There’s that word again, the thing Auckland needs: Transformation. How altering our transport investment habits is the way to achieve it; lessons from London, should be interesting:
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There’s that word again, the thing Auckland needs: Transformation. How altering our transport investment habits is the way to achieve it; lessons from London, should be interesting:
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I was thinking of playing the “Lets point to a word” game Patrick but thought rather not.
Council are not exactly being helpful in advertising the events prominently – had to use the old search box to go find it.
Never mind – will send an RSVP tomorrow as I might go along and have a listen as it should be very interesting. 😀
Interesting the prominence given to the key speaker being a Conservative politician. National are still trapped in a time-warp while their old mentors have moved on.
Need to get as many National politicians along as possible, perhaps by asking Nikki Kaye to speak. She’ll be personally supportive but a minority view within National.
Yes wouldn’t it be great if this debate could be de-politicised? Problem is that some who claim to support the project then proceed to oppose or undermine all practical attempts to get it to happen in a way that makes their ‘support’ seem hollow, insincere, or even cynical….
Interesting that a company which has resisted any PT development for decades (Auckland Airport) would sponsor a talk on how PT has transformed London…
I am currently in London and what Auckland needs is a proper zone based transport system. (also CRL, airport….)
What a zone based system provides is a fixed cost to travel as much as you like across a given purchased period. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx
The zone cost should be based on a 10 trip ticket within that zone(s). What this would provide for me in Auckland would be using the car a lot less cause any travel after going to work and back is effectively free travel.
I suspect all of the different companies that operate Auckland’s travel are making this difficult. Something Len Brown should be firm with.
Wouldn’t it be nice if AT / AC actually listened then acted on, to what Daniel Moylon tells them in public and in private. He is, as you know, a doer when it comes to rail-oriented PT and shared spaces and since this is his second visit to AKL, he possibly likes the place. We could do with a Daniel Moylon-type in AC – he has spine!
Ummm, the problem isn’t with AC and AT but with government who takes all of Auckland’s taxes then only builds highways with them, AC and AT are largely doing the best possible with the resources available.
Went along and really enjoyed it, was anyone else there? One can never know, not knowing what your faces look like and all…
Fantastic speaker I thought, really pertinent insights, particularly around their successes with the Oyster card, cross-subsidising PT modes, shared spaces etc. Really good questions from the floor, and he gave pretty good answers. Funny bloke too!
Bit of a gift fail though, who decided to give him an Auckland Plan…
Matt and I were there, sorry we didn’t meet. He was great, very funny, but is talking about a place were central government funds the capex as well as a share of the opex of a fully integrated transit system. He was blunt about periods of underfunding, like the whole time I lived there, I remember the wooden tube carriages on the Northern Line and old Routemasters, and predicted that TfL is likely to be heading into another lean period. Yeah.
Having said that they are building Crossrail right now. £15 billion.
He was very good on why PPPs are almost always a bad idea, which we know from Australian experience, and why he had to break the private operators. And he is a Conservative Party member.
Ah cool, I thought I may’ve seen you, vaguely recognised you from when you were on TV a couple months back but I couldn’t be sure… Was seated 5 or 6 rows from the front to the left of Len Brown. I’ll be sure to say kia ora next time 🙂
(long time reader first time commenter)
I thought he was an excellent speaker. A couple of other points that he spoke about that also stood out to me:
– the importance of integrated ticketing to make customers feel like they are not getting ripped off, as customers like the reliability of knowing how much they have to pay for one whole trip, even if there are transfers (from bus-rail and vice versa)
– how there are a lot of different operators for buses (e.g. the RATP that runs the Paris Metro) but everyone sees the same product due to the same branding/livery
– 20% of bus contract renewals each year (each term lasts 5 years) for the tendering of “bundles” of routes
– trying to capture the value of Crossrail to businesses along the route to get them to pay a (reluctant) levy to fund the project
– Kiwis going to London and trying to pay cash fares on the buses – and the GLARE you get from passengers when you try to pay with cash (and slow the bus down)
– some of the systems used in London were so old that they were made in the early 80s and required modern computers to be “slowed down” sufficiently to communicate with them
– and yes, PPPs lock you into a position that makes it very difficult to renegotiate so great care must be taken before anyone jumps into one (otherwise it would be just the best of the worst options available)
He was really funny as well. Crossrail = a horse turned into a camel by a committee (or something along those lines)
Welcome Shaun
The other thing that struck me (other than what was mentioned already) was that you would expect that many of the points he raised to have come from a left leaning politician yet he is a conservative. It was clear that in London the need for better transport solutions cuts across political boundaries which is a huge problem we have here (I had my hand up to ask him how we can move the debate along from political rivalries but they didn’t come round to me).
Hopefully the video will be put up online so those that didn’t attend can have a look at it.
He also gave a great speech on the psychology of the Shared Space. In related news, this looks great:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/24/underground-overground-andrew-martin-review
I liked how he also expressed how important frequencies are, this is one of my pet nerves about Auckland’s public transport. To be turn up and go we need maximum 10 minute frequencies.