It’s Friday once again and the is election tomorrow. Tomorrow’s election is sucking up most of the news but there’s still a few articles that caught our attention this week.
This week in Greater Auckland
- On Monday Matt discovered how HOP cards expire.
- On Tuesday Matt covered the next steps for the rail network shutdowns.
- On Thursday Matt rounded up transport policies for the election.
The change in how we now use public transport
Stuff’s Todd Niall took a look at some of the changes in public use post-covid.
In the office only 3.5 days a week, leaving earlier in the afternoon, jumping on the bus to go shopping during the day or “Supergold” outings – it’s the new world of post-pandemic public transport.
The recurring headline in Auckland has been about public transport patronage rising to near pre-Covid levels – 90% on the buses – but the detailed view tells a story of how different our lives are now.
Weekday travel by bus into the biggest employment cluster, the city centre, is down 36% compared with the same period in 2019.
Across the working week, the sharpest fall in the number of bus trips is on Monday and Friday, down 23% and 19% respectively, with patronage peaking on Wednesday – 13% lower than before Covid.
FBT exemption for bikes
One of the great changes the government made earlier this year was to remove Fringe Benefit Tax from public transport and e-bikes/scooters. This was about bringing alternative modes more in line with the benefits often provided in the form of free car parks and also giving a helping hand to low-emission options.
If you’re an employer thinking making use of the change, or an employee wanting to encourage your workplace to make use of it, Deloitte have published a great article on how to go about it.
Six months have now passed since we saw the introduction of some eco-friendly Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) exemptions for the provision of bikes, scooters and public transport. While these new rules were introduced with great intentions, as the rules were added into legislation without any public consultation many employers remain uncertain about how to use these initiatives.
In this article, we explain some things to consider when considering an employee bike scheme.
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Employee bike purchase schemes
When an employer is providing an employee with a bike, the employer needs to consider whether the bike is gifted outright or whether the employee effectively pays for the bike through a reduction in salary and wages. In most instances we’ve come across, including for employee equity purposes (some employees may already own a bike, be unable to ride, or not have circumstances conducive to riding a bike) it is intended that employees who opt for a bike would need to enter into a salary sacrifice arrangement in order to fund the cost of the bike. That is, remuneration is looked at as a package, a combination of cash and a bike.
Even if an employee is required to effectively pay for the bike through a salary sacrifice, the existence of the FBT exemption means that an employee may effectively obtain a bike at a significant discount. To put this into an example, consider an employee earning $60,000 who wants to purchase a bike costing $5,000:
In this example, the effective cost of the $5,000 bike to the employee is only $3,500 and the employee is $1,500 better off compared to if they purchased the bike themselves. This example does not consider whether the employer is able to negotiate a bulk purchase discount or GST. In some examples we’ve modelled, employees may be able to effectively purchase a bike at a greater than 50% discount through developing a bike purchase scheme.
While this sounds great, as always with tax, the devil is in the detail and when the practical implications of getting a bike to an employee are considered, the ability to make use of this new FBT exemption can be more complex than first thought.
Speaking of bikes, a great A/B test of what people prefer to use.
Demand for sheltered vs non-sheltered bike racks, Constellation Station pic.twitter.com/cmqxDErx6T
— Andrew W 🥝 (@aw_nz) October 11, 2023
Hobsonville Rd Cycleway Feedback
A few months ago, Auckland Transport consulted on plans to build a protected cycleway on Hobsonville Rd by reallocating space on the road, such as by removing on-street parking. The project also plans to improve safety for all users with additional pedestrian crossings and raised tables on side roads.
They’ve now released a feedback report. In total they received 469 submissions and the good news is it appears they’re going ahead with the plan.
Overall the key themes in the survey feedback are:
- Concrete separators are the preferred separator type
- Suggested locations for pedestrian and cycle crossings and bike parking
- Safety concerns at key un-signalised intersections along Hobsonville Road
- There is a good level of support in the community for the repurposing of kerb side space and flush median along Hobsonville Road towards a protected cycleway
- There are also some concerns around impact of loss of kerbside parking and flush median space on road users
- Agreement that the proposed cycleway will make it easier for people to ride their bikes in the area and access local destinations
- Comments ensuring lessons learned relating to the Upper Harbour Drive Cycleway are being considered in this project
- Design considerations for emergency services and rubbish collection.
AT say detailed design for the plan will start early next year with construction expected to start mid to late 2024 and take up to 12 months to complete.
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There’s a lot of support for the Hobsonville Road Cycleway and with any luck it will happen. Well done to AT for leading with this even though it should have happened at the same time that the motorway opened in 2014.
While most of the feedback is positive, there are some classic anti-cycling moans:
“…it won’t be used. Aucklanders do not cycle.” (yes they do, if you take more than a second to actually look at the data)
“I drive along Hobsonville Rd at least 5 times a day at differing times. I see no cyclists!” (it’s a horrible cycling environment- would you cycle there?)
“Adds to the petrol costs” (whut?)
“you do not have permission to remove the essential safety feature of the flush
median.” (it’s not a “safety feature” – flush medians are to maintain traffic flow)
“How about cease building more schools which are blocking up these streets?” (cease educating children to solve traffic problems?? LOL)
Let’s hope that the new leadership of AT has the courage to deliver this much-needed project.
This is to be a record low number of comments for any GA article, let alone the day before an election.
Thanks to Matt and the team for the good work over the past 6 years of Labour. Hundreds of articles written with great research and thought and no pay. GA has had some wins showing that some people in the media and at WK and AT might have read the articles. With infrastructure being such a big part of our economy and costing many $billions it has been disappointing that more people in those decision making positions haven’t contributed to the dialogue. Surely they would want to share information and take more people along with the ride.
Should National win the election will we be ready to try and reason with them why we and the Mayor say we don’t need more roads and wasteful spending
Thanks for the summary of the FBT – I didn’t realise that’s how it worked for bikes! Something for me to bring up with my employer.
Note the difference between subsidy for EV adoption versus subsidy for bike & PT.
Want a $40,000+ EV? Straight rebate to the purchaser of up to $7015.
Want a $5000+ cargo bike? Be prepared to brainstorm with your employer and their accountant on how to maximize the obscure benefits available…
Why is my bung reliant on an employer who is likely to toss it in the ‘too hard’ basket?
“Want a $40,000+ EV? Straight rebate to the purchaser of up to $7015”
You will be pleased with the election result then. No more ute tax from National. Yes they have told us that the EV subsidy will go, utes will become cheaper and they will spend $24 billion on completing a motorway between Tauranga and Whangarei.
No money for CO2 abatement, just funds to alleviate the effects of climate change. When someone’s coastal holiday home succumbs to rising sea levels National will help them to build a new one.
OMG, I just read through all the caveats on https://www2.deloitte.com/nz/en/pages/tax-alerts/articles/october-2023-fbt-exemption-for-bikes.html.
There is no guarantee you are going to get your FBT exemption for purchase through salary sacrifice.
It looks like a MAJOR headache for all but the most sympathetic employer.
The tax changes are welcome but it’s far to complicated a process to use them. Whether this is through incompetence or by design is hard to say, but it’s really not good enough.
Waka Kotahi and Treasury need to cooperate to design an idiot-proof interface that has only three mouse clicks between an employee signing up and recieving a voucher (or similar) to fund a tax-rebate e-bike, like the UK seems to manage: https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/
If something is easy to do and saves people money, it is almost impossible to make it unattractive. If it’s a mess, nobody will bother.
I didn’t even realise that it had gone through (and I’d imagine a large portion of the community would be in the same situation!). The government really should have promoted this or at the very least provided businesses with more information on it. They could’ve even run an incentive competition – companies with the highest percentage in uptake in the first 6 months win a prize.
In the bad old days, NZTA dumped Hobsonville Road and Upper Harbour Drive, revoking State Highway, without including any projects to complete the cycle infrastructure (they provided the path over the Upper Harbour Bridge). It has taken a long time to get to the point of funding any improvements. The only comfort is that the design of affordable cycleways is now much better than the painted cycle lanes that were the only option at the time the motorway was built.
Its one school next to the road, Hobsonville Primary. So building a safe cycling path, especially between Marina View rd and Williams Rd seems like common sense.
Generally, for those not familiar with the area it seems like Westgate is the close ‘hub’. However Westgate isnt really a place many frequent. Westgate is like an isolated island, cornered off by some very inhospitable roads and shops that have enormous parking lots. Its not a very friendly environment for customers and the Northwest Mall is of similar stature. between it and the library (and restaurants, they built a throughfare). Anyone with half a brain would turn it into a piazza and use the space for nice outdoor seating etc, but no this is the west of Auckland and townplanners that did internships in Detroit.
Subsequently, most in the area go to Northshore for shopping, the supermarket there sell alcohol (The West have an alcohol monopoly and subsequently worse choice and higher prices for drinks than the rest of Auckland) and restaurants dont need to deal with the trust to open.
Hmm lets hope they take the opportunity to construct some bus shelters for the 120 bus while at it. They are desperately missing and if we get some builders in why not do two things at once (Hoping to much I know).
West Auckland’s lack of pubs and licensed venues is weird…and it doesn’t do anything to make its neighbourhoods any more attractive.
Avondale should be lively, like Kingsland, but it is an expensive palaver to obtain a liquor licence in west Auckland. You need to have a full kitchen operating during opening hours; not just bar snacks. This means that practically no-one can be bothered to run a hospo venue.
Auckland’s hardly overflowing with nightspots, but the west Auckland licensing system makes things even worse and means there are fewer reasons to leave the house of an evening.
Agreed, the trusts need to go, West Auckland is an entertainment wasteland.
And the Trust CEO seems to pull in half a mill salary. What a job!
It’s good they have levelled the playing field with that FBT exemption for bikes, had slipped my mind that it was even introduced. Something the current government has introduced…maybe with pressure from the Green party?
I think these cycleways are a waste of rate & rent payers money!!
I was on a Tamaki link bus Friday morning 13th from the city to Glen Innes, 4 cyclists slowed down the bus for a few minutes due to the narrow width of tamaki drive now at Mission bay, when the cycleway shared with pedestrians footpath was not used.
The passenger behind me on the bus agreed it was a sick joke.
Maybe the problem is the road space still being given to car parking. on both sides of the drive.
Good on you for getting the bus.
The Luton Airport carpark fire is being blamed on a diesel Range Rover. They managed to get diesel to burn and then somehow they got it to burn without black smoke. Photo here.
https://www.autoblog.com/2023/10/12/heres-the-car-that-sparked-a-massive-1500-vehicle-fire-at-london-airport-car-park/#conversation
“They managed to get diesel to burn”
Are you suggesting that it was arson?
Diesel burns very readily; how else would a diesel engine actually work?
“then somehow they got it to burn without black smoke”
Who is “they”?
Diesel burns with black smoke when there is insufficient oxygen for complete combustion eg. in an accelerating diesel engine under load where the rate of increase of turbocharger pressure lags the rate of increase in fuel. That happens (sometimes) in a compression-ignition ICE. It seldom happens when the combustion is external rather then internal.
Take a deep breath, remove the tinfoil hat and think up some other whacky conspiracy theory (maybe how 5G causes ingrown toenails).
They would be Land Rover and yes diesel can even be explosive, under very high pressures, which are not present in a parking lot. How does a diesel engine work? By injecting the stuff at high pressure into a very high compression cylinder. They don’t burn diesel in the open air like coal.
It is possible the high temperature fire you can see is all the plastics, but it is just as likely this was a hybrid, but the UK Govt is at great pains to avoid that possibility . “We believe it was a diesel”. Land Rover does have form with their vehicles catching fire though, and this isn’t even their high score. That would be the Liverpool carpark fire in 2017 where a Land Rover took out 1400 other cars. So yes perhaps it is just more shitty design from a brand where car owners all worry about ‘the leak’.
“They don’t burn diesel in the open air like coal.
It is possible the high temperature fire you can see is all the plastics, but it is just as likely this was a hybrid, but the UK Govt is at great pains to avoid that possibility .”
The only thing that is 100% for sure is that people with a bee in their bonnet about EVs will use this to prop up their talking points, even if they discover video footage of someone setting it alight whilst wearing a sign saying “It’s me, I’m committing arson and this is being deliberately lit and it I am doing it on purpose”, it won’t stop them. As if a gasoline/petrol car has never caught figure before and the Corolla WRC that caught fire in the RAC rally one year was just a case of Carlos Sainz getting a bit too ahead of himself setting up the BBQ before he crossed the finish line.
dinosaur game, also known as Chrome Dino, is a browser game created by Google and incorporated into the Google Chrome web browser.
“diesel can even be explosive, under very high pressures, which are not present in a parking lot”
Really? Do you suppose that drivers push their diesel vehicles up the ramps in a carpark? Do we have a Dunning-Kruger situation here?
“but it is just as likely this was a hybrid”
Likelihood applies to things that haven’t happened yet.
Are you commenting on the likelihood that your guess will be proven correct once an investigation determines the cause of the event that has already occurred?
That’s analogous to you betting on a horse race after it has finished just because you didn’t know the outcome of the race.
There is a reason that investigations take place.