High speed rail – the solution to Auckland’s growth?

The post I wrote a week or so ago, asking the question of whether Auckland should grow at the pace, or to the extent, of current projections, generated more comments than any other post on this blog ever. There has also been an ongoing flow of letters to the editor in the NZ Herald questioning whether it’s in New Zealand’s best interest, including Auckland’s best interest, to see such a significant chunk of the country’s future population growth in one city.

This situation seems to arise from a lot of people not liking the extent to which the Unitary Plan proposes intensification within Auckland but also not really liking the alternative of seeing Auckland sprawl further and further into the countryside. Put simply, given the choice of “up”, “out” or “both” they think there’s another option of “neither” (or at least not to the extent proposed). Seeing further projections of worsening traffic conditions over the next 30 years, even if we spend an eye-watering amount of money on transport infrastructure, probably reinforces these thoughts.

Personally I don’t mind the prospect of Auckland growing so much, as long as we ensure that growth happens in a way that’s well designed and properly pays for itself. I like the hustle and bustle of a big city, I like Auckland’s growing diversity, I think that 1.5 million is a messy population: big enough to experience the problems of a big city but not quite big enough to afford solutions or enjoy the benefits of being a proper big city. But a lot of people don’t think this way – some because they’re fearful of change and others because they see the cost of this, they see other parts of New Zealand suffering from depopulation and they see the potential efficiencies from spreading the burden and benefits of growth more widely.

Whilst there do appear to be some fairly valid arguments in favour of distributing the country’s future population growth a bit more evenly, the really tricky question is “how?” If Auckland’s high property prices don’t already put people off living here enough, then it’s hard to see what ‘could be done’ to change things.

One possible option came to my mind when reading a recent Atlantic Cities article on the impacts of high speed rail on second and third tier cities. Generally the effects on those cities were quite significant:

Through facilitating market integration, bullet trains will stimulate the development of second- and third-tier cities. By offering households and firms a larger menu of location alternatives, bullet trains help to protect the quality of life of the growing urban population. We document that this transport innovation is associated with rising real estate prices in the nearby secondary cities.

What does that actually mean? The Atlantic Cities article provides further explanation:

The idea works like this: by reducing travel time, high-speed rail effectively pushes secondary cities closer to major cities. (That’s especially true for places roughly 60 to 470 miles apart — too far to drive but often not far enough to justify the cost of flying.) This enhanced proximity enables employers to base themselves in the major city and create satellite offices in the now-accessible secondary cities where rents are much cheaper.

Meantime, employees themselves can settle in secondary cities and have the amenities of the major cities without (again) the high cost of living and also without draining public resources. That relieves the crowded infrastructure of the major cities, in particular traffic congestion, and also may lead to less sprawl, promoting a more sustainable development pattern. As Zheng and Kahn portray it, the situation offers the best of both worlds.

There’s increasing evidence that of this effect in China:

The researchers found evidence that housing prices are appreciating in the secondary cities connected to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou by the bullet systems. These spikes in real estate reveal a rise in the market potential of the satellite areas, according to the study.

Zheng and Kahn point to three main factors that can trigger this market integration effect. First, there must be a reasonably high population density in a high-speed corridor. Next, there must be sufficient secondary cities to handle the extra population load. Third, the competing travel modes must already be congested or at capacity.

The article makes a series of comparisons to the proposed High Speed railway line in California.

While New Zealand is unlikely to see “true” high speed rail anytime in the next century, it strikes me that cities like Hamilton and Tauranga fit pretty well into the role of “second and third tier cities” which could feed off Auckland to a greater extent if a transport option was provided which brought them within a more reasonable commuting time from Auckland. Something like a rail system offering 160-180 kph speeds that could mean less than an hour’s travel to Hamilton and less than an hour and a half from Tauranga.

Of course achieving such an outcome would require really massive investment. Not only would the existing rural sections of the line need to be electrified and substantially upgraded, but extra ‘express tracks’ would need to be provided within the Auckland metropolitan area to ensure that these express trains were able to bypass metropolitan rail services. You’d need full grade separation, probably some major sound walls and so forth.

However, such a project could quite conceivably end up being the cheaper option when compared to more and more transport upgrades within Auckland itself – especially compared to motorway projects such as an Additional Harbour Crossing or adding more and more lanes to existing motorways for smaller and smaller marginal benefit. By leveraging off Auckland to a greater extent, perhaps it would be feasible for Hamilton to grow to 500,000 people or more – taking significant pressure off the growth of Auckland. Even with a super-fast train I don’t think I’d want to live there, but perhaps some people would.

Something like this seems about the only way, unless you start to get really draconian about where people live, to take growth pressure off Auckland. Unless there are other ideas out there?

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