Our Congestion Free Network (CFN) proposal still seems to be the talk of the town, and media interest in the network continues to grow (keep an eye on Campbell Live next week). However, there do seem to be a few misunderstandings of what the network is and isn’t, what it will or won’t do, what it might or might not cost. This post looks to clear up a few of those misunderstandings:
Will the Congestion Free Network get rid of all congestion in Auckland?
The point of the CFN is not to get rid of congestion anywhere in Auckland but rather to provide an alternative to being stuck in congestion. Getting rid of all congestion is an impossibility and potentially not even a good thing. The Integrated Transport Programme shows that even if you spend nearly $70 billion on transport over the next 30 years, including massive spending on pretty dodgy motorway projects, congestion is projected to still be much worse than today.
So it’s about choice. Giving people the opportunity to choose to use a variety of modes for a variety of trips; sometimes driving, and sometimes not, depending on what is best for them at that time and for that journey.
Of course creating a vastly improved public transport system for Auckland means that many people will switch from driving to public transport for various, but not all, journeys – thus no longer competing for road space with those who continue to drive. We recognise that for some trips – particularly freight and business trips – public transport isn’t necessarily a particularly great option which is why we support initiatives like freight lanes and ‘time of use’ road pricing (once the PT network is in place).
All big cities experience congestion – however they continue to function and prosper because they offer people a viable and attractive alternative to sitting in that congestion. That is the point of the Congestion Free Network.
Do you mean a network of free public transport?
Absolutely not. We explained quite recently why free public transport is a silly idea.
Where’s the money going to come from for your plan – surely it’s unaffordable?
While we don’t have the expertise to provide exact costs of every part of the CFN, we have looked into publicly available information, looked at similar overseas projects, looked at similar past projects in Auckland and come up with what we think is a pretty robust costing of the major components of the CFN. Our estimate is that the CFN would cost about $10b to construct, which is about 40% of the $24 billion of capital expenditure in the Integrated Transport Programme between now and 2030. We have been clear that there are projects in the ITP which we don’t think are needed before 2030 or could be completed for a much lower cost than what is currently planned. Examples include:
- Not building an additional harbour crossing for motorway traffic (saves around $5 billion)
- Building Operation Lifesaver instead of Puhoi-Wellsford (saves around $1.4 billion)
- Building the East-West Link in a more incremental and sensible way (saves just under $1 billion)
There is also a huge amount of spending in the ITP on arterial road upgrades which we think may not be necessary due to the significantly improved public transport system provided by the CFN and its supporting Frequent PT Network. We have also trimmed some public transport projects that we think might struggle to stack up before 2030 – like only doing the western part of the Avondale-Southdown railway line and only doing the Onehunga-Airport section of the Airport railway line.
Does the Congestion Free Network mean that we wouldn’t any new roads until after 2030?
Once again, absolutely not. We think there are some good roading projects out there which warrant funding over the next 17 years – this includes much of AMETI, current projects like Tiverton-Wolverton, incremental improvements in the East-West Link area, grade separation at places like SH20A and Kirkbride Road and in many other areas. As noted above, the CFN only costs around 40% of the proposed capital expenditure budget between now and 2030 – there’ll be plenty of money left for roads, walking and cycling improvements, other public transport improvements and perhaps not the need to spend so much on transport anyway.
How is the Congestion Free Network that different from what’s already planned?
In many respects there’s not much difference in terms of the projects proposed – we’re really not trying to reinvent the wheel here. The CRL is the same, Airport Rail is the same (although we have chopped it back a bit), the AMETI busway is the same, the Northwest busway is the same, extending the Northern Busway is the same. The only two additional projects we’ve suggested come in 2030: rail to the North Shore (either heavy rail to Takapuna or “Skytrain” to Albany) and running light-rail down Dominion Road.
The key difference that we propose to build most of the 2040 rapid transit network that’s in the Auckland Plan/ITP by 2025 and then a couple of additional projects by 2030. In essence, we want to ‘front-load’ the next 30 years of transport investment in Auckland with the various public transport projects which will enable a fully connected Congestion Free Network. We also plan to fill in some of the gaps between projects: proper rapid transit between Akoranga and the city centre; extending the rapid transit network into the greenfield areas as they develop etc.
The key point here is that by investing in this high quality joined-up alternative before further road expansion is that it is likely that those expensive expansions will become unnecessary, and that we can bank those savings. We have [especially once the Western Ring Route is complete] an extremely lavish motorway network, what is lacking is a viable alternative to always driving at all times and for every journey. Our aim here is to provide those options, especially for the periods of peak demand, not least because this is the most cost effective way of adding capacity to our transport mix.
Processing...
Very interesting piece by Brian Rudman in this morning’s Herald [will link to it when it’s up] pointing out how free flowing Auckland traffic is in the school holidays. He claims that the school run is ‘about 5%’ of total traffic and says the holiday periods without this ‘cholesterol’ show that just removing this amount is sufficient to deal with Auckland’s congestion issues.
Exactly the kind of effect that the CFN could well provide. So it is a double attack on congestion; the people using the CFN are not subject to congestion themselves and they are not subjecting others to it either because they are on this parallel system.
The thing about the school run, although its only 5% of total traffic when it happens its about 10% of the traffic on the road at the time. And on the streets near the schools its much higher.
In addition you only need one car to block the road.
Yes.. you can breeze about anywhere in school hols on Auckland’s excellent roads. They really are fantastic. Incidentally one thing you can’t do reliably is use the train which is probably shut down *again* grrrrrrrrrr).
Anyway.. anyone else see the obvious link between this point and the previous post, “Peds rule”?!
Clue, it’s something that most LBs will care about.. get writing to them!!
If that is all we need (5%), road pricing will eat that with a few extra buses. Cheap as chips – everybody wins.
Road pricing once we have really good alternative transit and active networks of all modes… and especially those not slowed by traffic. Whacking ‘a few extra buses’ onto the current system won’t provide a good enough alternative for those priced out of their cars by your pet method.
You’re all stick and no carrot.
Actually a few extra buses is exactly what we need in order to address the main concern with Aucklands transport.
Right now there are only a few isolated spots were congestion slows down PT and these can be easily addressed.
The main concern people seem to have is frequency and most notably during off-peak hours. As you know travel times in NZ are little different from those overseas but the issue people have is that buses only come once every half hour or not at all during off-peak and late night.
By ‘a few isolated spots’, do you include the entire harbour bridge?
Melon, most people would agree that buses get over the harbour bridge rather easily. They may have a spot of trouble at the fanshawe st on-ramp during extremely congested conditions but other than that it’s rather smooth sailing.
When I say a few I mean when PT gets really slowed down and stuck for a few mins, not when it has to stop at traffic lights and similar minor things.
Weren’t you saying the other day that having to stop at traffic lights was congestion?
But yes, a few extra buses to improve off-peak frequencies would be great. I don’t see the connection with road pricing, though. Do toll gantries magically produce buses somehow? What we need is simply more services, and bus lanes for spots where buses get caught in traffic.
Yes I was Steve D, and that is why large parts of the CFN will operate effectively the same as your average bus on the road today, although it gives the perception of speed which is a large selling factor.
As for the connection to road pricing, if you read the second half of swans sentence you will see he said ‘…with a few extra buses…’. For which Patrick said ‘…would not provide a good enough alternative…’
My point being that frequency and hours of operation being the main issue with Aucklands PT system. Speed, catchment and distribution wise we are on par with most other countries. I actually had a post that tried to highlight this.
“your average bus on the road today” is at the whim of transport planners as to whether it gets snarled up in traffic or not, and the predictability of that snarling-up is limited. Try getting a bus through Newmarket from Great South Road at around 5:15pm and see what traffic lights do to bus travel. It can take 20 minutes or more to get from the Great South Road/Broadway intersection onto Khyber Pass. More buses won’t fix that, and it’s far from the only intersection which turns into a giant bus station at peak times. GSR/Main Highway is another where it can take 10 or 15 minutes for a bus to travel only a few hundred metres. There’s not a perception of going nowhere fast, there’s a straightforward reality.
I must say Matt, I make that trip pretty much twice a day and not only do I get through there on the bus with no issues I manage to do that and the rest of my 4km trip in about 10-15mins.
Of even more interest is that it takes pretty much just as long be it peak or off peak.
You will be glad to know however that the CFN will do absolutely nothing to improve that trip.
I don’t believe you. Every time I’ve had the misfortune to be on a bus trying to go through Newmarket in the evening peak it’s been no less than 25 minutes for the journey from GSR/Main Highway to Symonds St – more than once it’s been well over half an hour – and half the journey, minimum, is just trundling down Broadway between GSR and Khyber Pass.
No, the CFN won’t make it any better, but that wasn’t my point. My point was that your blithe dismissal of bus journeys as unpredictable, often jammed up by traffic lights, and often slow in a way that the CFN will truly address, is not grounded in my observation of just a small sliver of the bus network. It’s a sliver that has very, very poor bus priority, but it’s also a sliver that runs through a high-density bus corridor.
Matt. First and most important, can you please choose a position.
You just said ‘…no, the CFN won’t make it better..’ and then followed up with ‘…the CFN will truly address..’
Of the all the bus routes in the city the CFN fixes address about 3 from what I can see. The swarms of buses that go through Newmarket will continue to do so and will still be stuck in the same traffic as before.
I must say I am impressed with the performance of your bus however. Given you said it takes 20mins to go through the 1km section in Newmarket yet the trip in total only takes 25-30mins the bus must be flying for the other 3.5km.
I will say however, it is an issue that there are no bus provisions through Newmarket and even more of an issue all the car drivers who block the bus lanes. It still only takes me about 5mins to get through there however in busy conditions.
Your inability to comprehend English is not my problem. I’ll leave you to work out what I said for yourself.
You said a number of self contradicting things and hence the confusion.
Going back to your trip however. During off-peak conditions your trip is estimated to take 23mins once picking up other passengers is taken into account. So getting it done in 25-30mins at 5:15 is pretty good going.
Got to agree with Matt here,
I work on the corner of GSW and Broadway and overlook that intersection, and I see every other day at 4:30pm onwards, a queue of traffic up Broadway from GSW, with buses strung out along that queue going nowhere fast towards Newmarket and beyond.
Maybe SF you go the other way at peak (from Broadway to GSW or Manukau) which seems to flow much better – but not always.
But its definitely way worse in School terms than holidays.
Good to know Greg, the fact that you daw a busy road outside your window defiantly means buses are being slowed down by a significant amount. I suggest you inform the council of any such other occurrences you see.
“I suggest you inform the council of any such other occurrences you see.”
Why should I do that SF – Council (AT) already read this blog, they also full well know the situation with Newmarket traffic and yet nothing changes.
To blame motorists for “driving” (or more accuratley parking) “in bus lanes” when the bus lanes either (a) don’t exist and/or (b) where they exist are not enforced at peak times.
Is a joke – is that how you approach everything in your professional life too?
Now to come back to your original assertion that Matt was wrong, wrong wrong with his original comments about buses being stuck in Newmarket traffic.
Your denial of a problem was based on your stated “personal experience” , that just ‘cos you say you get your bus through Newmarket ok each day so all must be well with the PT world.
Yeah right.
Woo, calm down a little there greg.
If you go back to matts comments he claimed that it regularly takes 20mins for a bus to get through Newmarket. Now the only thing I questioned was the 20min claim as its conflicts with my daily experience of it taking about 5mins.
Now the interesting part was that you clsimed that by looking out the window you could confirm it takes 20mins for a bus to get through Newmarket. Now how you managed to do this I don’t know, looking at a busy road hardly yields time delays, all you can tell is that the road is busy.
On another note, I find you apparent disregard for bus lanes rather interesting. Bus lanes shouldn’t need to be enforced to keep people out of them. People know they aren’t meant to drive in them yet they choose to. That is purely the fault of the person who choose to drive in the bus lane.
The carrot is leaving money in peoples pockets – the billions of dollars not spent on infrastructure.
Value, swan, is a greater target than cost. You write as if all spending is without value, a priori. This is an inflexible assumption on your part that twists your conclusions into caricature.
What you need to explain is why people will get more value having the state spend their money on things they wouldnt spend their own money on, than via spending that money themselves. I certainly care about value – I am mature enough to know I will have a hard time getting as much value for my neighbour spending her money for her, than letting her spend it herself.
@Swan, so you aren’t happy to pay rates for road upkeep, or for healthcare, or education, or national defence?
Even though governments do this far better than individuals?
I’m a happy enough fellow, and don’t let my rates bill get me down when it arrives each year.
Lets have a look at whatcha got there: Healthcare, education and national defence are rather special cases.
Defence is absolutely a public good. Noone can “overconsume” defense. It is absolutely non-excludable and non-rivalrous. So happy to pay for defense. Although I would argue that NZ spends too much on defense, but that is a separate issue.
Healthcare and education are a bit different. Lets take education first. Primary and secondary education are something that the vast majority of people think are worth everyone having. But children cant be expected to make such decisions themselves, and it is not really fair on children to leave it to their parents. So, given we think 100% of children should be educated, and given given children have no means of “overconsuming” this free good, the issue of providing it for free in terms of overuse is not an issue (demand is inelastic). Tertiary education is another issue as you are talking about adults and it is by no means the case that 100% of people should get tertiary education (or if so, there would be no consensus on how much), so I would argue against subsidisation of tertiary education. Targeted subsidies at lower socio economic groups would be justifiable, but subsidies across the board end up being in large part a middle class transfer. Nonetheless tertiary education isnt provided free, and it is exlcudable, so it is not a major issue either way (not compared with roading anyhow).
Healthcare. Again I would use the same arguments for provision of healthcare to kids as to education. Healthcare provision to adults – again I would make it targeted. Healthcare does have a quality that means it is not massively overconsumed even when it is free though. I dont go to hospital any more than I have to, which is thankfully not very often at all. I suspect most people are the same. The fact that takeaway pizza is virtually free for some reason in NZ does make me consume it more often than I otherwise would, but that is another story….
So the issue with roads is they are definitely rivalrous – i.e. congestion exists. Congestion is a major problem, and…. demand is elastic (i.e. induced demand). Also private vehicle travel is not really up there with education and healthcare as being something we need to provide children with lest they grow up uneducated, or dont grow up at all. And it is adults who are peak time users of private vehicles in any case.
Ill stop rambling now – tldr; roading is not like defense, heathcare or education…
Ok, glad to see you at least seem to be applying the same logic to PT as you are to roads….
Rudman’s article here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10903304
Oh dear. Some of the comments. The one who said Rudman must be too poor to afford even a dunger car was a doozy, but also somewhat emblematic of the attitudes of some parts of society; like our esteemed Minister of Pies.
Rudman lives deep in the slums of Herne Bay.
Probably blew all his money on a house there, and now he can’t afford a car 😀 😀 😀
Well done Patrick this is an excellent clarification of CFN. I will be forwarding it to as many people as I can. Keep up the good work.
Did you give any consideration to ferrys from the likes of Browns Bay? Or does the CFN render them unnecessary?
It might be lovely to ride in a boat from Browns Bay to the city but it is unlikely to ever be the quickest and most direct way, and it would almost certainly be very expensive. So not part of the top tier of Transit routes which is what the CFN is.
The northern busway renders any browns bay ferry superfluous. If we ever want that ferry it could only be justified as a tourist/place making endeavour, it doesn’t stack up on transport grounds.
Perhaps a short soundbite-style answer to the first question could be “Rather than try yet again to solve road congestion, the CFN will completely bypass it instead”
Bypass it completely AND relieve it at the same time. What’s not to like?
And is cheaper than current plans that even those promoting them admit makes everything worse.
In addition to the reduction of traffic during the ‘school run’ hours, there are a large number of commuting workers who take annual leave during school holidays which would be reducing congestion right across peak times. No idea of the figures though…
Keep up the great work guys. We need this info out in the public realm to stir debate and change people’s preconceived notions about how effective public transport is when used right. I really don’t understand why this stuff isn’t pushed by by the government. it just makes too much sense not to.
Is this the updated graphic? When can I order a t-shirt? It can join my collection (London tube map and Middle Earth tube map so far..) and I will wear it whenever I go to visit people who don’t think we can sort PT in Auckland 😀
Good stuff. Slight typo in your fourth question: “Does the Congestion Free Network mean that we wouldn’t BE any new roads until after 2030?” (and I could also get pedantic about “that” vs “which” in the subsequent answer to this…)
…and a typo in my typo: “we wouldn’t BE BUILDING any new roads until after 2030?”
Off-topic, but vital to note: anyone else note that comments threads are much longer and contain much more aggro now that the artist formerly known as Riggles has decided to continue his old “concern-trolling PT to death” act?
And I for one would welcome him being pruned. Waste of oxygen.
Yep.
I like this definition of concern troll however.
“the term is often used by paranoid people to effectively mean, ‘…anyone who does not agree entirely with the standard dogma…'”
it would seem your on the money there.
Repetitive moaning about trolling is trolling. Moaning about the blog and admins is also, not to mention plain stupid! You’ve been warned about this before, keep it up and expect more of your comments to disappear. Remember you are a guest here and you have no rights except those the admins let you have. The blog has to weigh unrestricted and open debate against annoying people clogging up the comments sections with boring unintelligible bickering.
Doloras, Sacha, Sailor Boy, please try not to inflame the situation.
Concern trolling is the act of making false or exagerrated arguuments around the viability, or benefits of certain projects in order to try and derail their progress or discussion of them. This is an exact description of your actions.
Remember everyone, the CFN (and any other infrastructure) needs to be considered in a context of pretty major population growth. Maybe a million in 30 years, maybe a bit less, but a lot however you slice it. Road pricing and a few more buses might help for a few years, but how long will that last? We are adding at least 20,000 people a year, minimum, right now, and that rate could speed up or slow down a bit over time. New infrastructure is a necessity. The only questions are over what it should be, and how much we need.
This is true – I am sure we will need new infrastructure in the medium to long term. However road pricing will not only push out the time until such infrastructure is required, it will also help to answer the questions you have posed. The elasticity of demand for peak hour car commuters (and PT commuters) will enable us to ascertain whether it is necessary to build more roads, or more rail. If people stop driving at $8 a trip, and are still willing to cram into trains at $15 a trip, then we will know the CFN (or something like it) is the way forward. If it is the other way round, then more roading is the answer.
But urban roads have other costs as well. They trash neighbourhoods and make it harder to walk or cycle. They waste large amounts of public space. They both enable and require more driving which kills and injures large numbers of people, and is a big contributor to both local air pollution and global climate change. They cost vast amounts to build, using scarce resources that could otherwise be used for PT, walking and cycling projects, or even for something other than transport. All the cars in turn require the destruction of yet more public and private space for parking. And roads are frankly ugly and unpleasant to be around.
Few of these costs are borne by motorists, and even when they are, they are not borne through genuine choice, but because we have deliberately built our cities so that people have to make long trips to do anything, and the only way they can safely and practically make those trips is by car.
To some degree, we will always need some roads and highways despite the cost. Especially for freight and rural travel. But we already have tons of roads in Auckland, more than enough to handle all the private vehicle trips that even a city of 5 million truly needs.
We shouldn’t be building new urban roads to cater for private trips for a long, long time. no matter how much you could charge for them if you did. It’s time to build our two missing modes – cycling and rapid transit for long trips, and our urban planning needs to produce development that offers people more shops and services and schools within a reasonable, safe and pleasant walking distance, so people don’t need to make as many long trips.
Road pricing doesn’t do any of that. It might be worth doing anyway – it might raise some money, and it might reduce traffic by pricing people off the road, but it doesn’t do the important part of providing an actual alternative to driving.
I would have no problem with someone building a road purely for profit, but I think Penlink would be the onl;y road that would even be close to profitable.
If it’s in the middle of nowhere like Penlink, and joining two existing built up areas that already have a lot of traffic by a different longer route, it’s pretty much a positive. But there’s already a design (and designation?) so if it were even possibly profitable I’d think someone would have approached the government about a PPP by now.
OK, so if I read the post right the CFN states that it is not much different from AT plan except they would reduce spending on the rail network to the airport and invest in rail on Dominion Road and to the North Shore.
I think that puts the CFN idea firmly in cloud cuckoo land!
Rail to the airport should be a priority as it is pretty much guaranteed to make money. All those taxis sitting outside arrivals charging $50+ to town know they are on a good thing, imagine how many tourists and Kiwis would rather pay £20 for a train to Britomart.
Rail on Dominion Road… why?
Rail to the Northshore… pfft, a good long term plan but frankly we dont need to do anything other than build the tunnel (when we are digging the roads) as Auckland is years away from being able to afford a light rail system that could include the shore. You also have the inescapable problem of where would any train run? If you lay tracks on what is now the northern bus lane (one of the few existing PT routes growing in patronage) you will be shutting down a major PT system for months only to replace it with something more expensive that has less flexibility.
What Auckland should do is lay on a few more buses. Buses are cheap to buy, cheap to run and they are not restricted to where the rail track is laid. It is a lot easier to move buses from one area to another to maximize utilization than move a train
Now if you want to bring up that old chestnut of trains are electric then lets have a talk about the future and how a drought or population increase could mean green power could disappear in a few years. Hydro electricty is great so long as you continue to have an abundance of water but good luck playing god if you want to assume NZ will always be in this position. Without Hydro electricity we would be using coal and fossil fuel to power your green trains.
Better again to go the bus route. We could get buses running on fuel created from Aucklands household rubbish. Ive got friends who hug trees and they would rather travel on a bus powered by the contents of your orange sack than electric trains juiced on dirty fuel oil.
For a city of Aucklands size and economy we should continue down the road route until at least 20 million Chinese can be bribed into coming here and making us homes owners rich.
As for those of you that say the buses in Newmarket take 30 mins to travel down Broadway…are you people that stupid you dont think to get off at one end and walk the length of the street before getting back on a bus at the other end?
There should be a Darwin award just for the posters on this blog
“There should be a Darwin award just for the posters on this blog”
I think the same thing every time you make a comment….
In terms of building all of the foreseeable tunnels right now while the big/expensive gear has just been delivered (like last week or so) and a team established for the waterview project. I think would save everyone mega-bucks and give a kick start to the big ticket items and get them within reach. ie Waterview move to the City Rail Link then the rail tunnel under the Waitemata.. What does everyone else think?