Today Auckland Council released a discussion document with a range of suggested options to fund future Auckland transport development. Here is the list:
Thirteen options are raised in the report:
- general rates
- targeted rates
- development contributions
- regional income tax
- regional payroll tax
- regional sales tax
- tax increment funding
- regional fuel tax and RUC diesel levy
- tolling new roads
- road pricing on existing roads
- additional car parking charges
- visitor tax
- airport departure tax
Conspicuous in its absence is the idea of simply using Auckland’s share of the National Land Transport Fund to fund the most important and urgent projects. But then nor is there any real discussion about the projects to be funded by any new source of revenue. Only this:
The projects that need to be funded include the combined Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) and Onehunga to East Tamaki (East-West) Link, the City Rail Link, an additional Waitemata Harbour crossing, the extension of the Northern Busway, the Avondale-Southdown Rail Link and ferry service improvements.
It is clear that simply increasing taxes and rates will not cope with an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion funding shortfall.
And this is not a complete list, strangely the majority of the alarming figure is made up of new roads.
Project | Cost |
Puhoi-Wellsford | $1.4 billion |
Neilson Street east-west link | $1.25 billion |
State Highway pinch-points | $1.2 billion |
Airport road access improvements | $730 million |
Additional Waitemata Crossing | $5.3 billion (up to) |
Port-Grafton Gully connection | $1 billion |
Total | $10.88 billion |
So of course the Herald inevitably emphasizes that the document is about hitting us in the pocket to fund the City Rail Link, here is their opening paragraph:
Higher petrol prices, road tolls and even a rise in GST are being dangled in front of Aucklanders as options to pay for a $2.4 billion inner-city rail loop and other transport projects.
Yet the majority of the projects are vast motorway expansions all of completely debatable value. We have been investing in motorways continuosly for 60 years and any objective observer of the city would conclude that with the completion of the Waterview link between SH20 and the Northwestern there will be a complete and very high quality motorway network in place. Yet they would also see that there is a total absence of any complementary public transport network of similar standard.
Furthermore for the last seven years traffic on state highways in Auckland and all over NZ have been flat [except post earthquake Christchurch, where a lot of rubble is being moved around]. As an example here are the 2011 figures for the Auckland Harbour Bridge from NZTA and Auckland Transport:
Yet more people than ever are crossing the Bridge each day; clearly it is the capacity and the success of the Busway that is allowing the car and truck drivers to move at all on this important link.
And it isn’t just across the harbour that we get these sorts of figures the passenger rail network in Auckland grew by 19.7% in 2011. Continuing its consistent and strong growth ever since it was revived from near death through the construction of Britomart. Showing, as does the Busway, that Aucklanders are keen to use other means of getting around than their cars if an effective alternative option is available. Again relieving pressure on the road network, especially at peak times.
Yet we find this lonely and unsupported statement in the Council document:
It is also clear that road users should not be the single focus in funding the deficit.
Mr Joyce said motorists already contributed about 11 per cent of their fuel taxes to public transport.
These are issues that need discussing, because clearly growing the alternatives to driving do help keeping the traffic flowing and save us from expensive and undesirable further roading projects.
“I have made it very clear to Len that anything that requires a change in central government policy is not something the Auckland Council can direct…Mr Brownlee reiterated the view of his predecessor, Steven Joyce, who last year ruled out a regional fuel tax and had “significant reservations” about tolls and congestion charges.
For me the most pressing discussion is about the relative value of the projects because it seems that the wishlist is grossly inflated by unnecessary road projects. Especially because if we invest in the trend towards the complementary public transport network we may find that we do not need many of them at all.
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OMG whoever ran the communications strategy for this deserves the sack. It was obvious from the start that the issues would be framed as “we need all these other funding streams for the City Rail Link, everyone will hate them, so perhaps we can’t afford the project after all”, but there was no effort at all to dispel this myth. And now we find ourselves with the project at greater risk than every before, because of course nobody wants to pay the alternatives.
Particularly gutting is that the project is likely to lose public support over a funding proposal where most of the money would actually go on motorways. So we lose both ways!
Generally agree with Patrick’s post though, there’s plenty of money out there to build the world-class PT network Auckland needs. We’re just spending it on stupid motorways.
Agenda into The Draft Long Term Plan at the Council Strat and Finance Committee is also released http://www.scribd.com/doc/81413122/AKL-Council-Strat-and-Finance-Agenda-15-02-2012
Going to be a very lively debate at Council.
As Mr Anderson is right, the Comm Strategy just caused the entire debate to be effectively lost…
Where to next.
I should add this short version of the above: Ak’s transport problems are all in Wellington
In more ways than one. Why exactly does Wellington need both the Kapiti Coast Highway and Transmission Gully?
Because the train to Waikanae takes like a whole hour and you have to share the carriage with other people and at the end of the day they stink and the existing route is like only 80km/hr and that isn’t fast enough and if there is, like, a big earthquake in Wellington or sumfing everyone has to meet at Bulls for an icecream immediately afterwards.
Because an earthquake isn’t capable of ruining a New Zealand city’s infrastructure?
Wat. The earthquake argument for Transmission Gully doesn’t make any sense, as it’d be one of the roads to go.
Because they run end to end
It’s good to see car parking rates being considered. If they had a sliding scale, based on the amount of land used for parking, you could discourage poor land use which as we know is helping push up land and house prices.
I think it would have popular appeal, as it could be seen as a counter to developments like St Lukes that are unpopular with the general public (even if they like to shop there). It could be promoted as ‘the St Lukes levy’.
Does anyone have statistics for how many car parks there are in Auckland?
Also conspicuous by its absence is the sale of assets, which should be put on the table for consideration, after all Len stood as an independent, and was a pains to state he was not standing on behalf of the labour party, if he had been open about that I suspect he may not have got in.
I agree with the projects and the need for the Rail Link, I agree with rail to the airport and possibly to the North Shore, however, as someone who drives around 40,000km a year for work, I also know that Public Transport will not take me to where I need to go now, and is unlikely to in the future, so I also support roading projects.
I drive to Northland every week, and support to road to Wellsford, it would make the journey easier, but improvements could be made to the existing route, and support that view, I also support the port to grafton connection, in typical Auckland style this should have been done when the did the Grafton offramps, but it could be tolled, as most users would be trucks.
In terms of funding Len has made an absolute cock up of the marketing of this, the only solution is to put all the options on the table, including asset sales, but it is clear additional Government funding will not be forthcoming, not because the government doesn’t want to, it simply can’t afford to. The pot is empty.
Len needs to recover his position quickly, and be open with all options being on the table, otherwise in a years time he will come up for re-election as a Labour Party hack, and I suspect will be rolled, much the same way as Dick Hubbard was, and then sadly some of the progress that has been made in the last three years will be lost. He also needs to start working with Central Government in a constructive manner, as this morning it was obvious that the Prime Minister had been side swiped by these proposals, and even more interestingly did not rule the proposals out.
Exactly what do you support when you say you ‘support the Port to Grafton Link’? There is currently an issue with the Parnell Rise/The Strand/Stanley St intersection. However this acts as a default ramp meter for the onramp to SH1 and could be fixed with an underpass for traffic from the Strand. I have never seen a container bound truck take SH16 or the Northern Link so I assume this is what will be ‘fixed’. However there are no more lanes heading south available. So there will always be a ramp meter (which trucks don’t have to stop at anyway) at the top of Grafton Gully. Unless the extreme cost of this project includes more lanes added to the newly reconstructed Newmarket Viaduct.
The problem with asset sales is that you can only sell off the port and airport once, but infrastructure wishlists go on forever. You think if they spentthe $10-15 billion to build every single project on that list that would be the end of it? The council, the government or the business lobby would probably just discover another $10-15 billion worth of “essential” infrastructure projects. Sometimes I think some of these business organisations exist for the sole purpose of lobbying for spending.
Icebird, exactly. Stephen Selwood of the NZ Council for Infrastructure is basically a lobbyist for taxpayers money to be spent on and for his members. Dressed up of course as having all of our vital interests at heart. It would be naive to think otherwise.
You can become a member if you like for as little as $1500 p/a for very small businesses or all the way to $9k for corporates or [get this] local authorities. He’s pretty effective, wouldn’t you say?
Here: http://www.nzcid.org.nz/membershipoptions.html
Ak Council is a member, the rest are big construction firms and their lawyers, and the odd developer.
Michael Barnett of the business owners union is, naturally, ploughing the same field. So it goes.
Our role is to try, in our unfunded spare time, to try to talk truth to power. Shame that the media is largely compliant with these organisations and reports their wish lists and self serving arguments as fact. Or at least without the skepticism they deserve.
I should have added my preferred sources of funding would be
1. Partial sale of Ports of Auckland which would achieve the release of cash and the introduction of much needed commercialism to that operation
2. Road tolling
3. Carparking levy
4. Visitor charges and increased departure tax.
“So of course the Herald inevitably emphasizes that the document is about hitting us in the pocket to fund the City Rail Link, here is their opening paragraph:”
You’d hope that sometime soon they start to realise that their new found concern of the income divide in Auckland is not going to be addressed by more motorways. Just last week they profiled a family that was not aways able to eat, yet had two cars. I bet they those have those cars through a love of driving, more out of a necessity in this city to be able to drive to get just about anywhere- in this case a 7 day a week job.
Your list of projects should be an embarrassing expose of the strength of the roading lobby. $730 million on roading improvements to the airport? Will this provide four lanes all the way to the gate? And $1.4 billion for Puhoi to Wellsford sounds unlikely given the issues faced north of Wellsford. I could go on.
There are no roading projects on this list that should proceed without looking at cheaper solutions first. Much as it seems to have become orthodox thought in this city for a motorway to be the only solution to fixing issues there needs to be a look at incremental solutions first rather than leaping to the billion dollar solution first.
Exactly where are the problems driving to the airport?… eight lanes over the Manukau, new lanes north and south, Waterview will mean Joyce can drive directly from Albany to the Koru lounge without ever pausing to give way to a fellow citizen until the airport road itself. Is that it?, spend 3/4 of a billion to get there 2 seconds quicker?! Are they completely mad? The road lobby is plucking projects out of the ether, and the road transport lobby are so drunk on on state and ratepayer welfare support they have lost all self control…. while destroying the very road asset that we have spent over half a century building.
Time for balance. But I do wonder if city hall is playing this as well as it might….?
The port issue is interesting, even as PoAL lobby for a big road spend there they say they intend to use more rail and complain that they are losing business to Tauranga… It has also shone a a bit of a light potential limitations to Council ownership of this asset. It does seem torn between its desire for income from the port and doing best by the city and its citizens.
I for one would be happy to sell airport shares to help fund the transformation of Auckland through construction of the CRL and the Airport Line, as these are transformational and intergenerational projects, but not for one more motorway. Enough. We’ve done that for decades and still the entirely predictable result occurs: More congestion.
Although I do accept that foregoing dividends through asset sales does compromise future ability to fund improvements or services.
Excellent post Patrick. As you’ve said there are a helluva lot of roading projects that have an unexplained urgency to them. And the $2.5bn annual revenue from fuel taxes should be accessible to Auckland City and other councils. We know from your previous post that more than half of the approved roading projects in 2009/2010 were for low benefit-cost roading projects, so the Government clearly can’t say it knows best.
Adding the CRL and NZTA motorway projects together may be a good way of moulding the publics thinking that they should be funded equally, and from the same source. Currently the NZTA will eventually fund & build all those roads one way or another, and not the CRL. The city council proposing these funding mechanisms just for the CRL wouldn’t be politically acceptable. The public as a whole accept road spending before rail. I think this muddies up the situation, and may have been the best course of action.
I’m thinking the following:
1) Capital gains tax on the properties around the new stations, for the owners will certainly benefit.
2) Regional fuel tax along the lines of that introduced by Labour & scrapped by National, as it’s the most efficient way of taxing the motorist who benefits from the road network
3) Congestion charging but not tolling, at existing pinch points, e.g. harbour bridge, waterview tunnel, SH18 causeway, mangere bridge, upper harbour bridge, panmure bridges, otahuhu, tamaki drive/hobson bay, newmarket viaduct) and possibly every onramp/offramp?
4) Sale of the ports of Auckland company, retain ownership of the land & lease it to the port.
5) Sale of council housing
6) Development contributions should be increased to help fund infrastructure in general.
I don’t like general rates, income, payroll or GST taxes, as they’re not targeting those directly benefiting. If I arrange my life so that I live next to my work, shops etc, why should I have to pay?
If a carpark tax were introduced, it would have to be the whole region, otherwise it would encourage sprawl.
I would worry that a visitor tax or increasing the departure tax would hurt tourism and have a negative effect on overall revenue.
Anthony, the problem with your approach is that once again we see motorway projects getting the easy ride with funding from traditional sources while the PT projects Auckland needs are held hostage to whether the public can be made to accept these new funding options. There is no logical reason for it to be that way.
Patrick, the proposed upgrade to SH20A (Airport Expressway) involves grade separation at the Kirkbride and Montgomerie intersections, and possible widening and new further eastern access to the airport. Not sure if this includes the proposed realignment to get it out of the way of the second runway, but if so, then the airport should be paying for it. Personally I don’t think the project is needed, as airport access is easy. It seems to be about spending $730m to take out two sets of traffic lights.
Geoff- exactly.
Those two sets of traffic lights are, however, the regular scenes of quite serious collisions. I agree the price tag is rather steep, but there is more to this than just “make it faster”. It’s also “make it safer”, though I’m sure the intersections could be grade separated for a lot less than $730m.
One thing I would hate to see happen is for the motorway designation on SH20 to be extended any further south. Cyclists already get a shit deal to get out to the airport from Manukau (huge detour from Manukau Station Road back up to Puhinui Road), and if they extend the motorway designation it’ll impact on a very popular bicycle route. Not that I think NZTA’s planners give a damn, but the cycling community wouldn’t be at all happy.
Let’s make it safer by removing all those unnecessary journeys for people who would rather use the train…. Anyway because driving is so dangerous we have to make it more attractive!? Doesn’t compute. Isn’t working.
You’ve never seen a roading project you couldn’t hate on, huh?
Road traffic to the airport isn’t going to go away, no matter how much you might dream of a world of rainbows and unicorns and no cars. Recognising this fact, undertaking work to make the road safer is justified and sensible. It’s a main freight corridor, as well as a transit corridor, and that’s not going to go away either.
Honestly, are you going out of your way to look like a jerk and discredit the general attempt to balance transport funding? Because that’s how you come across. No road project is reasonable, no road spending is reasonable, cars should just go away. You don’t do any favours to those of us who want balanced transport expenditure.
Agreed the Kirkbride Road grade separation is a necessary no brainer, but its costs should be fairly minimal as the land is already there. The $730m is probably for full grade separation of SH20A and SH20B within the airport environment. Something that’s totally unnecessary.
Matt, if you could just put Mr Angry away for moment you’ll figure out that the ‘balance’ is so far out of wack that all pro road assumptions need testing. It might also be good to pay attention to context; you know and i know there is no chance of a total re-balance of our transit investments but there is a need to take on all the lazy ideas out there just to move the thing a bit towards reasonable. Also this list of road projects is partly there to show we can’t invest in anything else: Look there’s no money, we must keep paving. I don’t buy it and I think my view is more than reasonable and supportable.
Anyway why the vitriol?, aren’t we trying to paddle this waka in the same direction?
Matt, what’s with all the rainbows and unicorns and no cars bit? The airport already has a six lane expressway to the north and a two lane highway to the south. Patrick never suggested we remove these major roads, or even that we don’t make improvements to them. So why fire up ranting about no cars?
I think it’s a dam good point, three-quarters of a billion to run a freeway right to the terminal building, just to skip a couple of traffic lights and a roundabout? It doesn’t take $750m to improve safety on a pair of major intersections.
That sort of money could pay for a rail line through Mangere and the industrial estate to the terminal building. What would we rather have, an expressway and a rapid rail line, or a just a full motorway?
This reminds me of the billion dollar proposal to convert the upper harbour expressway to a full motorway interchange with SH1. What for? just to remove two traffic lights and make the line orange instead of yellow on the map?! They could add an extra lane each way to provide free left turns and the same capacity for a fraction of the cost.
No thanks on the free left turns. As a pedestrian I hate having free left turns to cross. There are houses and all the airport motels around Kirkbride Rd. Some of those people have legs.
Details of the proposal are here: http://www.arc.govt.nz/albany/fms/main/Documents/Transport/RLTS/RLTS%202009/Improved%20airport%20road%20access%20SH20A%20and%20SH20B.pdf
As well as junction improvements it includes bus lanes, bus priority measures, and separate cycle routes away from the dual carriageways. I don’t know how far the $730million takes them since the plan is in stages out to 2058, but the immediate stages seem quite pragmatic to me.
Thanks for that Obi, the time scale renders that meaningless. Good to see the RTN and cycle lanes in there and the talk of route protection but as the massive road upscaling is frontloaded it ends up being PT wash really.
Nice link.
I think this is interesting.
“The configuration of the rapid transit network and associate stations is critical to the
operation of the transport network over the longer term. Further investigation and decisions
regarding the configuration of the RTN is a priority.”
Yet it was the priority on this as Horizon 3: 2032-2058.
Especially worrying as an RTN along SH 20b is costed at only $50 to $200million.
Patrick: “the time scale renders that meaningless”
I have mixed feelings about planning over a long (>10 year) timeframe. Obviously someone has to look in to the future to figure out how we tackle the really big projects. But this one is planning 46 years in to the future. How much attention to we pay to plans drawn up in 1966? The answer is zero. I’d rather that people looked at immediate achievable plans where progress can be measured, benefit realisation confirmed, and individuals held accountable if benefits aren’t realised. And, as I’ve said previously, I’m in favour of developing a cross party consensus on projects that will span the life of multiple parliaments.
Well I think it is clear that if a document puts a portion of its plans out 20, 30, 40 years hence it is just a way of saying that its authors are not serious about the project at all. So why do it? So you can pretend, in this case for example, that the work is to be ‘multi-modal’. Ergo: PT wash.
And I see there are more articles in the Herald today, including an Editorial, which make the assumption that all the extra money is needed for the city rail link. Sigh.
Well for the Herald it’s not a bad editorial. And I agree, but I would extend the degree that the Government should butt out to include the transport taxes that Auckland already plays but that the Government insists on controlling and spending so poorly.
I think a rail line (passenger and freight) would be much more beneficial to both Auckland and the traffic volumes to / from the airport area.
@Handlebars Matt
I think Nick was just referring to the Upper Harbour plan re the ‘free turns’.
Thats right Bryce, in fact those free lefts already exist at The upper harbour highway interchange, they just new to be extended as their own lanes rather than the current give way arrangement. That would solve 90% of the problem for 5% of the cost of a full interchange.
As for no thanks to free left turns for pedestrians Matt, would you rather have the full motorway to motorway interchange there instead?! Can’t see that being very easy to walk across.
Yeah I thought you meant near the airport. That’s up Albany way, right? It’s a bit spot the pedestrian there.
You’re oh so right Nick. An extra lane would suit just fine for many years to come – except on holiday weekends of course but you wouldn’t build a road for just 11 or so really busy days a year – would you? :-).
Yeah Matt, there is pretty much just a footpath on the Southern side of the road. It does however get a few pedestrians from the Constellation Bus Station. There is enough room there to put a full cycleway in as well but I may as well suggest a hoverboard lane.
Well if Back to the Future is any guide they are only 3 years away.
Item 4 on NZTA’s September board minutes proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the RoNS trump everything – not even the most damaging earthquake in this country’s short history is allowed to get in the way. A governmnt that refuses to use a city’s contributions to the NZTA to pay for the $750m damag to the city’s roads and then turns around and demands the City Council meets its “fair share” of the recovery costs by selling it’s assets is definitely not going to averse to demanding that Auckland Council sells its assets to fund the CRL while forcing NZTA to squander funds on dubious RoNS.
This government is a total disaster! First they sell our land off to the diary farmers and now they’re telling Aucklanders what they can and can’t do. Aucklanders want the CBD link but we can’t have it because National says so and refuses to fund it because they would sooner build more motorways. This is ridiculous this are the type of plans that failed Auckland in the past, then its highly likely they will fail again from years to come!
Damn those diary farmers! I’d rather we sell to the journal farmers instead…