2014 was an auspicious year. Whether by cosmic alignment or fickle chance, Easter Monday and Anzac Day fell in the same week, and I was able to shoot off to Melbourne and Sydney for ten days with only three days off from work. We talk about these larger cities a fair bit on the blog – they’re both almost three times the population – but I think there’s still some interesting points left to make.

Getting by with fewer cars

In Melbourne, I stayed with a friend in the outskirts of the city, 35 km away from the CBD. Despite living this far out, he and his partner get by with a single car. They commute to the CBD by bus and train, and only really use the car in the weekends. With car licensing at $700 a year, and the other costs of car ownership that go with it, they don’t see the need for a second vehicle.

I also caught up with a couple of friends who live more centrally in Melbourne, and who work centrally as well, and neither of them own a car. Likewise, the friends I saw in Sydney were a couple with just one car between them. The people I’m talking about are all professionals, but they manage to get by with fewer cars then they would in Auckland. There’s a real cost saving there.

This observation also comes through in the census data. The average Auckland household has 1.7 cars, compared with 1.6 in Melbourne and 1.5 in Sydney (actually, the figures will be slightly higher than that… I’ve assumed that all households with “three or more” motor vehicles only have three).

Better transport options – public, active modes and so on – make all the difference. Auckland is very well placed to make some big changes on that front, a point Peter made very well here. We just need to take advantage of those opportunities.

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Don’t forget to publicise the shiny new things. Not that this tram was particularly shiny, but you get the idea.

Metro Rail Networks/ City Rail Link equivalents

Of course, and as we’ve discussed previously on the blog, Melbourne and Sydney both have much more extensive train networks than Auckland. They’re also adding new lines as we speak – the Sydney routes map below shows two new lines currently under construction. The Melbourne map doesn’t show what’s currently being built, but the Regional Rail Link is underway and due for completion in 2016.

Also visible from these two maps, of course, is that both Melbourne and Sydney have their own version of the City Rail Link – looped track through the city centre. Brisbane and Perth do as well, for that matter… more on those in another post.

Smart card bundling

Melbourne has recently stopped accepting cash or paper tickets on all public transport services. You’ve got to have a smart card, called “myki”.

A myki costs AUD $6, and you can also buy a “myki Visitor Value Pack” for $14 – it’s preloaded with a day’s worth of unlimited Zone 1 travel (covering the CBD and most of the inner suburbs where tourists would want to go). However, the thing I really like about this pack is that it bundles the myki card with discounts for 15 of Melbourne’s major attractions, including the aquarium and Eureka Skydeck. The discounts are pretty good in some cases, up to around 20% off admission.

This is a great way of getting myki cards into the hands of tourists who might otherwise be put off by the fact that they can’t pay with cash when they’re only in town for a short visit. It shows a pretty good understanding of consumer behaviour, and it’d be good to see something similar here – how about it, Auckland Transport/ council? For starters, there are the council-run attractions such as the zoo and museum… Or for that matter, why don’t the private sector guys – Kelly Tarlton’s, Skytower, and so on – get the ball rolling on this?

*Update – as Matt wrote this morning, it turns out that AT are already working on this: “concept development for 1/3/7 day and customized HOP cards for visitor / tourist PT and tourist attraction discounted access is nearing completion”, and AT are hoping to release something for January 2015 to tie in with the next Auckland Nines. Good stuff!

Variable quality cycling infrastructure

Melbourne has some pretty good quality infrastructure, with a number of separated cycle paths and trails, and a large network of bike lanes. However, the city is let down by the Australian laws which require cyclists to wear helmets – as for New Zealand. According to cycle-helmets.com, which has a wide range of resources on the topic:

In Melbourne, surveys at the same 64 observation sites (PDF 535kb) in May 1990 and May 1991 [before and after the introduction of compulsory helmet legislation] found there were 29% fewer adults and 42% fewer child cyclists (36% overall). Each site was observed for two 5 hour periods chosen from the four time blocks of weekday morning, weekend morning, weekday afternoon and weekend afternoon, representing a total of 640 hours of observation. The weather was broadly similar for both surveys. Victoria introduced compulsory bike helmet legislation in late 1990.

In the first year of compulsory helmet legislation in Victoria, child cycling went down by 36% and child head injuries went down by 32%. Surveys taken in May/June 1990, 1991 and 1992, reported by Cameron et al. (1992), indicated that total children’s bicycling activity in Victoria had reduced by 36% in the first year of the helmet law, and by a total of 45% in the second year.

There’s some more on this topic here – written, funnily enough, by a libertarian think tank. It was good to see the ACT party picking up on this earlier this year, and saying their policy would be to scrap the helmet law.

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A bike hire scheme run by a hotel called The Olsen – not sure if it’s available to the general public

Stuff happening

There seemed to be cranes everywhere in the Melbourne and Sydney CBDs – reflecting a country which didn’t have the same slowdown we had here in New Zealand. Of course, and as reported by the Herald, we’re starting to get things going again in Auckland as well. Construction activity is picking up in many parts of the city and in most sectors.

White elephants

As many will know, the Sydney monorail was decommissioned last year, after just 25 years of operation. I’m no expert on monorails, but according to a newspaper article from the time, light rail would have cost 33% less, and could have carried 60% more passengers per hour. And now the monorail’s been torn down, so the government can put in light rail after all. Go figure.

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There’s probably a couple of lessons that can be taken out of this. Firstly, monorails tend to be a waste of money. Secondly, and more importantly, it’s important for public (or private, for that matter) transport infrastructure to be well thought out, and provide value. This is why our Congestion Free Network delays investment in some public transport projects which we don’t think give good value for money, and brings forward others which do. It’s also why we advocate different solutions for different corridors – heavy rail for some, light rail (potentially) for others, busways for others.

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35 comments

  1. But Main Street’s still all cracked and broken.

    Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!

    Monorail… Monorail… Monoraaaaaaaaail! MONORAIL!

    1. It would be difficult with so few people using PT in Auckland and hence so few having a HOP card.
      Most Melbournites would use PT at least a few times a year so would have a Miki card.
      Most Aucklanders don’t use PT at all – when they do decide to give it a try do we want to reject them because they don’t have a card?

      1. make auto dispensers that issue a $10 hop for a note or with a credit card. Make it easy for tourists to cash in cards as they leave the country. No problem.

      2. Like people in other PT savvy cities around the world, every smart Aucklander will have a HOP card in their wallet or purse in no time.

        I saw a few come to this realisation as they missed their train at Sylvia Park trying to purchase tickets while others tagged on to ride the shiny new EMU.

        Council funded Auckland Visitor centres should really push HOP cards and the joys of seeing Auckland by PT – buses, ferries and trains the way Melbourne, Sydney and other cities do.

      3. But a cashless system will still allow people to buy tickets for individual journeys. Passengers will just need to make sure they have one before they get on.

        It works for 400m people in Europe – I am sure we can manage.

  2. My favorite thing about the CFN is that it creates the right of way and then puts the best solution for that corridor, not limiting ourselves to a mono modal approach.

  3. Interesting reading about your friends not needing 2 cars per household. I have close friends in Switzerland – 5 households in 3 different towns – with not a single car between them. This includes the governor of the state of Aargau (a position roughly equivalent to, say, the premier of one of the Australian states). He is able to call on a government car and driver should he need one, but he invariably walks to work and travels around the canton and the rest of the country by train.

    Auckland can become like this too, eventually.

    In the meantime in the more distant suburbs of Auckland our households are stuck with needing multiple cars – which goes a long way toward explaining the high levels of impoverishment here.

    Perhaps Auckland Council should point out that buy increasing rates to pay for better PT many of our poorest citizens will be better off through needing fewer cars.

    1. Or perhaps someone could point out to Auckland Council that if their wage bill and expenditure was under control we could get more out of our existing rates

        1. The right wing press and bloggers will just ignore anything that doesn’t fit their agenda.
          There really has been a concerted attack on Brown; expect more wild assertions.

        1. Chances are I will be happy with that though I’ll wait for the detail before sending invites to the celebration party.

          John, your point assumes the Budget gives an accurate amount for what the Councils wage tally should be. I reckon it wouldn’t be too hard to decrease it by 10%.

        2. You’re aware these are real people you’re talking about, right?
          Being restructured out of a job is a horrible experience for most people and can put real financial stress on a family.

    2. And even the President of Switzerland takes the train to work: https://twitter.com/rastrau/status/506917871629631488

      I know it is largely a ceremonial position but so is the Governor General and when was the last time you saw Jerry Mateparae on a train or bus?

      Just like the Dutch Queen cycling – and she isn’t even Dutch! http://caa.org.nz/infrastructure/cycle-lanes-2/women-love-separated-cycle-paths/

      We are way too emotional about what is after just another home appliance like your washing machine or fridge.

  4. ” reflecting a country which didn’t have the same slowdown” – Aussie managed to ride out of the first part of the global economic slowdown due to their mining industry, however they did have a later slowdown while NZ had an earlier recovery as a comparison. Overall I think both NZ and Aussie have come out or are progressing out pretty evenly. Auckland have a fair amount of cranes occupying the city at the moment for our size. Especially when a large proportion of ours are currently occupying Christchurch.

  5. How is light rail (see Edinburgh’s experience) cheaper to build than a monorail as with Monorail construction the civils costs is limited to the stations and then big columns every 20m as opposed to digging up whole streets? Surely the problem with the Sydney one and a lot of other monorails (including Springfield!) is that they just go round in a small circle! Also I guess people don’t like them from an eyesore point of view.

    1. Yes I’m sure that the concept of a monorail isn’t a bad one, they have just been implemented badly (more as a toy than a transport option). With land prices being so high in cities, you would think that raised PT options would be economically favourable.

    2. They are expensive because in addition to tracks and power they have to have those columns to bear the weight. With light rail the street does that.

      1. Many cities have successful monorail systems, For example Kuala Lumpur and Chongqing. Light rail still needs electrical supply, and takes part of an already crowded road. Monorails are usually overhead and so leaves the road free for existing traffic.

  6. I don’t think the monorail was actually designed for ‘real’ transport and was more of a sight seeing tour. The main reason I never took it was that it went in one direction, always the way I didn’t want to go! (am i right?)

      1. The Tokyo Monorail from Minato to Haneda Airport is great. It is successful enough that it is being extended. Best way to get to the airport. Taking the monorail through all the high rises of Tokyo Bay is amazing.

    1. I don’t think that all monorail necessarily have to be completely awful, but the Sydney monorail was particularly crap in terms of its internal space standards. There were only two facing seats per carriage, and room for half a dozen to stand in between. Dumbest design ever. Plus it just went in a loop to Darling Harbour – perfect for one year of the Olympic fever, but rubbish for Sydney ever after. Build the cars right and they’ll be fine.

    2. Yes indeed, the Sydney monorail was always a bit of a gimmick and never a serious public transport option.
      I believe they inherrited it from Brisbane after Expo 88 and at the time it was a great idea with the newly developed Darling Harbour precinct.
      Certainly the new lightrail lines in the works have nothing to do with the monorail going…. 2 completely different things

  7. Why is it “funnily enough” that a libertarian think-tank reports on Mandatory Helmet Laws? Seems like a pretty libertarian issue! To argue that there are victims of the “crime” of not wearing a helmet is difficult indeed.

    1. Yes but it is unusual for a libertarian to actually be libertarian nowadays. Normally it just means “conservative” and, for some reason, conservative = anti-cycling.

      In that way ACT have also been consistent on this.

      Pity they can’t do the same with private property rights in Epsom. But that is what happens when you are a dying party that depends on sheep like voters in one electorate to preserve your political future.

    2. Depending on your political leanings, please feel free to interpret “funnily enough” as referring to the “haha” sense of funny, or the “weird” sense, or simply replace it with your own choice of adverb… even “unsurprisingly” if you like!
      NZ has more reason than most countries to make helmets mandatory, given that we operate a no-fault insurance scheme through ACC – so, to some extent, the costs of accidents are socialised and therefore we’re all victims – but I still think there are enough other factors pointing the other way to suggest the law should be scrapped.

      1. Amazing how the proposed mandatory lifejacket law got watered down to ‘skippers decision’. There are 2 very similar parallels here.

  8. I would hazard caution on citing an anti helmet campaign group for evidence, that’s like citing Demographia on housing supply.

    Probably best to stick to primary sources, for example the census and DoT data which show cycling rates increasing significantly above population growth (four or five times faster) since the early 2000s, a reversal of the previous decline through the 80s and 90s.

    It’s tenuous to claim helmet laws caused the drop off in cycling in the 80s (less tenuous to attribute that to greatly increasing per capita car driving and related traffic intensity)… but it’s simply impossible to suggest that helmet laws have stopped people taking up cycling again in the last decade.

    1. I’ve had a bit of a read through the papers cited on that website, and I agree they’re not quite as unequivocal as the campaigners make them look. But it’s still fairly obvious that the laws will have *some* impact on cycling numbers, perception of safety, and the viability of bike share schemes. Whether it’s a minor or major impact is up for debate.

  9. Auckland projects always think about short sighted quick fix, instead of long term value for money.

    Sometimes expensive upfront can be cheaper in long term, and the opposite can be true.

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