Here’s a roundup of some of the stories that have cropped up this week – although a couple are from last week after we missed the post last Friday.
Auckland Transport Consultation Frenzy
AT have launched a large number of consultations over the last two weeks. Here are just some of the big ones.
Sale St Intersection
A few months ago the Auckland Design Office (ADO) put in place some temporary changes to the Sale/Wellesley St intersection, an intersection so wide you could almost see the curve of the earth across it. The intersection was dangerous for pedestrians given the wide sweeping curves let drivers travel through the intersection at speed.
Auckland Transport are now proposing to make that permanent and add signalised crossings of Wellesley St.
The permanent improvements proposed include:
- signalising the Sale Street / Wellesley Street intersection enabling pedestrians a safe place to cross
- widening the footpath space at the intersection
- removing the traffic island in the middle of Sale Street
- adding a new loading zone outside of Sweat Shop Brew Bar
- permanently removing the car park spaces that have already been removed as part of the temporary changes
- combining the two traffic lanes exiting Sale Street to one traffic lane.
This is a much needed improvement and it’s good AT are looking to do it. The only concern I have is not to do with the intersection itself but that there is not more bus priority being added to Wellesley St at the same time. Wellesley St is one of our busier bus corridors and buses such as the NX2 can spend more time getting through Wellesley St than they do on the entire busway.
Consultation is open till 8 December.
Glenvar Rd
AT are looking to make improvements to Glenvar Rd and parts of East Coast Bays Rd on the North Shore which doesn’t even have footpaths in some places. They say funding is limited so they’re looking at the following types of improvements:
- footpath upgrades
- intersection upgrades
- transit / bus lanes
- cycle facility upgrades or amendments
- safety measures.
These are exactly the kinds of things AT should be focused on delivering and some of those intersection upgrades look pretty good too with them showing protected bike lanes including at the intersections
The consultation is also open till 8 December
OuterLink changes
As I wrote about a last week, AT are finally looking to fix the OuterLink. The consultation is now online and open till December 13.
There are a number of other consultations that have come out recently and you can see all consultations here.
Harbour Crossing Business Case is being delayed
It seems the NZTA are again delaying the business case for another harbour crossing. My guess is this because they’re desperately trying to find a way to justify the road crossing despite all evidence pointing to it making things worse.
On a related note, this clip from the TV show Utopia in Australia has been doing the rounds.
This is BRILLIANT!
“It means you spend a lot of money now for a very short-term benefit."
“I guess for $300 billion dollars we were hoping for something a little more dramatic.”#JevonsParadox isn’t a death metal band. It’s #inducedTraffic. Via @ABCTV: pic.twitter.com/Xl2qaEgZ3i
— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) November 7, 2019
Self Driving Cars likely to make congestion worse
One of the benefits sometimes touted of autonomous vehicles is that because everything is controlled by computers they will make congestion better. But one of the big unknowns is how human behaviour will change. Will they mean we travel more and if so, how much?
Some researchers in California decided to test that and came up with a simple analog test, they’d use chauffeurs to drive people around and monitor how that changed their behaviour. The researchers admit this research isn’t perfect but their findings are astounding.
Harb thought they would see people sending their cars out more than if they were driving themselves, something like a 20 or 30 percent increase in VMT with the chauffeurs. Nothing to sneeze at, of course, but towards the middle of the wide range of the results the surveys had suggested.
He was wrong. The subjects increased how many miles their cars covered by a collective 83 percent when they had the chauffeur versus the week prior.
Even if the increase in travel was only half that, that’s still a lot more trips and distances driven and means congestion would only get worse. Just another reason why it’s so important we build congestion free alternatives such as improving our public transport and active modes.
Port move challenged
The idea of moving the port, or at least moving it to Northland, is coming under more scrutiny after multiple reviews of the business case have found it flawed.
An economic argument for moving Auckland’s port to Northland has been harshly criticised in two reviews by economic consultancies.
Both reviews say an economic analysis by Ernst and Young for a government-funded working group, failed to provide a credible basis for making a decision on the move.
The reviews released by Ports of Auckland, and a third briefing paper by its owner Auckland Council, are part of a push-back against the port-move proposal, which goes to cabinet next month.
…….
NZIER said when EY produced the “Port Future Study” for Auckland Council in 2016, Northland ranked only 12th on the list potential relocation sites.
“The same consultancy three years later moved Northport from the twelfth most preferred option, straight to number one, with no explanation,” said Laurence Kubiak, the chief executive.
E-Bike/scooter sales
Oliver Bruce, who runs a podcast on Micromobility, tweeted this graph showing the sales of e-bikes and e-scooters vs electric cars in NZ. Both the previous and current government are keen for electric vehicles and have put in various schemes to try and make them cheaper and more attractive but it increasingly seems they’re focused on wrong thing and we should be focusing on how we can get even more people on e-bikes and scooters.
Just your periodic reminder that e-bike/scooter sales in NZ are going gangbusters.
102% YoY growth through October this year, and on track to sell 60k+ units.
For context, we'd be lucky to sell 7k electric cars, up 23%.
The future of urban transport is hidden in plain sight. pic.twitter.com/EWX516g4a6
— OLIVER BRUCE (@oliverbruce) November 19, 2019
Old Mangere Bridge Replacement
After being closed almost exactly a year ago due to safety concerns, today construction is finally starting for the replacement of the Old Mangere Bridge.
Rail Network Reliability
There have been a number of reliability issues with the rail network recently resulting in emergency works and speed restrictions. A press release a few weeks ago from the NZTA noted that inspections were undertaken by walking the entire length of the network.
“A total of 34 faults were found during the inspections. Most of those faults (20) were able to be repaired or remedied on the same day, while others have mitigations put in place until a permanent fix is made.
Huntly RoNS almost finished
One of the big Roads of National Significance projects is nearing completion with the NZTA announcing the Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway will open after two days of celebrations in February. The expressway is a 15km long bypass of Huntly and Taupiri. It has involved significant earthworks including a 57m deep cut through the summit of the Taupiri range involving the removal of 1.3 million m³ of earth.
However, things aren’t quite on time down the expressway a bit further with the Hamilton section now likely delayed by up to a year.
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Can we turn the old SH1 corridor into a wide gauge bullet train corridor? The second-best way to see Huntly would be passing through it at 400kmh.
I caught the Nothern Explorer in January and kept an eye on speed with a GPS app. The fastest we got up to was while we were passing through Huntly
Matt L , can you remember what the average speed was over that distance ? . The reason why I ask is when the new service [H2A] starts next year , it may help to mahe the service sound faster than going by road .
It still wasn’t that fast but the gps said we hit 110km/h. If we can’t get to something more similar to the Gold Coast line which hits 140km/h then we’d see a pretty decent result
Not mentioned here but of interest is the government announcement to put a bus lanes on the North Western, a temporary measure thanks to the LR failure I assume and sort of throw back to SH1 on the North Shore back in the day before the actual busway.
It is better than the nothing already there but only just and I cannot help but wonder if it’s starting to dawn on the Member for Te Atatu that he’s staring at electoral extinction come this time next year such is his phenomenal lack of delivery on anything much less transport in West Auckland.
Still Phil is awesome at announcements, and a 100% failure at delivery.
If this latest pie in the sky actually happens, I’m certainly hoping it’s not the high tide make for poor old West Auckland residents!
Phil Twyford announced it so it probably isn’t going to happen.
It’s being led by AT the intention is to talk about it in a separate post which is why it wasn’t included here
Sorry Matt, it was like an oasis in Aucklands vast desert of transport implementation that had not been touched on.
This is not surprising as the AT business case for the northwest that Great Auckland published already said that the first stage should be Interchange stations and bus lane improvements, even if light rail was being built. What is surprising is that it’s taken them this long to read the exec summary: https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2019/04/09/getting-light-rail-to-the-northwest-in-three-easy-steps/
Project253334FileNWRTC IBC14 July 2017Revision1Page1-4This preferred choice was made after considering an extensive list of public transport options with:▪Bus-basedvariations▪Light rail▪Metro rail (including conventional heavy rail, and specialised automated light metro systems)▪Ferries▪Alternative ways to manage demand and optimisethe existing network.The short-listing demonstrated that the preferred mode should be either bus (bus lanes or a busway), or light rail, based on a combination of criteria relating to cost, likely patronage and performance. The metro rail options (heavy rail and automated light metro) had higher costs than could be justifiedby expected patronage, the ferries were slow, with high operating costs and did not serve sufficient catchments –though they could have a complementary role. The only outstanding issue with the bus mode remained uncertainty as to the availability of sufficient road and stop space in the central city. While outside the scope of the IBC, some assessment has been carried out and it is likely that a resolution exists for this issue.In the final assessment, the preferred option was a bus-based solution with a range of infrastructure types along the corridor with careful staging to target sections of the corridor where the greatest problems occur and which could therefore provide higher benefits first. One of the major advantages of a bus-based solution over light railis that it can be implemented in stages, whilst light railhas effectively to be built in one step to gain the benefits. Light rail also necessitatesthe widening of the causeway between Te Atatu and Waterview which would create high risks from a consenting, environmental and culturalperspective. Sub-options of using Great North Road for the busway were rejected in favour of using SH16 despite the former having intermittent bus lanes, as a better travel time with higher reliability can be achieved on the latter.This reduced travel time translates into better access toand fromemployment and education for people in the north-west of Auckland.The recommended staging for the North West Rapid Transit Corridor (NWRTC)is:▪By early 2020s: Lincoln Rd to Te Atatu; Westgate Station; Lincoln Rd Station; Te AtatuStation▪By mid 2020s: Point Chevalier to Karangahape Rd busway via SH16; new stations at PointChevalier, Western Springs, Arch Hill▪By 2035: Westgate to Lincoln Rd busway; Royal Rd Station.Therecommended solution for the Te Atatu toPoint Chevalier (causeway) section is to use the existing bus shoulder lanes, with improved management and enforcement.The last potential stage of a busway solution –across the causeway –h
Surely the way we should be thinking in our climate emergency times is that light rail on the causeway should be implemented by taking away current vehicle lanes.
That’s a great idea we could have all day congestion with really long queues of cars and trucks emitting even more pollutants and we could claim we did it for the environment.
If you look at the thousands of single occupancy vehicles on the causeway each morning ( and only a small number appear to be tradies) then surely having a good PT option would reduce the numbers of cars on motorway – why should we keep saying lets have PT options but never, ever do anything to make it the best option.
miffy are you saying we should be building more motorway lanes to reduce pollution?
Jimbo everybody faces a different opportunity cost. The people left on the motorway in the peaks don’t have the option to substitute so they will use the motorway anyway. Adding lanes without pricing will only encourage more low value trips. But removing lanes now will just make pollution worse.
The lanes would be repurposed, not removed.
Likewise are we going to finally see Dominion Road upgraded now that light rail isn’t going there to solve the problem it was originally intended to solve?
Those articulated buses they are planning to use on the Puhinui busway look pretty nice, I’m sure they could upgrade Dominion Road to those for under $100 mil. In fact why not cancel the light rail project altogether and upgrade 60 bus routes to full 24×7 busway and articulated buses? Which would have a better ROI?
See they have trolley bus versions. I wonder about the economics of trolley buses versus batteries. Just guessing the trolleys would be cheaper and lighter and less worry about battery failure.
And environmentally far better and far longer lived.
The question is how would you fit all those extra long buses on Symonds St, together with all the other ones?
Why not queen street?
Yes those bi articulated tram like buses are the way to go the population of NZ is far too small to spend billions on one transport project in one place. The bi artic. trolley buses would be ideal to there are some new developments in some European cities. Trams are good but they ripped them out and that’s a lost and gone oportunity.
Yet NZ spends $14 billion on National Super every year. That’s this year, next year and every year after. And it’s increasing. In fact NZ can afford these billion dollar projects and should stop with the endless excuses and get on with them.
Instead of light rail they could do airport to city with these buses. Add a few new stations on the southwestern motorway and some bus lanes where possible (some sections of non-busway would be OK for now at least). Make existing Dominion road bus lanes 24×7 (I don’t see any big advantage of running in the middle of road). Close Queen street and make articulated bus only. Whole project could be done in a year or two instead of a few decades, and would deliver almost all of the benefits for a fraction of the cost.
I suspect all those businesses who were supposedly going to go bankrupt if LRT works actually happened the area accessible would probably fare just as badly with their shop openings facing a 24 hour bus expressway. Light rail at least offered the opportunity to rethink the street as a space.
Probably just a bus every 5 minutes or maybe 3 minutes off peak. Not really an expressway.
Capacity. Buses have lower max occupancy vs trams. Plus need extra drivers. Final rubber vs metal wheels.
BRT is a cheaper way to start. Then transition to LRT with the same stations etc.
And also the Te Whau Pathway consent is open for submissions until 12th Dec. http://tewhaupathway.org.nz/have-your-say/ The pathway will provide a walking and riding connection to this pop up Te Atatu interchange and the New Lynn transit station for loads of Westies, and link to schools and parks.
The Outer Link becomes an end to end service?
When you think that the old Mangere bridge replacement could be built to carry trains too, AT could easily link in Mangere Bridge to the rest of the rail network.
The track bed is there from Onehunga to the foot of the bridge anyway. A totally wasted easy opportunity.
Have you only just worked that out.
No
Good it did stand out a bit.
That old alignment is too tight for passenger rail – designed for the old short goods wagons from NZGR.
What alignment are referring to?
The Auckland Metro trains can handle gradients of 3.5% and curves of 100m radius. I find it hard to believe that they would have an issue with the old onehunga alignment.
Any train that handle the tight radius of Britomart tunnel to the Newmarket line and vice versa would cruise effortlessly through the link the Mangere Bridge!
Neilson Street is in the way of the track bed, this would need to be bridged.
Or tunneled slightly.
Ironic that Mike Lee spoke out against the demolition of that bridge, to no avail
.
+1 Waspman.
It really isn’t in AT/AC’s vocabulary to actually think ahead (and at the very least properly future proof). Instead they’d rather spend a lot more money later to make up for their shortsightedness.
Take the East Coast Rd upgrade above…. 4 lanes (including transit lanes) in the southern section, but only 3 lanes further north. The cycle way and footpaths they are building will no doubt be ripped out (at considerable cost and disruption to both active travel users and motorists alike) then rebuilt again at further cost when they add the additional transit lane northbound in a decade. The mind boggles.
The new bridge not designed for vehicles. I wrote an article about it on this blog.
I realise that but building one that could do both seems so common sense.
Yeah. I think BRT is the best medium term option now. Extend A2B into A2O over the SH20 bridge. Gives rapid transit network connection in Mangere.
I’m not sure what most of the acronyms represent but you know absolutely nothing is going to happen in respect of rapid anything for the foreseeable generation.
Hence this would be a very practical do-able win for PT.
How many car kilometres were eliminated by the purchase of those 60,000 e-scooters and e-bikes? Even though car sales are down slightly this year (about 9K) we will probably see another year of the fleet increasing by 140,000 cars.
Hard to know Robert. But would be good to know for future planning purposes.
Was just looking at the vehicle fleet stats to 2017. Per vehicle kms are down, but per capita is up.
Would Auckland Port still be economic if it just contracted and let Tauranga and Northport pick up the slack. Still upgrade the railway and build the new line and the rail linked container yard out west. I see Simon Wilson is pondering whether this would make a new crossing across the Waitamata unnecessary because a lot of the truck traffic would be removed from the harbour bridge.
The other thought I have is reopen Onehunga after all it is ideally located next to much of the freights destination. There is not a lot of space and the wharf would need to be rebuilt. It could be easily linked into the rail network. In fact trains wouldn’t need to trundle through Onehunga. I was thinking fast container ships from Aussie or maybe an overnight service to Nelson five nights a week. That would remove a lot of trucks. Car carriers might be another possibility depending on how much dredging would be required.
There’s a lot of aspects to this decision.
Why not reopen Onehunga? The same reason as for the past 150 years, a difficult and dangerous entrance with a bar.
And yet most of us couldn’t name a single wreck of a powered ship at the entrance to the Manukau despite it having been an active port for well over a century.
During which time it was only ever used by small coastal ships. Next you’ll be trying to resucitate the old Portage Road canal fantasy.
Clearly you have greater knowledge about these things than the Port Future Study group that spent a small fortune studying the options and liked the Manukau. http://www.portfuturestudy.co.nz/members/
The should have saved all that money and just asked you.
There were direct ships from Sydney and Melebourne.
“And yet most of us couldn’t name a single wreck of a powered ship at the entrance to the Manukau despite it having been an active port for well over a century.”
Erm… …and that would be because… …for most of that “well over a century” the vast majority of the ships that called there were sailing ships
And I can easily name a wreck of a powered ship in the Manukau harbour: the screw-driven corvette HMS Orpheus. Only New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster of all. And what happened again? Oh, that’s right, it ran aground on the sand bar.
Now, don’t you think that modern cargo ships would be more at peril from running aground than a ship from over 150 years ago?
Some committee may have recommended replacing Auckland’s waterfront port with one on Manukau harbour. But I guarantee that it will never actually happen.
“Now, don’t you think that modern cargo ships would be more at peril from running aground than a ship from over 150 years ago?”
No. Not with dredges, modern navigation systems and powerful engines. Technology has moved on in the last 150 years.
Oh okay they can dredge it today, yah problem solved (en sarc).
They would be needing to dredge Manukau harbour continuously. And even then; it would probably still be out of action a lot of the time.
The Manukau Harbour entrance is not just a sandbar, it’s a constantly-moving sandbar. It would require continuous dredging that could never be stopped.
Then there’s the 15km or so of channel you’ll need to dig into the harbour to create somewhere deep enough for ships to actually navigate, which because it is soft mud will also need regular dredging. Why do you think Northport moved from Whangarei out to Marsden Point? Because to keep it open required dredging.
You’ll also need to shut the port down frequently whenever the sea gets too rough for ships to come and go through the entrance, which happens fairly often.
It’s just not practical, which is why only small boats have ever used Onehunga, not large ships, and only when it was safe to use the harbour entrance.
Daniel I don’t think the actual harbour would need continual dredging as it does not have a sand replenishment source. The harbour entrance is a complete another story as there is a huge northwards longshore drift of sand.
The prevalence of the powerul westerly weather systems, big tides and very mobile sand drift will provide a huge challenge maintaining a satisfactory harbour entrance availability.
Clearly the money spent on the Port Future Study was wasted, all they needed to do was to ask a couple of old men. And well done Daniel Eyre you named a Jason class Sail and Steam ship that we all know capsized 156 years ago and so clearly didn’t sink in the last hundred years. A ship did lose its rudder a few years ago. Does that mean the Manukau entrance should never be crossed? A ferry struck barrets reef entering Wellington Harbour, should they have closed Port Nicholson?
Haha erm you didn’t stipulate anything about a shipwreck being in the last 100 years. If you had; it would’ve been stupider given that the harbour hasn’t seen much activity beyond cement shipments in small coastal barges to Onehunga in over 50 years.
I notice that this board has such authorities as some guy from Generation Zero and Annabell Young who seems to have landed herself a cushy job after a previous long career of being a bumbling idiot in the National party.
Even if this board has recommended using Manukau harbour, something I’m taking your word for, it’s not going to happen. Or at least; not for long before physical reality hits. And it’s probably why there’s already a push to develop Marsden B near Whangarei and/or move more shipping to Tauranga.
P.S. There’s a good chance I’m younger than you are.
Sorry Daniel, perhaps you just seem ancient. They concluded that the Manukau and Firth of Thames options should be developed further including looking at geotech issues (see it’s something people study before espousing an opinion). Is including a wide range of people including the head of the shipping corporation and a former port chief executive a bad thing?
They concluded the farther flung options were hopeless. So obviously NZ first had to get Wayne Brown to look at it instead.
Both a Manukau or Firth of Thames port proposals would require a huge amount of dredging for construction. But they would also require a huge amount of fill to construct the shoreside facilities.
So would the volume of dredging meet the fill requirements?
For the Firth of Thames the rivers draining the Hauraki Plains could be a significant source of silt requiring on going dredging. Perhaps.
For the Manukau I can’t see any large sources of ongoing siltation apart from the material swept into the entrance.
Obviously maintaining the harbour entrance would be expensive, and the robust weather and tides would impact on harbour availability.
But the location adjacent to and on the right side of Auckland would be a massive advantage over any location north of the city.
It obviously would take some serious study to determine establishment and operational feasibility, of Manukau, but I fear a port in the wrong place north of the city would be for ever in the wrong place. Getting and maintaining a high volume freight corridor right through Auckland is a very substantial disadvantage, as well as the initial distance to even get to Auckland.
Erm “miffy”; have you ever considered that ion the end; the conclusions of this “Port future study” may account for… …nothing?
But hey thanks for the laughs with the NZ first party conspiracy theory. You know what they say about people who jump to those?
Marsden point B will probably be expanded (and the rail link upgraded). The next most likely outcome is the continual expansion of Tauranga (which FYI I think is not a good idea). Any political interference will merely delay this inevitability.
Auckland waterfront’s port seems to be dying a slow death mainly because the land it’s sitting on is so overvalued. If Auckland needs its own port; a new facility will be built somewhere in the vicinity of Kauri bay. And this will have to be an ongoing development given that nothing exists there currently.’
All the talk promoting Manukau harbour will amount for nothing in the face of reality.
“Auckland waterfront’s port seems to be dying a slow death mainly because the land it’s sitting on is so overvalued.”
Daniel, I’ve got an open mind about whether the port should move and where, but I don’t think Wayne Brown and the working group have yet properly made the argument that the port should move.
And one of the key points they haven’t backed up is their valuation of the Auckland land. Wayne Brown has talked about it being worth $6 billion, but the report itself only talks about a range of valuations up to a $1 billion, and the port itself say they carry it on their books at less than $1 billion.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/117637409/auckland-port-move-ceo-decries-made-up-facts-by-promove-group
(paywalled) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12287134
The working group report does say “The high land value that is required to continue operations at the POAL site means that Auckland ratepayers are potentially missing out on subsidies approximately worth $5b to $6b.”. But that quote is sitting out on its own, with nothing given to back it up. Elsewhere in the report they mention that land valuation is inherently speculative.
At $1billion the land is not worth enough to make up for the billions that would need to be spent on the road and rail links and replacing the Auckland wharves. $6 billion might be enough depending on what the real cost of the move is.
Otherwise, I don’t see that the existing port is dying. They’ve got capacity to grow within the existing footprint for a while yet, and the dividends have only been low this year because they’re investing in capacity. Longer term there are issues about transport links if they keep growing and traffic, and possibly about being able to accommodate bigger ships, but Northport may have issues on the latter point too.
Hi Sherwood.
It seems that more and more shipping companies are avoiding using the Auckland waterfront port. Because the port needs to pay rates and their income to pay those rates comes from charging ships/companies to use their facilities. If those charges are toom much; shipping companies will use another port. It’s a fact that Tauranga has seen growth in freight traffic, and much of it is cargo for the Auckland region.
After seeing this Wayne Brown in an interview (where he could barely string a sentence together); I find it hard to believe that he’s been capable of being involved in any conspiracy in the last decade. Even if his estimates of the value of the real estate that the port is occupying are inflated: It’s still undoubtedly extremely high. I do however think it’s possible that Wayne Brown is being used/manipulated.
What I am worried about; is if it turns out that this Marsden point B port is going to be funded by the Chinese. Because the Chinese have a track record of building these ports in other countries and then essentially owning them for themselves.
The reviews of the Northland port move are themselves flawed in a number of ways.
Firstly, the reference to rail’s national share of freight being 5% (or 12% by tonne/km) meaning Northland’s projection of 70% by rail is unrealistic, is flawed thinking. The low 5% figure is only arrived at by including every road in the country, most of which don’t have a rail option. Only routes that have both road and rail are relevant, because that will be the case for Auckland-Northport. On that basis, you get figures such as 48% rail mode share for Auckland-Tauranga, and a staggeringly high 92% for the South Island’s West Coast to Christchurch route.
Secondly, the earlier Auckland Port study was given the brief (by Auckland Council) that the new location had to be in the Auckland Region. So of course Northport was given a low rating!
I think the main criticism the two reviews make of the most recent port study is that EY don’t explain how they’ve come up with the net economic benefits figure favouring the move: their costings are contestable and they don’t explain how they determined there are more than enough benefits to make up for the costs of moving.
There was also a piece on the reviews tucked away in the business section of the Herald yesterday, with more behind their paywall.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12287019
Not sure that is correct actually: “Secondly, the earlier Auckland Port study was given the brief (by Auckland Council) that the new location had to be in the Auckland Region.” – have any source?
“They would be needing to dredge Manukau harbour continuously”
Why?
(A response expressed in quantitative terms would be useful).
Because I’m case nobody told ever you; the west coast of NZ gets a lot of sand and sediment pushed into it by the tidal forces. And Manukau harbour gets a lot of sediment/sand trapped within it.
Quantitative, Daniel. “a lot” does not fit that description.
For dredging to be required “continuously” the rate of accumulation in the requisite shipping channel(s) would be equal to the rate at which dredging removes this accumulation. Perhaps you can tell us what this rate will be and the dredge capacity that you have used in your calculation. SI units please.
Oh how pitiful. You’re now resorting to demanding quantitative calculations to try and save face.
You asked the question and I answered it. And you only said that quantitative terms would be useful (anyone with common sense sees they’re not necessary) in some snarky final sentence in parenthesis.
I can’t be arsed. I’ve got better things to do on my Saturday than somehow prove something that’s common sense in an argument on some blog with someone who’s advocating for something that will never happen. If this really means this much to you then you’re free to use quantitative terms to try and win this petty one-upmanship.
Daniel, the posting rules require that you provide evidence of your claim when requested. BS and bluster has a short lifetime here.
This is what the Port Future Study says on the subject:
“total gross sediment transport rate
across the harbour entrance (in both directions) is likely to be of the order of 275,000-375,000m3/yr (Mead et al., 2010).”
A modern highly automated cutter suction dredger is capable of achieving high outputs over sustained periods and production rates of around 500,000 m³/week. That’s less than a week of dredging for the entire year, ergo it is not continuous dredging per your “common sense” claim.
Could it be that you don’t understand the difference between continuous and continual?
Is that dredging calculation for the size of ships that NZ is likely to see over the next few decades, MFD? I know the world is heading towards more and more megaships, and NZ will probably have to receive them? But also that the latest designs, while much larger, aren’t any deeper than megaship designs from 10 years ago. And I don’t know how long it takes for fleets to be replaced, etc… So I could look up the port study, but don’t know what what we receive and what we’re likely to receive so I’m not likely to be any the wiser.
The required channel depth will depend on the draught of the deepest ships, and the desired availability.
The annual removal required though is the quantum of longshore drift material.
Another consideration is that the dredgings need to be redeposited on the lee side of the entrance to ensure continuing stability of the coastline immediately to the north.
Just the investigations would be a massive engineering and environmental project.
Are there any similar port setups anywhere in the world?
The entrance to Newcastle NSW needs a dredging on a basis of either every day or every two days Depending on conditions.
It’s a situation far short of ideal. It’s only done out of necessity.
Those figures are the bulk flowrate of material across the harbour entrance, Heidi. They are based on estimates from previously published papers. They represent a maintenance dredging requirement rather than what would be need to establish suitable channels, turning basins etc. (capital dredging) etc. The Port Future Study considered 3 locations within the harbour, all of which would require the building of artificial islands with causeways providing the link to the eastern shore of the harbour where suitable rail and road links could be provided.
The detailed appendix to the report states that the Papakura Channel is the access way to all 3 Manukau Harbour options. The most radical of these options (and the one with the highest score in the weighted MCA ranking of all of the port options considered) involves an artificial island due north of Big Bay on the Awhitu Peninsula (and east of Cornwallis) and a 9 km causeway to a point north of the airport runway. Depths at this point are in excess of 30m with a target depth of 15.5m, Based on these figures the major dredging requirement would be the bar at some 5 to 7 km east of South Head on the Awhitu Peninsula.
The Port Future Study has calculated NPVs for the various options they looked at so it is reasonable to assume that some first-pass estimation of the cost of dredging has been made. Note that Tauranga Harbour requires in excess of 200,000 m³ of maintenance dredging per year.
Useful links:
http://www.portfuturestudy.co.nz/docs/pfsappendixconsultantsreport072016.pdf (refer pages 98, 122 and 135)
https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/51296-chart-nz-4314-manukau-harbour/
“Daniel, the posting rules require that you provide evidence of your claim when requested.”
That would have to be the most unenforced rule in history.
You only requested that I provide anything “quantitative” (in parenthesis) but then got a pooey nappy when I couldn’t be bothered. That comes across very passive-aggressive.
“BS and bluster has a short lifetime here.”
You could’ve fooled me otherwise. I see the same crud-talkers lingering here after months.
And I have previously shot people’s nonsense down with evidence and then got attacked for doing exactly that (as though I’m some sort of pedant)! Hmm no consistent standards are there?
“total gross sediment transport rate
across the harbour entrance”
And what about beyond that harbour entrance? Because it’s not just the entrance that’s a problem, the entire harbour is shallow and you can really only run shipping along areas that are also estuaries for rivers. And those channels will also need dredging for any sizeable shipping. In fact; dredging that entrance will create a need to also dredge the channels.
“A modern highly automated cutter suction dredger is capable of achieving high outputs over sustained periods and production rates of around 500,000 m³/week.”
You were saying something about providing evidence?
At the end of the day; you’re still going to require the continual dredging of the entrance to Manukau harbour and the channel to Onehunga, whilst it’s supposed to be getting heavy shipping traffic.
It would be a complete environmental catastrophe and an ongoing inefficient expenditure.
“That’s less than a week of dredging for the entire year, ergo it is not continuous dredging per your “common sense” claim.”
No here’s what’s common sense: A simple “less than a week or dredging” would not be enough, it would probably have to be a few hours on at least a weekly basis.
Because even a small build-up of sediment could cause a catastrophe.
“Could it be that you don’t understand the difference between continuous and continual?”
No, I think you’re just desperate for any cheap point. Continuous in this context can mean on a continual basis (which it does).
But tat the end of the day; this is not going to happen anyway. If Manukau harbour was ever viable to be a have a major port; there would’ve already been one there for all of these decades.
“Continuous in this context can mean on a continual basis”
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
..and if you require a source, it’s Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. I thought it an appropriate reference for someone who using the term “but then got a pooey nappy”.
At this stage: You’re just trying to get the last word in or desperately trying to one-up me (with no self-awareness of how you come across) rather than discuss anything on topic. How pathetic.
I’m wondering if I should waste any more time with you.
IRONY ALERT!!!!!!!
I wonder if “lulz” is a sock-account of this MFD?
“At this stage: You’re just trying to get the last word in or desperately trying to one-up me (with no self-awareness of how you come across) rather than discuss anything on topic. How pathetic.”
Wow, you’ve described yourself so perfectly Daniel.
Frankly it’s getting frustrating and close to breaching our commenting rules.
Daniel, Once inside the Manukau harbour there is neither any great source of siltation, or any great forces to mobilise silt movement. So once the initial channels and turning basins created, maintenance dredging requirements for the bulk of the harbour would be minimal.
The entrance is a whole different story.
The dredging requirements, and port operating restrictions here may well be too onerous to establish the major Auckland port here.
Don, I strongly recommend reading the reports relating to the Ports Future Study, and in particular, the appendix (see my response to Heidi above for the link). The fact that their option 7A (Central Manukau Harbour) is ranked highest of all the options considered strongly suggests that the requisite dredging requirements are not onerous. Feel free to challenge their data, methods, assumptions, estimations and calculations with objectively better ones of your own.
Note that of 14 options subjected to weighted MCA ranking Northport had the lowest ranking; lower than the “do nothing” option of constraining the port to its current footprint. I question what has changed such that some parties are recommending that Northport is now the preferred option.
MFD, I would definitely bow to an actual engineering, hydrodynamics study against my gut feeling reservations, especially since the Manukau option is so far ahead geographically then any other alternative.
And that’s a wise decision there Don.
Beware of glossy presentations with generalised totals that lack a break down.
Oh and in anticipation for any demands for evidence: Here’s a Hydrographic Nautical Chart of Manukau Harbour:
https://www.smartmarine.co.nz/product/21146/nz-4314-hydrographic-nautical-chart-manukau-harbour
Do you now see what I mean about not just the entrance near Manukau heads needing to be continuously… …sorry… …continually dredged?
“At the end of the day; you’re still going to require the continual dredging of the entrance to Manukau harbour and the channel to Onehunga”
“Do you now see what I mean about not just the entrance near Manukau heads needing to be continuously… …sorry… …continually dredged?”
No, I don’t see, Daniel.
A port at Onehunga was not one of the 3 locations in the Manukau Harbour considered by the study.
How about you have the last word on this subject by explaining where you got this got this idea from?
As the port study means nothing and I have no interest in it; I wasn’t even talking about any of its content.
I saw when I looked at it that it discussed a site near the airport, at Puhinui and on the other side of the Pahurehure inlet. And I knew that no port will ever be built on any of those sites.
But if you really can’t see by that map that the harbour would need continual dredging and those three sites are an even worse prospect than Onehunga; that’s only your problem. As is the fact that you’ve admitted this.
‘I’m wondering if I should waste any more time with you.’
Well, we’ve answered that question…
Hahaha well go on then Jezza, side with this amazingly petty, argumentative, seemingly low-IQ troll MFD who is seriously advocating replacing Auckland’s waterfront port with one on the shallow, silty Manukau harbour. It’s really no skin off of my nose.
As with the Dominion road/airport light rail and all that other nonsense: It will not happen.
Surely the large container ships will be brought into Tauranga and Marsden as that’s where the export cargo is. So what we are looking at is a smaller operation either on the present site or the Manukau. I pointed out that Onehunga is ideally located as it is close to warehousing. And suggested it could be rebuilt and reopened. So some dredging would be required depending on the size of ships which would need to be accomandated. People have gone off and debated bringing super mega container giant ships in. And got quite nasty about it. The other geographical feature of the Onehunga is its closer to Australia Nelson and Lyttleton than East Coast routes. So a smaller more specialised operation is what is required. In addition some competition will be required to keep the freight rates down between North port and Auckland and Tauranga and Auckland. Another aspect that needs to be taken into account is the cost of dredging and tugs would have to Bourne by the cruise ships if the Waitamata freight operation was shutdown. This would most likely make the cruise ships uneconomic. I don’t believe we are looking at a full shutdown. It doesnt make sense.
FYI. Panuku is doing consultation round on the future of Onehunga Port right now.
Unlikely they will factor this type of discussion into the process as there is no certainty to these ideas. I’ll mention them, but I think this specific boat is missed.
Well they should keep that option open. The Onehunga wharf could easily be lengthened along the existing channel. If a Puhinui site was chosen that means another road and rail line although maybe a line from Wuri could service both a port and the airport. But Onehunga would have the best freight connections. Anyway its up to the Council to decide the shouldn’t just roll over and let Shane Jones run away with it. Northport should have a rail connection and the line should be upgraded and a container yard and road rail should be built somewhere out west.
Could also depend on double railing the rail line. I think the focus will be more on the port for commercial operations vs freight. Hopefully it does stay operation. Few issues with existing stakeholders. The concrete company is now using the plant and selling services to other concrete companies. They don’t have an incentive to leave at the moment.
As well as the cement bagging operation there is container storage and some container filling. But yes it would be best to continue leasing to commercial entity just in case rather than developing more retail space. God knows we have enough cafe bars as it is. I wouldn’t be too concerned about rail access although the option should be retained. I expect there wouldn’t be train sized freight available if the operation was resumed. And its only a kilometer or so to the rail yards anyway.
Containerised export cargo availability from Northland must be near zero. Auckland is the premier containerised import port for the whole country. Exports not so much. Auckland’s 1.5 million local inhabitants are the main demand, but substantial volumes of imports are then freighted south, not much north.
Elongating supply lines is dumb, both environmentally and economically.
That’s because its all being trucked to Auckland and then containerised and then either railed to Tauranga or sent out through Auckland Port. In fact a lot of containers are stuffed at Wuri then railed to Auckland Port. And look at the log operation filling containers just off Massey Road visible from the train between Otahuhu and Middlemore. I see Kaitiaia logging trucks through there daily.
Most export logs from Northland are loaded at Marsden Point, if you are seeing a Kaitaia logging truck in Auckland it is probably for the domestic market.
There is some containerised export cargo from Northland and they started loading some directly at Marsden a couple of years ago. However, it is a small market compared with the export market out of Tauranga.
Sorry mate they deliver logs to the yard and they are rammed into containers for export.
Swamp kauri?
Sorry, you are correct, some logs are indeed loaded into containers for export. However, it is a small minority of the overall volume, most don’t go near Auckland or a container, they are loaded in bulk at Marsden Point.
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