This blog has been fairly critical of the transport priorities in this country as well as the transport ministers driving these priorities even though both the both the bloggers and those who read and comment on the site represent a wide range of political views. Last week we saw the Gerry Brownlee answer his first questions in parliament on transport and while it was a disappointing response I do chalk it partly up to the theatrics of the debating chamber and like most things it is what happens behind the scenes that is more important. This is where the advice he receives becomes quite important and we have also see a glimpse that with the release of a few briefing papers from the Ministry of transport (you can read my thoughts here and here). Reading through the papers I definitely got a sense that the authors had a bit of a grudge against commuter rail in Auckland with comments like below where just like the NZ Herald and other publications they have played up the costs of the rail proposals while largely ignoring the fact that the majority of the spend on new projects is actually for new and improved roads.
The draft Plan emphasises a shift to public transport to accommodate future trip growth and reduce congestion. It proposes over $5 billion of new rail capital spending to support this goal. The proposed spending on rail is part of an ambitious capital plan which proposes some $22 billion of new capital spending on major Auckland transport projects, predominantly roading related projects, over the next 30 years. The draft Plan canvases new funding mechanisms, with an emphasis on a road pricing scheme, to fund this programme.
When it comes to mode share though, rail is largely played down with comments about how small it’s mode share currently is that gives the reader the impression that virtually nobody uses it. This is not the feeling that people who actually catch trains have however, especially at peak times when trains are often standing room only. Over the next few years Gerry is likely to be involved in a number of high profile media events related to rail which will all give a great opportunity for him and the government to take credit. We will see the opening of the new Manukau line and station, the opening of a Parnell Station and of course the big one will be seeing the completion of the electrification project and the arrival and running of the first EMU’s.
With this in mind I have decided to issue an open invitation/challenge to both Gerry Browlee and Chris Tremain (the associate minister of transport) to come and catch the train with me to town one morning to see for themselves the impact it has as after all the best way to understand something is to try it yourself. In case you are concerned this isn’t a media stunt and it isn’t about hounding you certain projects, it is purely just to help you to understand what thousands of Aucklanders go through every day to get around the city.
My contact details are here so Gerry and Chris what do you say will you come and catch the train with me? I promise I won’t bite.
Processing...
HEAR HEAR MATT
I second that challenge of yours
[All in favour say Aye – motion carried]
Hehehe I recommending catching the 7am from Papakura to Britomart via Newmarket and the infamous 7:32am Waitakere to Britomart Train the following day with a nice “tour” of Britomart straight afterwards to see the rail network in operation (sorry Matt but I hope like hell a DL freight train does break down on the line just to emphasis a point). Heck I’ll even jack up a tour of the Control Room where you can watch the afternoon peak in full operation too 😀 Hell if I was truly a bastard Matt put them on the 7:40 Papakura to Britomart via G.I – a nice noisy ADK with no air con so you can not hear them whinge 😀
No carriages to yourself and you will pay your $7.20 6 stage fare like good Commuters (I know Matt will)
Hehehe we rail staff won’t bite but the passengers might 😉
Good luck Matt. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you though. Go on Gerry, prove me wrong. I dare you!
If it doesn’t happen, maybe a get Phil Twyford on board for a story.
Simply they will not. They aren’t interested in you, us, trains, transport issues or Auckland. They are National Party politicians. They are regressive and backwards. They stand in the was of any progress. They are a hiccup in our happiness.
But please prove me wrong Gerry and Chris.
Unfortunately, men like Gerry Brownlee & Co. seem to have a questionable relationship with the road lobby (http://m.nbr.co.nz/article/roading-lobby-gives-30000-national-35332, and this is a big reason we’re seeing the smear campaign against vital PT projects.
It’s so, so frustrating to watch a country get it so wrong.
Why would trucking companies object to commuter rail funding? Surely it would help decongest the roads and the trucks would be quicker?
Yes Obi that would be logical, same goes for the AA, get all those reluctant sub-optimal drivers out of the way. But no, both these groups act like spoilt children, jealous of any scape of funding that goes to their sibling, and I suppose that’s not a surprise as they have had it all for as long as anyone alive can remember, pretty much.
I wouldn’t exactly call it a sibling relationship. The various “road user” groups treat it more like the relationship between step half-siblings, where one is the perfect child and the other is the demon spawn of hell.
What about Don Braid from Mainfreight? He seems to think rail is a good investment.
I think the whole “Joyce/Brownlee in hock to the trucking lobby” argument is kind of strange, since it is clearly in the best interest of the trucking lobby to support commuter public transport. And because truck kilometers exploded under the last Labour government and has remained static under this government. Assuming a corrupt conspiracy rather than accepting that different people can have different views over matters of opinion is intellectually sloppy.
But if you want to look at conspiracries, the link to NBR noted that a woman called Stuart Bramhall gave $37k to the Greens. That’s more than the compined trucking lobby. What influence was she buying? I have no idea, but if this (http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/) is the woman, then she is a conspiracy nutcase who thinks the Trilateral Commission and the new World Order are secretly running the world. According to the donor’s author page:
“The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee describes how government harassment led a 54 year old psychiatrist, single mother and social activist, to close my 25 year Seattle practice to begin a new life in New Zealand. It begins by describing the fifteen years of covert harassment I experienced when I used my financial and social position, as a doctor, to assist two former Black Panthers who were occupying an abandoned school to transform it into an African American Museum. What began as unrelenting phone harassment and illegal break-ins, progressed to six attempts on my life and an affair with an undercover agent who railroaded me into a psychiatric hospital.”
That’s pretty freaky stuff.
A woman called “Stuart”?
I was surprised too. Maybe it’s one of the precautions she uses to stay one step ahead of the assassins? If so, it has worked six times already.
Obi, I appreciate your comments but you fail to take into account the huge sums of money that change hands to build roads. Another article on this site mentions the govt proposal to spend $10bn on roads in Auckland alone. Now, although that money is going to private contractors, it wouldn’t surprise me if there are invoices going back and forth between the roading lobby and some of these firms for ‘consulting’ fees. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but when all the evidence suggests that it is in the public good to invest in public transport, only powerful private interests could overrule this.
Also, more roads = more cars. More cars = more tax.
The general public are the only ones not benfitting from this sleazy relationship.
Really there’s no need to entertain conspiracies, it’s just an automatic alignment of world views; ‘right-minded’ thinking. That this thinking is deeply provincial and backward looking doesn’t mean it requires anything extraordinary to explain it- it’s hardly radical. It is very common, the government is confident it is in fact the majority view and can be kept that way. No mystery.
Yes. Although most conspiracies involve confluences of interest, most confluences of interest don’t involve conspiracies. I’d be extremely surprised if there was any secret arrangement – and there’s certainly no evidence of one. There is however a good working relationship between the large companies and the government, and they both share the same worldviews. That’s more than enough to destroy evidence-based policymaking in NZ. Though I suspect the Government is more wedded to roads than the companies are, after all a few hundred million dollars wouldn’t be turned down if it involved laying rail.
Yes George, that’s exactly what is so frustrating about the current government. They are the leaders of regression in transport planning. I’m sure Fletchers would happily keep tunnelling from Waterview to downtown if there was a contract, and lay tracks in it too if asked. But we can see the private sector falling into line with what will most please the holders of our purse. Understandable too.
I would be very, very surprised if Brownlee takes you up on this Matt.Don’t think he’d be caught dead on a train.
Nice try Matt but no National MP will be interested at all in riding the train…even with you! I’d get Phil Twyford and David Shearer in, along with Julie-Anne Genter and Russel Norman/Metiria Turei. They are the people who will change things for the better (especially 2014 onwards).
I would be willing to bet that neither Gerry nor Chris will take up your offer, but I reckon you could get any Auckland green MP, and definitely Phil Twyford on board.
I think we are all fairly well aquatinted with big Gerry’s approach to things and his current focus on the situation in Christchurch which clearly requires and deserves a lot of attention. He has shown a somewhat regrettable belligerence and clumsy superficiality about matters that he doesn’t support or see as core to the NatPat way. I think it is a shame that he has been handed what increasingly looks like Joyce’s leftovers with this portfolio.
So perhaps the associate minister might be more involved?, what might we expect from Chris Tremain? Well I have been to the beautiful Waipatiki valley that is his family’s turangawaiwai (though whether he would use that expression I don’t know) north of Napier. It is a lush sylvan glade reaching down to a fairly wild northern Hawkes Bay ocean beach dotted with with signs for Tremains real estate. This oasis is reached by a winding narrow road through steep pastoral and forestry scared land.
Hmmm. Of course I shouldn’t assume that he can’t get his head around urban problems with sensitivity and intelligence just because of this background but what other experience he has, business studies, work in the family real estate and travel firms, no mention of any extensive experience of overseas cities for example, isn’t encouraging. A great deal about rugby on his website.
As it happened when I was at Napier airport last week there was a vehicle with his name all over it. Unsurprisingly it was a ute.
That these are the ministers for this portfolio is a fairly clear indication of where urban transport issues sit for this administration.
So good luck Matt.
Lets be polite to the men in question at this stage and see what they have to say. Dismissing them out of hand will just make it seem like we who are keen for other options apart from building more roads are just keen to bash them. Maybe just maybe we might be surprised. If they decline then I can understand the feelings and frustrations but I´m assuming that this blog is read by people who are close to the minister (or at least people in the MOT) so lets hold fire.
Come on Gerry, front up and ride A train and prove you believe in your position as transport minister enough to objectively decide what we need as a country.