We spend a huge amount of money on transport each year and it can often be difficult to see exactly where all of that money is going. Thankfully the NZTA have started to become much more proactive in what information they release to the public and have actually been publishing the details online. As a note, it’s my understanding that the agency have realised that in many cases it is much less work for them to publish the information than have to constantly respond to various official information requests. The only down side is that sometimes the information can be hard to find.
One of the pieces of info they are now releasing happens to be transport expenditure levels broken down by activity class (i.e. new roads, maintenance, PT etc.), year, region and local authority. For each of these it also shows the spending by both the NZTA and by local authorities. The level of detail available is excellent and allows for the data to be analysed from many different angles. For me the biggest downside is that the data only covers the last 10 financial years as I would love to be able to get a much greater history and OIA requests just point me back to this data. I have already noticed that data from the 2002/03 year that has dropped off the tables despite it being there just a few months ago (although luckily I had copied it before it disappeared).
With this post I’m just going to focus on the data for Auckland. First up, here is the total amount spent of transport in Auckland over the last 11 years including both NZTA and local projects. The only spending I believe isn’t included would be the money spent on project DART and Electrification as/are paid for directly by the government (although the the loan for the trains and depot is being paid out of the operational budgets). You can see spending has increased from just over $400 million in 2002/03 to peak at $1.35 billion in the 2009/10 years which was also when a lot of big motorway projects were in full swing (Hobsonville Deviation, Manukau Harbour Crossing, SH20-SH1 at Manukau, Victoria Park Tunnel, Newmarket Bridge replacement). Of course many of those projects were being rushed so the city could cope with the influx of visitors bringing their cars with them for the Rugby World Cup in 2011.
In total terms the area that has seen the largest increase is new and improved roading infrastructure which is probably hardly a surprise to anyone however the percentage share of spending on PT has actually increased from 14% to 27%.
And here is the table with from which the graphs above are derived from. One of the things you can see is that more money is spent on administration than on the cycling network
While the percentage of money spent on PT increased, the total amount of spending on roads at a much more dramatic rate. The next graph shows the spending between local roads and state highways. Maintenance, Operations and Renewals come under the name Ops. As you can see there has been a bit of a surge in local road spending in the last year however it is dwarfed by the amount of money going to the state highway network. It also follows the smallest year in recent times so I wonder if is a bit of a mix up in the data.
Lastly many people like to compare how much money is being spent in Auckland with the rest of the country. It has often been said that Auckland was under invested in years and that the current spending is just to get Auckland back slightly towards more of an even figure. The graph below shows the percentage of money spent in Auckland with the rest of the country. To do this I have already removed the spending by local authorities like Auckland Transport. Currently we spending is roughly around 36% of total nationwide spending.
What is clear from all of this is that we are spending an absolutely huge amount of money on transport in the region and huge portions are going to build new state and improved motorways. What we really need to do is to spend our money better (and this includes PT where possibly huge efficiency gains are possible through better infrastructure with more bus priority).
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Combining this post with the one you did on CFN financing recently highlights the really interest situation that even with a National government that hates PT we have about the same proportion of transport funding on PT now (27%) as the total over the next 30 years under the ITP (28%).
So much for a transformational shift in the future.
The walking and cycling figure seems amazingly low – which explains a few things! Would be good to see a comparison with other similar cities such as Adelaide, Perth etc.
What exactly is the administration figure comprised of and how much is actually completed internally? Outsourcing is to be expected but it seems massive.
http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/about-us/ProcurementAndSuppliers/ProfessionalServicesRegister/Documents/ATProfessionalServicesRegister.pdf
http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/about-us/ProcurementAndSuppliers/Awarded-Contracts/Documents/AwardedContracts.pdf
To stay away from road tolls ie a $12 B we need to be invested about 83% PT (Congestion Free Network) and 4% on walking and cycling and 13% on multi-modal roading arterial to growth areas or fixing up gaps needed for PT. .New budgets focussing on the CFN ($10B), Walking and Cycling ($0.5B) and new multi-modal arterials to growth areas $1.5B) .
Does that table show capital expenditure or operating expenditure?
Because for demand management, there appears to be zero of the former (as highlighted above) and approximately $15m of the latter. Which is a tiny fraction of a giant road-building budget, but at least it’s something.
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/Plans/LongTermPlan/VolumeTwo/section_1341865638149.html
It is both. I’d guess that demand management was moved into the road ops grouping.
Interesting that Auckland gets around 36% of spending, which is fairly proportionate population wise.
Some would say that’s fair – but personally I think it is a waste to be spending money where there is little to no growth – Auckland should be getting much more.
I also imagine that with a higher average salary than most areas, and with a lot of company headquarters, Auckland probably pays more than 36% of the total tax take too.
We don’t (at least, out loud) run the government on the principle that people who pay more in taxes deserve more in government services, and a good thing that is too.
Auckland does need more in transport spending per person than other areas, but I think the fairest way to do that is with specific regional taxes for areas that need/want more spending. If some regions are happy with the transport system they have, it seems reasonable not to make them pay more for Auckland’s benefit. Having a lower tax rate compared to Auckland would also provide a bit more incentive for growth in provincial NZ.
In practice, that probably just means a higher fraction of transport projects funded out of rates rather than petrol tax. For example, NZTA could refuse to fund highway improvements above 50% unless there’s an advantage to inter-regional traffic – which would be consistent with how PT improvements are funded. That would mean that AWHC and the East-West link for example wouldn’t be totally central government funded, if they even happened at all. It would have the excellent side benefit of encouraging Auckland Council not to support every possible road project – since they’d be paying for half the cost.
We could also have network charging for Auckland’s motorways, with an exemption for traffic that goes the whole way across the city without getting off the highway, and half-price if only one end of the trip is in Auckland.
When the City and the Government go 50:50 in a project like the CRL, which of course means ratepayers and taxpayers going 50:50, Aucklanders, because they are also a third of the taxpayers actually pay 67% [34% of 50% = 17% + 50% = 67%].
NZTA and AT should be looking at this: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-13/bikenomics-how-bicycling-can-save-the-economy
And maybe this as well: http://www.bikede.org/2011/03/21/for-the-equivalent-cost-of-a-single-mile-of-freeway-we-have-a-bike-infrastructure/
The BCR on cycle infrastructure is huge. Not that the government cares as its decisions are based on ideology, not evidence.
This claim was checked and is pretty much true when compared to the cost of an urban freeway: http://www.politifact.com/oregon/statements/2011/mar/19/sam-adams/portland-mayor-sam-adams-says-portlands-spent-its-/
“The mayor could have been a little more exact, but his statistic — that Portland has spent on its bikeway infrastructure what it would spend on a mile of freeway — seems to stand up to scrutiny. We’ll give this one a Mostly True.”
One issue with these charts, they should read “Transport Expenditure in Auckland” as currently they imply it’s AT’s spending when in reality there has been a huge increase in NZTA spending.