It appears that the Council’s silence on the benefits and the need for the City Rail Link may be coming home to roost. Stuff reports:
Nearly half of all Aucklanders who made submissions on the council’s draft long-term plan are opposed to mayor Len Brown’s proposed $2.4 billion inner-city rail link.
The council received 655 submissions on the proposed city rail link, and nearly half – 48 per cent – were against the link, while 30 per cent were in favour of it. The other submissions did not include a clear view either way.
“The city rail link is an unnecessary burden to the entire region and will only serve the few people who visit the CBD. It is unacceptable to keep continue spending ratepayers’ money while household incomes remain lean or declining,” one submission read.
Other submissions in support said the rail link was a “number one priority”, which would bring “vibrancy” to the centre city.
To me this is a clear sign the council and Auckland Transport have been asleep at the wheel of this project and I pointed this out just a few days ago. Since the government announced it’s review, there has has been barely any information about about it and documents like the Auckland Plan and the LTP only really pay the project lip service so is no surprise that people haven’t it as a priority. I get the feeling that the council/AT have wanted to deliberately keep quiet on the project so as to not rock the governments boat and in the meantime work away on it in the background to address the issues with the business case until they are ready to get the designation. There are two problems that I have with this strategy:
- They have allowed the government to control the argument and continue to claim the project doesn’t make sense. I would have preferred that they at least had kept pointing out that their independent review came up with vastly different a result.
- In the absence of even basic information about the project it slips out of peoples mind, it becomes less important to them and they fail to see how they will benefit from it. Even senior AT staff members don’t seem to be able to express how the project will benefit people, even when those people have a train line through their suburbs.
It’s not like people are against rail though, this from further on in the article:
Meanwhile, there was more support for an airport rail corridor, with 48 per cent of the 163 submissions on the matter in favour of it, and 32 per cent against it.
Some submissions said the lack of a rail link between the airport and city was an embarrassment for Auckland.
“Can’t believe that Auckland airport puts itself forward as one of the world’s top 10 airports when there is no rail link. It is more like some obscure European low-cost airline rural airport.”
Reasons for opposing the rail link to the airport were because of its expense, and because the benefits had not been demonstrated to ratepayers.
One of the key things that hasn’t been explained is that without the CRL there simply isn’t any capacity on the existing rail network to run more trains, this means that without it we can’t run rail to the airport, to the North Shore or anywhere else in the region. An example of exactly what we can expect a few short years after electrification is completed was on display this morning, by Glen Eden all seats on my train were full and there were people standing, by Avondale there was simply not enough room for people and I noticed a few people who simply couldn’t fit on the train and had to wait on the platform for the next service. To borrow one of Steven Joyces favourite terms, in many ways I see the CRL as the ‘step change’ that is needed to allow other network developments to take place.
I really feel that leadership on this needs to come from the top, statements like “The council says it will lead to more trains every hour on the western line and better public transport for the whole region” and “We’ve got some unique challenges ahead of us as a city but I am determined to deliver on this” don’t really do enough to convince the public. So come on Len, if you truely believe in this project then you need to fight for it, sitting quietly on the sidelines like you seem to be doing is not going to get the thing built.
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Hang on, I swear I saw figures recently that said 77 or 88% off responders were Pro CRL.
And the airport rail? So much support?
Paint me flabbergasted
Counting submissions is almost never a useful way of gauging public opinion. They favour vested interests and organised groups. This swings both ways… Submissions have been mentioned here previously as “evidence” in favor of various initiatives. It was a rubbish argument then and a rubbish argument now.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the ratio of submissions. As a rule people are quick to moan and complain when they feel threatened and hard done by, but not very quick to praise when they agree with something or are indifferent. It’s not surprising that any consultation on a general plan tends to be negative, because people only speak up when they want to change or stop something.
I think that was the Auckland Plan, this is the Long Term Plan, or the Regional Land Transport Programme. Or perhaps the City Centre Master Plan.
So either the AP or the CCMP, but not the LTP or the RLTP.
Confused? Yeah me too. Got massive consultation fatigue? Yeah me too.
Good point in the post though, surely a lot of work is happening behind the scenes – about time some of that was shared properly and didn’t have to leak out via what someone heard at some Local Board meeting.
And not just shared but properly sold. They need way better visual comms and both a broader view of the aims of the project; how it will enable Auckland to grow more effectively, and a detailed unpacking of how it will achieve this region wide.
Sure the CRL will be very beneficial which has only kind of been marketed to the rate payers. But it’s the such positive roll on effects that also need to be marketed.
Even the benefits of the CRL itself aren’t being marketed well, with the project being commonly seen as nothing more than a way to provide three (THREE!) stations to CBD residents and workers who’re too lazy to walk up the hill from Britomart. That it’ll cut about 11 minutes off a trip to Britomart on the Western Line and up to 25 minutes off trips using the Western Line that have an ultimate source/destination of the upper CBD is not understood, even though it’s easily explained and demonstrated and is completely self-evident to anyone who looks at a map.
People also haven’t had the capacity constraints explained properly. Those who pay passing attention see “A single rail line can carry 20k passengers/hour” and then see “Auckland’s rail network is carrying about 35k passengers/day and is almost out of capacity” and wonder how these two statements can both be correct, before coming to the conclusion that one or both are false and that the benefits of rail and/or the CRL are being grossly oversold as a way to make roads look bad.
What is needed is a glitzy video like that NZTA one promoting the Waterview motorway. It’s time NZTA turned its obvious skill in propaganda-dissemination, to the far more worthwhile CRL project.
More seriously though, it seems to me that what finally galvanised the DART, WARP, Matangi and AEP projects into reality after decades of talking, was the sudden fuel price surge of 2008. This spooked people, and made them do all sorts of funny things they wouldn’t otherwise do, like switching to public transport. The trains in Auckland and Wellington struggled to cope and for the first time since Muldoon’s “Think Big”, the Government (Labour) panicked into finally authorising a major spend on the two rail systems. I have significant doubt that these projects would have gone ahead when they did, were it not for this factor. And if I am right, we may have to wait for a repeat- or equivalent crisis again, before the present government (or the next Labour-led one) is jolted into action. Such a crisis could come tomorrow or in 5-10 years, but it will come.
The only chance I see of a political solution lies with the Greens. If their power base continues to grow as it has recently, they may finally gain enough clout to figuratively boot the two major parties out of their torpor on things like the CRL.
Dave, the Labour Party has already moved in this direction; they are fully behind the Council on transport and the more compact and livable city. Their policy before the last election was to fund half the CRL. Anyway there is no chance that they will be in government again without being in a grand coalition with the Greens in the foreseeable future, so the next change of government will see a revolution in Council freedom to act with support for central government. Juileanne Genter and Phil Twyford as Transport Ministers; what a fantastic result. It will be like night and day from the current policy of deliberate frustration and opposition.
So long of course that we don’t just flip positions and vote in a anti-urban Council first!
What I find is that people that have a fervent hate for the CRL are normally towing right party line “Oh the CRL is the leftie/ greenie thing so we need to hate it”. Normally if you discuss with them the CRL you realise they don’t understand its benefits but once explaining to them the economic and effeciency benefits they forget they hated it so much.
I still can’t believe how this keeps struggling to get traction and keeps slipping back. Most other city its a no-brainer.
Actually Bob, I have to disagree. If, for example, you look at the comments section of the Herald for articles on the CRL, opposition to it tends to be based on issues of cost (blissful ignornace of road spend), belief that its “19th century technology” (electrification and new units will change this) and a perception of a lack of flexibility (viewing it in isolation, rather than as part of the wider PT network – integrated ticketing should help this)
The argument that its a “left/green” solution is, it seems, well down the list.
“What is needed is a glitzy video like that NZTA one promoting the Waterview motorway. It’s time NZTA turned its obvious skill in propaganda-dissemination, to the far more worthwhile CRL project” – I agree this would be great but the council would have to produce it and I can just see the headlines “Council squanders $XXX of ratepayers money on video” filled with outraged quotes from, who else, Cameron Brewer about the council’s irresponsible spending during tough times.
Brewer can be “taken care of” when the cards are played right.
So do I raise the challenge of someone producing a slick video for the CRL? 😉
And not I can’t as I am not AV savvy 😛
Hopefully might have good news Friday with the CRL 🙂