With so much focus on the Auckland spatial plan at the moment, words of “step change”, “transformational” and “public transport led approach” being bandied around, discussion about new ways to fund this “step change” and “transformation”, and the excitement of a single Council looking at transport issues in a long-term way, it’s easy to forget that it was not even two years ago that we put together Auckland’s previous 30 year transport strategy. The 2010 Regional Land Transport Strategy was actually tasked with the very job of taking a long-term vision of Auckland’s transport future. It was, in fact, the first RLTS to look at transport with a 30 year horizon in mind – the same horizon (with a couple of years difference) as the Auckland Plan is focusing on.
Previous posts, and an excellent column from Brian Rudman, have highlighted the credibility gap between the pretty words of the Auckland Plan, when it comes to transport matters, and the reality of where the money is proposed to be headed. But how does this plan compare to the 2010 RLTS? Did the RLTS have a big funding gap too? Is the Auckland Plan really a step change towards a public transport focused transport strategy, when compared to the RLTS?
There are quite a few graphs in the RLTS that provide us with a useful insight into where it saw the money going. This one is a good start, which compares the expenditure envisaged by the strategy over the next 30 years with the funding available:
While there’s certainly a misalignment between the expenditure envisaged by the strategy and the funding available, overall there’s actually not a gap between the amounts. In other words, there’s enough money to deliver the RLTS, we just need to shift around what that money is spent on.
Another graph breaks down where the RLTS proposed to spend the $46 billion (presumably updated slightly due to inflation to become the $50b baseline used in the funding gap discussion) over the next 30 years:
It’s fairly close to a 50/50 split between new roads and roads maintenance/renewals on one side and public transport infrastructure, PT services and travel demand management, walking and cycling on the other side. In short, the definition of a balanced transport strategy. We even see the funding split broken down by each of the decades covered in the strategy:
Oh if only there was anything close to this level of detail available in the transport section of the Auckland Plan. Strangely the Auckland Plan seems completely devoid of such detail, perhaps because it would highlight something that goes against what all the pretty words of the plan are saying?
Thankfully, Rudman’s column provides some of the numbers to help fill in the gaps. With a couple of assumptions and a bit of maths we can start to make comparisons (not on a decade by decade basis sadly, but overall) between the RLTS and the Auckland Plan on that key matter – where is the money going?
This comparison highlights quite a few surprises. Instead of the step-change towards public transport spending we see both PT infrastructure and PT services spending remain relatively unchanged from the RLTS – the small increases probably reflecting little more than inflation. There’s no distinction made in Rudman’s column between spending on Local Roads and State Highways, so we have to lump the two together, but that shows where the real “step-change” in the Auckland Plan is, and also highlights where the funding gap has originated.
Using this comparison, we can make a few helpful conclusions:
- The additional roads proposed in the Auckland Plan, compared to the RLTS, are the source of almost the whole funding gap.
- All the public transport projects proposed in the Auckland Plan and the RLTS are affordable under current funding arrangements, we just need to change around the allocation of funds.
- The Auckland Plan is not a step-change towards a public transport led transport strategy at all, it’s a step change towards spending billions and billions on new roads.
In fact, it seems like the 2010 RLTS was the real step-change document. The Auckland Plan just proposes to spend hugely more on motorways, a continuation of the transport policy which has failed Auckland for decades.
What changed? Where did all these roading projects come from? Given that it is clear we cannot build every thing everyone wants even if every proposed scheme is a good idea [and these road projects are of debatable value at best], don’t we have to be clear about priorites and direction? After 60 years of building and re-building the grand motorway plan for Auckland it will be functionally complete with the big Waterview connection and the total rebuild of the North Western. Isn’t it clear that we must focus our resources on maintaining this road asset and provide for growth and resilience by building the missing complementary [and booming] public transport systems?
Is it because vested interests are fighting against the very idea of change in collusion with our state institutions, as described in a recent comment by Mike:
NZTA holds the power everywhere. All the regions can do is recommend projects in their Regional Land Transport Programmes, ranked so that Strategic Fit (what the government wants) outranks the other two criteria of Effectiveness and Efficiency (=BCR), which are used to “inform” NZTA’s National Land Transport Programme. Ultimately it’s NZTA’s decisions based on MoT’s criteria based on the Government Policy Statement. Any local/regional input is a charade.
Is it a top down thing from Government, because they and their close friends just like motorways?
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Nice summary, I think an additional key point is that Steven Joyce rewrote the manual forbidding NLT funding being used for railway infrastructure meanng local authorities are actually forced to spend money on things they don’t want to. In this sense the funding gap arises because all that money from NZTA can only be used to built more monster motorways and can’t be used to build essential PT infrastructure. A huge misalignment and something that only a change in government would appear to solve, Key, Brownlee and Joyce seem happy to stick to business as usual and flush more money down the drain rather than actually building a sustainable future for NZers.
It is good to explore why Council has done this. Pressure from central government seems the obvious reason, but when the mayor has put so much focus on public transport it seems a very risky approach.
I think it is probably not so much central government but lobbying from interest groups like the RCF and the AA. We have seen projects like the ‘east west link’ now become something that we have to have in the next 10 years where as previously it was in the sometime in the far future. Basically they have been hammering on about how critical they think these things are it is probably a case of those writing the plan being worn down.
There is probably also an element of the Auckland plan being a giant wish list. I suspect they have added every project that the roading engineers and lobby can think of and thought it would either be cut later or have been convinced by the NZCID argument that there is this giant funding stream about to be turned on to pay for it all in the form of network charging.
I think you’re right there Matt, although the connection is fairly clear: anything that helps the trucking industry is going to please the government. The weird thing about the east-west link is the eastern side of it, which pretty much duplicates AMETI. Oh, and also the prospect of giant motorway to motorway interchanges to connect with both SH20 and SH1. Right in the hearts of town centre Onehunga and Metropolitan Centre Sylvia Park.
It’s so crazy it’s almost laughable.
Yes but it is the GPS and the Ministry’s stance that gives trucking and road builders the stones to threat and thump the table to get every little whim listed, no matter how insane. How much more violated can Onehunga be….?
Worn down, and also firmly convinced that there’s not going to be any money available from central government for the things we really need in the foreseeable future (ie: until National get the flick).
If the only things that can be funded are roads, why not ask for all the roading projects that have ever been proposed and might be vaguely useful? After all, if we can’t get funding for really useful stuff we’re going to need the road alternatives to keep the city moving until we can build the public transport infrastructure that’ll stave off gridlock much further into the future.
For comparison here’s a similar document from LA, that well know anti road city: http://www.metro.net/measurer/images/expenditure_plan.pdf
40% Transit Capex 20% Highway Capex
25% Transit Opex 15% Street Capex [includes cycling, walking]
Interesting, all from sales tax revenue.
Presumably Interstate Capex is Federal, as are High Speed rail projects, and there will also be State Funding
So now Los Angeles makes us look like, well, Los Angeles.
How embarrassing.
where did he get those numbers from? Because I couldn’t find anything like that level of detail in the Auckland Plan. Do you know?
This is insane. This is evil. $40 billion to roads? No wonder they want to raise rates, tolls, and apply a range of funding instruments. These are huge numbers, equating to tens of thousands of dollars per person, and they’re not going simply appear. So we can put a motorway through the bottom of Onehunga.
There will be huge shortfalls if these figures are even close to true. We’ll have to wait to see more detail, but this is just about as bad as it gets.
All at a time when we’re supposed to be controlling emissions (not to mention ongoing structural oil supply constraints). Honestly, every single layer of government in NZ treats climate change like it’s a silly joke. NZ pretends to be an environmentally friendly country, but the truth is we’re among the worst in the world when it comes to emissions, and we’re not even planning any kind of change. We’re getting worse.
*Speechless*
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/motoring/news/article.cfm?c_id=9&objectid=10786811