Auckland Transport’s first Regional Land Transport Programme (RLTP) has been released for consultation (not to be confused with Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan) – with submissions due by 4pm on Friday 23 March 2012. You can read the draft RLTP as a PDF document here. The RLTP does not set transport policy, in the way that the Government Policy Statement (GPS), Regional Land Transport Strategy (RLTS) and Auckland Spatial Plan do, but rather shows how the transport policy set by those other documents will be given effect to over the next three years. Importantly, a transport project needs to be included in the RLTP for NZTA to then include that project in their National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) for funding. The web of transport policy in New Zealand certainly is complex, but the RLTP plays a fairly critical role in setting out the transport programme for the next three years – providing detail to what we had perhaps only previously thought about as high level strategy.
The RLTP picks up on the general direction of the Auckland Plan, by saying that Auckland’s significant population growth over the next 40 years will place a huge amount of pressure on the transport network – meaning that serious investment will be required. There’s a useful graph highlighting that between 2006 and 2051, Auckland’s population growth will account for around 75% of the whole country’s growth. In other words, Auckland will add three people for every person the rest of New Zealand adds:
That graph is a useful thing to roll out every time someone says Auckland is focused on too much when it comes to transport spending.
Perhaps the next most interesting thing in the RLTP (after we get past all the usual pretty talk about transport investment contributing to economic growth, the ‘one system approach’ etc. etc.) is some genuine funding set aside for advancing the City Rail Link project – showing that the project really is shifting beyond being something in “far future strategies” to an actual realistic project with a path well established that will lead to its eventual completion.
Even with the CRL’s construction, roads expenditure seems to dominate what happens over the next decade though – suggesting that there may be a number of large-scale roading (especially state highways) projects that may prove to be unnecessary and could be cut back to free up funds for projects like the CRL if there’s a shortage of money (and the RLTP suggests there is):
Looking at the graph above, it would seem that 2018 and 2020 would be the only years we end up spending more on the CRL than we spend on building new motorways. A pretty strange situation considering the Waterview Connection is supposed to “complete” Auckland’s motorway network (and it’s due to be finished by 2016/2017). Presumably the big spending on state highways in the later years is due to the Puhoi-Wellsford road, suggesting that the two projects do compete for funding at around the same time (contrary to what many National Party MPs were suggesting before the election).
The other interesting thing to note in the graph above is the steady, or even declining, amount of money proposed to be spent on public transport services (bus, rail and ferry subsidies). The funding demand for PT services has skyrocketed over the past decade, at a much faster pace than patronage has grown – meaning that to achieve the graph above will require a radical change to the way we operate the public transport network to make it more efficient. The very low amount of money set aside for PT infrastructure continues to be quite confusing, part of this is because the big money for projects like the AMETI busway, Dominion Road upgrade and other PT infrastructure projects will actually be coming out of the local roads allocation.
A more detailed funding allocation table is included below – which focuses on the first three years, those of direct relevance to the RLTP (later years are given just for indicative purposes):
Once again probably the most interesting line in the above table relates to the City Rail Link. If we’re proposing to spend close to half a billion dollars on the project over the next three years that suggests some pretty serious progress being made on it – actual construction works beginning and not just consenting, design work and property acquisition I would guess. As an interesting comparison, here’s a very similar table from the 2009 RLTP:
Looking at the total spend each year in the forthcoming RLTP has a bit more than what was proposed to be spent in the current/previous RLTP, which suggests that it’s not a completely unaffordable programme as a whole, but rather that it just needs a bit of “fat” cut off it here and there.
Another table that’s very interesting compares the amount of money Auckland is effectively asking NZTA for with the amount of money available across the whole country in that particular activity class – so we get an idea about the proportion of the whole country’s transport spend in different areas that will be dedicated to Auckland:
You can see the draw on NZTA funding for public transport infrastructure and new local roads will be pretty dominant, but even for new state highways Auckland will have not far off half the country’s total spend over the next three years – which is pretty incredible as Waterview is pretty much the only large state highways project to be built in that time period.
It is difficult to know what to suggest people submit on, as the RLTP is very much a “details” document for strategic decisions that have already been made, so there’s little point submitting to say that the funding split should be radically changed – for example. Perhaps the most useful submissions might be on some of the details – is there a small-scale transport project that should be done in the next few years but has been missed? Is there a project that should have money set aside for its further investigation – particularly if changes to the Auckland Plan which have occurred in very recent times (presumably the RLTP is based on the Draft Plan) might necessitate such a change. Bringing forward further investigation of a busway along State Highway 16 might be a good example of this, if the Auckland Plan proposes to vastly increase the number of people living in Auckland’s northwest corner.
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Wow the plan to keep PT services the same for the whole upcoming decade is really going to piss off Infratil. No more forever increasing public subsidy to milk and milk.
Well, that’s great- I’m all for getting value for money, but it’s hard to see the growth in PT use in Ak pulling back, so I sure hope we can build those efficiencies and not just fail to provide services….?
The best thing they could do would be to sort out a real integrated fares structure, gross contract all routes and effect a total system redesign based around a lesser number of frequent routes with transfers between them.
That would service a heap more trips with the same or even fewer resources, or in other words slash subsidy/operating costs.
I don’t think it’s really a case of going “that’s the best thing to do” or “it would be a good idea”. We really won’t have a choice but to dramatically improve the efficiency of the PT network. We simply can’t afford not to.
But Peter, we do plenty of things we can’t afford to do, and don’t do plenty we can’t afford not to!
The draft RLTP “shows how the transport policy set by those other documents will be given effect to over the next three years”? Actually, no. It’s the NLTP that does that – all the RLTP does is “inform” the NLTP, and the content of the latter is at NZTA’s sole discretion.
So for “will be given effect to”, read “may be given effect to, if NZTA agrees”.
And “a transport project needs to be included in the RLTP for NZTA to then include that project in their National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) for funding”? Again, no. NZTA has agreed to funding for RONs projects like Puhoi to Wellsford, or the Sandhills Motorway in Wellington, that are not in the current RLTPs (but doubtless will be in the new ones).
You’re making some pretty fine distinctions there Mike. You’re obviously right that it’s the NLTP which determines NZTA’s funding, but I think the general point that the RLTP puts together everything (especially for big projects) that has been proposed in the big plans and strategies and packages them for NZTA to consider for funding through the NLTP. So it’s not really an “agenda setting” policy document.
One thing that’s always amused me is what would happen if the RLTPs just didn’t include some of the more silly RoNS projects. Could NZTA insert those into the NLTP and therefore fund them? Or would that be technically illegal?
I am severely disappointed at the lack of leadership in the walking & cycling section. I mean this line is so thin you can’t even see it right on the graph. Here’s an area where they could make massive changes on the ground by something that overall, would just be a minimal change. Yet all they are doing is perpetuating the MoT’s “0.7% for walking and cycling is plenty” mantra.
Where’s the liveable city in that?
Submit on that, please!
Completely agree. 0.8% for walking and cycling is pathetic. Walking/cycling not only underpins a liveable city, it provides the foundation for an efficient public transport system. No point spending the big bucks on the PT infrastructure if people can’t get to the stops/stations for lack of good walking/cycling facilities.
The argument will be that “walking and cycling is provided for in budgets for other categories.” Balderdash – look at what NZTA have “provided for” cyclists on the north-western cycleway at the Lincoln Road interchange. Cyclists must navigate endless signals simply to get through. It’s an unmitigated disaster and the engineers involved should be ashamed of themselves.
But more generally, there is a need for much greater investment in walking/cycling. Wholesale changes to signalised intersections etc. And 0.8% just won’t do it I’m afraid.
@Peter – I suspect that would be illegal, or at least legally difficult enough that Brownlee could start muttering loudly of putting Auckland Council under the rule of unappointed commissioners (Key & his folks LOVE doing that) “until the Council remembers their legal duties” (to do what Wellington wants).
More to the point, if you look at the last graph, Auckland’s local share for new highways is $0. So it doesn’t make a real difference anymore at this stage. Dice have rolled on this for now. We can only argue about the Council’s share.