Brian Leyland has written an op-ed in the herald that is so comically wrong it’s hard not to ignore. Every single one of the 13 paragraphs contains (often basic) factual errors or opinion masquerading as fact. So I thought I’d highlight some of them.
The railway tunnel will serve only a very small fraction of Auckland’s population and at a huge cost. Mayor Len Brown is determined to commit Auckland to building a hugely expensive railway tunnel even though no comprehensive independent and objective economic analysis has been made on the merits of the tunnel and whether or not letting the city spread and developing satellite centres would be better.
More than 70% of Auckland’s population are already within 3km – an easy 10 minute bike ride if we built some safe infrastructure to support it – of a train station. The major urban areas not near the rail network are the North Shore, North West, Hibiscus Coast, parts of the central isthmus, the airport and East Auckland. The latter of those would feed into the rail network via AMETI and the Panmure Station.
Independently reviewed economic analysis has occurred and the project has had more scrutiny than probably any other transport project in this country. If the governments RoNS were subjected to even half of what the CRL has been they would have been canned years ago. More on the spawl comment later in the post.
Auckland Council has neglected its obligation to investigate and evaluate all options. Given the enormous amount of expenditure involved, this amounts to a serious dereliction of duty.
The City Centre Future Access Study (CCFAS) did just this and involved the NZTA and Ministry of Transport with the MoT even noting that the modelling has probably undercooked the patronage projections.
Overseas research on 44 urban rail systems revealed that the average cost overrun was 45 per cent and the number of passengers was half the predicted number. Have the economics of the Auckland tunnel been tested against 45 per cent higher costs and half the passengers? If not, why not?
Cost over runs aren’t limited to rail as the graph below shows – although it seems our recent rail upgrades have been ok. In saying that we seem to have been much better with managing costs on larger projects – many of which are claimed to have come in on time and under budget which is likely due to the additional detailed work that occurs beforehand which is happening right now with the CRL.
As for patronage, we can look at local examples to see how well our projections have fared. For Britomart we passed the 2021 prediction for the number of people passing through the station in 2011 and given the growth we’ve seen since that time that will only be larger now.
We’re also on track to exceed the 2016 target set in the Rail Development Plan of 2006 of 15.7 million trips in 2016 despite a later start to electrification than envisioned.
The railway tunnel will serve only a very small fraction of Auckland’s population and at a huge cost. Right now, ratepayers subsidise 80 per cent of the cost of every train fare. If the tunnel costs blow out by 50 per cent it will need to recover at least $450 million in fares every year for capital repayment and operating expenses. If, as hoped, there are 20 million rail trips every year, they will need to recover $22.50 per rail trip. Most of this will be imposed on the ratepayers.
Train fares currently cover around 26% however that figure has been improving this year and will likely continue to do so as the new electric trains roll out and patronage continues to improve so dramatically. I also expect we might see some improvement from the middle of next year (from reduced costs) as a result of AT re-tendering the rail contract – which I understand there are a number of interested groups. I expect Auckland will move closer to Wellington in this result which achieves 56% farebox recovery on its trains.
Importantly one of the benefits of the CRL is that while it will cost to run the stations and more trains, the farebox recovery ratio should further improve – potentially as high as 80%.
I’m not sure where Bryan has his 20 million rail trips per year from – I presume he’s confusing the governments target with a patronage projection. We haven’t seen total patronage results of any recent modelling and the CCFAS only showed the impacts at peak times however some older estimates put total patronage eventually up around 50 million trips per year.
The council planners seem to be totally unaware of the imminent revolution in personal transport that will be brought about by self-guided cars, modern taxi systems, ride sharing and buses. By the time the tunnel is in operation self-guided cars that will allow twice the traffic density on roads and reduce accidents by 50 per cent or more will be available. Not long after it will be possible to call up a driverless taxi or minibus by cellphone to take you where you want to go. For those who think that this is the stuff of dreams, it is now possible to buy a car that, in a traffic jam, will follow the car ahead and every major car manufacturer is developing self-guided cars.
These technological advances, combined with telecommuting (working from home and using the internet to communicate) and smartphone-assisted car pooling will have a huge effect on commuting and the shape of future cities. The council should take its head out of the sand and get up to speed with this revolution.
We’ve talked about driverless cars quite a bit recently so won’t go into that too much other than to say the uptake of new vehicle technology has so far been incredibly slow. As for telecommuting – the percentage of people doing just that hasn’t really changed in well over a decade despite it being easier than ever to do so. In fact many large companies – especially tech companies have done the opposite as they have recognised the benefits of working closer together.
Unitary Plan Rant that could probably have a post of its own:
The Unitary Plan is based on a blind belief that it is wrong to let the city spread and intensification is the only option
The Unitary Plan concentrates development in the central isthmus, which is already crowded and includes the volcanic area. The council has ignored the lesson from Christchurch that you should not keep all your assets in one place.
Most of the isthmus has well-established high-density suburbs with good houses, trees, gardens and lawns that are environmentally friendly and support large populations of birds and bees. The Unitary Plan will demolish these suburbs and substitute blocks of flats that will increase demand for parking, roads, schools, power, water supply, drainage and the like. There will be serious environmental and social impacts. Expanding infrastructure in an established suburb is far more expensive and environmentally damaging than building new low-cost houses on greenfield developments.
The council’s objective is to ration land and artificially inflate land values so as to force people to demolish good houses and force them to build apartment buildings to spread the rates burden.
Perhaps Bryan would like to point out where in the unitary plan it forces people to bowl their houses and build apartments. For most of the isthmus such an activity is actually prohibited due to heritage, zoning, density and height restrictions. In fact the central isthmus is almost locked in amber by the Unitary Plan as it stands now, especially compared to somewhere like West Auckland.
Auckland can pour vast amounts of money into city centre development in the hope of getting enough passengers to justify a railway tunnel, or it can allow the city to spread and develop satellite centres so that people can live in affordable houses and work in the same area.
Before any action is taken on the Unitary Plan and the tunnel, ratepayers should demand that an independent and objective study is done on the social, environmental and economic benefits of allowing the city to spread, compared with intensification. Nothing is more important.
Again perhaps Bryan should look at what work has already happened, such as this report from 2010 on the social, environmental and economic benefits of different development options and for which the large sprawl based one came out worse on the vast majority of measures. Perhaps one of the funniest things I’ve heard is that the modelling on the CRL shows that the more sprawl that’s enabled – particularly in south Auckland – the higher the need for the CRL is as it means there are even more people trying to avoid long lines of congestion from the hinterland.
Overall given his history and given the inaccuracy of his piece I’m surprised the herald even ran it.
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Why on earth was he allowed to have an op ed piece on this in the Herald thus?
Saved Roughan the effort of writing the same flat-earth nonsense himself? Disgusting rag.
Probably cos they havent made it illegal to have an opinion yet nor illegal to express it if it doesn’t harm others.
Of course he hasn’t painted it as his opinion, rather in such a way that everything is fact. That is where the Herald needs to use its discretion and do some basic fact checking before publishing.
Maybe the clue was that it was published on the opinions page. I mean if people found it in any way offensive then why continue reading? Or do you really think we should only allow publication of opinions that accord with the majority view?
People are welcome to their own opinions, just not their own facts. The thing is a pack of lies.
What Sacha said. The Herald is duty-bound to ensure anything it publishes is factual, even if the opinions those facts inform are stupid.
“if it doesn’t harm others.” I lost a few brain cells reading that load of crap.
The media causes plenty of harm, swaying *some* peoples opinions wrongly is just one of the many sins they get away with. Freedom is one thing, but swaying political decisions with false information and ruining peoples lives by publicizing their personal issues or etc is not acceptable.
Leyland’s opinion piece was a dog; but the fact of its publication (about the only fact in the whole sorry saga) says quite a bit about the editorial standards prevailing at the Herald.
Nice fisking Matt. Maybe a shortened version could become a NZ Herald op – ed?
I think you are all missing his basic CRL premise’s which are fairly clear to all. Firstly the patronage on the loop section (alone) will not be high, and his second point is that most people are reasonably concerned that based on history, any cost estimates by local and central government agencies tend to blow out horrifically, and this will be no doubt be no different. I defy any supporter of the CRL to put their own money on the line and bet against me that the blowout will not be substantial and potentially bankrupt Auckland. Any honest takers?
Brian’s concerns are real and shared by many. Statistics can be dragged out of hats and ‘reports’ to support any argument as well we know. I’ve worked on enough projects to know that cost benefit figures can be manipulated to provide ‘justification’ of a particular approach; and the true figures only present when the services are actually used, which are often way different.
Ricardo.
.
What possible argument or data have you got for this opinion: ‘patronage on the loop section (alone) will not be high’ Britomart is be far the busiest station now and is a deadend, with the city stations all being surrounded by the densest employment and habitation in the nation of course they will only grow as destinations and departure points. And with the system through-routing many journeys that begin and end elsewhere will take advantage of this congestion free short cut. Where else will be busier? Like Leyland sounds you are simply expressing some anti-urban prejudice.
There is absolutely no reason to assume this project will be managed any differently than say the Waterview one. NZTA will bring their project management skills and recent tunnelling expertise to this project. Anyway you may have missed it but it has been evolving under review and changes like dropping the deep mined station at Newton in favour of a trenched one at Mt Eden substantially lower the cost rather than the other way round.
Leyland is a crank and a fraud, see the link in Peter’s comment, he hasn’t learnt anything new since about 1955; all his certainties are from another time. Yet he works tirelessly to push his grey vision of an unchanging world on everyone. He is simply wrong and about 50 years behind on climate science [and thrown out court], energy, pollution, transport, urban form, and people’s desires.
Your comments as just as wrong and ill informed as who you seek to defend.
For a start there is no loop section, CRL is a underground railway with some stations on it. Just like all the North/South underground lines is in London are – they don’t loop.
As for no one will use it. Well all trains from the west and south will be using it to gain access Britomart – so thats the majority of the 20 million projected figure right there “using it”.
Eastern line trains will continue up the tunnel to other destinations, so they will us it too. meaning the bulk of the 20+ million passengers that travel on the rail will go via the CRL tunnel.
As for costs, well the Central Government is paying half the full cost, so even if there are blowouts which is unlikely, the cost to Auckland will be 50% of any over or more likely, under run.
Happy to place a bet with you, but how will I be able to collect it from you when the sky doesn’t fall? Or will you deny that the sky hasn’t fallen and therefore refuse to pay?
Bryan may well have concerns, but he is just as much a villain of the peace here with his fudgery and denial of basic agreed evidence on climate change. So why should his analysis of the CRL be any more accurate?
Yes the true patronage will only emerge when it opens, but I can assure you that it will be higher not lower than projections.
All up the only way it won’t be is if the climate change induced sea level rises that Bryan’s climate change denier bent assures us doesn’t actually exist, will swamp the tunnels.
And how likely is that? Not very ya think – we *all know* that climate change doesn’t exist right?
Let me take a punt at the top five stations post CRL
1) Aotea Station
2) Britomart
3 and 4 Mt Eden or K-Road
5) New Lynn
6) A Eastern Line Station
Okay so that is six
Point being as Patrick just made is that the CRL section contains the busiest station on the network which will be a given with their location in the CBD itself.
As I just pointed out or rather linked in my own comment below the blow outs and avoiding them are been worked through very methodically for the CRL. While I have pointed out Rail Fallacies with overseas examples, Auckland Transport has worked through to the point in just about being anal in making sure total blow outs do not occur (short of a natural disaster).
Ben Newmarket and Grafton will drop post CRL as the western line goes direct to the city, but Newmarket will still be very important, Grafton will get southern services but will lose a lot of ‘downhilling’ use as trains now head to K Rd and midtown. Panmure and Otahuhu will clearly be big movers as bus interchange. No doubt Aotea will quickly overtake Britomart, but as much as people who currently use Britomart for mid-town destinations [cos they have to] change to Aotea, many more people will find the network so appealing post CRL that Britomart will remain busy.
The CRL is about moving 50 million trips pa not just 20, we will see 20m in a few years before it is open, we are after all, as of last month moving 13million pa. March 2015 will be the busiest month ever on the network. 1.3-1.4m trips. Leyland is simply living in the past, his head is stuck in the post-war sprawl era, his opinions [and that’s all they are] were fixed then and have not adjusted to new facts. Anti-scientific, irrational, sad.
Did I put Newmarket and Grafton in there?
Ooooops if I did.
As for Leyland – well yes we know
My point is you should have put Newmarket in there, maybe third.
Maybe maybe not for post CRL
I think Newmarket will still be on the list, its a popular residential/commercial and recreational train destination with new apartment building over the junction still to be built, plus the Westfield development and the University development (although patronage may be distributed between Grafton and Newmarket for this). 3rd or 4th.
I think to be fair anything is possible post CRL.
Those were some back of the napkin predictions made there but to serve as an example to Leyland that the CRL sector will be very well patronised.
Having looked at the report and costs, yea ill put a bet against you. Let me know how much you thinking.
I will put some money on the line too. Name a figure.
Ricardo, you seem to be conveniently forgetting that there are going to be huge development projects all along the city loop. The precinct development with the 30 odd storey skyscraper down on the waterfront just got the big go ahead last week. Then we have the 52 storey Elliot tower that will be built directly next to where the Aotea station is going to go. Not far away from that on the other side will be John Key’s Convention Centre. All of these projects will feed thousands more people into the loop and Aotea station is likely to become the busiest station in the whole country, let alone Auckland. The CRL is not only good for people living way out at the ends of the railway line, but also draw thousands more people into the CBD for work because it will simply be easier to travel into and out of town without having to worry about finding a park.
I’m also prepared to take on that bet, but first the loop section alone patronage will indeed be zero as there will be no loop section, so I’m not letting you win on that technicality.
Leyland doesn’t even have Greypower on his side.
Use of the stations on the CRL could be very high. Each station is surrounded by multiple high-rise office and residential buildings. Instead of walking to Britomart to get the train a lot of people will use the CRL stations. Others will use them to move quickly uphill and down in the CBD…and to move closer to the many bus departure points around the CBD.
To me, I can see these stations easily being the busiest on the whole network without any trouble at all once people get used to them being there….and understand how they can use them to advantage.
I’m waiting for AC to issue an infrastructure bond targeted for the CRL, so that I can actually put my money where my mouth is and bet with the Council on the CRL’s success.
From where I stand it wouldn’t even need to pay the 3% of their normal borrowing costs to be attractive as an investment.
I’m keen for this bet. Perhaps someone who knows more about iPredict can set up some predictions for us to bet on.
I’d like to put a $100 bets on each of the following:
The CRL will budget will blowout and will bankrupt Auckland. ($100 for the negative).
The CRL will be a success ($100 forthe positive). – Define success as 30 million rail trips at a year in the future.
I think the herald should put this posting in immediately. Transport is out No1 problem, comments from the 1960s and actual full untruths should be smashed to back then how many rotations of the earth is that?
It’s appalling that the Herald would print an article by Brian Leyland. He’s one of the people who set up a charitable trust as a front group to sue NIWA over their climate science. After they lost the court case and were ordered to pay NIWA’s court costs, Leyland and his mates folded up the trust. The result was that the taxpayer was left with an almost $90,000 bill.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-climate-cranks-trust-folded-brill-et-al-try-to-escape-justice/
It’s simply parasitical of Leyland to foist the costs of his ridiculous agenda off onto the NZ taxpayer. Unless he’s willing to pay the court costs, I don’t believe he should be given a voice in public forums.
And even if that wasn’t the case, it’s embarrassing that the Herald would print something so utterly factually incorrect without demanding references or checking facts.
How can a paper that runs articles like this even consider going to an online paywall?
Agreed. I stopped paying for the printed version after they essentially lied (said completely wrong stuff and refused to correct or amend it = lie) about a subject I know very well. I don’t pay good money to be lied to.
Good piece Matt
I’ll leave here the opening and closing lines I left on my own take of the Leyland piece
The “commentary” piece that landed in the Herald and so linked below also landed in my email box early this morning as well. It is not often I hit the Gmail “Report Spam” button on such emails but today was a day I did hit it.
Why?
Because you have works of Non Fiction, Works of Commentary, Works of Fiction, and then there is just utter spam. And what Bryan Leyland wrote on the Unitary Plan and the City Rail Link despite both’s flaws and possible shortcomings falls into the utter spam department. I am surprised the Herald actually published it unchecked and unbalanced but it did and did itself no favours.
I have been mulling whether to publish a counter to what Leyland wrote and decided to do so.
So I am going to break down Leyland’s piece section by section with counter points
………..
If you used actual facts rather than conjecture Bryan, and that both the Unitary Plan and City Rail Link were that deeply flawed then yes another independent review of both would be needed. But both the Unitary Plan and the CRL are not deeply flawed. They both have some shortcomings but they are being worked through very methodically. The Unitary Plan Panel has not being giving Council and easy ride and on a few occasions have savaged the Council for less than ideal evidence and methodologies for their claims with the Unitary Plan. The Regional Policy Statement Interim Guidance has been a very clear example of that. I also expect the Port of Auckland rules issue to be another example too other the next few months.
So should have the Herald published Leyland’s spam (not even worth putting into the Fiction Section of a Library)? Yes it should have as it does trigger an automatic rebuttal on the true facts. True facts that need to be put out into the public to the point drilled into them. That said I hope the Herald has contacted Deputy Mayor, Auckland Development Chair thus overseer of the Unitary Plan – Penny Hulse for a reply to refute Leyland’s conjecture and put the solid actual information out there……
——–
You can read the break down I gave here: http://voakl.net/2015/03/03/some-corrections-to-a-very-wrong-piece-of-commentary-on-the-unitary-plan-and-city-rail-link/
Long story short?
I don’t mind a good critique on the Unitary Plan and the City Rail Link
What I do mine is utter spam both hitting my email box thanks to Phil from the Hutt, and then it appearing in the Herald. Dare say I don’t quite even dear Bernard could quite pull such a feat off as Leyland did…….
There is a term for Leyland’s piece, and that is clickbait. The only reason Leyland is given a platform is BECAUSE he is a crank – although allowing cranks to write columns is only extended to those on the conservative end of the spectrum at the Herald. The Herald isn’t interested in reasoned discussion, it wants tabloid howling and lots of outraged clicks and comments to show to it’s advertisers it is still relevant and read. I would say that in this case, it is best to ignore his piece.
‘The only reason Leyland is given a platform is BECAUSE he is a crank’
I agree, but then Louis’ point above about how this strategy could possibly work with a paywall is surely pertinent? They’ll be whistling in wind back there. Cranks in an echo chamber shouting passed each other.
Exactly. And I would also think that a lot of the traffic the piece has received would be from folk like us who are engaged in this area and wanted to read what all the fuss was about.
The Herald is not a newspaper to take seriously. Probably the perfect forum for Brian Leyland.
It’s hardly surprising. The Herald is a tabloid paper. In terms of British newspapers, it would sit very close to the Mirror / Sun end of the spectrum. However, unlike these papers, which are at least honest about what they are, it likes to pretend it is a serious newspaper, a New Zealand institution etc. I suppose that’s what you get when you’ve had no real competition for years. Now that competition has arrived, in the form of online news sources, it is doomed. And frankly that’s hilarious.
I’d say it even more closely resembles the daily mail where they both like to pretend they are upstanding broadsheets but are not.
Yes, Ricardo, the true figures when the services are actually used (Figure 4.5 above) show that rail services are in much higher demand than originally forecast, while driving uptake has decreased.
What would you suggest we do instead? Build more roads? What about cost overruns there? Those are acceptable but the ones for the things you are ideologically opposed to are not.
“it will need to recover at least $450 million in fares every year for capital repayment and operating expenses.”
Anyone know where this comes from? Council can borrow money quite cheaply. $1bn at 3% would mean interest payments of $30m annually.
As a guess, that’s 20 million (expected patronage) * $22.50 (avg cost per ride) figures from Leyland’s piece. Neither of which are correct (Patronage will increase, cost per ride will decrease).
Isn’t that cost per passenger based on our clapped out fuel-guzzling designed-for-freight diesel trains, that will all be gone by the end of this year anyway?
Yes the operating cost curve is improving both as EMUs are much cheaper to run [electricity] but also as more people use and pay for services. The capex of the new trains has been turned into opex, and AT now have to pay KR [the state] for ‘track access’, these are all ways to keep the operating costs as high as possible and keep capex spend off government books.
Capex and opex lines are a moving feast.
And as more people find value in using trains then new investment becomes necessary, and this is the famous ‘lumpiness’ of Transit costs. I’m picking a need for more trains earlier than was forecast as ridership outstrips projections.
The Herald would be gagging for it. Probably begged him to write it. They need the raw meat for their remaining readers, mostly suburban and elderly who are fully paid up members of the “put nothing different near me” club and think that high rise is 3 levels. If it fits into the anti Len Brown category, so much the better. Remember the saying -“the only thing likely to be correct in The Herald is the date”!
Brian Leyland is a consultant. Most cost blowouts are on projects where consultants have estimated the cost. Some over run because of unexpected events but most because the consultant gave a politically acceptable cost so they could get the fees to supervise the works.
Bill English: intensification is as popular as Ebola
Bryan Leyland: The Unitary Plan is based on a blind belief that it is wrong to let the city spread and intensification is the only option.
Clearly at least one of these Auckland urban experts is incorrect.
And yes, I’d like to add my voice to the people who are wondering why this piece got past the op-ed page editors.
For the avoidance of doubt, it may help to understand Mr Leyland’s public record, which is disreputable, disingenuous and disgraceful.
Mr Leyland is a trustee of the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust, which was created by a body called the New Zealand Climate Science Collation, which has extreme (not to say crank) views and has been funded from the notorious US Heartland Institute.
The NZCSET took NIWA to court, twice, on a scientific matter, disrupting New Zealand climate science research, specifically that of New Zealand’s premier climate scientist, Dr Jim Salinger, and incurring substantial legal costs from public funds. NIWA estimated total costs to run to several $ 100 k. The courts ruled that the NZCSET acted unreasonably: their legal challenges had no chance of success.. “over a number of years they mounted something of a crusade against NIWA, not in the public interest, but to advance their own interest.”
Mr Leyland was jointly responsible for this action. As a professional engineer myself, I find it hard to accept that Mr Leyland is able to describe himself as the same. The engineering institute to which I belong expressly forbids its members from engaging in action that attempts to injure someone else’s professional reputation, prospects or business. Which is exactly what Mr Leyland did.
Moreover, Mr Leyland’s public comments on this matter are untrue: “Trustee Bryan Leyland, when asked about its assets, said: “To my knowledge, there is no money. We spent a large amount of money on the court case, there were some expensive legal technicalities.” Funding had come “from a number of sources, which are confidential”. In contrast, according to the liquidator’s report, the NZCSET had no assets, and did not receive or disburse any monies, and states that the NZCSET was formed with the express intention of bringing the court action and as a cover to protect the litigants from the financial consequences of failure. It also raises serious questions about the way that the case was funded.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/brills-bills-still-unpaid-but-barrys-off-to-vegas/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9600968/Failed-doubters-trust-leaves-taxpayers-at-loss
Like climate science, urban planning and traffic engineering are fields outside of Mr Leyland’s area of expertise. Yet Mr Leyland still gets wheeled out by TV and the Herald to opine on these subjects. As others have noted, this doesn’t say much for mainstream media reporting in New Zealand.
There’s always good money to be made in telling the stories that the rich and powerful want told, regardless of technicalities of whether they’re “truth” or “lies”. Most of the powerful establishment in this country are opposed to urban (as opposed to suburban or ex-urban) life on principle and therefore consider urban sprawl and motorway madness fundamental to their lifestyle, and if their lifestyle messes up ecology or economy, then so much for economy or ecology. These people are short-sighted, amoral and totally selfish.
Reading some of the comments left on that article, there still seems to be this perception that you have to be a ‘left wing tree huger’ if you can see that it is both unaffordable and physically impossible for roads to be expanded to meet Auckland’s future transport requirements. You are also ‘left wing’ if you believe that people should be allowed, within reason, to more intensely develop their own land.
It is one thing to read an article like this on the Herald’s website. To enter the comments section is another world altogether. A world where anything in caps is true.
Its not just herald comments, I know a lot of people who think that PT and left wing go together. I still can’t see the association between the two, other than left wing tending to be younger people who also tend to support PT.
Agreed, I would be considered very right wing in my political views. However I’m a firm supporter of Auckland s needs for better public transport. Funny that. I can also confirm I’m not alone.
I’m personally extremely left therefore I will only board trains that will turn the CRL anticlockwise.
What would you do if all the trains went clockwise?
@Richard: Face backwards. Or alternatively you could sit with the “right-wingers” who were facing forwards on Great North Road through Waterview this morning, but not going anywhere fast.
@richard: a revolution, that’s how we roll this side.
Unlike lay people who may genuinely misunderstand the CRL, Leyland knows exactly what is involved but chooses to deliberately mis-represent the facts while relying on his credientials as a former MOW engineer to persuade readers to believe his twisted version of reality. Rust never sleeps as they say so I fear that Brian will be amongst us for some time to come. I would encourage Mat to seek right of reply from the Herald and submit a 6-700 word version of his post ASAP.
A version of this post, written for the editorial page, would be entirely appropriate.
Agreed. Matt, please seek a right of reply from the Herald ASAP. Transportblog is in fact the organisation best placed to set the story straight at this juncture.
These guys all know the CRL is going to highlight how seriously stupid our focus has been. But actually already the rapid transit is doing that. These guys Leyland, Quax ,Brewer, Woods just look like complete biased morons. Is that a public hanging offence, should be or at least rammed by an EMU at max velocity.
Sudhvir wrote a clear op-ed rejoinder to Leyland – in November last year:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/transport/news/article.cfm?c_id=97&objectid=11354796
The other aspect of the Leyland article is John Key’s $10 Billion Roads of National Significance and Special Housing Areas is not working. The 1950s motorway and standalone housing sprawl is not providing the affordable housing answer. John Key’s suggestion of commuting from Hamilton is not viable. At least not with his motorway sprawl approach -if there was high speed rail -maybe. But then you would need something like the CRL at the Auckland end….
CRL could provide the answer in another way if New Zealand was willing to be controversial. We should create a combined transit/ housing development entity to act for the public good by using compulsory purchase to produce affordable housing. There is plenty of space around the likes of Swanson Station that because of CRL is now well within commuting range that would be suitable for medium density housing and around closer in stations high density housing could be provided.
The reason National’s housing and transport plans are failing is they are unwilling to address land banking. This has been discussed recently at interest.co.nz http://www.interest.co.nz/property/74320/average-auckland-property-values-surged-5-three-months-february-other-centres-posted- in relation to the huge increases in property prices.
by frazz | 03 Mar 15, 1:10pm
Born and bred in Auckland..will soon leave it the Boomers, overseas students and overseas land bankers (my friend on dairy flat is surrounded by chinese who have brought it all up). Troubles me to see the city go down the gurgler..quality of life over paper gains for me. Have fun ratepayers as the council goes on a spending spree for the services you demand.
by Brendon | 03 Mar 15, 1:30pm
Compulsory purchase of land by the Government or Auckland Council in Dairy Flat at rural values before rezoning it residential would send a message to overseas land bankers that the rules of the property market are there to serve all Aucklanders not just land owning vested interests.
Why do we let landbankers hold our whole economy hostage? Why is it that Bill English can rant against the 20 planners in AC for damaging New Zealand’s macroeconomy but National is silent about the effect landbankers are having on Auckland’s residential section prices?
There’s a huge empty land lot around Sunnyvale also yet to be developed,although they need to insist on some mixed housing types as we’ve got more than our share of super high density small apartments. And the high desity living is not supported with industry, jobs a township or placemaking. There is under utilised “industrial land” mostly empty green lots all along the Glen Eden railway. But we need to build sustainable villages and towns not just an awesome inner city and leafy suburbs for a few. How much industry has the west lost. What about the film business that looks to be going North that westies invested so much in?. Where is the marketing and business strategy, the design and town development for the West. At least Swanson has those things. But for the rest of us Westies we can only look on at what’s happening and wish.
Noticed that plot too, assumed it was part of the reserve but its all overgrown so… yeah. I would buy a house there if it was developed. Now is a good time as being by the railway wont be noisy as EMU’s will be full-on before they are built, and the occasional freight loco is not much worse then the hoon, police siren or neighbor mowing their lawn.
I could be wrong but I think some of that land around Sunnyvale is the way it is due to flooding issues. I know the old WCC brought some houses on the northern side and removed then for this reason (then took themselves to court over it).
Yep, some land was bought as part of Project Twin Streams. I’d be surprised if that is though, it’s quite a bit higher than the stream and at the same elevation as the other developments. Council’s been quietly selling off some of the Project Twin Streams properties. Didn’t see it back in local budgets or minutes though. Went straight to Ecomatters Trust which is associated with the Elected Members. OIA was denied when asking what are the Project Twin Streams deliverables ie how many kilometres of stream are being restored.
In the vein of the MTR in Hong Kong? The transit operator also owns land and development rights around (above) all its stations and puts very intensive residential and commercial there. TOD on a huge scale. Something more modest for AKL might work. But if that entity is AT….
If only AT would start thinking and acting like MTR Corp…
Well here’s hoping that the new Development Agency can team up with AT on TODs…
Well looks like AT/Kiwi Rail or someone has either sold or leased the air rights over the Newmarket junction where a development is about to take place, so we might be slowly catching on…
Alain Bertaud who is working with Google on driverless cars in his talk last year in Christchurch was asked about driverless cars. His answer was that it would help to mitigate the flaw in auto mobility being its huge demand for space. He went further and said should it ever get operational it wasn’t clear what the optimal transport system for a large urban area would be. He said it could well be that heavy high speed rail on something like a 10km grid combined with driverless cars would be the best solution. So again Bryan Leyland is very selective in his use of evidence.
Of course anyone who reads this blog will know we don’t actually need CRL now because cycleways can get a benefit cost ratio of over 7. I mean if that is true why would we be building any road or rail projects?
I’m giving that a 2/10.
Oh come on, surely it was worth at least a C+ on the troll-o-meter just for annoyance value.
I’d give it an F for fact and a C for comedy. Overall still a fail.
Well someone has to try an make fun of B/C ratios for cycleways. Let’s face it these people value their own travel time so lowly they decided to ride a bike!
Rapid Transit, Active modes now strategic fit by AT and cycleways with a benefit cost ratio of 7. Trains and NEX going vertical, car all our money last 60 years. Strong case for zero car funding!!!and large legal suits against traffic engineers!!
I valued my travel time so lowly that I decided to get to work faster, save $60 a week and get absolutely shredded in the process??
I know you’re just trolling – but the main reason I started cycling was because it is so much faster to get around than driving or PT over distances less than 5 km.
LOL, commuting by driving is surely the single biggest waste of anyone’s time.
Of all commuters, drivers demonstrate the lowest value of time. Sitting there doing nothing, just controlling a vehicle.. apart from the odd phone call maybe. On the other hand, cycling to work combines exercise and commuting, which suggests that people who cycle to work value their time.
Plus, they value their health. Car commuters are less healthy, get sick more often, take more time off work, are less happy and finally die younger than people who cycle to work. And in the process, 100s of other Aucklanders die from the pollution they cause and from RTAs.
Besides, as we all know, bicycles take up a fraction of the valuable real estate and expensive infrastructure that cars need.
Throw that lot in the mix. If anything, I’d say BCRs for cycling projects are often under-cooked.
@TheBigWheel “LOL, commuting by driving is surely the single biggest waste of anyone’s time.” Try commuting from Karaka to Takapuna without using a car…cycling would waste even more time.
“Car commuters are less healthy, get sick more often, take more time off work, are less happy and finally die younger than people who cycle to work. ”
it is important that you don’t make broad sweeping statements like that. I cycle only because the trams stop running at 6:30pm where I live. I don’t like cycling, but it please don’t shove cycling down my throat. Also, have you got any research that shows that car drivers take more time off work are less healthy and die younger than cyclists? Also, driving to work and cycling to work are not mutually exclusive (it kind of is if you are only talking about one day). People could drive to work on the day it is raining, and cycle to work when the weather is good. People also change their travel patterns throughout their lives as they may move homes or change jobs or persue further education for example…
Richard, the body of peer-reviewed literature on the health benefits of commuting and the disbenefits of driving is vast and robust.
Any recent publically available paper will give you plenty of leads.. “A mode shift to greater use of active transport would bring environmental, health, social, and equity benefits (de Nazelle et al. 2011; Hosking et al. 2011). In high-income cities, car commutes tend to be short, habitual, solitary trips in congested traffic. Consequently, they make a greater contribution to road traffic injury (Bhalla et al. 2007), air pollution and transport greenhouse gas emissions (André and Rapone 2009), noise (Hänninen and Knol 2011), and stress (Jansen et al. 2003) than other kinds of light vehicle trips.” http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307250/
Or check out any factual news feeds to get an overview. Here’s the experience from a 6 year study in Lyon.. “Compared with residents who drive, those using the city’s bike-sharing system experienced an annual increase in 0.03 deaths from traffic accidents and 0.13 deaths from air pollution. However, as a result of increased physical activity, 12.46 deaths were avoided annually, meaning that overall, the program helped prevent 12.28 deaths per year.” http://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transportation/bike-sharing-health-risks-benefits#sthash.St6S0HMK.dpuf
Like you, I drive to work more often than not. But there’s no sense denying the adverse outcomes of our commuting habits, either on ourselves or others.
We may consider that we have good reason drive to work, but this has no bearing on the consequences of our actions, any more than any other lifestyle choices.
I also always thought the price of better bicycle paths was well worth its cost. $30 million a year sounds like a bargain compared to the 4000 million some would like to spend on a second harbour bridge.
*3rd* harbour bridge.
If you’re going to have a deranged climate-change denier writing an op-ed, surely you’d go to the trouble of at least verifying the ‘facts’ before you published it?
In this article, the ‘facts’ are clearly and demonstrably not accurate. The piece flagrantly violates numbers 1 and 4 of the New Zealand Press Council’s Statement of Principles.
In particular, this line: “Material facts on which an opinion is based should be accurate.”
http://www.presscouncil.org.nz/principles_2.php
Wow that’s an great test. I’d like to hear the Herald’s response to that..
It would sure cut down the size of their rag if they had to abide by that prinicple.
I’d actually quite like to make a complaint, but I don’t know how much weight it would have seeing as I currently live in Melbourne.
The whole of Auckland unanimously wants the traffic to be decongested.
The only people who oppose the CRL are people who are ill informed they feel that if they don’t use the train why they should pay for it.
But people have to educated that more PT choices would only reduce traffic.
I don’t know how all of you do not have permanently bruised heads from the presumed constant head banging due to all the stupidity from the CRL deniers. I’m watching this from the other side of the earth and am completely mystified how these naysayers do not see the obvious benefits of creating a through train network for all of Auckland’s citizens, drivers and non.
I was on whale oil blog the other day. Think I have multiple concussions
Some of the comments are just as bad – “the CBD is an anachronism in the 21st century”, “rail is 19th century technology”, etc.
Send ’em off to Twizel.
It appears that Transportblog has fallen in to the same trap as Auckland Council, Auckland Transport, Rodney Local Board in suggesting at the top of this article: “The major urban areas not near the rail network are ….. North West”.
The North West does in fact have the rail network passing right through it but there are NO TRAINS running on it. Its north of Swanson for those unfamiliar with the area and goes north past Whangarei.
Luckily we still have NZTA on our side maintaining the increasingly busy State Highway 16 to their highest standards. Yeh Right!
Just as the electrification to Pukekohe as being talked about and being included in long term plans I see that the no trains issue for the line past Swanson will eventually resolve itself.
I’m just not certain of the amount of time it will take and will need to be balanced against the competing priorities for funding.
Electrification of the Wellington network extending to Waikanae was probably 10 years overdue when it was completed, but got there in the end.
This ability to reinforce success as PT becomes a better solution for not only commuting but other trips as well is I believe what Auckland’s future holds.
would not the best way to get rail to the north-west be a new alignment adjacent to SH16? From a quick peek at Google Earth the existing rail alignment past Swanson seems rather “circuitous”.
The current alignment is perfect actually – linking the growing Kumeu/Huapai area with the growing metropolitan centres of Henderson, Glen Eden and New Lynn, then continuing to both Newmarket and the CBD. SH16 is “out of the way” and fails to link all but one of those locations. Take a look at the Auckland Plan – out west is set to intensify more than most parts of Auckland.
I like the part in this TB article where it links to the Rail Development Plan. Take a look through that plan, and you’ll see how it envisions trains to Kumeu by 2016. Let’s make sure that happens, and prevent another Botany Downs situation from developing – something this blog has long supported.
Would a second line west that followed the alignment of SH16, as an addition to the current network that diverged from SH16 at Pt Chev and went past the Zoo, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby Rd and joined back up at the K Rd station then continued elsewhere not be a useful addition to the network?
I keep thinking that the revolution that is quietly occurring with a huge increase in passengers will need some different thinking about network topology at some point.
Any additional lines would require that Airport and North Shore lines to be completed first.
Yes precisely, that’s the good alignment, the effective addition to the rapid transit network.
That is exactly what the buses do already, and will continue to do even better once the bus lanes are open on the motorway. It’s also the alignment of the busway concept, and most probably the same alignment if they did light or heavy rail instead. Light rail could be a very real possibility for the northwest of the current plans take off.
Is Glen Eden a Metropolitan Centre? The funding and development has gone to Titirangi and Piha and the “environment” base in New Lynn. And when complaining to council staff they told me Titirangi was the hub. Glen Eden hasn’t seen a brass razoo despite ongoing promises. Think we might need a political reorganisation of the local board boundaries if it’s ever actually to be considered.
But sh16 does connect massey, lincoln rd, te atatu, and pt chevalier, which are far more important locations. Rail on sh16 would be far more useful than existing alignment methinks. Worth securing and developing alignment at least.
I agree Stu. It also allows the opportunity to reroute the NAL past Kumeu in the future for freight purposes. Then allows a real main street to develop. (also needs a SH16 bypass).
He’s hysterical.
Just heard on RNZ news that rail passengers in Auckland have cracked 13 million. Wonder what the real number really is. Do fare dodgers get counted in some way?
The fare box recovery ratios you are quoting in response to Leyland are around operating costs. No one believes the CRL will recover 80% of capital and operating costs. Around $20 a trip sounds about right. When attributing the capital costs of the CRL to journeys, it is reasonable to look at the net increase in journeys. Given we are starting at 20 million a net increase of 20 million is reasonable. Actually it underestimates the cost per trip as initially the net increase in trips will be much less than 20 million, and these trips are more significant than trips that are further in the future given the cost of capital starts when it is built.
So I think the critique that the Trips generated by the CRL will cost around $20 or more each is valid.
No it’s not “about right”. OPEX costs for the CRL are ~33m per year and just over $100m per year if you include depreciation and capital costs. That’s less than the network currently costs us yet provides about 2.5x more capacity and a lot more net patronage than we currently have.
$67m for capital costs on $2.8b? That is wrong. Auk lands current average coupon rate for its existing debt is around 6-7%. Add in depreciation and you are starting off at a cost of around $250- $300m per annum. And you start off with <<20 million extra trips a year so those costs compound. My own estimate – not based on a blowout – is about $25 a trip if you apportion costs equally to each trip.
Matthew, farebox recovery is always defined by operating costs. If you want to start drawing in capex, then you may as well shift to full BCR.
Stu, it was the author who compared Leylands capital cost estimate with a fare box recovery ratio.
P.s. I think the capital costs you’re quoting are 1) inflation adjusted and 2) account for additional OPEX. And I also don’t understand how you arrive at $25 per passenger.
If you assume:
– CAPEX $2.5 billion (high side; $1.5 billion more likely)
– Lifetime = 50 years (low side)
– discount rate of 6% (high side in current environment)
– annual subsidy of $20 million (high side, and likely double-counting with CAPEX)
– then you get an equivalent annual cost of = ($2.5 billion/15.76) + $20 million = $178 million p.a.
– assuming 20 million pax p.a. this yields $8.93 per passenger.
If we think in terms of BCR, then you’d want the external benefits per passenger (e.g. congestion, agglomeration, amenity) to be greater than this. I don’t think that’s implausible?!?
Stu, I’ll have to find my old spreadsheet but I think I used 7% which is lower than what the NZ government uses. Your calc assumes you can build the project instantly and then you instantly get 20 million additional passengers. The council has already spent money on the project and it won’t be open for another decade. Even once open you don’t get 20 million net additional passengers for many years. I basically set a constant cost per passenger and adjusted until the NPV is zero.
Matthew by the time the CRL opens passengers will be at least 20 million (or as near to it as who cares), Since Government won’t fund their half until thats on track to do so.
Therefore Stu’s numbers are valid for when CRL opens as almost all users of trains will go via CRL they are “using” it meaning making the existing passengers pay to use the CRL fair.
As each additional million rail users use the system the “cost per passenger” will drop by 1/20th, then 1/21st, then 1/22nd etc as numbers ramp up a million at a time.
So you have a average 4% or so drop in subsidy cost for each million added, for the 10 million passengers from 21 to 30 million, then a average 3% drop for the next 10 million (31 to 40 million) and (at least) a 2% drop for the next 10 million (41m to 50m).
After 10 million passengers (21m to 30m) are added, Stus $8.93 per passenger will be $5.38 (8.93 – (4% * 10), and will drop further again for the next 10 million (3% per million added) and so on until the additional reduction is small.
The only argument is then how quickly will 30 million, then 40 million then 50 million be reached? As that determines how quick that subsidy figure drops.
In any case once the payback period for the loan is reached, then the bulk of the subsidy costs drop away, leaving the annual OPEX plus any CAPEX spend for ongoing passenger growth which will be a fraction of the original $8.93
As this is a patronage/usage based subsidy, discounting the value of the subsidy over a fixed time is not valid as you can’t know when the patronage figures will be crossed in that time.
One thing is certain, the next 20 million users of CRL will be on board quicker than the time it took for the 1st 20. If the current 20% year on year growth was sustained for the next few years after CRL opens (quite likely) the 40 million figure will be crossed within 5 or so years or CRL opening.
In any case your 7% figure is too high as the NZTA EEM now sets a 6% discount rate for projects with 40+ year lifetimes now.
And as Stu points out this tunnel will last a 100+ years, so even a “low” 6% discount rate is crap for a tunnel.
Quote from: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/economic-evaluation-manual/economic-evaluation-manual/docs/eem-policy-updates.pdf
“The NZTA Board agreed to key policy changes at its meeting on 5th July 2013. In summary, these policy changes are: A revised discount rate of 6%, along with an extended evaluation period of 40 years.”.
Found my old spreadsheet. I was using an 8% discount rate to get the $25 figure and also 30 year time frame. 30 years is pretty standard and reflects considerable uncertainty as to what the world will look like in 30 years (or actually about 40 years from now)
I have updated costs based on this flyer: http://shapeauckland.co.nz/media/1261/bc4136-ltp-city-rail-link-fact-sheet_web.pdf
I assumed 2million passenger trips/year increase topping out at 20 million.
Based on updated costs I get:
For 6% and a 50 year time frame I get $12.50, or $15 with $33million opex (based on Matt L’s figure above.
For 7% and a 30 year time frame I get $18 without opex and about $20 with Opex.
For 8% and a 30 year time frame.I get $21 without opex and about $23 with Opex.
For 8% and a 50 year time frame.I get $19 without opex and about $21 with Opex.
30 years for this kind of infra is nonsense. In fact it is exactly the kind of detail that prevents us investing properly. Insist on 30 years and your analysis will only ever lead to motorway widening. Oh, and that’s what we’ve got. An assumption of only 30 years of value means your model is biased in favour of the incremental, it will never support the transformational.
Clearly we should tear down the harbour bridge, it has been on no value since 1989.
And are you saying pax will top out at 20 mil? system will have 20 mil before CRL radically upgrades it, multiplying capacity more than x2.5. will be doing 50 million by 2030
Its interesting, even if you take it out to 100 years, it only drops the cost per ride to $14 for the 6% discount rate and $21 for the 8% discount rate. The thing about going so far out in time is not that it definitely wont be useful but that it might not be – none of us can honestly say what the world is going to be like in 50 years time.
The 20 million trips I am assuming are the additional trips – so the 20 million to 40 million trips. There is no cost in what I have assumed for rolling stock – I am assuming to get to 50 million further investment (e.g. in rolling stock) is likely to be required.
The current purchase of rolling stock is in the opex, as is track maintenance.
Farebox recovery refers to opex the world over. Capex is usually funded separately. Like roads.
Yes I think the $33m opex assumed is probably undercooking it. I just noticed one of the linked posts gives an estimate of $80m for opex when the patronage is up to 40m total.
What period are you amortising the capital costs? There are rail tunnels running trains in London that were dug in the 1840s.
The 80% figure is of operating cost. Yet this is very high by international standards as the economic benefits of urban Transit are extremely difficult to capture financially. Cities everywhere recognise this economic value and transfer subsidy from beneficiaries through other means, often through property or road user taxes. Anyway while it is important to run all systems as efficiently as possible and to maximise farebox recovery [without limiting use through overpricing fares] it is a mistake to get hung up on subsidy. All transport is subsidised, especially roads. The bulk of your rates go on roads, whether you drive, use a jetpack, or are a hikikomori.
I’m glad I read my news on-line so I don’t have to buy that crap and stumble across such an opinion piece. Please can someone set up a competing paper?
We need to set up a fund to give these guys a trip to somewhere like London so they can see how a real city works.
I think that asking ratepayers to pay an additional $15 for each trip on top of the existing high subsidies for rail users is a bit much. It feels a bit like we’re pushing ahead with rail no matter what the cost, just like the roads of national significance.
I’ve always thought metro rail was the way to go for any decent-sized city but these numbers don’t encourage me. Do we need to rework the design again and what else can be done to get this project over the line financially?
Not gonna happen. There is no $15 subsidy.
Where is this $15.00 subsidy?
Josh, I picked the $15 up from Matthew W’s calculations in his interesting post at 9:46 am yesterday. I would expect that number to drop as passenger numbers increase beyond 20m trips. Not only that, with the increased passenger capacity that the CRL allows, and perhaps some adjustment to fares, we could see the subsidies on the entire rail (and road) system drop maybe by as much as half.
I find the economics of it quite interesting, and I would be amazed if building and maintaining more motorways and therefore making people buy petrol every week and buy a new car every ten years worked out cheaper. And that’s setting aside the worsening pollution, safety and environmental problems that intensive car usage brings to the table.
Just a point. I have never worked for the Ministry of Works: much of my experience has been overseas where I have seen the consequences of crowding, intensification and traffic jams like you have never seen. I’ve also seen many cities that have been allowed to expand and provide a pleasant lifestyle with houses at 30% of the cost of houses in Auckland, little congestion and no trains.
But here is one idea for you to kick around: if, instead of heavily subsidising the rail, we gave $10 to every rideshare driver that picked up a passenger they could carry as many people – maybe more – as do the trains and the cost would be much less. Simply encouraging rideshare would eliminate the need for trains. That is what the council should be doing.
Are you saying the rest of us have not travelled Brian?
Driving is already heavily subsidised, Bryan, as you know, it’s where your rates go. Car share, great in theory, very few want to do it. Why? Partly because our cars are an extension of our livingrooms, they are personal space, that insanely we take around with us, so strangers are an unwelcome addition to this place. But more practically, precisely because we have been building your dispersed city for 60 years now and so many journeys are to so many different places that sharing a lift no longer works. Households all head off in different directions. Decades of trying to incentivise car share and it keeps not working.
Good thing we are able to ‘ride-share’ economically with thousands of others on a globally successful system called Public Transport. And now that we’re making it work properly by wrestling some investment away from the enforced and subsidised driving and dispersal industry, it’s booming.
Over 50,000 people ride the rails every weekday in AKL and rising, way better to have them each in a car driving and then having to park them somewhere? You must have rocks in your head.
You like driving and living far away from others, great, fill your boots, there’s plenty of opportunity for that in this country. Just leave the shape of the city to those of us that actually live there and like it.
So when are you going to repay NZ taxpayers for the tens of thousands of dollars you ripped off from us by pursuing a frivolous case against NIWA and then dissolving your trust when ordered to pay court costs?
Sorry, but I’m not going to take advice from someone with such weak professional and personal ethics.
Bryan Leyland
So no reply to the charge that every fact in your article was false? It’s not even worth getting into the merits of your conclusions when the facts you have used to back them are all fabricated.
Expanded cities, with no congestion and no trains?
I have been to a few cities myself, and I have never encountered a city without congestion. Even the ones with lots of trains, like Paris and London.
Perhaps you should name some of these cities.
I always wonder with this small group of like minds; what is it about trains that so enrages them? Did they not get a train set as kids or something? They will ignore every fact about spatial economics, the beauty and efficiency of electric motors, of cheaper narrow tunnels, of streets full of social and commercial exchange rather than just traffic, simply because they can’t bear the thought of steel wheels on rails… even harder to understand than those bores who think a train is the only answer for every movement question, at least they’re romantics of a sort….
money. they can’t make money lobbying for it a much as they can with cars. if they could, they would love trains.
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for responding, ride share schemes have been started and failed numerous times already. There is at least one still operational. However they just don’t work, trust me it’s already been tried and at one stage was promoted by Auckland Council.
I too have traveled extensively, and considering we have one of the highest number of motorway lanes per captia world wide, I can assure you this tactic is not working here, or anywhere in the world currently. Public transport and density done well has truly overridden sprawl.
“we gave $10 to every rideshare driver that picked up a passenger they could carry as many people – maybe more” – I would suggest doing some research into capacities of each system, even if we had max share of people in a central location using ride-share there is no way they are going to reach the capacity abilities of rail. And your diver-less cars are only going to make ride-share less attractive than it already is.
Please present accurate facts, as unlike the Herald, on this blog, the majority of people commenting here do research and are able to back their opinions with current trend statistics and facts. But we are always keen for an educated debate.
” I’ve also seen many cities that have been allowed to expand and provide a pleasant lifestyle with houses at 30% of the cost of houses in Auckland, little congestion and no trains.”
Name a couple of these utopias for us plebs please.
Houston, depending on what your definition of ‘pleasant lifestyle’ is
Houston has a downtown 7.5 mile light rail system apparently needed to ease congestion. As of 2009 according to this video it was rather accident prone (actually it was the car drivers that were accident prone).
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2015/02/27/aucklands-population-to-continue-to-grow-strong/#comment-158038
In all seriousness, it is not the transport mode that affects housing affordability but whether the system of planning causes land banking and anti-competitive behaviour in the urban land supply market.
Nice try Richard but average house prices in Houston are US$459,234(trulia.com). Auckland is NZ$624,667. Houston is NZ$602,274. Hardly 30%! AND it has a train.
Let’s face it, he just made it up.
No answer? Why aren’t I surprised?
Wild statements based on prejudice is his stock in trade. Wasn’t that the main criticism of his original “article”?
Hi Brian. I’ve waited a few days to see if you are going to respond with more substantive detail to the points raised in this article. It seems you are not going to, and I think it will take a lot more than correcting a factual detail on your CV to fix your reputation. Do please prove me wrong and come forward with some evidence for your position. Alternatively, feel free to have your claims accepted as spurious a second time around.