Apparently it was Albert Einstein who said that the definition of insanity was trying the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. Brian Rudman’s excellent article in Monday’s NZ Herald highlights the fact that the insanity argument could be levelled against Ministry of Transport officials – who say that despite building more and more roads having never fixed congestion in the past, perhaps if we built a few more roads we might get a different outcome in the future.
Wading through the idiot’s guide to Auckland’s transport woes, prepared for new Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee by his bureaucratic advisers, I wondered if he’d had that awful Eureka moment when it suddenly dawned on him that the billions of dollars poured into upgrading the region’s road network in the 15 or so years up to 2017 will have been in vain.
“The performance of Auckland’s road network … is expected to deteriorate after 2021. The improvement achieved by the current investment programme would be eroded by around 2031. Congestion will increasingly affect the midday period …”
And the solution the wiseheads of the Ministry of Transport offer? To continue with the failed policies of the past 60 years. “Roads,” they enthuse, “are critical to the efficiency of urban centres, with private motor vehicles and buses providing transport modes for most people. This importance will continue.”
As Mayor Len Brown pointed out just over a week ago, (although whether his transport plans back this up remains to be seen), trying to fix congestion through building motorways has, at best only a temporary effect as new or wider roads just fill up with more traffic and often it just shifts the problem a couple of interchanges down the road. The problem is this doesn’t seem to have filtered through to the mostly Wellington based bureaucrats at the Ministry though, who have taken their one opportunity to speak in a fairly free manner and used it on peddling the same old roads-centric policy that has got us into this mess. It’s also worth noting that the MOT or other government agencies doesn’t exactly practice what they preach, almost all of their Auckland offices are based not only in the CBD but right at the bottom of Queen St, just across from road from Britomart. Rudman again:
The continuing concentration of economic growth in northern centres, particularly Auckland, “presents a challenge for a nationally funded transport system … Auckland alone is forecast to account for 60 per cent of population growth to 2030”. The writers say “achieving an efficient transport system for Auckland is central to improving the contribution the city can make to the national economy”. The completion of the motorway network and the upgrading of commuter rail is forecast to reduce congestion by 14 per cent by 2021, despite population growth of 22 per cent, but then it’s downhill again. The report refers to this as “a short breathing space before decisions need to be made on the next generation of major projects”.
In this breathing space, the Government will be pressing Aucklanders to come up with new ways of taxing ourselves to pay for the inner city underground rail loop, which it’s refusing to fund. A better debate would be exactly where a rapidly intensifying city, already looped and bisected by motorways, will find room for any more roads and cars.
There is frequent debate about congestion and often revolves around whether it’s increasing or decreasing and the impact it has on the economy but very rarely do we discuss a possible more important matter, choice. At the end of the day the majority of people will use what is the easiest and most convenient method for them to get around, they don’t drive simply because they want to sit in traffic on a motorway but because it is far too often the only option they have. It gets forgotten that up until a few years ago we focused almost solely on improving roads and hardly spent any money on improving public transport that it is no surprise that PT only works well as a viable alternative for a minority of Aucklanders. Where ever we have started providing high quality PT people have flocked to it, the busway is booming is now estimated that around 40% of all people crossing the bridge at peak times are doing so in a bus, investment in rail has seen huge increases in people catching trains to the point where we are about to hit capacity in the number of services that can enter and exit Britomart at peak times.
What’s more these trends aren’t just confined to the higher profile aspects of PT like the rail system or the busway, buses along Dominion Rd carry more than 50% of people travelling that route at peak times and there are similar stories along pretty much every route that we have put in dedicated PT infrastructure. The lesson we need to learn is that when we give people valid choices in how they travel, allowing them to avoid congestion on bus lanes, busways and railways, a large number will give it a go.
By investing in improving PT infrastructure across the entire city people could be guaranteed a trip to and from key destinations almost completely free of congestion and it would transform the way PT used, but that would take the Ministry of Transport to get over its insanity, which is a pretty hard ask.
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I guess congestion in the 2020’s is too far away for our present politicians to care about
I’m not sure if that’s the point of the debate Patrick. Seems to me that Matt’s pointing out that it’s really difficult to eliminate congestion – a neverending battle in some ways. However, if you goal isn’t to eliminate congestion, but rather to offer an increasingly large proportion of the population a way to avoid congestion by taking transport modes unaffected by it, congestion becomes less and less of an issue.
New York’s a good example here. Yeah sure, Manhattan Island is busy and congested – but as the vast majority of people travelling to Manhattan each day do so by subway, commuter rail or buses with bus lanes, congestion is not really a huge issue. Yeah sure, those idiots driving have to put up with it, but they’re a fairly small minority. Most people choose to avoid it. While our modeshares are a long way from where New York is, along certain corridors at peak times more people are able to enjoy a congestion free trip than those who get stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. That’s a successful transport outcome.
Has anyone noticed that the only people serious about trying to reduce traffic / increase PT use are the local politicians and planners in Auckland, funded by rates (a reasonably democratic form of taxation) whereas down in Wellington it’s mmmmmm… roads. More roads = more cars = more petrol tax = more roads (repeat n times). I suggest that a government road gang funded by Aucklanders’ petrol taxes, which thinks Auckland needs more roads, is a little bit like the proverbial fox sent to guard the henhouse. Take the responsibility for Auckland transport away from MOT / NZTA / the Minister of Transport’s pet projects (RONs) and give more of it to the Auckland Council, and we will start to see results. At the moment Auckland Council don’t really call the shots, and certainly not the funding; even the so-called ‘Council-Controlled Organisation’ Auckland Transport meets with NZTA first thing every Monday morning, apparently.
I don’t think it is insanity, just perverse decisions driven by imperatives that have little to do with achieving sane transport outcomes. I think Chris above has hit the nail on the head. The Wellington transport bureaucrats might be interested in better transport outcomes for Aucklanders, but the most important outcome of all is they get to keep their jobs by ensuring all control of funding – and therefore all the real power – stays with them. Since this bureaucratic power play currently dovetails with an ideological driven government determined to deny a leftish mayor even a crumb to take back to his voters the status quo is that Auckland knows what it wants but Wellington gleefully won’t fund it.
What other reasons might there be? Total policy capture is one explaination. This government is most ideologically comfortable with crony capitalism (the “free market” ideology in New Zealand is actually code for allowing a core rich elite to engange in price fixing, cartels and extracting monopoly rents) and the cosy transfer of taxpayer money to the road building industry and trucking businesses (remember, the spokesperson for the trucking lobby is an ex-National party cabinet minister). The Wellington based bureaucrats are, well, Wellington based. The mayor of Invercargill and the mayor of Auckland are just two equal individuals sitting in reception waiting to see them to grovel for some money. Except the mayor of Invercargill will remind them that the minister of finance comes from Southland, and will have a letter from the head of federated farmers (who happens to be the minister of finances brother) saying how IMPORTANT a new four lane bridge between Winton and Gore will be for the rural heartland…
If you want an encouraging story about how a PT activist worked with others to reinstate Perth’s Fremantle line, and was a crucial person in their decision to use rail for new routes to the north and south of Perth, read the link below. It is written by Prof. Peter Newman, who is now on the Board of Infrastructure Australia (IA). When the global financial crisis hit, IA’s advice was sought by the Australian Federal government for infrastructure investment, and 55% of the funds available were invested in urban rail.
http://sustainability.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/The_Perth_Rail_Transformation.pdf
There are some really good lessons here for what political action could work in Auckland. Here are a few suggestions
1. Get writers like Brian Rudman on side and feed them information like what’s on this site
2. Expose the huge discrepancy of roads taxes taken out of Auckland and how little of it is returned
3. Show how what is returned goes to projects with low BCR’s
4. Show how many of the claimed benefits of these project(such as ~$600m in reduced frustration from the Waterview connection) are not what we would choose to spend money on if we had the choice.
5. Expose the dodgy BCR’s done by MoT (who even admit their advice needs tightening up) and compare them with those used by Infrastructure Australia
6. Hold public meetings and action such as petitions in the seats of sitting National Party members to make them feel nervous (as occurred in Fremantle when the sitting Liberal member lost his seat after they closed the rail line)
7. Try to get John Banks on side by speaking his language of neo-classical economics (eg market failure for road space because it is not politically acceptable to “auction” it, dodgy BCR’s that claim benefits where people would not choose a a full-cost toll road if they had the choice, BCR’s that don’t factor in the 5% annual increase in oil prices). As a back-bencher, it should be relatively easy to get an appointment with him.
What surprises me is general lack of interest the general public seems to have in transportation issues. During the entire election campaign of 2011, transport and the government’s RoNS programme were generally kept on the down low, and were hardly ever debated or discussed…despite being HUGE money sinks with BCRs much less than 1. It seems Aucklanders and NZers in general are not upset enough with the status quo, and willing to vote National in again despite their complete disregard for sound reason and logical transport funding decisions. The past 60 years has told us point blank that road building our way out of congestion DOES NOT WORK, but last year when the Green and Labour parties BOTH campaigned to change that focus (in funding part of the CBD rail link), that should’ve caught people’s attention. If Aucklander’s really want change and to not keep losing money to these RoNS and other uneconomic roads, I believe it will take protests and mass marches down Auckland’s motorways to finally get Wellington politicians’ attention. Excuse me for calling for such drastic action, but 60 years is an awful long time and price to stay complacent with more and more of the same failed policies. It is quite frankly “insanity”.
I think you will find that for most NZers, general elections are decided on what people perceive (rightly or wrongly) to be “national” issues (e.g. the economy, welfare, law and order) while local body elections on what they perceive to be local issues – rates and transport. Clearly though though, transport is really a national issue when funding comes mostly from a central body.
I’ve just read the latest NZ Herald opinion peice today, from a pro-PT, ex eastern suburbs (I think) local body politician. The sad things is the same misguided (and sometimes deluded) remarks in the comments section – “Auckland can’t do rail because of debsity/geographical issues”, “people don’t want to use rail”, “it will only benefit the CBD”, “We should get North Shore/Airport rail before the link”. Its quite depressing.
Its time for a full page ad in the Herald outlining the “10 biggest myths” (e.g. lack of density or interest in rail”, the “10 biggest advantages” (opens up network for future lines, speeds up travel) and the “10 reasons why it has to happen” (no new road capacity into CBD, etc).
There are some pretty fundamental things just not getting across, or myths being able to fester. It can’t continue.
Len Brown has taken a softly softly approach so far, and probably rightly so given the past MoT’s seemingly hostile view of it. But he needs to get more direct, starting with the mis-informed and disingenuous in his own electorate.
That article is a nice read, certainly plenty of parallels with Auckland.
“permanence, predictability and reliability of service are major positive characteristics of transit systems”
trunk rail line cheaper to operate than a busway
Transit Oriented Developments (TODs)
The suburbs rolled out to the north and south, eventually spreading the city to over 150 kms in length.