This is a guest post from Donna Wynd. I have another post which will go up later today which I had been working on separately which will also address some of these issues.
In a wonderful example of great moments in bad timing, Auckland Transport announced it was considering light rail on the Auckland isthmus the same day Mayor Len Brown launched Auckland’s draft Long Term Plan (LTP). A clearly blindsided Mayor pointed out there was no plan and no funding for light rail and, at an estimated cost of $1 billion for the first stage, the benefits would need to be weighed up against those of competing projects.
In an effort to save face the Mayor told media light rail had been signalled in the 2012 City Centre Master Plan. This is only partly correct: there are some vague references to “possible light rail” but this is mostly in the context of public transport services around the inner city and to Wynyard Quarter. There are lots of pictures of light rail, but little in the accompanying text (in much the same way the draft LTP has pictures of cycle lanes). In reality, the concept appears to have come out of the blue. The surprise announcement, and hints the project might be fast-tracked, suggest public scrutiny is to be kept to a minimum.
Despite the lack of detail, a range of transport activists and lobbyists agreed light rail was a great idea. Indeed, Transport Blog noted there was “merit in the proposal” and restated Brian Rudman’s call for the Mayor to “jump on board”. As is often the case in transport debates, the voices of low-income and ethnic communities were absent.
So why do I, a public transport user, find myself viewing light rail with trepidation? Before I explain, let me make clear that I, too, like the idea of light rail on the isthmus’ main corridors and even beyond.
It is the ‘beyond’ that is of concern. The people who have welcomed AT’s proposal are, as far as I can see, people who would derive the most benefit in terms of (possibly) improved service and an improved urban environment. However, in view of suburban Auckland’s commuter misery, it strikes me there is a far greater need for viable public transport in the newly developed suburbs in South and West Auckland, and the upper reaches of the North Shore.
The draft LTP includes a basic transport network, with severely reduced transport funding for key public transport initiatives such as the Otahuhu and Manukau interchanges and other much needed infrastructure. Unless alternative funding streams are found, valuable public transport projects and the cycle network will be deferred. One southern Local Board member observes that these “deferrals” would make a big improvement to the quality and availability of public transport services in the South.
Also needing public transport infrastructure and services are the Special Housing Areas in Paerata and Orewa. Closer to town, there is the upcoming transport mess arising from the development of land at Ihumatao. These developing areas need to have public transport services in place in advance, not years after, to avoid further entrenching Auckland’s car dependency and increasing the social isolation of people who do not drive.
While ratepayers in the new suburbs have yet to get the business case for public transport and safe cycle lane proposals signed off, those who will benefit from isthmus light rail are already well served by public transport. Yes, some dedicated bus lanes would improve things, but some high-use routes (Dominion Road, City Link) have already had improvements that will help meet future demand.
A key selling point for light rail appears to be its ability to carry more people: up to 18,000 per hour compared with 6,000 on a busway. This would be great news if the commuting population was to increase three-fold by the 2020s. But will it? After the nimby-ism expressed during the Unitary Plan process, there is not as much high density development planned for the isthmus as initially envisaged. Will we be building capacity that cannot be justified when others in the region are so poorly served?
But the aspect that bothers me most is the cost. There is no such thing as a free lunch – or free light rail. If light rail project takes priority, then the opportunity cost will be that other projects, possibly of greater merit, will be shoved down the funding queue. These projects include electrification of the rail to Pukekohe (needed to serve Special Housing Area growth areas), the Northern Busway extension to Albany, the South Eastern Busway to Botany, the North West Busway to Westgate, additional EMUs to meet strongly increasing demand for rail, and so forth. For those in the South, double tracking to Onehunga and a genuinely multi-modal link to the airport look particularly vulnerable.
There is a point at which this moves beyond simply being a transport issue to one of equity.
Particularly alarming is Lester Levy’s disclosure that Auckland Transport is considering “a novel form of funding”. Let’s be clear: there is no novel form of funding. Auckland Transport either pays up front or borrows money. Borrowed money has to be paid back. The borrowing might be through a public-private partnership, but the money still has to be repaid, and very probably at a higher interest rate than that available to central and local government. A 5-year repayment holiday has been hinted at but this merely defers payment of interest and leaves the principle balance outstanding for longer, along with unknown accumulated interest costs. This will impose a significant burden on the transport budget in the early 2020s. Before anything is signed, ratepayers need to know the full and final costs of this so-called novel arrangement, compared to a more conventional Council loan arrangement.
The light rail proposal has managed to pull together a diverse range of groups in support. Should it be implemented, however, there will be very real costs for ratepayers, particularly those who will find their own public transport improvements rubbed off the ‘to-do’ list. It will also be expensive, with much of the $1 billion plus cost met by many ratepayers who will receive little or no benefit. The central city might be clogged with buses by the 2020s, but there are projects that need to be done now which are not funded. I like the idea of light rail, but can’t help wondering if it really deserves to be pole-vaulted to the top of the region’s transport priorities.
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Very good post that mirrors my thinking. Good idea in principle but needs a lot more thought about when it makes sense – especially as there are a lot of good ideas and necessary projects out there. Light rail is often a good option, but it’s never cheap. And the isthmus will need to grow heaps to fully justify it.
While routes like the 277/274 are at high capacity, there are other issues like the 048/9/x that are basically full going down the NW at 10 min frequency during peak (mixed with express however), why is the NW Busway not on the scope?
Plus wasn’t there supposed to be Metrolink branded double deck buses on the 277/274 routes, I remember AT talking about it a year or so ago. I think Light Rail to Dominion/Sandringham/etc is a great idea but it shouldn’t be treated with anymore urgency then the NW busway and some other key PT projects.
I think some of your concerns are relevant to the LTP and PT planning aspect of AC and AT.
But to hang all the problems of PT in Auckland on a LRT proposal, that no one has publicly seen the details of yet, is putting the cart well before the horse to put it mildly.
Some of the issues you raise are ones where bus priority/bus ways needs to be added to the transport corridors, some of that is under AT control, some under NZTA control. And these two organisations have to work together to deliver the basic transport infrastructure needed for these outlying areas first. LRT won’t delay or prevent that on its own, but may well help achieve your goals if we do put it in. More on that later.
Now back to your main point.
You say that the $1B cost has to be paid somehow by AT, that is true.
But you also overlook the equally relevant and true fact that AT is right now, handing over to PT operators (mostly bus operators), tens of millions of dollars each and every year, and Auckland Transport and its predecessors have been doing so since the old Yellow Bus Company was sold off in the ’90s as required of all Council run Bus companies by Parliament then some 20 years ago now.
Since then we’ve handed well north of a $1B to the bus companies and as ratepayers we actually have little of nothing to show for it.
Before you get all hot and bothered about “Wasting” money on LRT, consider how much money we will be “wasting” from now on, on Bus subsidies if the status quo carries on.
Even if the bus subsidy could carry on for the next 20 years as it has for the last 20, the fact is that the CBD can’t handle the likely growth of buses in that time.
So, we can’t simply continue as we are – we will choke the CBD with buses and diesel fumes if we do.
So, AT proposing we consider options to break the cycle of bus and bus subsidy dependence for the Isthmus at least is a valid thing for them to do.
And they are doing this on the basis that these are very popular and thus profitable routes, so if the LRT proposal won’t stack up there then it likely won’t work anywhere else. So it is the ideal test bed.
I fully believe that AT can come up with a PPP that amortises the set up/CAPEX costs of the LRT system, over say 20 or so years, whether with a PPP or not – and do a better job than the Gov’t has done over SkyCity Convention centre deal. When the alternative was to simply hand over the same sort of money to bus operators as we do now in the existing subsidy, then in fact, AT and ratepayers are no worse off as a result. So its hardly a problem is it?
I expect that the LRT option will actually save money over the status quo over a 20 year period, so on that basis it makes sense and is a Win/Win.
And on that basis, doing LRT on the Isthmus does free up buses for redeployment by bus operators to other parts of the city – such as those areas you identify. So thats a Win/Win too.
As they don’t need to buy a whole lot of new buses, they can use the ones they already have. It also gets those buses out of the CBD where they cause the most congestion. Again another Win/Win.
The alternative idea is Double Decker buses, but the Isthmus routes have a lot of issues with doing that and you get about a 60% increase in passengers per bus, so it would be a stop gap, but wouldn’t fix the congestion problem in the CBD.
When you look at the proposal as we know about it, you have to applaud AT for having the guts to go out on a limb and consider something different. Rather than tinkering around the edges with what we already have.
Yes there will be some parts of it that need to be refined, as this is only a proposal, not a done deal thats easily done.
But its obvious everywhere you look that the last 60 or so years of transport policy haven’t really worked very well for the people who actually use PT.
So we need to do something different or we will be once again “missing the bus” when it comes to fixing Auckland’s PT for another couple of decades at least if we let this one go.
Hmm but regarding congestion in the CBD with the new network bus plan most buses run to rail now instead of to the city and with 274/277 buses couldn’t they run to Mt Eden post-CRL and people connect elsewhere from there and similarly the few west buses that still run to town could run to K Road station and similar strategies for east/south/north where appropriate.
But not in the Isthmus, thats why its called “The Void”, there are no stations to drop people off at until you get closer in.
And yes if CRL existed the drop-offs could be a Mt Eden station or Grafton station, but they are space constrained and not exactly on all the existing bus routes [e.g. Dom Road buses would need to divert to get to either].
So, until CRL is built we have to do something, yet more buses on these routes anyone?
I believe Mt Eden has potential for a bus interchange as part of the station upgrade, Grafton definitely has space issues though I agree. But yeah the CRL is proposed for completion in 2021 which is sooner then they will be introducing light rail right? or are AT going to do something that isn’t dragged out several years for once…? Doubtful.
From what I hear AT are talking about a very rapid rollout and they seem to think it’s feasible. Could be well done by CRL opening
With network design there’s always a trade off with transfers. Forcing an entire full bus load to transfer to busy rail services is not a good idea, especially when those bus services are already at running at very high frequency.
An example of when it’s a good idea to force a transfer is when it means you can turn a 30 min freq bus that passes a train station into two 15 min freq buses feeding the station
For me it’s a good thing, if it brings around changes in density and opportunities for people to live differently than they do now. It doesn’t immediately help people in the far-flungs, but I think they are so auto-dependent by design that there is not much we can do now to fix it. Added density close in with excellent transit will give people much needed choice. We can’t intensify the isthmus much as it stands without things turning to custard.
We need to start designing the city for how we want it rather than reacting to the current results of bad planning. There will be winners and losers from that, but we can’t afford to fix the sprawling mess that exists – leave it to those who like it that way to live there and complain about traffic while providing sensible transit oriented development where it makes sense.
The density has to come with it though, otherwise it is a waste – nimbys must be ignored.
Equity is crucial. Bring ethnic and low income communities into transport debates as they are the real service patronage growers going forward. Never forget who your customers really are.
Concentrate in the next five years on the completion of transport improvements in South Auckland – a priority area in which various arms of Auckland Council are already active and committed to. Upgrade Takanini Station, complete properly the bus-rail interchanges at Otahuhu, Manukau and Manurewa, make the New Network work well in the South, extend electrification to Pukekohe, tie the improvement of community physical and mental health into the implementing of walking and cycling solutions to grow patronage to/from stations, interchanges, schools, shopping and community facilities.
Beware internationally-reknown manufacturers bearing gifts and offerings. Keep your eyes focussed on the needs of the many, not of the relative few.
“those who will benefit from isthmus light rail are already well served by public transport.” – Apart from the fact during peak times, you are often unable to get on a bus heading to the city, they drive past full. This problem is only getting worse in a corridor not serviced by heavy rail or a bus way.
Also wouldn’t installing light rail in the void, free up buses and operating ability for suburban services? The council will also save on the operating costs once light rail is all go, could pay off the investment relatively quickly compared to the status quo? I’m sure the council has more information on some of these things, and they would need a solid business case before commencing. Maybe lets wait till we see their proposal before discounting the idea.
Yes, very good analysis of the issue of balance and equity in transport infrastructure.
While there are always competing demands infrastructure investment in a growing city, it is especially intense now because the government is now not contributing as it should to the desperately needed public transport capital works programme. Clearly many of the urgent but unfunded investments Donna mentions are Rapid Transit kit and essentially beyond the scope of the local authority; extending the Northern Busway, built by NZTA, on NZTA’s corridor, building the North Western Busway, ditto. And electrification, third main, and other upgrades to Kiwi Rail’s corridor. Of course it should also be right there with the CRL too. Were the government to play its role intelligently and rationally then AT and AC would be able to meet all of it’s citizen’s needs with kit and services at the next levels down from Rapid Transit much more equitably.
Is any of the support for light rail a veiled attempt to divert attention from CRL, thereby delaying or killing it? Just wondering.
Of course there is a novel form of funding. You sell new gambling legislation to Skycity in exchange they agree to build the asset and then the hang you out to dry and you end up paying for it as well. That is novel!
Thankfully Joyce the master negotiator isn’t Minister of Transport anymore.
Excellent post that captures my sentiment regarding LRT in the Isthmus. It is not a question of if we should have light rail on the proposed routes, and others. It is a question of it’s priority in the line of other crucial projects who face the shove if LRT goes ahead at this time.
While we the people of Auckland debate and prioritise our transport projects according to our financial ability, perhaps one of the biggest players in this game NZTA/Govt sit in silence. With the completion of the Waterview motorway connection in the coming years surely NZTA’s focus should shift towards public transport projects. Our motorway network should well and truly be complete and a renaissance should be in full swing to build the much needed infrastructure. It is clear AT/AC cannot meet the needs of all of Auckland therefore we must ask, where is the government in all this? (Surely we are able to get something seeing as they were so quick to “top up” Skycity considering we were suppose to be given a FREE convention centre, but that’s another argument).
As we continue down this path of uncertainty and neglect, AT should be allocating funds to projects that are of greater effect in communities who see little PT. I’d prefer to see everyone with OK public transport than to see some with Excellent and others with poor to none. Thanks for raising the issue of transport equality.
Excellent analysis Matt. A quick study of the NZX Bond market shows Infratil borrows at 5.4% and Auckland Council at 3.85%, and Infrtatil shareholders expect a profit on top of the 5.4%, so a PPP can never be cheaper than a Local Government funded project. What a PPP is meant to bring is added expertise and sharing of commercial risk. Experience in Australia is somewhat mixed in this regard.
This is from Donna Wynd. I have a different take coming up later in the day.
But interest rates in America, Europe and Asia are about 0.5%, and all the companies that make tram stuff come from America, Europe or Asia.
Great rates if you want to borrow in a foreign currency. No PPP will accept a foreign currency so this will get transferred to Auckland ratepayers
Donna, I think the debate is skewed by viewing the PT pot of money as fixed, and so by doing one project we don’t do another. The debate we really need is to have is whether it would be better to radically increase the size of the PT budget (and assuming a fixed transport budget, then by implication at the expense of the roading budget).
Then Auckland can have it’s cake and eat it- busways, fixing PT in the South and West, cycleways everywhere, and also LRT on the isthmus.
I think the primary failing in Auckland is a lack of vision- we need to dream and plan much more boldly, and there’s budget enough to do that if we allocate it better (ie. away from roads)
I don’t see how most of the projects you say it will displace are higher value? Sure the busways need to be done, but isn’t that mainly NZTA money?
Electrification of the rail to Pukekohe: Diesel trains aren’t good enough for Pukekohe, but crappy over crowded buses are good enough for the isthmus?
Double tracking to Onehunga: So Onehunga should have a frequent train service while the entire rest of the Isthmus has crappy over crowded buses?
Multi-modal link to the airport: Why are buses good enough for the isthmus but not for the airport?
“it strikes me there is a far greater need for viable public transport in the newly developed suburbs in South and West Auckland”
Don’t you think spending $2 billion on the CRL which is mainly to get people from West and South Auckland into the city is a pretty good spend? Including the massive investment in motorways for south and west Auckland, don’t you think its about time some transport budget was spent on the isthmus?
” those who will benefit from isthmus light rail are already well served by public transport.”
The Isthmus just has the same buses that everywhere else in Auckland has, they are just more frequent because they actually get used.
“Yes, some dedicated bus lanes would improve things, but some high-use routes (Dominion Road, City Link) have already had improvements that will help meet future demand.”
I don’t remember any improvements to Dominion road, as far as I remember its pretty much the same service, timetable and and bus lanes that used to exist in the yellow bus company days. There are plans to improve Dominion road, but they are more about making it look pretty than making PT work any better (just a few of extra meters of bus lanes only operating 4 hours a day).
“A key selling point for light rail appears to be its ability to carry more people: up to 18,000 per hour compared with 6,000 on a busway. This would be great news if the commuting population was to increase three-fold by the 2020s. But will it? After the nimby-ism expressed during the Unitary Plan process, there is not as much high density development planned for the isthmus as initially envisaged. Will we be building capacity that cannot be justified when others in the region are so poorly served?”
But the buses already seem to be at capacity, so something needs to be done. Surely they are better off improving the capacity of the services that are already full than trying to predict where growth will be in the future. The Unitary plan isn’t set in stone.
+100
All right Jimbo who are you where are you and some rather strong claims against South and West Auckland as well as Onehunga.
The guest post made it very simple, and I have made it simple on my on blog
It comes down to equality and leap frogging existing projects that were already on the books, were funded then all got dropped.
No one is against LRT on the Isthmus in itself, what got everyone upset was AT’s piss poor timing which Matt has said Great Project Bad Timing
The Central Isthmus wont miss out in the RLTP
Sorry, I realise my posts often come across a bit harsh, that wasn’t intended. I don’t think I made strong claims against the south or west, I just feel that providing gold plated services to those areas while the Isthmus puts up with buses seems a bit unfair.
I live in Mt Roskill (not Epsom), I came back from living in London about 10 years ago and was really disappointed with how bad Auckland’s public transport was. It seems that 10 years later there have been improvements for train users, but nothing has really changed for bus users, and although there are some real improvements that can be made for very little money (e.g. longer bus lane hours), I really can’t see anything happening any time soon.
I can see the point of this article that those that live in poorer areas don’t tend to get a voice, but in this case I think there is planning for significant spending on PT in those areas (e.g. CRL) while in the Isthmus I don’t think there has been a cent spent since I used to catch the yellow bus to Uni 18 years ago and until now there really was no improvement in sight.
I also think that providing really good PT to all of Auckland is never really going to happen, so it makes sense to provide good PT to areas where it is more feasible (e.g. the Isthmus, near train lines, etc).
Just echoing NCD’s comment above. If the Public Transport budget is to remain as constrained as it currently is, then light rail should not be prioritised over currently proposed projects. Getting the heavy rail spine properly established must be the immediate goal, along with the necessary interchanges and integrated bus services.
However it is important to recognize that the real mis-prioritisation of funding is occurring right now, right before our eyes. This is the huge amount of money being sucked up by wrongly-justified motorway projects. Free up this for more worthwhile purposes and light rail becomes much more do-able, along with all the vital stuff currently being deferred (e.g. CRL). Nothing is going to progress in a satisfactory manner as long as this pernicious “highway haemorrhaging” continues.
The issue is more like a government efficiency issue than the funding issue.
We spend more money to build the same stuff compare to other OECD counties.
We only have 2 construction agencies and they can quote what they want to charge. Our government does’t have any negotiation power, or incentive to negotiation at all.
The materials are also expensive as distributors dominate the price.
The subcontractors just build as slowly as possible so that they can paid the most.
While I would have phrased it differently, transport projects in NZ seem to cost much more than overseas.
“Particularly alarming is Lester Levy’s disclosure that Auckland Transport is considering “a novel form of funding”. Let’s be clear: there is no novel form of funding. Auckland Transport either pays up front or borrows money. Borrowed money has to be paid back. The borrowing might be through a public-private partnership, but the money still has to be repaid, and very probably at a higher interest rate than that available to central and local government.”
Spot on. PPPs do not magically provide services at reduced cost. They’re just a way of structuring the financing. Of course, exactly the same applies to Skypath, although funnily enough many of its supporters do seem to think it’s a magical, no cost / risk to ratepayers project.
I guess its a long term contract with a private company to build and run light rail for the next 20 years for a similar yearly cost to AT as running the current bus service (due to light rail being cheaper to run than buses). Sounds like a good plan to me, would be just replacing a privately owned and run bus service with a privately owned and run light rail service.
100% agree Jimbo, I don’t care what the PPP costs as an asolute figure, but I am more interested in how much of it can be funded from the current “hand out” we give the bus operators each year to provide bus on those corridors.
And I suspect the answer will be “LRT will cost less than what we spend now” – when measured over 20 years or so.
Nothing new here – borrow money pay it back plus interest. Its how finance works. Point being? Credit is not free? Well everyone who has a mortgage or a credit card, or stuff on HP knows that.
Yes a PPP may be expensive if done using local funding sources and badly structured deals, but if the funding was offshore, from some overseas investors happy to take a 3% PPP instead of the 1.5-2% they get back home for similar risk, that would be cheaper than even what our Gov’t can borrow at.
And as Lester Levy said this will involve novel funding – and be more like how the Vector Arena was funded and built – its built, owned, operated by the overseas operator, and then eventually transferred to AT at end of PPP. With a 5 year initial holiday (likely to allow the LRT system to get up and running fully and generating demonstrable OPEX savings to AT).
Even if at the end of the PPP period we got a bunch of worn out LRT vehicles and some tracks with some residual value, we’d still be miles better off than if we handed out all that money to the bus guys and have zero to show for it at the end of the 20 years.
Which in case you haven’t noticed is exactly what we have been doing now for 20 years or more.
As for Skypath, there is no secret thats its a PPP, and that the overall cost will be higher than if the Council built it, but the council has no funding to build it so this is the next best thing.
Every user (and only those users) of SkyPath will be paying for the privilege of using it, and will be paying slightly more (or paying for longer) than if the council built and tolled it.
But its the only game in town, so happy to pay for the convenience of being able to walk/cycle the bridge. Council has underwritten $2m of backstop funding to be called up in the situation Skypath fails as a venture due to massively low numbers using it.
[and barring a ship hitting the harbour bridge and taking out SkyPath for an extended period of time, can’t see that happening – can you].
And if that means council could get to own Skypath for that $2m – thats a deal of the century – certainly way better than the “Pokies for Porkies” deal we have now for the Convention Centre.
And right now I’d trust the Councils finance folks negotiating skills to get a good deal for Auckland Ratepayers for Skypath and LRT, over the Central Governments ability to do likewise for us Tax payers.
There is an elephant in the room, and it is the company car. For several years I rode a motorcycle across the harbour bridge in the rush hour, and noted that at least70% of the cars around me were less than 3 years old, mostly carrying one suit. I have also noted over the years that 80 odd % of new cars sold are sold to companies. Ergo, well over 50% of the cars around me were company cars. Most office staff, middle management and above expect a car to take home (and a parking space) as part of their remuneration package. Get rid of these and congestion is massively reduced. I know there are many problems involved in doing this, and I am not sure how, but I believe it is worth a hard look.
You don’t get rid of them. You just don’t add more capacity for them.
The keys to that problem are tax rules around them and their parking. At the very least making transit fares tax deductible or on the same level as company cars for employers to offer to staff, and the same with parking spaces. If companies were to offer HOP cards and salary increases as an option to car and parking subsidy I’m sure for many that would be a preference.
I don’t think company cars are anywhere near as common as you think they are these days.