfilling prophecy based on building the roading capacity will be increased to cater for the vehicle growth.
Rather than just tolls and congestion charging, why isn’t more mention made of parking charges? I don’t mean just in the CBD, but in all of our regional town centres. The council could charge land owners a levy of, for example, $1 per hour on each and every parking space across the city. Perhaps this could be adjusted based upon demand or time of day. It would be up to the individual owner to chose whether to absorb the levy cost, or whether to install meters and barriers. The cost could be added onto their rates bill. The present situation seems bizzare to me where we have huge shopping malls in places like Henderson and Albany, generating huge traffic volume, but having completely free parking. Why must I pay to park in Takapuna, but not in Henderson?
I live on the outskirts of London, just inside the M25. Free parking in town centres is virtually unheard of here. This is much fairer and equitable and it also incentivises people to use the trains and buses more. Congestion charging in Auckland’s CBD would make it too uncompetitive versus the suburbs. Motorway tolls would unfairly penalize commuters. Parking charges on the other hand would affect all drivers, and I think may be more palatable to the masses. People, to a certain extent, are used to paying for parking. They may be less willing to pay tolls again to use things like the harbour bridge if there is a perception that they’ve already paid for this infrastructure in the past.
You highlight an important issue. I believe that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are working to improve consistency and efficiency of parking policies across town centres in Auckland. So yes keep beating the parking drum, but rest assured that work is ongoing. The draft Auckland Plan, for example, specifically mentions parking levies as a tool for managing demand and raising revenue.
Do we know how much might be raised by an off-street parking levy such as that applied in Sydney & Melbourne?
My apartment doesn’t have a carpark so I rent a space in a parking building down the road. Are you saying that in addition to the current fee to the building operator, I should pay an extra $24 a day or $720 a month to the council? I really don’t understand why you’d want to tax me a small fortune, but not people living in suburbs.
Still, it’d be a good earner. There are several hundred carparks at Auckland Hospital. Say 300 parks, and you’d have almost $3million transferred from the health system to spend on transport projects. And just think of the number of parks at schools in the region.
Obi, from what I know residences and community uses (which I would imagine would include hospitals & schools) are exempt from the parking levy schemes in Australian cities – so probably would be exempt here too.
I know in Melbourne residential car parks and a few others (churches, non-profits) are excluded. Presumably the levy would be applied to parks as a rate, but residents could get it back on the ones they rent?
Obi, I think you’re being a bit disingenuous. I was looking at the problem in terms of how do we get people to pay a fair price for parking spaces that are currently provided free across the city. These take up lots of valuable land in our town centres, and appear to be a big untapped potential revenue stream for the council. There wouldn’t be any point in completely pricing any parking off the market. What Admin says about an exemption for residences sounds like a likely solution for your situation.
As for hospitals in particular, absolutely people should have to pay for parking there. You have to pay at hospitals here in London. When my son was born 3 months ago, we took him home in a taxi to avoid paying for overnight parking. Paying fair prices for all modes of transport allows people to make rational choices about how and when they chose to travel.
The point I was trying to make is that the idea of funding from parking charges is not being given enough attention in the media. I can’t imagine tolling the motorways or congestion charging will ever work in Auckland in its current state. If those ideas went to a referendum, I just can’t see the public support being there. But for parking charges, maybe, yes.
Fair enough Simon, but my point would be, how exactly would having a levy on parking at Westgate or Manukau affect traffic congestion?
A parking levy would have several effects.
1. Making driving to the shopping centre less appealling. This would make people seek alternative transportation.
2. It would raise capital to fund PT and other non-car improvements.
3. Perhaps most importantly it would encourage more efficient use of carparking.
If you look at the map below several things should strike you immediately.
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=Manukau,+Auckland&hl=en&ll=-36.990385,174.876165&spn=0.014088,0.033023&sll=-41.244772,172.617188&sspn=53.686318,135.263672&vpsrc=6&hnear=Manukau,+Auckland&t=h&z=16
1. The amount of land given over to carparking. It is staggering.
2. The fact that most of the carparks are, in fact, empty. I know that this is only a snapshot in time. However I would bet that this photo was taken on a weekend due to the fact that the mall and other retail carparks are full, while the factory and other employment centres are empty. Note the carpark behind the old Manukau Council office is almost completely empty. It is likely that this trend would be reversed if this photo was taken during the week. The problem is that each business needs a certain number of carparks to accomodate peak demand. So every business take it upon themselves to provide that parking. This leads to an over supply of carparking. With non-retail seeing peak carparking Mon-Fri during business hours and retail during the weekend and outside of business hours. A levy on carparking would force businesses to think more about how they supply carparking and could lead to the agglomeration of carparking into smaller areas that are used more efficiently for example a carparking building. This would lead to less carparking and greater use of each individual carpark as they will now be available to a wider range of activities, e.g. park and ride schemes, office workers in the local area, retail, apartment owners. Carparking buildings are, in my opion, considerably less intrusive on the urban form than the vast tracks of deserted land surrounding each building in Manukau. Especially if they can be designed in such a way as to hide their true purpose to the outside world.
You already have to pay for parking at the hospital.
I haven’t been able to find the full government report, unfortunately, but what’s interesting from the few quotes available is that the government doesn’t seem to think council’s proposing to spend too much on transport – just they want the balance to be more towards roads.
And there’s the typical “but nobody wants to live in apartments” rubbish.
Reading that this kind of nonsense is still coming out of the government just makes me want to cry. I was born in Auckland and having grown up there will always consider myself an Aucklander. However, I moved to the UK four years ago for work. I live on the outskirts of London, in an absolutely typical kind of place you find around here.
Housing is a mix of detached, semi-detached, terraced, and small to medium sized apartment blocks. It really is all mixed up, so that you get apartments and big detached family homes standing across the road from each other on the same street. Typical house sizes are 70 to 100 m2. Virtually all of the houses have at least a small back garden.
We live in a 60 m2 apartment in one of the largest complexes. It has over 100 apartments built on 3 stories. In the middle of the grounds we have about half a hectare of landscaped communual gardens. It’s really wonderful. You get woken up to the sounds of the birds outside, but you don’t have to spend the weekend mowing the lawns. The kids can ride their bikes or kick a ball around with the neighbour’s kids. You can sit under a tree in summer and read a book. Great stuff.
The town centre is within easy walking distance. It’s very compact and walkable, but contains all of the shops, offices, amenities, restaurants, and night life that you could wish for. The High Street is pedestrianised and always bustling and lively. There are no buildings over 5 stories.
The train station is also walking distance, and I catch the train to work which is about 13 km away. Train is the cheapest and most convenient way of getting there. This is just a modest 2 platform suburban station, but it has average daily patronage of over 7,500. That’s approaching Britomart levels. The platforms are currently being extended to allow 12 carriage trains. Owning a car is completely unnecessary for many people and I didn’t own one myself until my son was born.
If this is an example of one of the “inner city slums” that the government and others are talking about for Auckland, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. I wish I could live in a suburb like this in Auckland, but I just don’t know of anywhere like it. Maybe somewhere like Takapuna would come closest? Bring on the revolution, so that I can come home to enjoy it. There’s no way that I’m going to spend my daily commute sitting in motorway traffic ever again.
Hi Simon
Fascinating to read this. I’m an exAucklander and exWellingtonian, now in Edinburgh, and up here we have a lot of high-density accomodation. So much so, in fact, that it supports a strong bus-based public transport network which is good enough for me not to need to own a car.
Why does this matter in a New Zealand context? Edinburgh’s population is only half a million or so – more than the Auckland isthmus, in a roughly comparable land area. So, while the parallels are not perfect, Edinburgh shows that an area with the population of the Isthmus can sustain very high levels of public transport demand.
Sounds like a hell hole 🙂
I have no idea why NZers are so distrustful of apartments. I can only think that it is ignorance. I live in a large two bedroom apartment in Kingsland, my bedroom is larger than anything I’ve lived in a detached house, I have Kingsland and Valley Road shops a 10 minute walk away and Mt Eden is another 20 minutes. Town is $1.60 and 20 minutes by bus or $15-20 if I’m too *ahem “tired” to face the bus. It’s perfect, yet many of my friends seem to think I’m a little weird.
On the subject of the communal garden, that sounds like a good idea. There are a couple of developments in Auckland like that but they haven’t really been built with families in mind. I also think that communal gardens would be extremely good for society by encouraging people to to meet their neighbours and give children the opportunity to play outside and make their own friends without having to be bused everywhere in Remuera tractors.
Communal garden’s could be great, but what about a communal garden with lawn and trees and a playground… oh wait, yeah… *parks*.
My unit in Eden Tce has zero garden and only a small terrrace, but it is two minutes walk from Mt Eden domain. That seems to suit all my tenants just fine.
There are several problems with parks.
1. There is a perception in NZ that if you let your children out of your sight in a public place for 5 minutes some terrible disaster will befall them. A communal garden would be perceived as safer. Please note that I don’t feel that this is true. It just seems to be a perception that a lot of parents have.
2. Thanks to droconian liquor laws you can no longer enjoy a glass of wine with your fish and chips in the park.
“The Government has reacted to Mayor Len Brown’s Auckland Plan, by telling him to reduce his focus on public transport and build more roads.”
The government needs to change.
I’ve detected a bit of a rising tide of dissactifaction with the government, and hopefully it is not too little too late.
I tried to post a comment but the ******captcha code kept stopping me!
Four times!!!!!
I’m sorry but Len is going to be a one term mayor and Banks will be back naxt election – that means no CRL and no more PT improvements.
Len can play a pivotal role in this election by getting out there and getting stuck in to Key and his cronies. He needs to remind them that they created the Super City against the wishes of the majority of Aucklanders and then the Aucklanders voted in Len.
Aucklanders want their PT improvements as promised by Len. They want the CRL. And the don’t want to be dictated to by Key and his mates any more.
It is ridiculous that when I finish late shift at 2330 I can’t get a train home to Manurewa. Similarly when I finish overnight shift at 0500 on Saturday morning I have to wait 2 hours for a train home. If I buy a second car for those reasons then I’ll take that every day – no more PT for me.
I wonder what the government will actually do if the council continues down the path it is on. We have already heard that they are looking to produce a government policy statement that will dictate that Auckland needs to open up more land for sprawl. Will they dig their heels in further about the funding various projects across the spectrum, Auckland already pays more tax than it gets back so the gap could widen. Perhaps they will they make changes to the responsibilities of the council to get control off key areas off them.
What ever happens I think about the only thing we can be guarantee is that they will continue to try to undermine the council and slow progress in a way to hinder Lens chance of getting re-elected.
I think that there are two important points here;
first, that for Auckland to be the powerhouse of the New Zealand economy, it must work for Aucklanders and be the liveable city that people want to be in, be attracted to and stay in, we need to stem the hemorrhaging of talent and attract new talent to contribute to the social and economic vitality of the city
second, the soils around Auckland are among the most productive in New Zealand, they cannot feed its residents if they are locked under urban development, Auckland must be able to feed itself to the greatest extent possible
building more roads and spreading the land with houses will achieve neither of these objectives, but we have to live here and if the people of Auckland support the Council’s vision, surely that must be more important than a government that tries to impose a continuation of archaic planning (non-planning?) concepts on us
These sorts of comments from NZ’s government and their actions really are a major reason why I find it increasingly difficult to ever see myself moving back to NZ – why should I when I have the choice to live somewhere where I don’t need a car? Moving back to NZ and being forced to buy a car because it’s what I supposedly ‘want’ and ‘must’ have is completely unappealing – a view shared with lots of educated, young NZers who have lived and worked abroad.
rtc, I think that your comment underscored mine exactly, if central government forces Auckland to remain a car orientated sprawl, we’re stuffed!
Doesn’t Auckland have 18 (more?) electorates?
Isn’t there a what you call it coming up in a month?
If only we could send a message somehow
Unfortunately, the cognitive dissonance field generated by Dear Leader is still strong, and showing no signs of losing the hold it maintains over a significant chunk of the electorate.
I cannot see National winning a third term, thankfully, but the destruction that can be wrought in just two terms by a government hell-bent on giving the country to their moneyed mates really does not bear protracted contemplation.
2 terms is plenty – Labour in the late 80’s is the best comparison I can think of. That’s why, in my mind MMP is necessary – just to keep the governing party honest.
Except when the natural leanings of the majority coalition party are more in line with their partner than with the centre. At which point we end up with the current National government, whose “sell it all, slash it all, no taxes for anyone” tendencies look more like Act policy than is healthy.
Matt, I’ll be the first to admit that MMP is not perfect but I think it could be refined rather than turfed out completely. An idea is that list MP’s should at least have won a % (20?) of votes in an electorate.
I love MMP, and it’s certainly better than any alternative except possibly STV. It’s definitely better than FPP or SM.
As for requiring list MPs to get a significant percentage of electorate votes, what of the likes of the Greens, who would get almost nobody in on that basis because they don’t stand for electorates? And, if they were to campaign in electorates, would just split votes with Labour and likely end up being in Opposition and National with an outright majority. The same would potentially happen with Act, but given that they’re on the verge of electoral oblivion anyway I don’t think it really matters. The Greens, however, are polling like they’ll add several more MPs in the next term.
@James B
That’s all nice James in encouraging people to use public transport to get to malls etc but as has been shown with the Northern busway – if you build it they will use it. The current public transport out west (apart from trains to Henderson) is a joke at best. If I could ride or walk down to a bus (or metro) stop near by that will take me direct to Westgate, I would use it but at the moment you have to take a scenic tour around West Auckland. I am sure most people in outer Auckland (yes I said it because inner Auckland is pretty well catered for)think the same way and those are the people you need to win over by offering improved services before, not after, you start with parking charges / reduced parking.
Hear, hear!
The carrot should always come ahead of the stick
Otherwise it’s just sadism
democracy in this case meaning “we’re the elected government and we can ride roughshod over the lesser elected government of Auckland”
hmm, I must be a bit bleak today
Sounds a bit like the residents of Franklin and Rodney being subsumed into the “Supercity” against their wishes and getting a “vision” that clearly excludes rural Auckland.