We have talked a bit about the costs of sprawl. This has primarily been about the land use implications and how much extra land we would need. I even put some maps together showing just how much land would be needed under various scenarios ranging from 70% of growth through intensification all the way down to if there was only 20% via intensification.
Many people have commented about the extra infrastructure costs of sprawl. This of course means basic services like extra roads, water, waste water, communications. It also includes other infrastructure to support society like schools, emergency services, medical facilities, community facilities like libraries and of course parks. All of these things not only cost money to build, they take up land and of course cost money to run. Now I don’t know what the operating costs are for most of these but thanks to Auckland Transport, I do know how much it costs to run the roads and it isn’t cheap.
The average cost to operate, maintain and periodically renew 1km of urban road in Auckland is approximately $60,000 per year. This includes costs associated with:
- Road pavements and surfaces
- Kerb and channel, and road sweeping
- Footpaths and footpath cleaning in town centres
- Bridges
- Signs
- Traffic signals and system coordination
- Streetlights and electricity
- Road markings
- Retaining walls
- Weeds
- Collecting debris or cleaning road surface after crashes, spillages and storms
That is a huge amount of money and a lot more than I expected. I guess a bit like driving you often forget about a lot of the little things that add up like street lights, traffic signals and signs. These costs are paid for by a combination of rates and NZTA subsidy, this is roughly 50:50.
If we are going to sprawl, it means we will need a hell of a lot more roads to service those new development which also means that at $60k per km, our operating costs will increase dramatically too. It puts increased pressure on our rates budgets and at current funding rates, means more people need to be driving to get enough fuel taxes/RUC to cover the NZTAs share.
With intensification we would be adding more dwellings to an existing area meaning that these costs can be shared amongst more people and therefore potentially lower rates increases over the long term. How much more helpful would it have been for the unitary plan debate if we could have had this information presented in a way that is easy to understand. People objecting to intensification in their area would have been able to see what the actual impact that stance would have been.
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You have the 80:20 back to front :). But yes more motorways, so under this scenario the Eastern motorway would need to be serioulsiy considered.
Oops, thanks Toa, fixed it up now.
In comparison, do you know how much a km of rail costs to maintain a year?
No I don’t. I do know that once electrification is complete that Auckland will be paying about $15m a year in track access fees which is supposed to be roughly proportional to the amount of use/impact of passenger trains to the network. We know that there are around 180km of single track that are used for passenger services (not including stabling yards etc.) so for AT, that represents about $83k per km
Matt is your 60k per lane, or is width not taken into account?
No that is the average, I would expect that larger arterials would cost much more while small, little used residential streets much less.
Well then your comparison rail figure is twice as high as it should be as Auckland has around 85km of railways used by the passenger network, so more like $40k per km.
I wonder how many km of roads we have?
No I used the single track length i.e. there are approx 89km of double track railway and just over 3km of single track (Onehunga). If you considered it as 1km of rail corridor you would be looking at more like 175k per km.
As for roads, we have:
Not all of those are urban roads however.
So about a half billion a year to maintain?
Ah Matt, quite right.
Nick – yep, opex costs for roads this year is budgeted at about $430m (remember not all of the roads incur all of those costs, sealed rural roads for example probably don’t have street lighting, curb sweeping and other similar costs.
Do you know how those numbers work out for Wellington? As in do they pay about the same?
I think they are paying a similar amount now. AK used to be paying about $5m and Wellington nothing but the govt changed that.
Of course the most unhinged and energetic opposition to to the UP never mention what their preferred alternative is at all. Many of the submissions I have seen even have vague statements agreeing that it is not a good idea for Auckland to keep sprawling, but just that they are adamant that their area is perfect and mustn’t have any increase in density, or in any way change.
It is, of course, easier to oppose than propose, so those that imagine the end of the world in the UP are just getting carried away on the sugar rush of righteous indignation but have nothing serious to offer except ‘not that’. And therefore are the witting or unwitting stormtroopers of the sprawl industry.
I guess if they do think about it they still may shrug and say they that’s ok, they’ll never have to leave their frozen-in-time part of old Auckland and even see the hideous ocean of tract housing that they are fighting so hard for. But will they understand that as their rates rise, their city stagnates under inefficiencies of distance, and every road is choked with cars despite endless expensive widening and duplication, that this their chosen future? Nah they’ll still blame planners, or the Mayor, or some other pariah figure.
I’m finding it increasingly difficult to disagree with John Palino’s idea to intensify the brownfields sites (Onehunga Basin?) – whiole it would need massive Council-led investment to bring amenity up to an attractive standard, there is merit in smart-growth intensification in areas where there are no NIMBYs. If only we had more vision when Silverdale, Long Bay, Massey, Flat Bush, Stonefields, et al were planned. Whenever we’ve had the chance to build a new suburb from scratch, we’ve gone with semi-traditional housing typologies.
Someone tell Nick Smith about sprawl, he’s a bit slow when it comes to thinking past sound bites and 5 minute solutions.
Now of course the cost per km is completely proportional to the amount a road gets used. And not just in terms of vehicle traffic either but pedestrian traffic.
So in the case of low density you get heaps of cheap roads whereas in high density you get a few expensive roads.
Yeah, like we said the other day, in new areas you get Te Irirangi drives and have to turn SH22 into a Pakuranga Highway, those are really cheap to maintain.
And what percentage of the road network in that area does that road make up?
In addition, it’s not like flatbush and botany are low density developments. Most of the new places out there are either 3 story townhouse units or two story houses that can hardly fit on their sections.
I am very pleased about how that development is going Actually, can’t wait for the busway to be finished to Manukau and hopefully upgrade to rail. Will make it a very nice place to live.
What is it that pleases you about that development? And what busway is this you talk of?
That it is done at a reasonable density.
And the Busway that I talk about is in the 30 year plan.
I would have thought that it was a bad way to develop, medium density yet poor PT and walkability.
Seems prett walkable every time I have driven through there to go to beachlands.
Medium density is pretty goof for PT, and the Pt is bad now, but won’t be for long.
Let us say that it a lot better than ,much of the last 2 decades’ development.
Where would you be walking to? The only real place I can see to walk to is another house.
I know the area does have big plans buy right now it’s about as auto dependant as they come.
Operative words being right now.
Feel I should clarify. It is far from ideal, but better than many.
Of course it is proportional, some roads will cost a lot more to run while little residential streets that only see a few cars a day are probably much cheaper. The $60k figure is the average cost.
I am amazed at how much the cost of small improvements to surburban roads cost. e.g there is a small road widening at the end of Tahoroto Road. (It is obviously highly critical because cars need that piece of road to access Pak n Save, the Events Centre (because there is no sensible pedestrian or cycle link) and ???????????? $5.3 million. How long can we sustain projects like this in the pursuit of most people driving everywhere? This one alone costing every Aucklander about $3.50.
This was primarily done as a safety improvement, especially for cyclists and pedestrians, and will hav bus priority.
Agree with the general sentiment.
An interesting and well-researched post as usual Matt, thanks. I was initially surprised at the figure of $60k/km until I assumed an average 15m frontage (each side) and got $450/section – still quite high but believable. Of course, as others have implied, the devil is in the detail as averages are tricky things, an example being the average wage which really tells us nothing. I live on a private road and can assure you that the annual maintenance costs are way below this. We do have a sinking fund for future resealing, but that will be decades away.
Having said that, there’s not much connection between these figures and the discussion on urban intensification vs expansion. Intensification implies higher road usage and therefore presumably higher maintenance costs. OTOH, brand new suburban roads in new areas will have much lower operating costs for many years. It’s a bit like the argument that infrastructure costs in general are greater for expansion than for intensification – an unproven (nor disproven) theory that even council doesn’t know the answer to, as evidenced by the recent EOI request for a study to find out. A bit surprising really that this hadn’t been done long ago.
Well researched, and strongly supported, but not proven.
Intensification implies fewer KMs of roads more lightly used in fact; more walkability, cycling, and Transit use.
And of course it id the heavy vehicles that really damage roads, so policies that encourage rail and sea freight would also have a big impact on these numbers, as they would on death and and injury numbers too.
Good point about heavy vehicles Patrick, including buses! A 4th power law I believe. The only heavy vehicles my street sees regularly are the rubbish & recycling trucks, but of course their speed is extremely low.
As for car volumes and intensification, the apartment blocks near me contain lots of cars (mainly Mercs, BMWs & Audis 🙂 ), but we shall see what the UP produces over time.
My apartment block has 40 units, 40 cars and about 100 residents. I wonder how many cars 40 houses on the fringe have, about 100 maybe?
Interesting numbers Nick. 40-unit blocks (typically 10 floors of 4 units) seem to be quite popular. The apartments near me generally have 2 car parks per unit, but not necessarily 2 cars each as the occupants tend to be young professionals, lock up and leave business people, or retired couples.
Where a household has 2 or more cars they are not necessarily in use at the same time, eg my wife’s and my cars are seldom out together as they serve different purposes. Houses on the fringe with parents and teenagers may well have multiple cars per dwelling, but also higher occupancy rates.
That’s right J1, assuming that you don’t, like Nick, live in the inner city, it is more the location of the dwelling than the type that will determine the number of vehicles or more importantly the quantity of driving that each living arrangement requires. Neither Nick nor his partner own a car, I’m assuming that would be harder to do well where ever it is that you are.
A more dispersed urban form both requires more total road infrastructure and more driving to achieve the same level of connection compared to a more compact form. And that is more expensive to maintain and we pay for it collectively. Nick’s rates pays for your road.
Patrick, I’m not sure how you define inner city but for the record I live not far from Newmarket in a 7b zone close to trains, buses and motorways, so fairly convenient access to all those modes. And as I live on a private road I suspect my rates contribute more to Nick’s road than his do to mine! (You’re welcome).
Location is indeed a key determinant of vehicle ownership and usage, but so is demographics. My primary mode of local transport is a Segway (a bit like goosoid’s electric bike but way cooler), and we have a people-mover mainly because of the grandchildren who live in the suburbs where housing costs are lower. Admittedly my own car is just an expensive toy that does very low annual kilometres, but a man needs a hobby.
For my place there are 3 of us with 4 cars. I own 2 of the cars but bus to work. My two flatmates chose to drive even though we are central with fast and cheap PT access.
I’m sorry Segways are not cool, no body looks cool leaning around on an lectern with handlebars! 😉
Heh, send me an email Nick to arrange a ride – that’ll quickly change your mind! 🙂