The government aren’t the only one discussing budgets today as the Auckland Council are holding a session of their budget committee. It will see the council discuss the recently approved Accelerated Transport Programme which has been brought about by the introduction of a $99 levy per residential property to pay for transport. I’m not sure if the councillors who have since written to Len Brown asking to discuss the levy again will be able to do so or not. As we know the Transport Levy allows for around $170 million a year worth of extra investment in Auckland for three years. We already have a rough idea of where the money will be spent, this is shown below.

interim-programme

We also had a decent idea of what projects will be funded and it looks pretty good – although for most of it we didn’t know just how much money had been assigned to individual projects. One part of the agenda for today’s meeting finally gives us that detail. The most interesting parts are in Attachment A & B.

The first attachment lists each project in the council’s overall Auckland Plan Transport Network (APTN). Three separate columns list how much the was budgeted for the project over the next ten years based on the APTN, the do not much Basic Transport Network (BTN) and a third column what will the outcome is under the levy funded Accelerated Budget.

The tables show there has been quite a bit of change among some projects, presumably reflecting additional thinking that has gone one since the LTP analysis was done. As an example some projects have been re-scoped which has resulted in increases or decreases in costs or changes in timing has brought funding forward that was previously outside the 10 year horizon of the LTP. An example of some of the changes are below.

LTP Accelerated Plan project changes example

However changes over the 10 year plan are in some ways a bit meaningless as there will be another LTP in three years that will likely rehash the priorities and also have to deal with changes in funding that will likely result from the proposed Transport Accord. As such it’s only really worth focusing on the next three years and the tables below show just how much funding is proposed for each project over that time. Unfortunately it’s not the highest quality but if needed click through to the PDF linked earlier to get a slightly better version.

LTP Accelerated Plan Budget

LTP Accelerated Plan Budget 2

By the time you read this the council will likely have already discussed this item so feel free to add to the comments if any changes happen.

Share this

27 comments

  1. It appears the interim programme has $363m of roading in it; almost enough to pay for the CRL without government funding. Why is more being spent on that than all other public transport, walking and cycling?

    1. Because 75% of people drive to work, while 10% take public transport and 1.2% cycle. The amount being spent on cycling and walking is ridiculous; there are already roads and footpaths to cycle and walk on.

      1. What modes we want to see as a city in the future is an important question that underpinned the consultation process of the LTP and the consensus (as far as i could see) was to increase active modes and PT.

        Without additional spending on other modes there is unlikely to be any shift in mode share.

        It would be interesting to see the split of maintenance vs investment spend. I’d expect that the majority of the roading spend is maintenance related.

      2. FYI it’s not allowed to cycle on the footpath. You’re required to cycle on the roadway.

        Knowing that, would you think it’s safe for children to cycle to school?

        1. “would you think it’s safe for children to cycle to school?”

          Which is a good question. It’s widely observed that traffic volumes drop during school holidays (IIRC it’s around a 5% drop). If we could reduce the school dropoff run that could become the permanent volume.

          That would make money invested in making cycling to school safely wildly effective (not that it isn’t already)

      3. So, our roads are so much better than our cycle and PT infra that very few people choose to not drive, therefore we should not invest in alternatives?

        Road lobby logic.

      4. I know I’m shouting into the void, but the 7-11/corner dairy example is apt: if you were locked in a 7-11 for a week and at the end someone measured what you’d ate, they would decide that you have a strong preference for junk food, soft drinks, luke warm pies and bad coffee. Making policy based on such situations is obviously absurd – the correct course of action would be to provide healthy choices and let you out of the 7-11.

        The argument isn’t that roads are bad and trains are good – it’s that single occupancy vehicles are an inefficient method of moving large volumes of people in a limited time window between two points. Trains and rapid mass transit are good at this. It’s horses for courses – we already have plenty of roads for other non-peak uses.

        What happens when we fill in the hinterland between albany and silverdale, and the population along the northern motorway expands as it will with new developments, and hopefully with infill housing too. Let’s say it doubles – we’ll need to move twice as many cars, which means doubling the motorway width just to maintain the current level of traffic. This is obvious and it’s childlike to pretend it is not the reality. If the population doubles again we’re at 16 lanes each way at some points, and there is not much left of the north shore to have houses because it’s all motorway. Now replicate this south, east and west. Spaghetti junction will need to be increased in capacity so much that eden terrace will surely cease to exist. Where exactly will all the cars arriving in downtown auckland go,exactly? Are we to knock buildings down to widen every street to the required 8 lanes? There will be no buildings left to provide employment.

        Alternatively, you can move all those people on a single rail line and not completely fuck auckland up. We’re not all sitting here rabidly anti car, it’s about space, time and the realities of the world. I’m personally not a fan of bad ideas, and I guess that’s the common theme of this site.

        There is room to argue about what the correct balance is, as some people will always need cars due to the working arrangements or difficulty in serving them with adequate transit, but they are the big winners when people that don’t HAVE to be in cars get out and use the train or bus.

        Bicycles (and) walking are about integrating transit into people’s lives more effectively and proving alternatives to driving for short term trips. It’s much cheaper to build and maintain cycle ways vs roads and also saves the country in health care costs. I’m not personally a fan of big expensive long distance cycle ways, but connecting local communities from door to store, transit and community is cheap, saves money in health care and improves options for the less well off as the cost of car ownership is too high for some, but they have no choice. It’s not about banning cars, it’s about keeping cyclists safe – none of these objectives can be met if it’s too dangerous to cycle – no one will do it (as your 1.2% stat shows).

        The alternative is social engineering, where you are required certain things. I’m a bigger fan of the carrot than the stick – incentivising behaviour the achieves social good and improves efficiencies in how we move is a good thing. You can argue with it, but the world is changing, for the better (IMHO)/

        1. Trains may be more efficient at moving large numbers of people from one place to another than the much-maligned “single occupancy vehicles”, but there is no transportation mode in the world that can match the ability of cars to take people from door to door anywhere in a city or its surrounds. Public transport may suit some people (I take the train to work) but I think 20% commute share is probably the best we can manage in Auckland given its geography and dispersed job market. We need evidence-based policy not wishful thinking. As for cycling, why not let low-speed cyclists ride on the footpath? I can’t remember the last time a pedestrian died after being run over by a cyclist.

        2. “there is no transportation mode in the world that can match the ability of cars to take people from door to door anywhere in a city or its surrounds.”

          That’s a fallacy. Not all people have the same preferences. For instance only a few living in the CBD is going to tell you taking the car is the most convenient way to go shopping. And even in the suburbs I often walk to the shops. I don’t miss the circling around for parking which often precedes shopping.

          And don’t forget not everybody can drive a car in the first place.

          Kids for instance. How many parents would say “Gee, i’m so glad I spent another half an hour in traffic congestion to drop the kids off at a school 2km away.” While the kid could ride to school on his own in 10 to 15 minutes on a bike.

        3. “but there is no transportation mode in the world that can match the ability of cars to take people from door to door anywhere in a city or its surrounds.” – Yes there is – the bicycle. If the right infrastructure is in place, the bicycle is far superior to the car for moving people around a city.

        4. “I think 20% commute share is probably the best we can manage in Auckland ” – Well that would be an amazing achievement. We would then be on a par with many good European cities. You are underestimating how much of an effect PT use will have on the city.

        5. Mode share into the CBD is ~60%+ PT+walking+cycling, so it’s certainly possible in Auckland.

          Zürich is a good example of a city where there is no need for a car and it’s more of a hindrance than anything, and there’s car share when you need one. It’s certainly not for lack of money that people choose to not own a car with average salaries $100,000+. Auckland and NZ could learn a lot from Switzerland. Instead vast sums are ploughed into ever bigger and more expensive urban motorways here.

        6. Vancouver hit 50% ‘non car’ mode share this year. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Transit+cycling+walking+together+rival+Vancouver+travel/11050346/story.html

          It’s not some magic, it’s planning. Vancouver was the same as every other North American city (and parts of it still are, fighting tooth and nail) but there is no way in hell that there could ever be enough roads to put 30% (of total, to get car share to 70%) of those people in cars. You still refuse to address the geometric realities and I’m not convinced you really read anything else I took the time to write.

      5. Kleefer. We have to fund for the marginal user, ie the next one, not the current one. The current one’s needs are already met. Rapid Transit growth is up around 20%; this is where the expense needs to go to meet demand. Additionally, if we are wise, we will build for the city we want to have in order to prosper and thrive, and not just automatically and uncritically repeat whatever was done in the past. Therefore every budget must have a degree of ‘decide and provide’ as well as the ‘predict and provide’ mentioned above. This is where the cycling spend comes in. We are investing in cycling in order to make it happen not because it is already there. See above; if it was already there it wouldn’t need investing in.

        1. Using percentage increases without proper context is statistical chicanery. How about this: between 2006 and 2013, the number of Aucklanders commuting in a private vehicle rose by more than the TOTAL number of train commuters, despite high fuel prices, a poor economy and a lack of major new roads during that period. I suspect once the new motorway projects are completed the car numbers could jump again, as the network is currently at capacity. If that happens you will complain about “induced demand”. You just can’t win with the anti-car brigade.

        2. I remember the Victoria park tunnel being dug out during that period.

          And a key thing here is that realizing a jump in car trips is more expensive than realizing the same jump (in absolute numbers) in PT trips. Look at building the Northern Busway vs building another harbour bridge. And both will be much more expensive than realizing the same jump in cycling.

        3. Choosing to only count commuters is a form of statistical chicanery so brazen that only cabinet ministers try to get away with it. Journey to work is only 10% of any working day’s travel demand figures according to AT. Ok let’s call it 20% as we can safely assume that these people come home again too. But so what? If they planned their services based on JTW figures alone tha city wouldn’t even begin to function. So you are trying to cliam that the 2million additional train rides last year are meaningless and we should just keep building roads?

      6. Exactly. So doesn’t that tell us that cars are already well catered for? We should be focussing on balancing out those mode shares a bit more.

  2. Did I see right? The broadway entrance to Newmarket Train station finally being developed? Amazing! I’d given up on anything ever happening with this.

  3. Not in the report – Dick Quax was not at yesterdays closed door workshop so asked what had happened to his beloved Reeves Road flyover – he got more than he could have hoped for. David Warburton told Councillors that the reason that Reeves Road has been pulled again is that they (AT + NZTA) are investigating an enlarged version of the East-West link which would run from State Highway 20 (presumably starting with a new interchange at Onehunga) to Reeves Road via Otahuhu and SH1. A road of this scale (sigh) is likely to become a State Highway and hence totally funded by NZTA – though it would have flow-on effects on local feeder roads that AT/Auckland Council would have to at least half fund.

    1. What on earth would that road achieve that the South Eastern doesn’t already? There does need to be a better intersection between SH20 and Neilson St, but really does NZTA/AT think that the cost of such a road really add up.

      The proposed route you mention does seem to go through a lot of housing areas and that didn’t work out so well from NZTA/AT last time they proposed something similar.

    2. This isn’t a good thing to hear. I was wondering what was up with the delay in anything being announced regarding EW

  4. Looks like a great step forward to Auckland to have this budget approved for the next three years. Only a few years ago the annual walking & cycling budget was $5m – so to have $124m proposed to be spent on walking and cycling in the next three years is an amazing leap forwards.

    It’s also great there’s budget for the key PT interchanges to enable the new PT network to be a success. Plus bus lanes (still looks a bit light there, but I guess they aren’t meant to cost too much) and progressing the AMETI busway. And of course CRL!

    Now if only government could come to the party with a Northern Busway extension, a SH16 busway and electrification to Pukekohe!

    1. I just hope it’s allocated sensibly – if all the walking and cycling goes into ‘highway’ type projects then we’re still in the situation that you can’t bike from your house to….anything

  5. I am just disappointed that at least some of the levy is not being spent on the CRL to bring it forward. For me it suggest that the CRL is not a real objective for Auckland council, more of a political objective to be used to argue with the government.

Leave a Reply

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