ATAP 2.0 – first details look great

Agreed. People out west need the LR to be rapid, and connecting to bus routes that are faster, and cycling and walking routes that are safe. Chevralites just need the fast buses and safe cycling and walking. Even if people give up trying to get onto the LR at peak hour at Pt Chev because it’s too full, they will still have the benefit of all those commuters no longer being on our roads.

However, the road network will have to be contracted at the same time to achieve this, or the available space will just induce new trips.

A Pt Chev stop will definitely be in. Twyford said so re Unitec development. And it would be ridiculous not to have at least ~2 stops in the Isthmus before the City Centre. People want to go cross-town and the other way too – its NOT all about City Centre trips.

And those stops won’t be “meandering off”. They will be directly next to the motorway, like at the Northern Busway, with good walk and cycling bridges (and feeder buses where apropriate).

If the capacity isn’t enough for out west, well, just add some more trams. The headway on LRT can be as low as 1-2 minutes! how about 30 trams / hour? That will provide capacity.

Where’s the evidence that a majority of Auckland voters want more roads?

Doesn’t that show how low transport is in the priorities of most voters, rather than the popularity of roads in Auckland?

Well the reality is we’re a democracy. And one with a very low term length. The government is already 1/6 of the way into their term assuming they last the full term. Unless they’re re-elected, many of these projects are going to go by the way side when the next National government comes in and goes back to a road and private car dominated plan.

As others have said, quite a lot of Auckland does not vote Labour (or Greens) but votes National. How much of this is due to transport and how much is for other reasons is difficult to say. Also we’ve so far avoided a right-wing mayor but the council itself tends to be finely balanced and we shouldn’t assume it can’t happen. And an uncooperative council will also make problems.

I don’t think we should underestimate the importance of people’s unwillingness for the government to spend their money on something. Especially when it doesn’t directly benefit them. (NIMBYism etc. E.g. there’s no rail in the North Shore so why should my money be spent on rail? Etc etc. Isn’t National’s Northcote candidate someone like this?)

Also even when people support public transport, we shouldn’t underestimate their possible concurrent support for lots of roads and motorways, since they like to drive or see it as important.

(Actually despite my strong support for public transport, walking and cycling. I’m someone like that and I don’t even drive much. It’s probably to some extent to do with my upbringing in Malaysia which is road galore, but when people talk about the East-West link or Mills Road or yes the RONS, I’m not the sort of person who thinks ‘what a waste of money’ but that sounds like it would be great to have. Likewise T3 lane, or 2 lane vs 4 lane issues I do tend to favour the more car friendly and bigger and better option. However I do read enough here and elsewhere to be also be willing to accept that in reality a lot of these don’t make sense. And when it comes to either/or, I do generally favour the PT, walking and cycling. But I think there a lot far who lean far more heavily towards cars. Even among the younger generation despite their reduced interest in cars, I wonder whether particularly with the rise of uber etc there’s also an increased focus towards cars. I mean you do get all those ‘PT is dumb in 5 years self-driving cars are going to take over’ people and not all of them are old foggies.)

And even in the modern world where the traditional media is having problems we shouldn’t underestimate their influence and ability to turn people against a government and its policies. We’ve thankfully so far avoided the extremities of Australia. (I mean seriously, did you see how biased they were against the previous Labor government especially the Murdoch publications?)

But still I wouldn’t say they’re particularly friendly to much of Labour’s policies and particularly towards public transport, cycling and walking instead of roads. We’ve already seen this to some extent with the petrol tax. I’m sure many who are old enough remember the rates revolt of 2003-2004. There’s a good reason why Phil Goff is trying to hard to stick to his rates promise. For that matter, I think the Grey Lynn fuss is at least in part because of a media beatup. (And they seem to be trying the same with K Road.)

And even ignoring bias, the problems the media are having means a trend towards sensationalism and click bait. We laugh when it’s “Is The Hobbit trilogy really that bad? Yes – here’s why” but it’s going to start to cause problems when it’s about the government and their plans. Besides if you think the traditional media is bad, have you paid attention to the stuff said on Facebook and Neighbourly? If you think the Stuff commentators are bad…..

As for educating the public, is there any real reason to think it will work? Government education campaigns even on simple issues tend to be hit and miss. I don’t see a reason why a campaign on a complicated issue will work. I do see a reason why if you push too hard, it’ll be labelled as government propaganda akin to Nazi Germany or Stalin.

And we shouldn’t think of it as just one issue. Even if this only costs Labour some votes, if they then lose other votes from their ETS changes (there are already grumblings from farmers, don’t forget Myrtle) and other policies (whether you agree with them or not) and other issues, they lose and we’re back to National. I mean even in the previous election there were some issues e.g. the water tax which seemed fairly damaging, and other areas e.g. the promise for no new taxes other than those outlined, no capital gains tax on the family home and not increasing the superannuation age which came about at least in part for electoral reasons.

BTW, let’s not forget it isn’t just Auckland anyway. Even if Labour wins 75% of the party vote in Auckland, it’s not going to mean much if National wins 75% of the party vote in the rest of NZ. (Yes there’s no way this will even happen in practice.) Likewise it’s not just the areas where Labour is currently winning. Even if these is no loss of the party vote in Te Atatu or other areas where Labour currently ‘wins’, if there’s no gain and if there is a loss of the party vote in places where Labour is already doing badly (e.g. much of East Auckland) it could cost Labour the election. Plus it’s not even those who do vote but those who don’t vote. We are currently still quite high compared to much of the developed world in voter turnout, still there are a lot of people who don’t vote. If enough people are turned off and don’t vote anyone, or if enough people who didn’t vote start turning up and voting National, things could easily change.

In other words the realities of living in a democracy means that yes there is a political risk and the government could easily lose the next election at least in part due to getting things wrong here. Yes you could say a more aspirational government has more chance of success, trying to hard to please everyone tends to result in something which pleases no one and loses the election, etc etc. So I’m not saying that all their decisions, compromises etc were necessary or right, simply that we can’t imagine we live in a society where such considerations don’t matter. We’re no Singapore.

(And for all Bridges’ promises, I think many of us have seen enough to be fairly sure National still won’t be that friendly towards public transport, cycling and walking.)

@JBM “…most of Auckland votes National.” – These voters are realising how important non road solutions are becoming for a big city & are changing their votes or moving out of the city. They are realising that the solutions used for Auckland of decades past have not worked.