Guest Post from Ryan Mearns, Generation Zero Auckland
For nearly 50 years from the early 1950’s Auckland invested solely in roads, and especially motorways, with all other transport modes being totally ignored. This one sided level of investment was not seen in Australian cities, who invested in mass transit alongside new motorways. From the early 2000’s we finally started to invest in public transport with the opening of Britomart, the Northern Busway and rail electrification. This has shown huge dividends with this high quality rapid public transport largely being responsible for the big patronage gains we have seen.
However the core bus network is inefficient, confusing and unnecessarily duplicates the rail network. Buses also often lack dedicated lanes so are stuck in the same congestion as single occupant vehicles, which means their is little incentive to catch a bus, buses are unreliable and operations are inefficient as lots of buses as needed to run the slow services.
The 50 years of sole investment in roads has also left our streets designed purely for the movement of cars, ignoring the needs of people who want to walk, ride a bicycle or use mobility aids for local trips. This has resulted in cycling only having a 1% mode share for all trips, and 49% of children being driven to school.
We are now aware of variety of significant trends that affect transport in particular. Public transport patronage has continued to grow quickly, while it has become clear that the level of driving is unlikely to return to the highs of the mid 2000’s. Changing trends are also especially notable for younger people, with teenagers delaying getting their drivers licences, and more people choosing to live without a car, especially in inner suburbs. As this generation grow up, we must ensure we build a city that matches their transport preferences, not transport preferences of previous generations.
However the Long Term Plan has presented us with a false choice between two budgets, the Basic Network and the Auckland Plan Network. Both of these have significant issues.
Basic Network
The Basic Plan Network includes only projects which can be funded from existing sources such as rates, other council income and subsidies from government. This represents a 25% reduction in funding compared to what was planned in the previous Long Term Plan.
The Basic Plan includes some projects that are important for the transformation of our city, including enabling works for the City Rail Link starting in late 2015, and the main works starting between 2017 and 2020, dependent on funding negotiations with central government.
It also includes a number of committed projects which are already under construction, or required as part of previously agreed funding commitments.
However there is a major funding squeeze placed on important transport projects, and this is especially stark in the first 3 years of the Basic Plan.
Cycling: There is almost no money included for new cycling projects for the first 3 years of the plan, with the only exception being the Waterview cycleway which was required as mitigation for the Waterview Connection project.
Buses: The Basic Transport Plan would result in the full roll-out of the new bus network being delayed a further 5 years, until 2021, as new interchanges at locations such as Otahuhu are required to allow connections between buses and trains. Similarly Auckland Transport’s plans to roll out 40 kilometres of new bus lanes over the next 3 years will be postponed. Both these bus improvements will means commuters will be stuck with inefficient and frustratingly slow bus services for several mores years. This will be significant drag on public transport patronage, as well as costing Auckland Transport money from higher operating costs and low fare revenue.
Rail: The Basic Transport plan delays upgrades of the remaining poor quality railway stations, which means commuters will be stuck with substandard facilities for years to come, again stalling patronage growth. Grade separation is also excluded from the Basic Plan, so this will lead to more dangerous incidents at our level crossings as rail frequencies increase of the next several years. This also has the potential to restrict peak frequency on the Western Line.
Ferry: The Basic Plan delays upgrades to Ferry terminals, including the congested Downtown ferry terminal. This will means commuters are stuck with substandard facilities, and increases to peak services will be restricted, again affecting patronage.
Auckland Plan
The Auckland Plan was confirmed in 2012 as the spatial plan for the new Auckland Council. While it set out a 30 year vision for Auckland, it also failed to make hard decisions around prioritisation of transport projects, and called for a very high level of continued transport investment across all modes. In the short term it also carried on with a significant number of legacy projects that local councils had been investigating, even if these were unaffordable.
The Auckland Plan budget continues the issues seen in the 2012 Auckland Plan, and once again Auckland Council and Auckland Transport have failed to set a strategic direction for the future of Auckland.
The Auckland Plan includes significant investment in public transport such as City Rail Link enabling works and interchanges to allow reorganisation of the bus network. It also invests in the tripling of the cycling budget. However at the same time there is still a large number of business as usual roading projects, designed in a vain effort of ‘solve’ traffic congestion. However Auckland has been pursuing these projects for 50 years, and they have not solved congestion, and they often make congestion across the city worse, not better.
This attempt of the Auckland Plan to fund all possible transport solutions means it comes at a very high cost, around $300 million a year more that funding available from existing income such as rates and NZTA subsidies. This has led to the Auckland Plan requiring significant alternative funding from extensive motorway tolling, or further rates rises and fuel taxes. These alternative funding plans as currently proposed will heap high costs onto vulnerable families due to the current poor state of alternative transport modes across wide areas of Auckland. This is especially true of road tolling where in some areas such as along the North-Western Motorway and the Manukau Harbour Crossing there are no local road alternatives.
The Essential Budget
These significant failings have led Generation Zero and other advocacy groups to come up with an alternative we have titled the ‘Essential Budget’. This will be previewed at tonights Auckland Conversations event, and the full details will be launched tomorrow.
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Great posting Ryan. Yes 1% cycling shit we at No372 No1 has 55%. 49% kids being dropped off at school, that helps our morning peak…not. Look forward to what you unbiased, and very smart guys have come up with. MOT/ NZTA are looking like completely biased morons in comparison!!
Ryan with 49% kids being dropped off at school, do you know how many cars we are talking about?
If you spent the entire Auckland Council budget on PT, cycling and walking, you would reduce the number on the school run from 49% to 39%. It is not about traffic, but about “stranger danger” which cannot be solved by PT. If AT don’t jump on train station violence quickly then the growth in train passengers will start to reverse.
See here:
http://nzta.govt.nz/resources/research/reports/420/docs/420.pdf
(and related links from there).
Reasons why kids don’t walk or cycle to school is about perceived safety, but the majority of it would be taken care of by making roads safer. The data say it is mostly due to traffic. Not stranger danger.
This paper looks doesn’t discuss stranger danger, and around my area children are taken by car even when the route is through quiet suburban streets and walkways linking the ends of cul-de-sacs.
The risk of stranger attacks on children is orders of magnitude allergy than the risks due to traffic.
Neil, that’s the same where I used to live. It’s mostly residential streets with lots of walkways, but parents always drop off and pick up kids. Also, you’ve got quite a lot of children who are driven elsewhere to other schools that could be across town and that generates a decent amount of traffic.
Are we making enough use of our harbour?
We talk a lot on here about trains, buses and bicycles and spend next to no time looking at potential options to ship people via the sea.
Would be interested to hear a bit more discussion on the ferries because for a city with so much water we don’t talk much about it.
The problem with ferries is they are a really niche service offering that simply doesn’t work most of the time (but works very well under the right circumstances). However I think we already have the two main ferries that are every going to do much, and a handful that are reasonably ok. If anything, we would be talking about better service levels on existing ferries rather than any new ones.
Just having lots of water doesn’t necessarily make them work by any means. My question to you is where did you have in mind, what sort of locations and routes?
With the right type of high density housing (ie tell the NIMBY’s where to jump) then places like Devonport, Takapuna, Browns Bay, Birkenhead, etc could house a lot more people who could catch the ferry to their CBD office jobs in a matter of minutes.
That old clunker Kea is too slow. We need fast ferries that load and unload quickly also.
I wouldn’t say the Kea is too slow. What it lacks in speed it makes up for in not having to turn around like the other, faster ferries. Is 10 minutes really too long a journey? Hardly. I can’t imagine there’s anybody that doesn’t use the Devonport ferry because it takes too long.
The “old clunker Kea” loads faster than any other ferry in the fleet. As Nick says most of the time is berthing – there’s only about 5 minutes of actual driving between Devonport and the city.
I’m not sure it would be a matter of minutes. Take Browns Bay for example, that would take 50 minutes or so… And that’s once you are the end of the wharf and on the boat. How do you get there, bus to Browns Bay first? (Why not just bus to the busway?), or are we suggesting lots of park and ride lots along our beaches? The key thing with ferries is there is little walk up catchment, always the case where the station is half in the water.
“For nearly 50 years from the early 1950’s Auckland invested solely in roads, and especially motorways, with all other transport modes being totally ignored. . . .”
Believe it or not, this is pretty-much Wellington’s story too. The last significant new rail route added to Wellington’s network was the Eastern Hutt Valley Line completed and electrifed in 1954. Apart from the short extension of electrification from Paekakariki to Paraparaumu in 1983, very little changed on the network until the WARP programme began in 2008, and even this was more about renewal and upgrade rather than breaking new ground. The intervening 54 years saw pretty-much only motorway-building. Not such a very different picture to Auckland on a smaller scale.
Wellington’s reputation as the Public Transport Capital rested (past tense now) largely on key decisions made prior to the motorway era. Where it did differ from Auckland is in electrification of its network (1938-1954), retention of its trolleybuses (now facing discontinuation in 2017), and renewal of its rolling stock (Ganz Mavag units, 1983). But for these and the earlier developments, the picture would be depressingly similar to Aucklands prior to the opening of Britomart.
Nothing to crow about, though local politicians often like to try and grab whatever credit they can.
There isnt really many places to extend the capitals rail network, apart from the south end (where one day we might see Light Rail) except perhaps the extremities (waikanae towards Palmy, Upper Hutt towards Masterton) and improvements to the existing infrastructure.
Funny how there’s always plenty of scope for extending the Capital’s motorway system regardless of cost or what’s in the way.
You could link Upper Hutt to Porirua, linking two of the bigger centres in the region, joining different places, providing more options for commuting across (East/West) rather than just up and down (North/South) and also provide a little more resilience in the network
The other option is extending from Melling to Manor Park, providing the Western Hutt with better access and potentially an express route from Upper Hutt to the city.
Whether there is enough demand to justify the expense is a different question, but as Dave B has pointed out funding seems to magic from somewhere for other modes.
I’m also not saying that these extensions would be easy from a technical perspective, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t options.
Wow not so much progress then. I see absolutely no discussion about walking – it really is the invisible mode. Public transport (bus, train or ferry) won’t work at all if people can’t easily walk to and from it. Maybe to get the big change that is needed – start with pedestrians and walking and then work through all the vehicle modes.
Just as a matter of interest, walking generally isn’t a problem except where it is hindered or precluded by prioritisation of road traffic. Were it not for road traffic, you could pretty much walk anywhere in peace and security. Thus, in the urban environment at least, ‘provision for walking’ generally means provsion of walking amenity that is not ruined by traffic.
Just attended the Auckland Conversations Transport public meeting. Keen to hear more on the Essential Budget plan, but also note I was impressed by the clarity of thinking from all parties, and the general tone of all being that we cannot continue to plaster concrete across the landscape, that we have to take de-congestion seriously, and that commitment to mass transit is essential. The many issues in common are encouraging, while the general mood seemed to be that the audience is not comfortable that the two options in the Council 10-year plan offer the right choice for a sustainable, greening city that has to address growth with DIFFERENT THINKING.
Agreed. David Warburton talked about being bold ,mainly the light rail scheme. How about being bold with all the arterials and changing focus to liveable. David you control fully all those.
Also agree with Patrick, what we don’t build is probably more important. Ie mega bucks on motorways when we are already leading per capita in motorway lanes according to Sundhir from Gen Zero.
Leading per capita compared to who? NZ, Oceania or world? Steven, please don’t oppose projects just because it involves improving throughout for cars. Each project, regardless of mode should be considered on its merits and pitfalls. For that matter, I do support most, but not all of the roading projects. For example, I support all roading projects (with some changes) apart from Penlink.
I would support more roading projects if all projects were funded on the same basis.
For the purposes of this argument I’ll use BCR, although I believe in reality other factors come into play.
If all of the projects were ranked by BCR in descending order and we started funding the projects from the top of the list, then we would be funding the projects with the most benefit without prejudice to mode, so the projects with the strongest impact and return would be built first.
I don’t believe that this is how things are currently working or we may have seen a different outcome from some of the funding/prioritisation conversations.
Part of my frustration is that the process being used for allocation of funding isn’t transparent, so whilst there maybe valid reasons that certain decisions are made, from the outside looking in they are occasionally a little surprising and counter-intuitive.
I agree Nik the playing field isn’t fair. Projects with the highest Benefit-Cost Ratio should be built first. Also the Benefits should take into account very highly if green/great for environment ie no emissions like electric rail, cycling and walking. Network Effects ie if mode doesn’t have full network why not look at mode shares from overseas eg Cycling No1 City is 55%. Spatially effective, put high land value on width, ie if rail in ,3m is as good as ,10 lanes 35m , plus risk of more capacity, ie even more widening vs more trains? Also projects should look at road corridor conversions ie changing layout whether better bang for buck ie changing parking to seperated cycling or car lane to bus lane. Car Dependency should also be factored in ie if PT costs 3k per annum vs 11k for car ownership running, carpark costs etc. In short the whole economic funding manual appears biased as well, which is why still majority spend on car. I’m not anti car just pro all modes, life and think choice paramount for many reasons.
Also health benefits should have a very weighting. The cost to the nation of bad health should come in also.
Richard I drive, cycle, use PT just favour focus on the other modes now and do it as fast, smart, effective as possible looking at existing roading corridors. Car network is up tick. Now everything else. it should have been balanced from the start. Agree with Generation zero we already have a high quality car network, is it high standard for the other modes? If not then focus should go 90% on those apart from safety.
And is ‘safety’ always a valid reason for channelling funding into road projects which otherwise don’t stack up?
Indisputably, car is the most dangerous mode if considering external as well as internal casualties. So if increased safety is a given imperative, there are two basic choices: i) to throw even more money at the most dangerous mode in a bid to make it safer, or ii) to curtail this mode and shift the transport burden to other, safer modes by building them up instead. Historically we have unswervingly chosen option i). Somehow we have decided that roads/cars are absolutely paramount and must be prioritised ahead of all else. In fact we often see the ‘safety’-card being deliberately played by pro-road interests in order to attract funding which otherwise may not be justifiable
It seems that no matter how dangerous the roads become, the point is never reached at which we decide “enough is enough, this mode is simply too inherently dangerous to persist with, let’s drastically restrict it or change it!”. Instead, we just pour more and more $$$ at it, to the detriment not only of other transport modes, but of many other areas of society also. In other words, we keep feeding the monster.
Contrast this with safety issues identified on rail. Typically the response to a perceived safety-hazard will be to degrade the service – e.g. trains slowed trains down, trains halted with passengers confined inside, service-restrictions or cancellations, closure of ‘unsafe’ facilities regardless of inconvenience to users, etc. ‘Safety’ is simply not usable as a lever by rail interests to pry large-scale funding for the mode.
Meanwhile, and in spite of all the $billions they have received already, car/truck remain far-and-away the most significant safety-threat to the average person and stand out as a glaring anomaly in a society which comes down ever more heavily on those considered responsible for causing death and injury. The Ministry of Social Development is facing charges for not doing enough to prevent the killings by a deranged gunman in the Ashburton WINZ office. When is the Ministry of Transport going to face charges for not doing enough to prevent daily killings and maimings on the transport system it has allowed and encouraged to develop?
Agreed. I guess when you have more than World War 1 and 2 deaths on our roads, maybe focus wrong altogether. Safety improvement removing exposure levels where possible especially urban where so many better choices. Safe seperated cycle, to close, medium locations or to PT for long distances. Even rail intercity and maximised heavy loads off roads.
Richard, continually widening motorways hasn’t reduced vehicle congestion over the long term and merely creates these obscenely wide and noisy tarmac areas which split communities and especially inner city communities for the (maybe?) benefit for those who choose to live further out. And if we want a liveable city it has to stop.
Last year I spent some time in Gothenburg, a city of around 1 million souls and I didn’t see a motorway with more than two lanes each way for cars. They may have them but I didn’t see any. What you don’t build is important. Think of the capex saving that can then be applied to first rate public transport which we will actually enjoy using!