The extraordinary thing about our proposal for concerted action to build a coherent and high standard Rapid Transit Network for Auckland is not that it’s popular, but that it isn’t already there. It is hardly a revolutionary idea that our congestion problem is simply the result of us having little real choice but to drive in Auckland because all we’ve built since the 1960s is more roads. After all, this outcome was predicted even before we built such extreme auto-dependency into our city.
A 50 Year Old Plan
In 1963 Californian Transport Engineering Consultants De Leuw Cather were hired to advise on Auckland’s transport problems. They spent two years looking at the problem, reporting back in 1965:
Really? So how did they propose that this ‘Coordinated Bus and Rapid Transit Operation’ should work:
But surely that’s not all? You don’t go hiring consultants from California in the 1960s just to get told to invest in rail. No of course this was only half of their plan for Auckland the other half is the motorway system you see now. Well, different in detail of course, as is the Transit network we now need, but my point here is not the detail but the theory. Even then, with a much smaller city and at the height of the dream of the glorious motoring future the specialists knew that for a city’s transportation network to work well and economically it needs balance. They did envisage a driving city, but knew for that to function that it would need a complimentary Transit network. Here is the first page of the second part of their plan; the Highway Plan:
‘…a balanced transportation system adequate to serve the entire Auckland region to 1986 and beyond.’ Imagine that.
So De Leuw Cather envisaged Auckland investing in a core Rapid Transit Network first, then building a motorway network. Well without digging into the politics of the era lets be charitable to our past leaders and observe that money for these expensive investments is always contested and that clearly we didn’t build the Rapid Transit network but did build the motorways through the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And kept building the motorways, and rebuilding and re-widening the motorways, and then tearing down and building parts of them all over again, and we are still building and re-building them now. To the point that we completely forgot that original plan.
And now we discover that these motorways and the rest of our road network suffers from a particular problem called congestion. Which is, of course, simply overuse. Isn’t it time we stopped building more traffic creating roads, or at least paused for a decade or two, and added the missing balance that even those mad men from the 60s knew was needed in Auckland?
Gentlemen [ahem]:
It’s hardly expeditious, in fact it’s pretty damn late. But it’s not too late to build the missing balance that will more than fix Auckland’s transport woes and will also get this little city thriving as well as it should. But perhaps there is another lesson in this story; we cut our cloth then and only built one side of the plan; so now in order to build the other half we’ll have to stop pouring all our funds into yet more expensive motorways.
So this is the answer to the problem of how to fund the Council’s current Transport Plan: Don’t. Delete, downsize, and delay many of the proposed mega road projects, accelerate the funding and construction of the missing Transit and Active networks, then take stock of what is really needed in terms of ever bigger roads once Aucklanders have real choice whether to drive everywhere, at all times, and for every journey. After all, we know it will work.
Charles DeLeuw and I don’t think we’ll need so much more spending on roads once there’s balance in Auckland’s transport system. Furthermore, we’ll have a much better and more prosperous city to live in and one that is more fit for the demands of this century.
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The billions and billions of dollars wasted on endless construction and reconstruction of motorways over the intervening decades is nothing less than criminal. The enforced environmental and health consequences are downright treasonous.
Oh, I think the political culprits who stuffed up Auckland’s urban fabric by disregarding professional opinion in matters of transport (from the 1930s through) should be named and shamed. Not doing so has enabled the sad history of transport in Auckland to repeat itself, ad nauseum. One of the reasons I suspect Key changed his mind about the CRL is that in the new media environment that this blog so intelligently represents it’s not so easy to conceal unpopular and/or stupid political decisions, as has happened so often in the past.
I get the feeling that ego is the reason a large part in why the PT part was never implemented. It’s between mentioned before that one of the reasons Mayor Robbie’s plan didn’t succeed was that his planners didn’t like it and that was partly because they didn’t think of it. That allowed local councils and the government to question and eventually can the proposal.
What is clear is that there there was a systematic bias against non car based solutions from those in charge for some time. I get the feeling that the officials are now over that period of complete opposition but instead we are now battling for our elected officials to do the same.
What it all comes down to is a lack of investment, particularly on the councils part as they refused to pretty much pay for anything.
But Mr clouds, if you don’t like driving why not catch the bus. That’s what I do most days even if it takes 500% longer to turn up than its meant to some days.
I actually do like driving. I don’t like the huge variability in journey time that I encounter on buses, and courtesy of the Strand yards I work a 1.5km walk from Britomart. I’m fortunate enough to live along a high-frequency bus corridor, but with non-existent bus priority along Main Highway it can take 15 minutes in the morning to get onto GSR. Non-existent bus priority at Broadway means it can take another 15 minutes to get from GSR to Khyber Pass.
If I could have a consistent journey time on public transport – which I do get in my car, courtesy of NZTA’s motorway traffic site allowing me to pick which way I go home – it would be more compelling.
I’ve done morning buses. They’re not a good experience. I want to know that I’m going to get to work at about the same time every morning, and home in about the same length of time every evening, without having to either walk for 20 minutes to get to the train station (why, yes, I really am that lazy!) or pay extra for a bus/train transfer at Newmarket when buses in the evening peak get to enjoy the non-existent bus priority between Parnell and Newmarket – back to that journey time consistency.
There’s also the simple matter of time waiting for a train. Despite having two lines going through Ellerslie, there are plenty of spaces in the evening peak where it’s 15 minutes between services through Newmarket. And in the morning peak, right around the time I would be leaving, there’s a 19 minute gap in Britomart-bound services. 19 minutes! I can drive to work in 19 minutes!
I wasn’t bitching about congestion, because I know I’m part of the congestion. I wasn’t bitching about it being stupidly time-consuming to try and use public transport for my commute. I was bitching about nearly fifty years of roads, roads, roads, and the consequence that it’s stupidly time-consuming (and hugely expensive) to try and use public transport for my commute. And I live in Ellerslie, along multiple bus routes and very close to a train station. It’s no wonder this city has such awful public transport use when even getting between an inner suburb and the CBD fringe is an exercise in futility and frustration.
Well it sounds to me that the issue there is that driving is too fast and easy rather than the PT link being slow. If course having your train apparently running at 19 min intervals at peak doesn’t help.
I will refer back to when you brought up this example last time however. Based on google maps your bus should be only slightly faster when it’s free flow due to picking up and dropping off people. When you drive you don’t need to do that and hence why its faster.
Kerb to kerb it’s roughly 8km via Newmarket. That trip should be possible in about 30 minutes by public transport, allowing for passengers on and off (50% longer than personal vehicle). It simply isn’t, by any mode or combination thereof, even outside peak. Inside peak it’s 40 minutes or more at best.
Maxx gives me a bunch of inbound options which are between 42 and 52 minutes in duration. Outbound my options are between 33 and 50 minutes in duration. In all cases things rely on perfect synchronisation between my arrival at a stop and the service’s departure. In the case of train, there’s the ready potential for the duration to increase by a third or more if I don’t achieve perfect timing.
I don’t understand why you’re so determined to dismiss me as an outlier. Is it because I’m showing up your delusion that Auckland’s public transport is perfectly fine as just that: a delusion? I don’t live in the boonies. I’m not going to the boonies. And it’s still long, expensive and inconvenient to use public transport for my daily commute. I’m a perfect example of what’s wrong with our public transport system, and you just don’t seem able to cope with that reality.
I never said PT was absolutely fine, you will see just two posts up that I complained my bus took 500% longer than it should to turn up.
My main point has been in the past that PT in Auckland is not that bad by international comparison but rather in comparison to driving here.
I actually wrote a post which compared Auckland to the various PT celebrated cities throughout the world doing the sort of trips that people complain about here. What was interesting was that Auckland was pretty much on par in terms of travel speed and coverage. What we missed out on however was frequency, and from personal experience reliability.
SF I call complete Bullshit on your personal evaluations of Auckland’s PT offer. Furthermore I have evidence which is always something you seem to never quite manage to bring:
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/29/the-cfn-build-it-and-they-will-come/
If you want to be taken seriously here I suggest you check your little observations with other evidence, and share that evidence with everyone. As it stands your posts amount to nothing more than the mildly curious opinions of a contrarian crank.
Thanks for your constructive abuse as always Patrick, you really are an asset to society.
As you well however, given you are the one who likely does it, every time I do post evidence it gets deleted.
Well that is simply untrue. You never have anything beyond your own ‘wisdom’, no data, no links, nothing. There is no conspiracy here against you, you are generously tolerated. Show us your evidence, we’ed love others to work as hard as we do build a case.
In this modern day and age SF it takes nothing to start your own blog where you can post your evidence without fear of it being deleted. Given you tend to post your own observations or recollections rather than actual verified information I don’t see it been widely used as a basis for research but you never know your luck.
Well it happens all the time when I undeniably prove something wrong.
As you also know my IP address is blocked so I can’t post links ands it’s too much effort to use a proxy server or write a post only to get it deleted again.
Anyway that is all off topic to I’ll leave that be.
This is just nonsense; we have never deleted any links or evidence posted by SF, let alone do it ‘all the time’, not least of which because there never is any. What, for example, have you got to refute the Benchmark study linked to at the post above? None, and not only do you not bring evidence but you don’t even put any work in to dismantle reports like this one. You just make a snide remark, add your own tales of bus catching or car driving, and call this ‘undeniable proof’.
We have deleted childish name calling posts, and ones where you try to pass yourself off as a moderator and accuse others of trolling. Not once have we seen evidence, only opinion. Your idea of ‘undeniably proving’ things is simply to assert your opinion. Now you may very well consider yourself to be the last word on everything but us mere mortals like to see evidence and reasoning beyond ‘cos you say so’.
True to form you have no evidence for your latest assertion either.
I thought my last two assertions were common knowledge, that Auckland lacks in terms if PT frequency and service reliability.
I find in interesting that you have got so upset over such a view however if you refer to a few bus timetables or train time tables and them try catching the bus on a regular basis like myself and many other people in Auckland do you will know this is true.
Wait, wait, wait. What? You have asserted, repeatedly and vocally, that it’s quite acceptable for people to wait half an hour, or an hour. You have asserted, again repeatedly and vocally, that there’s nothing wrong with the service quality of public transport in Auckland. Repeatedly. And vocally.
Could you please pick a position and stick with it?!
Can you please stop spreading lies Matt and read what I say for what I saying rather than imagining something else.
In your first case you claimed it took one hour to take PT from ellerslie to Onehunga, however in reality it only takes about 10mins. You latter clarified that you intentionally choose to turn up at the station immediately after the last train at night during off peak when it’s raining and so it was your choice to wait that long. Now we could replace the busway with heavy rail for $5 billion however that would do nothing to solve your concern that you can’t make an extremely unknown trip at any hour of the day you like expecting to wait no more than 5mins. Of note this topic only ever came up once when I was involved, you may repeatability bring it up however I have not been there.
For the next point, what I have always said is that the service is not that bad. Although frequency may be a miss trip time and coverage is right up there with Vancouver and strangely better than Prague. My banned post actually showed this.
I assume you mean the Northern Busway when you say $5B? Using overseas examples, it would be under 1/2 that figure. It will only be over $5B if you include a multi-lane vehicle crossing of the Waitemata.
Now who’s spreading lies?
“For the next point, what I have always said is that the service is not that bad.”
This is the last straw, I am now deciding that either SF has not caught PT in Auckland except on the few corridors where it actually works, or he has never caught PT anywhere else. Having actually been overseas and caught public transport in several cities larger and smaller than Auckland, I can tell you that Auckland is shit. It is currently 4.30, try and travel the 16km from Long Bay college to Eden Park SF, hardly a ridiculous trip, but AT says 1 hour 28 minutes if you leave right now and barely scrape onto the first bus, 3 minutes later and you are looking at 2 hours to do the trip.
To be honest, one only has to look at one comment from SF Lauren to see why no one likes him/her – he/she always misrepresents arguments, uses hyperbole excessively and uses personal experience as if it is irrefutable evidence that he/she is right.
One example:
Matt said “(SF Lauren has) asserted, repeatedly and vocally, that it’s quite acceptable for people to wait half an hour, or an hour”
SF Lauren responded “(Matt) claimed it took one hour to take PT from ellerslie to Onehunga, however in reality it only takes about 10mins. (Matt) latter clarified that (he) intentionally choose to turn up at the station immediately after the last train at night during off peak when it’s raining and so it was (his) choice to wait that long. ”
The original comment from Matt was regarding PT frequency being poor in Auckland. SF Lauren’s response was “the trip only takes 10 minutes”, which is of course has nothing to do with frequency. In terms of frequency, the response could probably be paraphrased as “the PT frequency is great if you arrive just in time to catch the train/bus”. Added to that was hyperbole about intentionally choosing to turn up after the last train when its raining, which serves completely no point apart from perhaps exaggerating that Matt’s example was an extreme situation and is therefore a poor example.
To be honest, all I can say is DNFTT.
WTL, given you obviously we’re never present for the discussion Matt and I were referring to you know very little.
As it was Matt decided to make some outrageous claim that I said 30 min to one hour is how long everyone should wait for PT.
If you go back in read that discuss in what ever thread it was in you will find my that what I said is what we found was actually the case one we asked him a few questions.
As for sailor boy, you will find that if you did a similar trip in Vancouver it would take 1 hour and 40mins. So comparing apple’s with apple’s Auckland is 10 mins faster.
If I remove the walking from either end of my benchmark tests we have Vancouver at 1:20 and Auckland at 1:28. So we are 8 mins slower due to needing to go right into the CDB and out again.
SF Lauren: Again you prove my point
From your answer, it is obvious that you are referring to a previous discussion on this blog. I have read that discussion. I therefore know exactly what was in that discussion. You would have had no knowledge of whether or not I had read that discussion, but instead you said that I was “never present” for that discussion. In other words, you are misrepresenting what I know and again using hyperbole to imply that I am unreliable because “I know very little”.
Ok WTL, given you were there why do you think it is acceptable for Matt to blatantly lie about it however when I say what actually was found to be the truth you call not relevant and exaggerated.
Are you saying the truth doesn’t matter and spreading lies is the way to go?
Whatever argument you have with Matt has no relevance to me. I was simply pointing out why your commenting style causes a lot of acrimony. For the reasons I outlined above, I find it to be lacking in good faith and therefore not worth engaging with.
And with that, I am going to take my own advice.
Not sure why I’m bothering, but:
SFL said “If a train runs regularly every hour or half hour its pretty darn easy to catch.” The implication is that that service frequency is just dandy.
SFL said “you intentionally choose to turn up at the station immediately after the last train at night during off peak when it’s raining” which is so many distortions it barely resembles what I said.
You’re lying. It’s that simple. You’ve taken clear statements, run them all together, twisted what was said, and then presented it as my words. That’s lying.
You’re so right. Even with the work done by the late ARC and AT in the last decade we still have a PT seemingly implemented on an ad hoc basis in and around motorways and main arterials, adapted to replace the tram system. A mish mash of former private bus company routes that became part of the ARA bus system in the 60’s and 70’s that was latterly privatised again. Its like nobody gave a stuff. Unfortunately its expensive to use and you DON’T get what you pay for. The speed of the Inner Link bus for example is absolutely glacial through Newmarket and Parnell and is best avoided if you want to get into Auckland CBD because it gets stuck in the heavy traffic and the plethora of red traffic lights and their associated queues.
The upcoming local body elections are critical to ongoing real change or a step back to cars, cars and more cars as John Banks council really envisaged . I note the previous Auckland City Council MO was to offer rates freeze bribes that saw amongst other things maintenance on footpaths put on hold. I fear a return of a similarly politically minded council will see that kind of thing eventuate again with even less chance of real PT improvement happening.
I used the train service at Ellerslie for 6 months and I always found it excellent. I am surprised you have so many problems.
I agree with you about getting to the train station though. Main Highway needs bus priority and the access to the station from Kalmia Street is crap.
I’m five minutes walk from the Ellerslie station, so it’s not access at that end which is a problem. It’s the far end where I’m challenged by the divorce of Parnell and Britomart, hence the 1.5km walk. I also, not unreasonably IMO, am not impressed by a 19 minute hole in the morning peak (actually two 19-minute holes between 07:00 and 09:00, and several more of 18 minutes) or by the lousy service scheduling which has two lines managing to have not a single weekday service for 25 minutes between 17:51 and 18:16 as well as several other gaps of 14-15 minutes in the 17:00 to 19:00 evening peak.
With the Southern and Onehunga Lines at my disposal it shouldn’t be more than 10 minutes between services, even if it’s only four per hour on the Southern. Instead there’s scheduled bunching so sometimes it’s two minutes between services (yes, really) and sometimes it’s 25 minutes. Miss the wrong train and an 18 minute journey becomes 37 minutes, plus walking time at each end. When I was working at the bottom of the CBD it wasn’t a big deal because I was so close to the station. Now, though, it’s a long walk which means precision timing is everything. Lots more intersections to get hung up at, too, with our wonderful regard for pedestrians.
Maybe I’m just hugely unreasonable in expecting sensible scheduling which staggers services evenly through a section of track instead of having them bunch and spread like disturbed fish, but I wouldn’t have thought it was particularly irrational. It’s all the more infuriating when one notices that the longest gap between services on the Eastern Line is 12 minutes during either the morning or evening peak.
That’d actually be 43 minutes, not 37.
The train bunching is intentional, platooning trains together is the only way they can get enough into Britomart. It generally operates on a both tracks in then both tracks out at peak times.
Getting nice clean clockface time tabling is basically impossible in practice when you are operating at over 90% capacity, there is just no room for delay.
A nice, clean clock-face may be too hard, but 25 minutes with no services during peak hours? Really? That’s beyond “its difficult to timetable” and into “we don’t give a toss about service frequency”. They’re only running four services an hour on the Western Line. Maintaining spacing with 10 trains an hour (4xWL, 4xSL, 2xOL) ain’t hard, even with both tracks being used for bi-di traffic.
Trains into Ellerslie do bunch frequently, some a few minutes behind the other and then a vast gap in between and some even run express past Ellerslie when things get bad. The line is extremely dependant on everything going absolutely right from Papakura north and if there is even a slight mishap the system implodes. More services from Onehunga would alleviate that problem from Penrose north with improvements in the junction with Penrose to speed up movements (current speed across the points to Onehunga is 25 km/hr).
The absolute maximum number of services to Onehunga with present track configuration is three returns per hour. 12 minutes return journey times three is 36 minutes. Currently four minutes of dwell at Onehunga, which is another 12 minutes over three services. Even halving it is still six minutes, taking us up to 42 minutes. Throw in a minimum four minutes of headway between services and there’s no more time in an hour to do a return journey. It would require a very significant improvement (to the point of impossibility) at the Penrose junction to shave off enough time to make four returns an hour possible.
It’s just a shame now that the focus is shifting more towards PT we have a bunch of totally incompetent buffoons implementing it. The whole HOP thing is/was a fiasco and I would like to see someone held responsible for that. Even with all that now (mostly) behind us they still can’t do things in a sensible manner as I discovered yesterday.
I have a AT Hop A zone monthly pass so I can use the trains. It also now works on Urban Express buses due to the AT Hop roll out. I have found catching the bus is actually much faster than the train so have been doing that. I just discovered though that UE actually use GoWest buses for some routes. But AT Hop hasn’t rolled out to GoWest yet. So if you have a monthly pass and it’s a GoWest bus you’re out of luck and have to pay again. You might think well, just avoid the buses with route numbers that use Go West buses. But no, some route numbers are serviced by both buses. Get the wrong bus and your monthly pass won’t work. You must buy a cash ticket.
http://www.urbanexpress.co.nz/W10_B%20Bay_Green%20Bay_Jan%202011%20web.pdf
As one example the to downtown 198 buses: 8:45 GW, 9:10 UE, 9:40 GW, 10:30 UE.
This is insane! You won’t know which bus will arrive unless you look at the paper timetables, the real time boards don’t say. And to make it worse this situation will continue until November when they finally roll out AT Hop to the GoWest buses.
Simon
Even if Thales had been allowed to proceed with the whole project (like originally planned), there would still have been a roll out period where some companies were operational before others. Of course we wouldn’t have had the ‘Snapper HOP’ to confuse the issue. Just another couple of months hopefully. It’s a pain but I’m sure the long term benefits will be worth while.
Yes, but in this case they are rolling it out to only some of the buses ON THE SAME ROUTE!
I suspect the long term result will be AT saying ‘Hey, we have a lovely integrated network and flashy new trains, lets put all the fares up!’. They seem to be working to some perverted Murphy’s law, whatever they can do wrong they will do wrong. Lets list some of the things:
The example I gave above.
Having two competing cards and calling them both HOP.
The ‘real time’ bus boards.
Making family passes only available from major stations.
Terrible communications.
Uninformed support staff.
Atrocious web sites.
HOP cards being blocked on CC expiry.
Charging a separate fee for top ups.
Recent fare increases for students.
What else?
I know people will say AT have a difficult job after years of under funding in PT in Auckland but having a difficult job is no excuse for doing a poor job.
And it says a lot when a team of bloggers can come up with a more sensible long term plan (and communicate it more clearly) for the future of transport in the city than the people whose job it is supposed to be.
Simon
You also forgot about how they let you (as Campbell Live proved a few months back) put any bank account number in the auto-topup direct debit form. (i.e. no need to do a Direct Debit Authority with the bank).
If I recall correctly, ARC was forced to divest itself of bus services many years ago which has led us to the multiple operator setup we have now. Also, it was not AT’s decision to allow Snapper. Also, from memory, the Campbell Live piece was set up using credit card auto top Ups. I use this kind of service with many subscriptions (Microsoft, NZTA tool road etc). There is nothing wrong with it.
Having 2 competing cards is due to a breach of contract by snapper
Sailor Boy
An alleged breach of contract by Snapper – I don’t think anything’s been proved yet.
Sorry, you are quite right/
Classic, Patrick. love your work. Keep it up. Election year isnt far away. Cheers
Here’s a petinent question for inquiring minds.
Did those achievable travel times mentioned on the bottom of page iii of the second image of 21 and 19 minutes from New Lynn and “Puhinui” respectively to the Auckland CBD ever eventuate? Can even you do this by car now on the motorways (outside of 3am on a Sunday morning)?
What about on the new EMUs – doable?
And if not, why not – too many stations and no CRL?
And if the CRL is built, doable then?
Because if not, then we have squandered the last 50 years doing bugger all.
And as a side note, how come in that Pictorial Parade video item Patrick put up a while back made in year 1960 which was lauding the wonders of car and modern bus travel and how Auckland was growing like topsy – now all those nasty trams were all gone. Yet in little over 3 years time Auckland (again) had a “traffic problem”
– which is why De Leuw Cather were commissioned to write a report about sorting it out in the first place?
Did all that getting rid of trams and putting in more roads – only actually buy Auckland 5 more years of capacity before we hit the same problem with traffic?
Or were our city fathers actually thinking ahead 20 years for once, and then got sidelined by the politcs?
Puhinui station is 29 minutes to Newmarket, 37 (38 via the Eastern Line) to Britomart. The EMUs will be quicker, but not that much quicker.
I suspect a lot of the issue is actually what passes for track maintenance and construction standards, rather than the rolling stock. Poor cambering, crappy maintenance, bad track junctions, and so on ad nauseum. The EMUs will only be able to reach maximum speed for a small portion of a small portion of their journeys, because the track is still far from being of the quality required for the 100+km/h maximum speed the EMUs are capable of achieving.
“But perhaps there is another lesson in this story; we cut our cloth then and only built one side of the plan”
Its worse than cutting your cloth wrong.
Auckland built the bigger house, but decided not to do the roof and left the old rusty, ragged & rickety original tin roof in place, so that only covered the original part of the house.
We put tarpaulins on the rest hoping for the best.
So when it rains, the building leaks everywhere and we only seem to be able to “fix it” by adding more rooms or replacing the leaking tarpaulins with more of the same.
When all along we needed a bigger house and a proper weatherproof roof to match.
And worse – we are still seeing arguing about whether we need any roof at all, and how soon we need it fixed – if it turns out that we do need it after all.
And fifty years of hindsight tells us what? Yes turns out you need a roof to match your house?
Thats an expensive lessen – but better learned now than in another 5 (or worse) 50) years time.
Nice reply Greg. Actually, what a fantastic reply.
SF Lauren: ‘I actually wrote a post which compared Auckland to the various PT celebrated cities throughout the world doing the sort of trips that people complain about here. What was interesting was that Auckland was pretty much on par in terms of travel speed and coverage. What we missed out on however was frequency, and from personal experience reliability.’
Public transport quality of service is an inseperable combination of line haul speed AND coverage AND frequency AND reliabilty. So if you’re doing well on the first two and badly on the last two, that’s an overall pretty mediocre service, isn’t it?
Overemphasising line haul speed and ignoring frequency is a classic road engineer’s view, arising from the fact that for motorists frequency is not a relevant concept. Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog has many comments about this point.
Note that extra travel time from unreliable service has a much higher disvalue than base travel time (from memory, a multiplier of two or three is often used in cost benefit analysis). Making public transport congestion-free is as important for reliability as for speed.
That’s completely right john, and that’s my point. If you want to make the PT system better you need to know what is wrong with it to start with.
Once you know what’s wrong then you can go about finding the best way to fix it with the money you have.
From what we have seen however most solutions are based on someone seeing a train somewhere overseas while they were on holiday and think that buy spending 10 years of transport funding to fix one of the most irrelevant issue on the PT network will solve all of life’s problems. When in reality it will do nothing for 99% of potential PT users.
SFL
“From what we have seen however most solutions are based on someone seeing a train somewhere overseas while they were on holiday and think that buy spending 10 years of transport funding to fix one of the most irrelevant issue on the PT network will solve all of life’s problems. When in reality it will do nothing for 99% of potential PT users.”
If you want your views to be taken seriously, I suggest that you avoid absurd over-generalisations: such comments tend to say a lot more about their author rather than about the topic.
You are having a laugh right?
You are talking about the CRL which allows us to triple or better frequencies on the inner network, and quadruple to Onehunga?
Don’t know who you are talking about regarding frequency, but I think that John Thayer ?Jansen is the only commenter who opposes the RPTP which will increase frequency.
Regarding reliability, trains are the most reliable vehicle, several overseas examples show that, and even out poor network does much better than the buses. Next best is a busway, then bus lanes, then general traffic. In terms of infrastructe more than 90% of out current routes have the worst possible chance of reliability.
By putting in on road bus lanes, or AMETI style busways and operating 10 minute or better frequencies on them we get the core routes reliable, fast, an frequent, the other ones can then be frequent at the very least, and we will start to have an ok network. This is exactly what the CFN is about, if you have a single actual idea to achieve any of this then I am happy to hear it, we all are, we are sick of you just opposing PT seemingly for the sake of it.
What do you think we can do to improve reliability and frequency other than that?
Sailor boy, given I have said countless times before that I support the CRL I fail to see how you arrived at the conclusion that just today I changed my mind
I was more referring to replacing the busway with heavy rail or rail to the airport.
As for my ideas I largely support what the council has planned with manly the new bus network. This is what will address the primary issues with bus travel in Auckland with bus travel being the dominate PT mode.
There is no need to go to great expense creating AMETI style bus boulevards as they are actually slightly slower than simple bus lanes. You would get better value for money using that same amount of money to add 5 times as much in the form of bus lanes.
“they are actually slightly slower than simple bus lanes”
You have never ever used either one or both of these if you are being serious here.
If you are talking about rail to North Shore then you are being slightly ridiculous in saying that only 1% of potential PT customers. PT customers are every single person lets say in Auckland, Every single one on the North Shore gains, both the several percent already using PT in the corridor, and the rest even if they never ever use PT, simply by the train getting people off of the road, and the WEBS, and the intensification
AMETI busways are so cheap it is ridiculous to claim that they are a waste of money.
To my own amazement, I have to say I agree with much of what SFL just wrote (but to be clear not the stuff about Auckland having a great PT system).
I would love rail everywhere – but as Matt has pointed out in his post this morning on the presentation to the Transport Committee – we have to be realistic about what is achieveable and not being mode biased makes the proposals look much more reasonable and realistic.
We are trying to reverse a 60 year mode bias and we wont turn that around quickly. Especially not while Auckland has an 87% mode share for private vehicles.
Busways work – as the Northern Busway has shown – and people will use them. Once they are at capacity, what will people ask for? Just like with roads they will ask for more capacity – and how do we deliver that? A Sky Train system like Vancouver is the obvious (and cost effective) solution and the Northern Busway is already graded for that. I hope that is also true of the of the AMETI project – anybody able to clarify?
Again I agree with SFL that bus lanes are a good investment and they work to encourage travel in areas where – in the current transport environment – taking road space away from cars is politically very difficult. Bus lanes are the PT equivalent of painted cycle lanes (barely adequate) – but better than nothing. I just read a report that painted cycle lanes lead to a 36% increase in cyclists – if bus lanes did the same with PT users then what a win.
Once we have the PT mode share up to 25% or so, the critical mass will be there and we can start to put in place more robust infrastructure. I personally think we should be aiming for a mode share of 60% driving/30% PT (so roughly doubling now)/10% cycling/walking (so roughly 7-10 times now). That would be a MAJOR shift for Auckland but on paper looks quite modest.
This piece meal approach is necessary because we have been so negligent of the non-auto based transport modes in this city – as Patrick’s great post on the De Leuw Cather report showed.
Sorry, didn’t see heavy railo to the North Shore.
Seeing that your post isn’t even worthy of a reply SF as so very few people here actually want that.
Dear god can we not ban this tiresome troll? And stop him resurfacing under a different pseudonym?
The trouble with this blog is that 99% of you will not listen to accept any opinion that does not fit with your anti car agenda. Now excuse me for upsetting anyone with that statement but it is true and I could provide pages upon pages of evidence if I could be bothered. I Don’t need too, you all know its true.
Over the months I have been reading this blog I have seen abuse that would get your nose broken in any Auckland bar, censorship, and bullying that qualifies in most countries as illegal internet abuse. I can only hope no children ever visit this site.
You may not agree with SF Lauren, Phil, or anyone else who posts here but it seems to me their point is usually that for the money available, it is sensible for the majority of transport spending in NZ to be road based. That does not strike me as an unreasoned argument. You may or may not agree but does that mean you all need to censor or abuse these posts? You all seem to believe that a progressive society is one that involves full investment in non fossil fuelled public transport. This would be a multi billion dollar project. I can tell you though that a progressive society is one where people are encouraged to speak and share opinions free of abuse and censorship and that could start here and cost nothing.
I invite you all to have a word with yourselves. If you don’t agree with someone then say so in a polite manor and accept others may or may not share your opinions.
Stephen Jones
I fully agree with you – robust but polite and non-abusive debate is what we need, on all sides.
In that spirit I would ask you to reconsider your first paragraph – I for one don’t know (or agree) that it’s true, but I’m happy to accept it as your opinion.
Hmmm…99%…looks like a made up statistic to me. Yes, there’s opinion masquerading as fact and a lot of binary thinking but there’s also a lot of factual information with references. It’s very mild compared to some foam-at-the-mouth blogs. Perhaps you haven’t read many. I don’t have a problem with robust debate but I do have a problem with woolly thinkers and bad spellers: now where can I find this polite manor? Is it open to the public? Is there a bar? A carpark?
If you don’t like what is said on the blog then why do you keep reading it?
We frequently have people who disagree with what we say e.g. Swan or Obi and we are happy to have them comment on the blog but the difference between them and others is that they are always respectful and use evidence to back up what they say. One thing we do not want to happen is where people effectively take over threads by constant commenting back and forth. We also don’t accept abuse and try to remove it where possible.
At the end of the day, this is our blog and we have the right to have the final say on what happens with it.
Matt, it may well be your blog but you are mistaken if you think you have the final say on what happens with it. Some of the abuse levelled at people is against the terms of your internet service provider and if one of the victims of the abuse wanted to complain, you may well find that the blog is removed from the internet.
I know it is not the case here but I am sure we can all imagine the owners of extreme right blogs making similar claims to ownership in defence of racist and anti Semitism posts.
I have never seen a post from SF Lauren that was not respectful and he always offers evidence. Surely his opinion is as worthy as anyone else’s and if you are convinced of the merit of your argument you should not shy from the challenge of debate.
Bahahaha, give me one example of SF ever producing evidence, you know, some evidence to back up your claims which are currently disrespectful and unproven.
I think everyone agrees there is a bit of imbalance in the current road network. For a tweak with some paint lines we can all win. Left Lane on Motorway -Truck and Bus. Same on Arterials and put in cycle lanes at the same time, perhaps some specific freight roads. This way we are helping our industry, giving PT a turbo boost and freeing up the roads for car to drive on if you wish. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. For bang for buck do the maths. Changing the face of our whole network with some paint lines. If we are all sitting in congestion fumes going nowhere is this really a good thing.
Ahh, Stephen, before you start throwing quotes around like “abuse” and “removed from the internet”, you should be well advised that some of the posts that appeared here recently, and subsequently moderated out, make any comments left in, appear very mild. I have happened to see a few that were, quite rightly, deleted very quickly.
As for anti-car, I worked in the industry for 20 years, love cars, have probably done many stupid things in them (esp in my teens and early 20’s), have driven at some very high speeds (race track) and can not see a day when I wouldn’t love to jump in a Lotus Elise and drive somewhere quickly. Having said that, I also want to be able to make getting around Auckland by PT (and cycling) part of my everyday life and can see the cost effectiveness at building the CFN network. Balance is what we seek.
Bryce, I assume you are referring to a rather hostile exchange between Blake, sailor boy and KLK with others chipping in with trolling comments at Blake and myself to try and pies us of.
You will note that you can go back to that discussion and see that Blake’s comments have either been deleted or rewritten by the admin to ridicule him whereas other comments were regular vile contributors to the party line have been able to openly use faul language without a hint of concern from the admins.
I will note for myself Dolores was able to start an open hate discussion about me which was given the green light even though I raised it as being completely off topic and just pure abuse.
I see Liz tried to do the same just up the page.
Actually, no, I wasn’t thinking of that at all. In fact, if you recall SF, rather than pouring scorn on you, I’ve made some positive comments about your posts in the past. I was thinking more of a couple of other posts that got deleted. I also do not like the way some people do appear to try and troll you, people that usually do not comment on this blog too often.
Your all good Bryce, apart from your dislike for us engineers who design the fundamental tools of society we seem to get along just fine.
You were actually in the other discussion I mentioned and proved to be about the only person to keep there cool.
SF, that has got to be the least accurate description of that conversation imaginable. Several of us were continually abused by someone asserting unbacked opinion as fact, we tried to correct the individual until he made a death threat against one of us at which stage we stopped engaging him.
Also, to one here is anti-engineer, we kjust realise that traffic and roading engineers have held the country to ransom for 60 years, and have lost a lot of respect for those individuals.
Sailor boy, the first thing you should notice that I went to no real effort to describe the conversation other than saying it was hostile. It’s strange that you say it wasn’t hostile given you also claim it had death thread which is evidentialy a lie as you can still clearly read there today that no such threats were made.
If you bothered to ever read what he said you will see he wad saying people such as himself being a builder have no use for ferries or buses.
In terms of trying to correct him the only thing you did was use faul language and try to ridicule him.
When I agreed with him saying that not everyone in Devonport has the one and only desire to travel to and from the CBD you claimed it was disingenuous and then went back to abusing Blake.
Much like the post you just made here you just came out with one abusive claim and then went on to create a fictional tale of a past event which is clearly more intentional lie than fact.
This in a nut shall is your general contribution to anyone who has a slightly different point of view. There are no questions, no clarifications but just a long trail of abuse the jumps from side to side avoiding the actual topic at hand.
Of course given your inflammatory posts are in support of the stated dogma the get wholesale approval which for better or worse leaves them visible for all to see. Including yourself for if you wish to try and count the number of constructive comments you have made in the past year and see if you need more than one hand to do so.
Thanks for your support Stephen.
I will point out that on post comment threads I tend to only have one small clarification to make for which I’m happy to head on my way. The issue I get is that some folk like to turn whatever I said back to front or invent some new argument thats not even related with a certain admin liking to come in from time to time to just post some wild abuse completely off topic.
A good example is in the peak car post where I made one comment that we can look forward to less congestion but has now turned into a 40+ post discussion of subsidies for roads coming from a mysterious benefactor.
“subsidies for roads coming from a mysterious benefactor”
One small clarification was hgiven, were you not happy, or are you a hypocrit.
Sailor boy, that post is already long enough on the other thread without bringing it to this one.
Ok, if you insist ‘mate’
SF Lauren,
The fact you dont understand (or choose not to understand) others arguments is your own problem. Dont go acting the victim when you try to debate something and others show what you thought were empirical facts to be nothing more than implicit value judgements!
Swan, you should know this from most of the discussions you and I have had but most of my posts seek to find the founding logic behind your case. If the logic can be demonstrated then I have little reason to contend.
For example yesterday you started off on the topic that rates payers subsidise roads, however after further investigation we found that your criticism was that roads were not charging people vast sums of money so that they could make large profits giving performance bonuses to the CEO and dividends to the share holders.
So in the end we found roads aren’t subsidised but more operated as a not for profit business, which is rather logical given they are the backbone of civilisation.
In a way it’s like me questioning why someone chose a particular faith, generally there is no tangible reason but it’s just a matter of faith with a few hip party slogansat can be given to people who don’t really care about the actual question or answer.
Actually that isnt what we found at all.
What we found was motorists used of large tracts of urban land that they had never paid for and were being subsidised vast sums as the council didnt charge a rent on said land. They are more operated like a not for profit charity where some philanthropist left a large land holding to the said charity to do with as they wanted.
In any case not sure why you dont want to address the points raised…
Well it’s good that you raise that point now rather in one of the previous 50.
Now the first issue you have there is that few roads are exclusive for motorised travel. Of the ones that are the land they were all build on was purchased, in fact pretty my all roads that exist are on land that was purchased.
That is true that the council does not charge rent for roads, but then they don’t charge rent for parks, harbours and various other crown owned land. If they did we would all have an annual rates bill of a few billion each until the cost of living in New Zealand expensive the land value crashed.
Of course what the council would do with this vast amount of rates money the brought in I don’t know. The council isn’t meant to be a private developer out there with the mayor trying to become a trillionare.
OK, so we are agreed, road users are subsidised. That is all I was trying to establish. It is an important point, that is all.
Actually I just worked it out that for just Auckland with an annual lease rate of $350/m2 that for 1.4 million Aucklanders the average annual rates bill would be $271,500 just for Auckland.
For New Zealand as a whole each of us would need to pay $18,047,369,940.
Well above the average salary.
And the benefactor is the government who kindly provides us all this crown land for free without charging rates.
I dont think the subsidy is that high – we are talking about road space not a penthouse apartment, but yes it will be significant.
But your rates might be right in downtown Auckland – I could imagine a street vendor being willing to pay that.
Would you be willing to pay that sort of money for your local park? Just for a cycle lane going past your one house alone you would be looking at an extra $12k. Unless everyone else along your cycle route also pays that money your $12k will be just money down the drain.
Of interest, in order to cover the rental cost on the Auckland rail network each passenger would need to pay about another $100 a day for their trip.
Personally, I dont think parks should be made user pays. They are a true public good in general (non-excludable, non-rivalrous) and have a lot of positive externalities associated with them.
Regarding cycleways/roadways/railways – it is best to think about opportunity cost when considering an appropriate number.
Quite right, if we removed all footpaths and cycleways and just have every mode of transport use the carriageway we could double Aucklands housing stock and make things much more affordable.
If we did a usage survey of public parks we would find they are a gross waste of lost rental profits, but like above I don’t think crown assets should be expected to make the same rate of return as private land. They are community assets which either add to the quality of the city or are vital for the city to have q hope of functioning.
If you were a reap user pays follower you would be happy to pay $500 for a train ride home at late night on a Monday however I have a feeling you would not be happy to pay such a sum.
I certainly agree with you that rail sticks out as being massively subsidised to the point where there would be virtually zero dand if it was run as user pays. Far bigger subsidies than roads. Which is why I am against investing in rail.
I would really encourage you to never go near Whale Oil or Kiwiblog (the two most widely read blogs in NZ). I went on there once (never again) with some arguments in favour of the CRL. The amount of abuse sent my way and the things said was amazing. I would definitely swing at someone if they said those things to my face.
If you think you would swing at someone for the comments made on here then you must be muc more thin skinned than me.
If you think the “abuse” on here is bad then I must say you will have a heart attack on those blogs.
Cetacean Blubber is the sewer of the NZ blogosphere, and Kiwi Blergh isn’t terribly far behind. Particularly when, as are you and I, one is used to the gentler environment of somewhere like PAS. The hosts are wildly partisan (anyone who thinks the guys who run this blog are biased ain’t seen nothin’ yet), and in the case of WO they allow anything to be posted. Hell, the host was found guilty of breaching court suppression orders. KB has slightly higher standards, but only inasmuch as there’s a higher standard in trying to make a fair comparison between Dubbyah and Obama as to who’s a bigger fan of the surveillance state.
Yes this blog has a distinct slant in favour of PT, and its residents (myself included) are not particularly welcoming of people who try and assert things that are directly at odds with our own observations of public transport in Auckland cf elsewhere. But abuse? Hardly. Calling someone a troll is, largely, as bad as it gets (at least that I’ve seen, though it sounds like I’ve missed some very heated exchanges). That said, people in here like real evidence or at least collectively-similar anecdotes. When one person tries to argue that PT in Auckland ain’t that bad, in the face of people who have lived extended periods of time in other cities and in the face of independent analysis of the cost and quality of PT in Auckland, that person isn’t going to get a good hearing.
In terms of the article that started this, even the 1955 Master Plan whilst rejecting the morning side deviation, did acknowledge the need for bus provision adjacent to the motorways and arterial roads. It also recommended new terminus and an e tension of rail in Victoria street. It also highlighted the need for really good coordination between rail and bus, but a significant reason why it didn’t support(excuse) was because the TAC didn’t think this co/ordination between bus and rail could occur. Sixty plus yeArs of prioritising roads and non investment has delivered what we have. Now is the time to pull together rather than fight over the detail. As this government relentlessly repositions legislation and investment to support its narrow agenda, this space is better served by good debate and information.
can i suggest to the owners of this blog and the many regular posters (of which I am not one) that they ignore the right wing trolls and their silly arguments of ‘freedom of speech’ and other red herrings. the concept of ‘freedom of speech’ relates to a right of the individual against the state. there is no such right against private individuals, if anything it contradicts itself – telling me not to tell you to shut up is interdicting my right to say what I want. But it isn’t freedom of speech, only a state can take that freedom away from you.
Right wingers say this stuff on forums when they have run out of other stock phrases.
For the record,some of your regular right whingers definitely are changing their positions on CRL and Auckland rail transport generally, when the blowtorch is applied to their lack of logic.
That is a fair comment, there a few people that ‘own’ this blog and they are entitled to run it as they see fit. But as this blog is seen by a lot of people and is starting to get a lot of new commenters it is clear that the admins do not like anybody who goes against what they think. This is not good and is becoming quite apparent as they childishly pour scorn on them, even to the point where people in the industry are talking about some of the stupid comments that are posted by the blog owners. Unfortunately, if the admins can’t see it they are deluded and will eventually start to lose reputable input and credibility. You really need to start embracing public debate rather than belittling it.
“People in the industry”? You mean the industry that has advised politicians and left us with a mass of, what I see as, poor transport spending? The industry that still lives within AT, that places car travel times above all else, even while residents are trying to make their neighbourhoods safer for pedestrians and people on bikes? I’ve got nothing to do with the industry but I’ve seen visions of how I would like to see Auckland develop for the next generation (including my 6 year old) to enjoy and thrive. This blog carries that same vision. Patrick, Matt etc, carry on. As you were!
I suspect that is a classic example of the sort of comments that do the blog little help.
Without actually working in the industry and knowing the processes it takes to paint a line the road and the numbers of locals that get upset at such a process that’s purely some uneducated abuse thrown at people who have spent the best part of their lives trying to satisfy the needs of the many. I’m sure it warms their hearts just like it does minett you think of use with such vile disconnect.
Actually, SF, I stand by it. I’m not abusing anyone, merely pointing out that I do not agree with the philosophy of the average traffic planner when it comes to moving Auckland’s population.
I have been trying to get a some kind of priority for local children to cross a, normally low volume residential street that sees large volumes of cars at school start / finish times and from the responses I’ve had so far, no one in AT gives a rats. The excuses have been pathetic. I’m just trying to help kids walk to school safely but if it affects how quickly a car can get in or out of a street, it’s a no go. If you think cars must have more priority than kids then that’s your call but I want to live in a city that values the independence of kids not just adults. Am I getting angry and frustrated – yes. If I happen to offend some transport planners feelings because I don’t share their belief that cars are the number 1 priority then, well, that’s life.
Bryce, two of your average traffic planners work on this blog being Nick and Stu.
I share you frustration with trying to get small changes with council however. I suspect that it’s more due to them trying to avoid a change unless they brought up the idea themselves. And in most cases it’s probably a junior person who has no real punch that responds to your requests.
EDITORS NOTE: Neither Nick or Stu are traffic planners. Nick is a public transport planner and Stu is a transport economist. Neither work on the blog either.
My request has made it up to the corridor management team (via a LB member request) and has filtered back down as a no. A cheap ‘zebra’ crossing would fix this problem but no one is interested. As per a crossing for Te Atatu Rd (Nth), the senior planner (West) basically said ‘not enough pedestrians’. I countered with ‘ why do you think that is?’ ‘Perhaps people don’t like crossing 4 lanes of traffic that has a 85th percentile of 61.5 kmh and 12k vpd?’. Blank stares. Grrrrrrr
And I only generalise with ‘traffic engineers’ (being specific as I have friends who are engineers in other fields) as how do I point out individuals when organisations, like AT, keep them at arms length from the public as much as is possible 🙂
Wow so what Bryce posted above is counted as abuse? I would have thought it was a comment on his frustraytoon with what he sees as a process and system that doesnt work very well.
So now we are not allowed to criticise system or processes? Sounds like Kafkaesque bureacracy gone crazy. I will have to mention that next time someone criticises the legal process in NZ to me.
Dont ever get involved in legal negotiations on major corporate deals. You will have to leave the room crying (which in my experience is not that effective a negotiation strategy).
Goosoid, who called it abuse? Did someone complain about it in another thread or write you an email?
I simply said it was a statement that didn’t help as in effect it was slander directed at the thousands of people who work hard to improve the city and the country that was generated through a few isolated experiences.
It’s a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. If you want some chocolate cake you don’t go round town telling everyone how much the cook sucks, you celebrate the things they have done well and ignore the bad.
Maybe because in Bryce’s opinion (and mine) the “thousands of people who work hard to improve the city and the country” have done a pretty piss poor job if what we have now is supposed to be an improvement.
You mean improved from the transport system we had in 1955? The one with a functioning tram system, nice leafy streets and very high usage of PT.
Um, thanks?
Yes and sitting arm chair at home were I don’t have to think about anything in detail and just make vague assumptions I think I could do a better job at everything than anyone else ever could ever do.
What I find funny about your guys talk of post WW2 PT usage is that you seem to think the 5000% increase that happened during the war was completely normal and that one can only expect a 10% reduction post war. Back in the real world however one could expect it to go back to doing what was happening before the war, and believe it or not that’s what happened.
The myth that everyone as all holding hands and singing songs on their tram rides to work and went to extreme lengths to avoid cars is just that. A myth.
I worked at the Auckland Regional Authority when De Leuw Cathers were working with our planners on this report. It was of course about the third report from the 1930’s onward to recommend a balanced transport plan. The powers that be plucked out the road section and ignored the rest. When the bridge opened in 1959 there was some tax / compensation deal arranged with the Devonport Steam Ferry Co that they would stop the ferry services except Devonport in exchange for compensation from the Harbour Bridge Authority. As a result, I lived in Bayswater at the time and we lost a good ferry service in exchange for a circuitous bus trip or car journey to the city.
The 63 report I recall recommended reinstating ferry services which took about thirty years to do.! Fifty years to electrify the trains…….progress
Thanks Richard, I didn’t know that about the ferries.
Thanks for highlighting these old reports – makes it just that much easier to explain to non-PT-supporters why it’s so important to have the CRL and CFN.
On the transport planning topic, I recently visited the Singapore City Gallery, which showcases the planning of the city and how they’ve managed to cope with a growing population and modernising the city (and building a good PT system), while at the same time keeping green areas and heritage areas. They have a fairly simple metro system, only 4 main lines (the rest is buses), so fairly similar to Auckland… excpet that it works! With brilliant frequency, low fares, and a large number of routes. They have plans for at least another 2 metro lines as well. Really interesting exhibit, and certainly worth visiting if in Singapore.
Riccardo, Why do you label people you do not agree with as ‘right wingers’ or ‘trolls’?
Freedom of speech is a basic human right that is not restricted to the right of an individual against the state. Chapter 8 of the NZ Human rights law ‘The right to freedom of opinion and expression Te tika kia watea te whakaputa whakaaro, korero’ states “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”
As for the CRL, whilst I personally think it is a great idea a number of Auckland institutions and business people do not http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10909156 I believe all opinions and concerns should be listened to and addressed in an adult and compassionate way. By labelling those you do not agree with you flame the blog and turn yourself into the very troll you express a desire to ignore.
Perhaps but Auckland Chamber of Commerce, Heart of the City and Federated Farmers have expressed their support. Some powerful lobbying groups there and hard to argue they dont understand business, profits or the factors that make a city successful.
Stephen, I don’t read that as ‘they don’t want the CRL’ more that, they have legitimate concerns over how it affects them during the project build and whether AT can mitigate the issues. Very similar in process to how the BOI worked for the Waterview project.
Could not agree more.
We need to have the courage to talk MORATORIUM – no more new motorways for 10-20 years while we focus available resources on building up our public transport system. Proponents of the status quo keep talking of a balanced system but at best this involves at least 2/3 of available funds going to the road network. The only realistic way to get to true balance between the different modes of transport is to deliberately transfer significant funding from roading projects.
For example, if we cannot reach agreement on new sources of transport funding by the time we want CRL construction to start (2016) we have the option of deferring major capital spend on new roading projects in order to fund our 50% share of the cost. At present AT has a budget of about $600 million each year – that is $2.4 billion over the 4 year construction programme for CRL. Diverting half ($1.2 billion) of that into the CRL would cover our share and still leave $1.2 billion for maintenance of existing roads, public transport subsidies and a limited programme of minor roading enhancements and safety measures.
If that is too difficult to sell politically then a less drastic version of this approach is to take say a third of AT’s budget for the CRL ($800 million over 4 years) – leaving a relatively manageable funding gap of about $400 million which could be debt funded (borrowed) or covered by new charges such as parking or fuel levies.
So while I agree that in the medium to long term we will need to find extra funding sources such as some kind of network charging, the funding gap need not be as great as we are told. And getting the first elements of the CFN in place need not break the bank.
Thanks Graeme: Exactly. To achieve balance from where we are now our funding needs to be radically shifted towards the missing modes. That is the policy implication of our analysis.
To reach equilibrium, to correct the current distortion, we have to invest in an unbalanced way; just in the opposite direction to the previous imbalance.
I think everyone agrees there is a bit of imbalance in the current road network. For a tweak with some paint lines we can all win. Left Lane on Motorway -Truck and Bus. Same on Arterials and put in cycle lanes at the same time, perhaps some specific freight roads. This way we are helping our industry, giving PT a turbo boost and freeing up the roads for car to drive on if you wish. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. For bang for buck do the maths. Changing the face of our whole network with some paint lines. If we are all sitting in congestion fumes going nowhere is this really a good thing. Actually we can change the balance with some roadmarking and a couple of signal tweaks probably within 4 months.Argue against this one we can rebalance without doing anything (in a one night operation) and then focus on PT big ticket items and the odd missing link in the road network. $10B Congestion Free Network, 0.5M Walking and Cycling, $1.5M multi-modal roading projects to strategic growth areas. No congestion for trucks and buses in 4 months time, then as the uptake in PT goes up level of service improves for car-probably quite quick.
It maybe a bit bold but isn’t this making the best of the network we have? Then making some smart direct decisions from here when very clear what we need to do. Think if marketed well and get a big gain in patronage not even the car mode will be disadvantaged even if down 1 lane.
It was always going to difficult turning the tide but think best done now with all of Auckland behind us. Im confident we have the brains to make this work for our city using just current maintenance budgets ie roadmarking and some signal tweaks.
Stephen jones, interpreting that as freedom of speech against private individuals is ridiculous, and will to greater civil discord. If you hold a one man protest in favour of your views on any street corner, i can organise 100 against to come with megaphones and ear muffs and make sure you never forget why we have limits on the carrying on of civil debate.
I doubt you’ll find a newspaper editor who would throw open their comments pages as broadly as you seem to think this blog should. Trolling is banned for a reason.
Forget the lines on the arterials now we start a fresh-change the mode balance. Left lane on the motorway exclusive for bus and truck. A new dawn and a new Auckland 14 Dec. Good things tend to favour the brave.
Actually I believe Auckland Transport was already doing corridor management plans.Probably some solutions along these lines worked out already-suggest a base might be there for some, I’m floating a rapid implementation on all of them plus all the missing ones. Getting Auckland for one massive change. Imagine the difference and the savings in time/effort seeing the network work the way it should not putting up with paint marks that we know are just wrong and probably hadn’t been thought of as a overall strategy leading to a rapid passenger network or maximised for freight or a cycling network..
Yes they may be doing corridor management plans but they are consistent with a traditional NZ transport planning paradigm
Why worry about running wounded with network which we havn’t even prioritised yet in its current form let alone future roading projects. An instant fix will be so much less painful for everybody and our wallet. If done I conjunction with cheap easy integrated ticketing actually gets the shift and swings momentum on 1 day. Just think about it. Anyway better focus on work now but good to the see the master plan moving ahead.
From experience did we tackle Auckland CBD one pothole at a time when fixing most of the city streets with live pedestrians for the APEC conference. No we smashed it bro with all arsenal we could grab!!!
Free flow bus, free flow trucks for some painted symbols on the motorway. Ditto on the arterials and a complete cycle network.. And probably cars may not even be affected that much if we can supercharge a smart network and get cheap easy fares. Then it will only keep improving as more people jump on PT and see the speed benefits and we are working with a network that is running as it should not on a plan and we don’t even know where we should be spending the money… not adding more lane on Pak highway for a start? Emissions down 50% overnight and will keep rising. Interested in any counter argument.
Why is Auckland not prepared to change for some paint lines. Stifling any chance of PT growth which then leads to reducing cars in the grid, leaving trucks in cues, and cyclists fending for survival on some unmarked arterials. Time for a new footprint and think we can make a massive change in the right direction with a mass-scale roadmarking and signal optimisation operation. Imagine the savings by a TV Campaign, cheap fares and just advising things will happen.
In my mind once a route is clear for PT then the only limitation is plant. If the high frequency loops are with interconnecting stops like what Auckland Transport is thinking southern area and we do this all round linking the main loops primarily to rail and another ancillary down the motorway if one lane is free. What could be the instant patronage gains? Then the other limitation is an easy fare like $5 off-peak anywhere in Auckland or $70 per month. On-peak double this. Within a couple of months the effect of one lane lost to PT could be gone and we are down to no congestion full stop. Then we are already for even bigger gains later with rail efficiencies even with a bigger population. Think if we do this positive step now will be good all round.
When I mean motorways I mean all of them and return other side.
Whats a bus 14m long-50 people. (3.5people per m)
Whats a car 5m long-normally 1 or 2 say 2. (0.4 people per m) almost 9 time better use of space for a bus even considering 2 people in a car.
In my very rough theory 9 times the capacity potential for a bus mode vs a car mode..
After 2 months congestion free.
A further 4 months we are up at 30% patronage.
30% of fares now goes towards phasing in a green fleet like the designline buses,I think ( solar/hybrids) our Christchurch guys are doing for Adelaide I think. If light rail is the favoured option this starts getting rolled out also.
We are now a model city and have turned things around. Other cities will follow.
North Atlantic current stabilised-not change in balance from salt water to fresh water from caps melting.
Even if this isn’t the case like the film “Day after Tomorrow”-30 day ice age not isn’t this a better way forward and probably more sustainable and cheaper?
This is what Aspergers does sometimes.
Now if everybody is happy with the model and the end game can we do this?
Step 1-Mandate from the Mayor himself to deliver this in plan form from this blog and working with Auckland Transport.
Step 2- TV Campaign “Smashing Congestion” David Tua and Mitre 10 guy. Mayor and AT chairman talk about cheap fares and te proposed rapid roll-out starting with a roadmarking programme. Also announcement on Campbell live show as a follow up to the problem and that we are hitting it with all arsenal Auckland has-all working together-one shot at a massive game breaker.
Step 3- We maximise all routes (wind up this thing to the max and get it out of second gear) with the end game in mind. Work with AT ops, PT and Walking and Cycling.
Step 4-Implementation phase 1-roadmarking and signal change co-incided with cheap easy fares.
Mode shift done-imbalance sorted towards a greener Auckland using all modes. Everybody happy and no emissions in no time. I personally think do-able and this problem can be tackled it just needs to be smashed in one concerted movement.
On the fare side I guess if you have an off-peak monthly pass $70 and you need to travel peak hour only a couple of times the difference is a $5 charge (the diff in the peak rate) or if you are a regular peak commuter just pay the $140 per month. Students $70 off-peak and on-peak. Key think overall I guess is something cheap,fair and spreading the demand out. Think a key part of the whole patronage gain as well as the service/speed going through the roof. Think patronage at 30% could be do-able in 6 months after network repriorisation if network is really humming. Maybe Im just crazy but I can actually visualise it working free flow all motorways and arterials t, then interconnecting loops all over the network ie you will need to hop to another link sometimes on the next corner.
I remember from the Auckland Transport clip that they said there is currently 1000 buses. If they are all doing interconnecting loops at speed what is that? And what is the emission reduction? Then we phase in greener transport when it starts paying into positive. then we have trains starting to fire up. Just paints a better alround picture to me.
If the public transport is the solution to the problem shouldn’t they have priority over the current road network in it’s current form, goal unimpeded………..Do we have a mandate yet? Or do I have to keep going?
If trucks are not held up on the motorways or arterials, again what is the savings in emissions and the increase in production/efficiency, benefit gains? I wander?
I’d rather work towards the solution than trying to get a mandate. I must admit the brain cells didn’t get in alignment for me until a few days after seeing the congestion free network and thinking why not now…we have the road? We just have to fire up the PT mode as fast as possible without making a negative impact overall. And I think by roadmarking only, gaining 1 lane only shared for bus/truck ,cheap fares to immediate gains we can do that.
I saw the tweet on Queen St. If we were to undertake a complete overhaul by roadmarking maybe other solutions for here could be considered as part of the overall rapid passenger, freight,cycleway strategy-or in this case walking strategy or maybe shared space and just work around it?. Think we just tell all of Auckland a new network-come up with the best plan-paint it all round reprioritise the whole caboodle.
If we can get off the ground with a mandate. Suggest we have a separate team on town centre nodes , freight, rapid passenger transport, Then an overall team looking at the strategy, cycling and walking putting it all together-manipulating clashes etc, working with traffic operations. I was originally thinking parts of the compass but probably specialist areas best.
Just hold back on hydrogen cars a moment (not saying not fantastic but probably step 2). Does Auckland want to change for the better?. By prioritising what we already have in our roading infrastructure which we have already bought as a city in one go I think would be a phenomenal start. Take the restriction valve off public transport by giving one lane shared between buses and trucks with some paint. Free it up and our roads. Otherwise we are investing on tack ons to get the balance. Why not just balance here and now and save our wallet and emissions plus making the roads a better environment for everybody? Paint on the seal width what we want don’t try and manipulate what is already there and model improvements against that? Paint the end result on the seal/asphalt, fire up the whole 1000 buses with priority to get the patronage up and the target share, see the difference.
There is another way not the status quo. Probably by June next year if we reprioritise the existing network, say Dec 14 without even adding 1 bus we could be at 30% mode share on public transport if it was reasonably priced, freedom/easy to hop around the whole city with 1pass, and as free flow a network as we can get it. Sure the oil companies may not like it but there is!!!!
Is the Mayor green focussed, want a liveable city and bold to do it or not? This is the question? Because I know I can fix it with everybody working towards it and the city behind us.
Are we more interested in keeping the earth in balance or feeding the oil companies? This is the next question and quite on the mark.
It just seems to me that the oil companies are just trying to slow the phase in of a greener way of life to promote their own business. All this technology was around 15 years ago, hydrogen powered cars, all sorts? So NZTA can we have 1 lane on the motorway for buses or trucks so they can go free flow or not?
If we re-prioritise the network say Dec15 get the patronage gains over xmas it maybe Congestion Free right there by the time by the time tested to max again end of Jan 2014 if we can really squeeze the max out of the network and we have freedom for at least 1 lane on motorways and arterial to be converted. This is if Auckland wants to and can see the problem?