Whenever there is public discussion on projects that improve the rail network – whether it be electrification or the city rail link – we often see comments to the effect of “but it doesn’t do anything to help the North Shore”. We’ve written a number of posts in the past that look at this issue and primarily commented on the CRL as benefiting the North Shore by removing buses from CBD streets from parts of the region near the rail network, therefore freeing those streets up for more buses from places like the Shore. From next week I’ll be working on the Shore and it’s made me think about this some more. What I’ve realised is that projects like the CRL help the North Shore in another, and perhaps an even more important way than just allowing more for buses to head to the CBD.

That other way it helps the Shore is through access to employment. Let me explain.

It’s generally accepted by most people that some of the main benefits of the CRL are that it provides significant extra transport capacity to the CBD and that it reduces travel times by providing stations closer to where more employment is located, this is especially the case for the western line which no longer would have to have to go the long way through Newmarket. Those benefits are said to double the number of people within a 30 minute trip of the city centre. What is often forgotten is that those travel time savings also benefit anyone going from the North Shore to other parts of the region. So why is that useful?

We’ve talked a lot recently about land use planning and one of the common arguments we hear is that we should focusing on having more jobs closer to where people live so that they don’t have to travel as far. As I’ve said before, it’s a nice theory but ignores the fact that often certain jobs are only located in specific places and often one of the key reasons businesses choose to locate where they do is for access to the labour pool. The CBD might not be the exact geographical centre of the city but it is the area that overall is easiest to access from the most places in the region. That means businesses in the CBD have access to a huge potential pool of employees. This can be shown quite usefully using mapnificint with the map below showing how far someone could travel PT and walking up to 45 minutes from Britomart. You can see it covers all of the Isthmus along with large parts of North and West Auckland, the area surrounding southern line train stations and up towards Howick in East Auckland.

Isthmus travel distance

By comparison if we look at the distance we could travel within 45 minutes from a regional centre like Takapuna – which is only really a relatively short distance away – the difference is dramatic. The North Shore is well covered along with the CBD and fringe suburbs, there is also a little bit of coverage in the North West. What’s not covered is the rest of the Isthmus and West Auckland and none of South or East Auckland. All of this means that businesses in Takapuna have a much smaller pool of potential employees to choose from and that could be crucial in enabling them to be more productive.

Takapuna travel distance

Of course there are a couple of issues to clarify here. Many people would probably be prepared to travel more than 45 minutes, I just chose that timeframe to explain the point and people could always drive – although they would likely have to battle with CBD bound traffic for part of their trip.

With benefits of electrification and the CRL combined, travel time to the city centre could drop by over 15 minutes from some parts of the rail network to the city centre and while that’s good for the CBD, it’s positive for other parts of the region too. Making it easier to get to places like the Shore will help encourage more businesses to set up there and the primary beneficiary of that will be those who live in the area. While I’ve talked about people getting to the North Shore, it also can help improve the options for someone might live on the Shore wanting to travel further than the CBD.

Share this

52 comments

  1. I’d put it in a different way: We need accommodation for people closer to where they work. Something which Auckland seems to disallow and appears to want to continue to do in the future (cf the zoning for the suburbs closest to the city centre – Parnell, Epsom, Mt Eden, Mt Albert, Kingsland, Arch Hill, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn… as per the latest version of the unitary plan). My point is that these suburbs need to accept forced densification for the good of Auckland.

    1. Employment should follow lifestyle, not lifestyle follow employment. The more we allow development to be dictated by the business community, who love to cram all the jobs into one small area to the detriment of us all (pushing the price of everything ever upward), the more we will distance ourselves from the kiwi lifestyle that most people yeard for.

      Forced densification? Leave the dictatorships to North Korea and Cuba. Aucklanders have already spoken on that issue, loud and clear.

      1. Jacques that was probably poor wording. Allowed densification. The current regulatory environment equates more to forced sprawl by way of exclusive zoning, density limits and minimum parking requirements chewing up valuable land and pushing everything away from each other, and pushing the price of everything ever upward (especially land and transport by requiring more of both).

        Forced sprawl? “Leave the dictatorships to North Korea and Cuba”. Aucklanders who will still be alive in the city we are building for 2040 have already spoken on that issue, loud and clear. Sadly Aucklanders who will be dead by then have overruled them (and are ironically getting a monopoly on agglomerated high-density lifestyles in the form of retirement villages – look at Ranfurly and that one between North Shore Hospital and Smales Farm amongst others).

        1. “Aucklanders who will still be alive in the city we are building for 2040 have already spoken on that issue, loud and clear”

          I don’t think that’s true at all. There was no loud and clear call from pro-UPers of any sizeable quantity. There was silence from 99% of younger folk, who frankly, probably don’t care much how the city develops. All the young people I know are busy working and saving toward their goal of buying a house in the suburbs, so I don’t see any change from the kiwi norm further down the road.

        2. Perhaps you shouldn’t claim to know the views of 99% of younger folk based on what you think some young people you know are doing.

          Generation Zero campaigned massively on the Unitary Plan in Auckland, going along to just about every neighbourhood meeting. They have thousands of members, far more than any nimby group like Auckland 2040.

        3. Besides which, the younger generation were probably a lot more likely to make a written submission rather than turn up to a meeting dominated by noisy NIMBY’s.

        4. “I don’t see any change from the kiwi norm further down the road.”

          Geoff you don’t see any change because you are only looking in the mirror. It is a mistake for anyone to generalise their own views into ‘the norm’, and it is a mistake doubled to then claim that this position will never change.

          “All the young people I know”

          That’s obviously a narrow group selected by their commonality to your social circle that is of no statistical value. Just as convincing as me claiming that 100% of my household says Pinot is better that Syrah. So what.

          And ‘forcing’ is what we have now; forced dispersal. More forcing isn’t the answer to anything. I can’t agree with Jacques in that sentence. Much more and widespread ‘allowing’ is generally what is the editorial position here.

          Generally allowing development where there is demand while encouraging better land use through smart infrastructure investment and regulation.

        5. “It is a mistake for anyone to generalise their own views into ‘the norm’”

          The norm is not an opinion, it is a fact of how most kiwis live. Most kiwis want to live in a house, with those wanting to live in apartments being a minority. In most towns and cities it’s almost 100% the former.

          You’re incorrect that there is forced dispersal. Anyone can choose to live in an apartment or a house. High density living is the result of poor planning, by creating a demand for lots of people to be in a small area when the infrastructure cannot cope with that demand. Can’t easily travel to/from that small area, so try to live there instead. Result? High demand for ever decreasing property sizes at ever increasing prices = Failed system.

          Places like Napier have planning rules to prevent this from happening. Nobody can build a skyscraper there, because the transport infrastructure wouldn’t cater for it. By avoiding the creation of such a problem, the city maintains the kiwi lifestyle for all its residents, keeps it affordable, and avoids transport problems. Everything else is cheaper too, because businesses don’t have to try to recoup high rents and rates from their customers.

          Large cities are supposed to offer economies of scale, but they actually do the opposite. Economies of scale for big businesses and their rich overseas owners, but higher prices for residents and workers.

        6. Geoff just putting aside your quaint ideas about what cities are and why they exist everywhere in every post-Stone Age society (hint- economies of scale are real). The big thing you are not grasping is about how change happens.

          You keep setting out to demolish some claim that all Aucklanders want to live in apartments. But this is a claim no one is making. They don’t, and they won’t. What is happening is that a significantly higher number are finding that apartment, or terrace house, or other more intense arrangement is their best option. And that this is a significant change from before. That’s all. Many of these people have priorities that are probably a little different to yours and ‘everyone you know’. They are willing to sacrifice big gardens for the advantage (as they see it) of city proximity. You aren’t; great, and maybe your view is still the majority, but that doesn’t make the views of others invalid.

          Many people will never see the inside of a unit, let alone a tower block. Almost the entire existing detached housing stock that currently exists in Auckland will go on as it is and be filled with happy households. But we are already seeing that a big proportion of new dwelling stock now being added is of a different typology. Of the kind that you ‘can’t see’ by looking around your outer subdivision.

          This is how change in cities happens, only sometimes through the removal of what currently exists (wars, natural disasters, Baron Haussmann), much more often through accretion; the addition of the next type of living arrangement to the mass of the current ones, and the ones before that.

          This is an undeniable trend in Auckland, already observable, and in fact entirely predictable and unsurprising because it follows the form of most other conurbations as they more from provincial town scale to city scale. This is the current trend, the sprawl age is over, which means we are now no longer ONLY sprawling, not that no sprawl will happen again, and especially not that the previous age’s form somehow disappears.

          Additionally we do still have the planning regs and infrastructure investment habits from the previous age, so dispersal is in fact still subsidised. There are more barriers to intensity than to endless tracks of vapid tract housing at the edge of town.

          Change is not synchronous: some places will barely witness it, and that will suit many. No need for people to feel so threatened by it, especially as it is always there: Change; the only unchanging thing.

        7. On a slightly related note, I’m typing this from a nice-sized three-bedrooom apartment in Sydney. Auckland needs more larger apartments – I really don’t understand why they’re so rare. I’ve only ever been in one, in the Morning Star complex, St Lukes.

  2. Matt seems to me the benefit of this is based on an assumption that being able to have and/or actually having people travel to Takapuna (using your example) from all over Auckland to do their job “more” skillfully/productively is better for them, their employer, Auckland and NZ Inc overall – than the alternative option of the same job either was not performed there, or was performed (perhaps less efficiently), by a “more local” worker, who does spend up to 1.5 hours a day commuting to their employment.

    Certainly from a GDP perspective, having people travel longer distance to do their jobs means they and other organisations spend money on travel (petrol, PT fares, cars, trains, buses, motorways,roads etc)

    But is that “induced” travel related spending actually a better economic and social outcome overall?

    I don’t know, but while having a bigger pool of people to draw from might seem more attractive to the employer it may only be that – a “self-interested” better outcome only.

    Agree that people travel for more than work, but the “bigger pool of talent” argument has been used time and again to sell the reason for why the motorways and sprawl we have now were justified.

    Maybe we need to challenge the base assumption thats built on?

  3. Now that the most of the CBD employment is moving to the Viaduct (AC the exception) it is 11 minutes Takapuna to Air NZ House via Esmonde buslane.

    1. Erm I think most is quite a stretch, it’s actually about 5% of CBD employment at the viaduct or Wynyard. Even when it is fully built out it would only be about 15%.

  4. As regular traveller between Takapuna and the city centre during working hours for business purposes, I gave up using the bus. The problem was that the busway stations and Takapuna central are too far separated (2+ km from Esmond or Smales stations to Halls Corner) and the bulk of buses travelling from central Auckland northward use the busway. I would sometimes wait upwards of 20 minutes on Fanshawe Street just to get on a bus that went through Takapuna central, while watching bus after bus go past that either headed north on the busway or headed west towards Birkenhead and Glenfield. Takapuna suffers from being too far removed from the main public transport route. It’s now just a detour. This must be why employment in Takapuna has relocated and why Smales Farm exists. Strange that we separate the major centre for the North Shore from the most successful public transport initiative the Shore has. Maybe they can sort it out when they review the northern region bus routes and schedule.

    Myles – it might be 11 minutes Takapuna to Air NZ House (provided no traffic in Takapuna or Esmond Rd) but can be up to 45 minutes at times heading the other way!

    1. It is also why the new network is going to be of such importance. A quick local bus trip to Akoranga, followed by a quick trip on the NEX into the city would reduce your overall trip time and also improve reliability.

        1. But there is no material that tells travellers that this is an available and viable option. You need to figure it out on your own. Information is a real issue here.

    2. There should be a bus every 15 minutes to Takapuna Central, however the lack of bus lanes and congestion along Albert St make these rather unreliable.
      NEX’s run every 10 minutes, so not a huge difference there.
      Is true the bus network has been too slow to adjust to the introduction of the busway, and also the varying employment areas on the North Shore.
      As Bryce said, New Network will make things much better, giving options for regular services from Smales and Akoranga linking with NEX, as well as the direct Takapuna services.
      Also extending Devonport services to Constellation should be a big help too.

      1. Luke, we don’t need a bus every 15 minutes from the central city to Takapuna. We need at least every 15 minute services between Akoranga Station and Takapuna (and beyond) with the same from Smales farm. And we need a fares system which does not penalise people for swapping buses (or bus/train etc). The idea is every 5 minutes on the RTN (NEX) and lots of services feeding off it at the busway stations. What we have is the same old pre busway routes. As far as I know only one service from elsewhere on the Shore terminates at Akoranga rather than Takapuna – the 843. And guess what, AT earlier this month cut the frequency from 30 minutes to once an hour rather than promoting the service!! Would be good to get all those idling noisy diesels out of the Takapuna business area.

        1. Nick, exactly – the same old pre busway routes! The 875/879 runs about 200m from my house and then through two busway stations as it ambles towards the city. But if I dare change at Smales farm to the NEX for a faster trip into the city (saving the tortuous deviation via Takapuna) I get charged another fare! Plain stupidity. Except at peak times (when they run as express and not via Takapuna anyway) they should instead be true feeders to the RTN. So instead I walk the 1.2km to Sunnynook Bus station to get NEX and the walk plus NEX trip takes a lot less time than the meandering 875/879.

        2. None of those buses stop at Akoranga at all. Trust me I catch them at least twice a week

        3. We’ll count yourself lucky, most of the time I get hourly service on the 839 (or hourly on the dreaded 858), or a three km walk to constellation.

          But anyway that is all academic, the New Network has a tem minute feeder all day between Takapuna and Akoranga, and better than that between Takapuna and Smales Farm. They’ve already fixed it.

        4. You walk along Constellation? I did that a couple of weeks ago. What a very unpleasant experience.

    3. Actually it wasn’t planned to be like that. Part of the reason the motorway alignment was chosen was to serve the then proposed sub-regional centre at the Northcote interchange. Halls Corner businessmen opposed the new centre (guess why) and got themselves elected with Fred Thomas as Mayor in order to stop the centre. It is now a golf course called AF Thomas Park. Ever since Takapuna has been the sub-regional centre and the motorway has been where it is. Albany was then planned as a sub-regional centre, not because it was a good location but because it was far enough away not to affect Takapuna much. Local politics has always been a murky business.

      1. Not necessarily a bad thing. Revamp it as a services (cafe’s, restaurants) and niche (ind retail) district. It has the beach. Leave big box to Albany. I’d rather visit Takapuna any day. Just needs a dedicated, easy to distinguish, PT link from Akoranga (kinda like the Inner Link or City Link).

  5. I would like to apologise for all these North Shore people who don’t understand importance of city rail link to the overall public transport in Auckland. Even in today’s North Shore Times, there’s a letter to editor which mentions that for the same price it would be better to build the under-harbour-tunnell and that would include rapid-rail… hmmmm… some of the shorite people just don’t get it… Thanks for putting it straight Matt, so how do we get AT on board to explain the importance of CRL to North Shorites… posters on the buses? what else???

    1. Don’t apologies for me Stranded. I live and work on the shore and have yet to even use the train system in Auckland in 14yrs of living here. It just is not relevant to me. If I have a function to go to in the city I travel off peak normally, or if I have a meeting likewise its generally off peak and I plan meetings around it. I travel to projects often. The CRL will be off no benefit to me, that’s the reality. I live and work close to home and I’m in a profession where I can do that. Even when I worked in the city for many years, the public transport system was just not practical given site visits, not that I have not used it in Auckland, but its always taken longer than driving to get from where I was working/living to where I had to go. Everytime.

      And before you dismiss me as someone who does not like public transport, I used rail in Wellington every day for about 10years for travel and bus, so a decent rail link to the shore I would use. Bus is not necessarily an option. My wife has used bus at times to the city from Oteha Valley, but it has always taken longer, and at times the trip has been horrendous with drivers racing and seeming to be in some childhood fantasy of being racing drivers!, or heaters blazing full bore in summer in hot stinking buses. As a result she has now gone back to the car to travel in.

      1. Well even if you don’t take the train, CRL will benefit by allowing lots more people around the isthmus to take the train, and thus decongests roads and parking. I’m sure it will also be very popular for people catching the NEX to change for a 5 minute trip to K Road or Grafton. Already many people take the Buses or Ferry from the North Shore to Britomart then get on trains heading to Newmarket, Ellerslie and Sylvia Park for obvious examples.

        1. My mum works really close to the K Road station, she wold love the CRL. Drive to Constellation, NEX to Britomart,Train to K Road and walk to work down from an hour minimum driving to probably 45 minutes, most of it on PT,able to read or surf the web. Glamour.

  6. I see the CRL as a benefit to all of Auckland but the level of benefit is much smaller for most people on the shore. I for one only use the train to go to Eden Park and will never use it for anything else. Doesn’t mean I begrudge paying for some of it but I still want the cross harbour tunnel because that is going to be a huge benefit for me.

    1. The Cross Harbour Tunnel will very helpfully speed you to Spaghetti Junction congestion! Already traffic from the shore heading west backs up to the Victoria Park area.

    2. A reasonable stance, but you have to consider that the CRL will cost in the order of $2b and directly serve about a million people, while a harbour tunnel would cost in the order of $5b and directly serve 0.2 million people.

  7. I live on the Shore and I see the completion of CRL as a benefit for the whole of Auckland. I do use the train at times. Although I work from home some of the time I also work in Glen Innes at times (four days next week) I will use NEX from Sunnynook and the train to Glen Innes station. Total travel time is no more than 45 minutes. Will be less with CRL as increased frequency. By car at 0715 in the morning that can be 90 minutes, especially as you sometimes spend the first 25 minutes waiting for the ramp lights at Tristram Avenue. Big disappointment is the return journey at rush hour (not the train but the bus) where the NEX gets stuck in traffic along Fanshawe Street (to be recitifed in 3 months we are told!!) and then getting onto the busway at Esmonde road. The northern busway should be seen in conjunction with the rail network and CRL as part of our RTN with it treated as a whole. For me the RTN on the Shore ends at Constellation Station. Further north is a shambles for the buses and needs sorting as well. Another important feature of CRL will be its use around the central city by people during the day including city workers who live on the North Shore.

  8. Precisely Patrick – despite the silo dwellers, everybody in Auckland benefits and it is foolish to say that because somebody lives in abc and won’t use the xyz bridge/road/train/bus that the city should not build it. Personally I don’t go to the shore so perhaps I should oppose the harbour bridge, ferries, roads and the north shore rubbish collection for that matter.

      1. Did you realise other parts of Auckland were already paying substantially higher rates that others in the first place and guess what, the max rate of decreases were lower than the fixed rate if increases. One big city now.

  9. I don’t see why I should pay for any roads on the North Shore: I never use them. And don’t get me started on Howick/Pakuranga; why we need any roads there at all is beyond me. They are of no use to me at all.

    1. Exactly. You could take this approach to every item of local government and national expenditure. Christchurch rebuild? Na – never go there. Public hospitals? Nope – I’m not sick. Actually this is the slippery slope the Orakei Local Board are hovering over. They’re busy arguing that they contribute more rates than anyone else so therefore should get more spent in their area than any other part of the city. The logical outcome of this is that the poorer burbs shouldn’t get libraries and pools etc. This whole approach of course is fundamentally hostile to the concept of community/society.

      1. I’m not sure why the burghers of Orakei Ward would care if the poorer suburbs don’t get amenities and infrastructure. After all, it’s not like they ever go there.

      2. Take a look at the PT options east of Mission Bay and tell me why people there shouldn’t be disappointed with what they get.

        That’s by no means saying no one else should have anything but a lot of services out here stop early and until very recently, many didn’t show up at all.

        They’ve gotten better recently, but that’s only been an improvement to what they actually should have been all along. There was a good quote tweeted by TransportBlog about how a city’s prosperity isn’t measured by whether the poor can afford cars, it’s whether the well-off use PT.

        1. True – they don’t much support the liberty part of libertarian. ACT do not support liberalised drug laws, liberalised immigration – they haven’t really even supported increasing property rights by loosening planning regulation in existing urban areas.

  10. Thats what i find funny with the rightwingers like Phil, Geoff and co who post here. They don’t believe in freedom at all! If i have enough land and money to build a skyscraper, they would prevent me. If i am a foreigner (so much for globalisation!) they would prevent me. If i would cease funding all new motorways at taxpayer expense because it is socialism (and it is) they would be upset that they can’t drive everywhere free of charge.

    Never believe the Right. Selfishness dressed up as principle.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *