It’s no real mystery that providing better public transport has a lot of support among the general public. Firstly we saw Len Brown’s mayoral victory last year, with much of his support due to his push for making a “transformational shift” to Auckland’s rail system in particular. Then earlier this year the NZ Herald conducted a poll, asking people whether they preferred to see the Puhoi-Wellsford road or the City Rail Link proceed. The results were fairly conclusive:
Public backing for a central Auckland rail tunnel is more than twice as strong as for the Government’s proposed new “road of national significance” north from Puhoi.
Although a Herald-DigiPoll survey has found support for the tunnel strongest in Auckland, the $2.4 billion project is also enthusing other New Zealanders, who are taking an even dimmer view of the highway proposal than the city’s residents.
The 3.5km tunnel proposal between Britomart and Mt Eden won support from 63.3 per cent of Aucklanders, compared with the highway, which was backed by 24.8 per cent.
Although tunnel support weakened to 48.1 per cent among non-Aucklanders, only 19.2 per cent said they believed the highway should get higher priority. That compared with 27.5 per who did not know and just 5.2 per cent who did not back either project.
Another poll, this time undertaken by Colmar Brunton for the World Wildlife Fund, has found similarly strong support for increasing public transport funding:
A national Colmar Brunton public opinion poll released today shows seven out of ten New Zealanders want to see more Government money going to fund public transport improvements in major towns and cities. Only 1 percent of total land transport spending is allocated to new and improved public transport.
In Auckland the rate is even higher with 78 percent of people in agreement that the government should spend a greater percentage of its Land Transport Budget on improved public transport infrastructure in major urban areas or cities over the next decade.
I think some of the result is due to the way the questions were asked, which highlighted to respondents that 59% of transport funding (as outlined in the Government Policy Statement) over the next decade will go into new and improved roads, while barely 1% will go into new public transport infrastructure. Of course as the GPS excludes rail capital funding (for some bizarre reason), in reality we will see more funds going to public transport improvements of one kind or another than 1%. (Plus I really don’t have any sympathy for the government on this issue as rail capital projects should be able to be funded from the NLTF).
Nevertheless, the poll simply reinforces what I do think is widespread support, particularly in Auckland, for a more balanced approach to transport funding. I suppose the real question though is what weight people will give to transport when choosing their vote in the upcoming election.
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Its not surprising and follows the same pattern as many other surveys.
Another one is the councils People’s Panel (for those that don’t know it is a survey from the council about various topics, its free to sign up http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/AboutCouncil/HaveYourSay/Pages/PeoplesPanel.aspx_
Earlier in the year they did one survey on the Auckland Plan and in one part of it asked people to rate various transport projects out of a scale of 5 (5 being very important) There were 1399 respondents so a pretty high number and there were some of the following results:
Airport rail had 75% mark it a 4 or 5 out of 5, the CRL had 71% and many other PT projects had high ratings.
By comparison the Puhoi to Wellsford had 33% rate it a 4 or 5 while Penlink only managed 27%
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/peoplespanel/aucklandplansurveyreportjune2011.pdf
So if they lead the poll question with a statement that isn’t factual, they’ll get a response that reflects the bias of the statement?
That isn’t too different to the “poll” that the Conservatives are using as evidence that they’re going to win Rodney (or wherever their leader is standing). That one started with a statement explaining what a great guy he is and then asks the voter if they’d consider voting for him.
yeah, it a shame they got that bit wrong but I doubt even if the numbers were correct that the response would be terribly different. Most people in NZ realise that PT here is rubbish and would like to see it improved.
Has anyone figured out the proportion of PT in combined GPS transport + rail funding?
Numbers weren’t wrong. 69% includes new state highways and local roads
Yeah Obi, there has been some really dodgy polls in the press these last few weeks. The low point must be where the Dominion Post is reporting a poll for the voting intentions in Ohariau with a statistical error rate of 7.8% meaning their sample size was so small and the results so meanlingless, yet the Dom Post even was reporting the figures to decimal points, as if it was even accurate to the nearest 10.
And no one seems to know what the meaning of statistical error and systematic error is, and how they both effect the accuracy. One can be quantified, and the other only guessed at. Pollsters try (but not in the example above) to control statistical error, but they can’t do much with systematic errors.
I’ve been saying since March that National were going to lose. And with John Key’s dummy spits (walking out of the press conference and refusing to answer questions – gee he looked like a real loser) I mightn’t even need to use the errors in the pollsters methods to claim it. Although First Past the Post for the electorate seats is still denying us our democratic voice. (A candidate could win the seat with 33.34% of the vote in a three way race, when 66.66% of the electorate don’t want him or her – and that is why the electoral map has blue for most of the rural seats, which doesn’t actually reflect voter intentions very well.)
I thought most of Len’s support came from hordes of south aucklanders who never usually vote, but didn’t like John Banks and his racist remarks.