Two more days this week have shown just how vulnerable our transport network is because of the lack of viable alternatives.
There was chaos on Auckland’s roads once again on Wednesday. Unlike the major incident a month or so ago on the Newmarket Viaduct, this time there appears to have been number of factors that combined together to cause massive problems for motorists. While there was talk about the bomb scare, personally I think the impact on traffic from would have been fairly minimal in the grand scheme of things seeing as Queen St has so few vehicles on it these days. Other factors like the horrendous weather and people trying to get away for an extra-long weekend are likely to have had a much bigger impact. However while the events that triggered the chaos might be different than what caused issues just over a month ago, the cause is the same, there are simply too many cars on the roads. Roads can only handle so much traffic before even the slightest incident can cause chaos and it feels like our roads are that level now.
So if our road network is already straining under the weight of cars it really makes you question how people can predict that traffic volumes will continue to grow substantially. Yet that is exactly what our transport models predict is going to happen. Even with the best case scenario of City Rail Link as well as improved bus infrastructure, our models predict that by 2041 the number of peopled moved by private vehicles in and around the city centre will increase by over 20%. The improved bus infrastructure will take further space away for private vehicles, which means those extra vehicles will be even more concentrated on some roads.
Of course as we know there are some serious issues with the modelling however even if just half that increase in traffic were to eventuate, what would happen to our roads. How will that change people’s perceptions of driving vs catching a bus or train? Despite what our models say, how realistic is it for us to substantially increase the number of cars that are able to around? Will we start seeing these massive congestion incidents turn from a being one or two times a month to a daily occurrence?
Unfortunately yesterday there was another incident, this time on the southern motorway where tragically someone lost their life. This naturally led to a lot of congestion as the motorway needed to be closed so that an investigation could take place.
As mentioned at the start, our transport system is extremely vulnerable to these issues. Building more and more motorways and wider local roads aren’t going to magically solve issues. Nor are tweaking traffic lights like suggested by John Roughan this morning in the herald (although at least he admitted that another harbour crossing isn’t needed). These measures will just allow people to reach the end of the congestion traffic queue faster. Properly investing in alternatives is the only real option we have that can give people some certainty to their travel times. Lets also not forget that these both occurred during school holidays, a time when there is usually a lot less traffic on the roads.
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I’d say that in the event of further traffic growth we will see almost all of it in the outer parts of the city for which there is plenty of scope to handle more cars.
For the inner parts that are already busy you will likely see PT continue to grow into the predominant mode.
Umm not so sure about that. New suburbs much more car dependent. Can’t walk, cycle or bus to local shops as inefficient design. Note the very new Highbrook Dr is heavily congested, and not finished development yet.
One idea that doesn’t seem to be talked about a lot is to make our centre more polycentric. I know you guys moan about agglomeration as the reason that everything must be concentrated in the CBD but I remain unconvinced that the agglomeration benefits are that much greater for say a CBD with 15% of jobs vs 10%.
We have steadily moved away from a monocentric city and the traffic problems have still deteriorated so I don’t think that going further is going to solve problems. In fact I would say it has resulted in much worse congestion compared to if we had continued to focus our investment on the CBD. While the CBD might only have a small proportion of jobs currently in a regional context, it is still substantially more than any other area in the region.
I do wonder if becoming more polycentric would make things better or worse. You could simply have more people driving longer distances to get to various centres spread out across the region. The crux of the argument comes down to whether people will automatically just go to the closest centre and seldom or never go to another.
I’m not convinced if that would be the case. Would everyone in a household be able to consistently work, study, shop and entertain themselves at a local centre. I’m not sure how many people have the flexibility to pick and chose jobs based on the location, likewise with university places, specialist shops and services. Likewise, who wants to go to the exact same shopping centre every single time, a little variety doesn’t help.
The simple geometric fact is the centre of a region is the closest point to everywhere else in the region. That is the ideal place to locate those things that have only one instance in a city. Things like top company headquarters, government offices, main art galleries, premier universities, even things like specialist stores, boutique clothing, big night clubs and luxury restaurants. They make sense at the centre where they are closest to the largest amount of people.
I like to use the example of north harbour stadium. Now we do have a few major stadiums spread around the region, but it’s not really like people get to pick and chose which one they go to to any great extent, they go to the one that is showing what they want to see. If the big game is at Albany, then everyone has to drive to Albany. That means on average more driving than if the stadium were near the centre. What it might actually mean is people simply chose not to go to that game if it is all the way out in Albany.
Are our day to day activities the same? How many people who would work in “the Albany CBD” would live on the North Shore, and how many would simply be driving in really long distance from the ithsmus, south Auckland and east Auckland?
My flatmate works in Ellerslie, but for whatever reasons doesn’t simply go live in Ellerslie, shop in Ellerslie, got to the pub in Ellerslie etc. She works there, visits her family out east, visits friends on the north shore, shops at St Lukes and goes out in the CBD. Interestingly her response to the decentralisation of here travel demands has been to live in the centre, i.e. centralise herself.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have metropolitan employment centres, shopping areas and the like spread across the region, but we need a strong core in which to locate those things that operate at regionwide level. If we have only one opera house, it should go in the middle. It’s not like we can have six or eight opera houses dotted around the city. If we have only one bank headquarters, it should go in the middle even if the branches and regional offices are located around the place.
Decenralisation makes for worse congestion: it causes a higher need for trips between centres as a result of lower agglomeration efficiencies; both for business and for social interaction:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130415094449.htm
Some good points here, I ask this question because if we aren’t going to build the CRL than becoming more polycentric seems like the logical thing to do & should also help reduce the need of other projects like the Second Harbour Crossing. I don’t think we will have cars travelling at 5kph like the table says because if we’re not going to build city centre transport infrustructure than the jobs shouldn’t & probably won’t come.
I remain unconvinced that there are actually that many people that will make supercommutes. The actual percentage will be quite small & will be compensate by numerous people that can live closer to their work reasonably affordably. Using US numbers, Commute times in places like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston are pretty much the same as places like NY, DC, Chicago..
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/03/05/worst-commutes-new-york-san-francisco-louisiana
Except that the CBD is growing now in both employment and habitation, there is a worldwide move to the centre and it is observable in Auckland right now.
Auckland is currently a very decentralised city and this is a huge part of the cause of the traffic problem. Increased centralisation is in fact part of the answer to helping it not getting worse. Because it is agglomerative ie helps more living/working/playing for more with less trans urban movement.
We will build the CRL; it’s just a question of when.
And the CRL is neither dependant on a huge change in the CBD nor an increase in ‘super commutes’ but it will help make both things more efficient if people choose them.
I agree with Frank, in part. Traffic won’t get to 5km/h, the land use changes (more offices, more apartments, more uni rooms, more shops etc) simply won’t happen in the CBD. If we don’t build the transport infrastructure we won’t get the demand for travel, because no one is going to locate a new office building where the traffic speeds are 10km/h, let alone 5. The City Centre just won’t develop any further.
However, if I read into Franks comment it seems he’s suggesting that outer centres will simply pick up the slack and absorb all the development that would have otherwise gone into the CBD. I’m not sure on that. Some of it surely, but probably not the stuff that really counts. If a big multinational wants to set up a headquarters in the CBD and can’t, are they really going to set up in Albany Industrial Estate or the back of Westgate instead? Or are the simply going to run New Zealand operations out of Sydney or Melbourne or Singapore? Likewise, if the University of Auckland can’t expand will we see premier doctoral students and researchers simply shifting to new digs at Massey Albany or MIT Manukau, or will they just skip Auckland entirely and study abroad?
Los Angeles is one of the most polycentric cities in the world. It’s also one of the most congested cities in the world.
All possible… however what i think is likely is that all this traffic angst will lead to the provision of real Transit options, all that Roughan and Joyce et al can do is delay it… and in that sense probably set back the productivity and the quality of Auckland’s development…..
The real problem is on the streets; the CRL is a no-brainer but the tussle for bus and bike lanes is going to be smack up against the cognitive dissonance of the drive only entitled, as they like to think that others can get buses but will fight very hard to stop any road space actually being given over to make those buses actually work…..
Frank E: “if we aren’t going to build the CRL than becoming more polycentric seems like the logical thing to do & should also help reduce the need of other projects like the Second Harbour Crossing”
I’ve said this before… But I think there is some merit distributing economic activity and critical infrastructure in a country as geologically active as NZ. A really big CBD risks putting all our eggs in to one basket, and that basket is sitting on top of a volcano. I hope we’ve learned some lessons from Christchurch.
Nick R: “If a big multinational wants to set up a headquarters in the CBD and can’t, are they really going to set up in Albany Industrial Estate or the back of Westgate instead? ”
A lot of Japanese and American multinationals have their European headquarters in Amsterdam. There are a variety of reasons for this, including tax breaks for foreign staff and the ability to hire a lot of multilingual people. The headquarters generally aren’t in Amsterdam city center, but in the office parks on the edge of the city or out around Schiphol airport.
You could also look at the hi-tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. None of them have their headquarters in San Francisco CBD, or even San Jose CBD. They’re generally located in low rise campus-style environments wherever they can find space. Think Google, Apple, etc. Or Microsoft, which isn’t in Seattle CBD.
There is a big difference between polycentrism, and dispersed development. Auckland is not really very polycentric as there is only one major centre, and a few minor ones like Takapuna and Manukau. Polycentric areas can still be served well by PT, with simple, fast conenctions to the CBD and other centres. This is true in Amsterdam and many European centers. However decentralisation where jobs are dispersed into auto dependent industrial parks like at North Harbour, Airport Oaks and Highbrook is hopeless. Clearly these are fine places for warehousing and factories, but having offices scattered throughout the places is hopeless.
My hope is that Auckland becomes more polycentric, but less decentralized with a stronger CBD at the same time. This can happen with Manukau and New Lynn taking suburban office jobs from industrial parks, and the CBD taking more head offices by not having new areas like Greenlane and Smales Farm.
Obi – Interesting that you bring up the Hi Tech companies in the San Fran bay area. Most are now buying up property closer to San Fran as they have come to realise that being located there allows them to attract better talent. Most of the best workers are wanting to live near the city where things are more interesting and also want to work in that environment too. Overseas those same companies are now spending big bucks to get commercial premises in the cities rather than on the outskirts in business parks.
That’s interesting Matt. I’ve certainly seen small startups located in what look like loft style premises which must be somewhere central. Then they eventually grow and move on out to a Googleplex or a hideous giant circular building like the one Apple is building. FaceBook is in Palo Alto, I think.
Do you have some examples of hi-tech companies that are relocating downtown that I could search on for further information?
@Obi Pinterest, Zynga, Yelp, Square and Salesforce.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619441778073340.html
and Facebook is trying to pretend it’s a city, not an office park.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/10/business/la-fi-facebook-company-town-20120810
I think Nike is considering moving into central Portland too…
Obi – Many are doing it. Google has spent a lot of money recently on offices in central San Fran, New York and London. The London office alone is costing them $1 billion US http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/18/3889818/google-relocates-uk-headquarters-to-kings-cross-london
On their webape for the downtown San Fran office they say this “We’re a big office with Googlers doing a lot of different things, but because we’re in a single building rather than spread out across a sprawling campus, we’re close-knit and collaboration is easy.”
http://www.google.co.nz/about/jobs/locations/san-francisco/#media=video
My sister got married recently and one of her bridesmaids works for a tech company in San Fran. It was a start up but was brought by Cisco (I think) and apparently one of the things that went into the decision was that they had a sizeable amount of space in the city. Despite being in a bit of a dodgy neighbourhood, apparently almost all the workers at the main office are trying trying to get their jobs moved to the location.
I have heard that other companies are doing it too.
Yup they’re all getting out of the ‘burbs: Twitter have just moved to The Tenderloin the most urban and gritty part of inner city SF:
https://www.airbnb.com/locations/san-francisco/tenderloin
Another example: Amazon is such a force in downtown Seattle there are claims they’re driving both the commercial and residential market as its employees demand inner city living (10k employees I think).
Thanks for all the links, guys. I need to do some reading now.
Of course Highbrook is congested – there is virtually no PT out that way. There is no choice but to use a car (apart from the few brave souls I see cycling).
Luke, why are you campaigning for auto dependant suburbs where walking and cycling are prohibited and no local shops with inefficiency of the layout being the mandate? That all sounds rather strange to me.
As for Highbrook Drive, it is actually the main connection to that entire region of Auckland, not just the industrial park.
Main connection? What about Ti Rakau, Te Irirangi and East Tamaki Rd? There is a full network of arterials and the whole damn lot are full at peak times with all but no bus lanes (a few isolated strips that feed buses into traffic lanes is not quality). Motordom wins.
Well the 3 main roads would be Pakuranga highway, Highbrook drive and Te Irirangi drive.
I’ve complained for years how that part of town appears to have such poor PT. Things are starting to happen now however.
PT will always be inefficent here because of the sprawling nature of the jobs. If there was a centre somewhere in East Tamaki, and all higher density employment was located there, things would be so much better. However totally random with 100s working surrounded by warehouses with a handful working. Leads to dire street layout, and thus people will only walk couple of 100m to bus, rather than 1km like the would in the CBD.
Um I’m not sure where I said that…. I pointed out that new suburbs have a much lower PT use than established one. See a post a few months ago about the brand new Westgate interchange, and how there is huge congestion there.
There is? The place seems to run just fine everything I go there. What makes you say it has huge amounts of congestion and unable to handle anymore?
More of the existing road space will have to given over to bus and bike lanes especially as the opposition to making our one off road system much more effective – The CRL- still holds sway. Both in WGTN and under campaigns by the likes of Roughan in the Herald. By any measure driving in Auckland has a frustrating future.
Roughan of course is only interested in his commute and seems to think that he can understand everything about Auckland and Transport from the view through his windscreen so comes to the amazing conclusion that if only all the lights were green all the time everything would be sweet. He must understand that if he has a string of green lights then thousands of others face multiple red ones? Auckland is not a grid like Manhattan and of course he completely ignores the technology that allows any driving in that city at all- The Subway. It isn’t some secret traffic light algorithm that is being withheld from use in Auckland just to frustrate Herald Op-ed writers. Does really believe that? Nuts.
I disagree. While our transport system isn’t going to be solved by fixing traffic lights, I have encountered numerous intersections where congestion could cope a bit better with better signalling.
I think the signalling they’re using at the moment is quite smart (with all the sensors and stuff) and must be quite expensive to run as well. I don’t see how you could improve that. Maybe they could put yellow flashing lights at night to slow down cars without stopping anybody
The issue is that they tend to miss out turn lanes or do strange things with the lane arrangements so the you either get 1 car blocking 50 others or you get everyone trying to use one lane when they could be using two.
Or even better, they have two lanes at the signals and only one on the other side of the road.
Oh Frank fiddle with the phasings all you like, it may help a little here and there for some directions, and of course if done in an objective mode-neutral way would probably lead to better pedestrian priority at a number of places, further slowing traffic!. But Roughan claims this is all that is needed to fix Auckland’s traffic…. and even claims in a sly way that the current phasing is a conspiracy to cause congestion. Both claims are unsupportable and unhinged; frankly.
Congestion is not a difficult thing to understand; it is simply too many vehicles for a place at a time. For over sixty years we have only looked at this as a space supply problem never as a vehicle demand one. We now know beyond any doubt that expanding the road supply just increases the vehicle demand. Cities are places where it is extremely expensive and destructive to keep on increasing the road space supply. The answer now can only be to reduce the quantity of machines in a place over any period, rather than try to fool ourselves that ever more cars can fit on our streets if only we fiddled with the lights; this is self-delusion born of ignorance and a wilful determination to not consider any real alternative. It is the psychology of auto-dependancy.
1. We need to build real alternatives.
2. We should be pricing access roads in order to spread demand.
The CBD should not be a place for traffic light priority! We need to increase pedestrian phase times and reduce lanes, which makes the CBD a more attractive place to be. Queen St from Aotea to Britomart is great, and has very high pedestrian volumes. However try to cross Mayoral Drive south of Aotea square, you will find you have to wait several minutes, especially if going to an opposite corner. Funny thing is that part of Queen St is dead, despite the many lanes for car drivers to access it, and road like Mayoral Drive speeding them around!
from my knowledge of traffic lights in Auckland, they have a pretty flexible system that attempts to minimize delays and balance traffic in all directions as opposed to giving a series of green lights in one direction. when it all adds up, it is more efficient, but to the driver on the street it may not appear that way, but most people only see a single snapshot of the peak period.
there are some deficiencies that could be fixed in certain cases but rephasing traffic signals will NOT fix anything long term. It is just postponing the inevitable congestion of the peak hour and get you to the back of the next queue faster.
When I was a student in the 70’s I used to have a motorcycle for transport and then later in the mid 80’s when I worked in the city. I never had problems with traffic congestion. Now days motorcycling is discouraged by high registration fees because of higher injuries motorcyclists sustain. The fees are not based on sound logic as for any motorcylce over 60cc you pay $400 pa and $550 for those over 500cc even though some of the latter are rated by the MOT as allowable for a beginners license because they aren’t overly powerful. Bicyclists injury statistics are nearly as bad as motorcyclists and worse if you consider the injury rate per kilometer but they pay nothing to contribute for them being able to use the road. Bicycles do not ease congestion as anyone who has tried to pass one on an incline with the obligatory 1.5 metre clearance, will tell you. They reduce traffic in that lane to a crawl. Similarly there is the problem of cyclists at the front of the que at traffic lights (which has a spot for cyclists) trying to merge 2 lanes to 1 and having a bicycle on the side as well which the motorist has to contend with, this same situation often repeating at the very next set of lights with the same cyclist. I have nothing against cyclists but they don’t ease congestion any more than a horse on the road would, traffic wise the only advantage of cycling is the parking.
Cars are now as cheap as motorcycles and while I would consider motorcycling I would not consider doing so on an under powered 60cc machine for the same reason that I would not cycle to work on our roads. Make all motor vehicle registration the same with perhaps the exception of super bikes i.e. over 1000cc or multi-cylinder (more twin cylinder) machines over 850cc as these are the real powerful ones. and charge more for 6 cylinder plus cars to be consistent if you want to base things on motor vehicle power. The injury statistics don’t show the motorcyclist is any more at fault than a motorist so there is no reason to use the user pays argument for motorcyclists any more than it is for bicyclists. Sensible protective clothing helps with reducing injury, especially at lower speeds which the rider would be doing in congested areas. A travel companion I met from Tokyo uses a motorcycle as he dislikes the over-crowed underground transport they have there, I think most New Zealanders would do the same if they had crowded public transport. Give motorcyclists a bit of encouragement as they would help alleviate the congestion.
Incidentally it takes me twice as long to get to work by public transport as by car so that is my worst option.