The transport funding “Consensus Building Group” released its discussion paper on the different ways to raise extra money for transport spending on Monday. As I noted at the time, it’s a pity that the group was forced to limit itself to how to find the money rather than prompting a more detailed discussion around whether the Auckland Plan has the right mix of transport projects or whether the future traffic growth projections are correct. One thing that is worth noting though is one of the graphs in the document which compares the available funding over time with the required level of expenditure:
While a gap between available revenue and “required” expenditure starts to grow almost immediately, the biggest “lump” in the gap is created by the very large level of spending in the mid 2020s – presumably on the stupid Waitemata Harbour Crossing project. It would be extremely interesting to see this entire debate recast with that project excluded to see the deal with the funding gap then.
Nevertheless, setting the issue of whether projects make sense or not aside for a moment, perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the report’s findings is a comparative analysis of the impacts of the two ways in which the additional funding could be raised: either by continuing to hike up existing funding tools or by adapting to new fundings tools like congestion charging and what’s called “motorway network charging”. Here are the proposals of the Group in a nutshell:
Looking first at “option 1”, this is largely a continuation of existing revenue raising tools – although it also looks at the (re)introduction of a regional fuel tax. One of the big question marks about this option is the extent to which it’s feasible or desirable to keep ramping up fuel taxes, rates or a combination or the two. Another question mark is whether you really get significant improvements to the transport network because this options has a bit less of a travel demand management focus than option two:
Turning to option 2, this is a greater level of change from the current ways of raising transport revenue and include a variety of “sub-options”: different types of road pricing or a motorway network charge. The big advantage of this option is that, depending on the details of the scheme eventually chosen, it’s quite possible there will be a greater impact on travel demand and therefore the option could lead to much greater levels of benefit in the longer run:
Perhaps what is most frustrating about the way in which this debate is happening is that it would be really interesting to have a discussion about road pricing and other alternative transport funding tools (I still like the off-street parking levy, for instance) as a partial replacement of the current ways we fund transport – rather than in addition to them. It’s just too easy to see the public not being prepared to pay yet another tax to support a series of transport projects which won’t actually make things any better.
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This is the second time recently that the terms of reference of a report have been set up in such a way that undermines the outcome, and interestingly it is the same pet project that seems to be behind it: the dreadful scheme to provide yet more traffic lanes across the harbour to the city.
The CCFAS was also only undertaken on the grounds that all motorway plans, in particular the AWHC project, were built. No wonder this report concluded that vehicles would still dominate city streets and the speeds would little above walking because it is the continuation of the policy of spending multiple billions on promoting and facilitating as much use of private vehicles as possible will of course lead to more driving. And what causes congestion and all the other dis-benefits of auto-domination? TOO MANY VEHICLES. Six more motorway lanes to and from the city will certainly achieve that: it is nothing other than a 5 billion dollar bid to get people off buses and back into cars
So not only is the AWHC bankrupting it would also be a disaster on every level for both the City and the Shore, promoting yet more driving on all local roads as well as on the motorway system itself.
Before we ask how can we pay for stuff we should ask:
1. What are we trying to achieve?
2. Which projects really support these outcomes?
and then
3. What do we need to build?
but also
4. In what order?
and especially
5. What should we not build?
and only then
6. How can we best fund this programme?
The AWHC, like the Weymouth-Karaka bridge, may superficially look like a handy route but in reality it is nothing but a place ruining over-expensive disaster. It is not a nice-to-have, and happily then we can more easily afford the projects that do provide accessibility without the all the negative externalities over a city crushed by an infrastructure that forces its inhabitants to drive for almost every journey.
You are really missing out on the potential of the additional harbour crossing, as quite clearly pointed out in that draft post I sent you.
In that option there were only 2 lanes going to the front of the CBD and a dedicated busway.
Five billion for the same number of lanes through to the CBD, same number of lanes through to the CMJ, and the addition of a busway extension? I’m not sure I’d call that much potential from the largest transport project ever conceived in New Zealand. Pretty sure we could get a busway across the harbour for a lot less than five billion.
My post actually looked into the cost. In reality it should be about $2-3 billion if you exclude future proofing for the rail. Plus it opened up all of St Mary’s bay for development.
I’m 99% sure the idea of opening up St Mary’s Bay for development would not be possible. I think they looked into it around the Anzac Bridge concept and the legal advice was that if the land wasn’t used for crown purposes (i.e. transport) it would have to be handed back to Ngati Whatua.
So the best you might get is a public park and keep it in crown ownership, or maybe Ngati Whatua would develop it, either of which could be good. But the key thing is the crown couldn’t sell it for development to pay for some of the crossing project so it has no bearing on costs.
I don’t recall making any statements about making money out of it? I’m also fundamentally opposed to RCAs getting into the property development game.
Be it some parks, cafes, houses or a Maori learning centre I’m not too worried. The main thing is that it reduces from 12 lanes to 6, with 2 of those being 24/7 bus lanes.
Sorry, I assumed that when you talked about a reduced cost and opening up St Mary’s for development you were suggesting that the development would further reduce the cost. I agree that developing St Marys into anything else would be better than a dozen lanes of motorway.
You probably never saw this but a while ago I did a post on the same topic that had much the same ideas as yourself:http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2012/03/05/making-a-harbour-tunnel-stack-up/. Main difference is I focussed the bus priority into Fanshawe instead of the tunnel, and instead of having the centre span and VPT down to two bus lanes, I suggested it could be three traffic lanes running the tidal barrier all the way from Onewa Rd to Cook St. Overall that makes seven in St Marys, two bus lanes and two traffic lanes of Fanshawe, and three traffic lanes to Cook St with the centre one tidal. However, that was predicated on a combined road and rail tunnel such that the demands for buses wouldn’t be especially higher than they are today.
Still had the same conclusion then as I do now, would be good to separate city commuters from state highway traffic, would allow the busway to be extended right through the bridge, would allow the VIc Park viaduct to come down and would allow St Mary’s Bay to become a much nice public waterfront space… however, it’s pretty hard to justify several billion dollars expenditure for what amounts to a busway extension and tidying up the waterfront.
I think spending $2-3 billion on such a thing is well worth it and it pretty much sits in the same basket as the CRL.
Not only do you greatly improve the motorway by making traffic flow much smoother, you make it much more reliable and cheaper to operate by removing this tidal nonsense and the dangerous rat run through St Mary’s bay.
You then greatly improve the busway having it getting direct feeds into new places and extend Wynyard Quarter up to the hharbour bridge.
You also give the clip-ons about another 20-50 year’s of life.
As for putting rail in the same tunnel. All that does is make the 2km tunnel a 4km tunnel and puts it there about 20 years before it needs to be there and potentially in the wrong place.
Why a 4km tunnel? And did you actually read the post? It just puts the rail in the back filled sump of the motorway tunnel that was doing nothing but holding half the roadway up.
The motorway tunnel can have grades in the range of 4-6% with the VPT being 8%.
For heavy rail you are limited to 2.5% meaning that rather than having the portal at the bridge end it needs to be 2km further north.
Also putting rail in a double decker tunnel means you need a bigger bore. And at that size small changes have a huge cost impact.
Yes I do know that, but I’d you’d read the post you’d see I was actually proposing to use Vancouver style metro that can handle 7% grades, uses third rail instead of catenary and has a much more compact cross section than heavy rail. The whole point of the post being if we don’t assume heavy rail, we could actually fit rail into the cable duct of the propose motorway-only tunnel cross section, and it could handle the proposed grade and geometry without any modification to the vertical or horizontal alignment. so same length tunnel, same diameter cross section.
Seriously, read the post before critiquing it!
Sorry nick I was more referring to the NZTA and AT plan rather than your once.
I agree that if they use a new type of rolling stock they would have all sorts of new options.
Whatever happened to that post, you were going to get back to me about it.
It’s a touchy subject when it comes to me making factual posts. I was needing to cartoonise the drawings to make them look less official as well.
I’d like to see the post. It’s good to have different perspectives on the blog Matt..
Frank – I’m happy to post it but I’m waiting on Snowflake to get back to me. As I have said before, we have no problems with posting alternative views on here
Snow flake, we would prefer if people making regular comments did so using their real name. We think this would foster more civil behaviour because it would stop people using “anonymous” pseudonyms to hide bad behaviour. We are just formulating comment guidelines that outline our expectations on this issue, but in the meantime I’d appreciate if you could start commenting under your real name.
Thanks,
Stuart Burnet Donovan Esq.
That be true Frank. It’s me holding it up as due to my proximity to such things I’m not too sure I want to make such a post.
You could always build off it matt without me being the sole source.
I would have liked to have seen a better breakdown of the projects and their individual costs in the report so the public can assess what’s proposed, what is needed and costs before we try to work out how to pay for things.
No mention of airport rail there. That would come before another harbour crossing (which needs to be a tunnel with rail) for me.
I don’t think tolls on existing roads is a good idea. It would just clog them up further but a toll on a harbour crossing would make sense (PPP?) even though in economic theory many people seek to use the non-tolled alternative so it’s not always efficient.
Please don’t establish congestion charging in the city until we have a decent public transport alternative (as in london).
I haven’t read the document yet, but a top of the head response to Jeff is that tolling with e-tags can have spin-off benefits, in Houston the traffic signal system was able to track e-tags though the street network (using only the last 3 digits of the tag id for privacy reasons) which gave excellent travel data for planning purposes and allowed for real time travel time information to be made available on the DOT’s website which allowed for drivers to plan the least congested route for their trip
true, it’s mitigation rather than cure, but useful nontheless
afterthought, was this the document Campbell was waving at Brownlee on Monday night?
Yes, I have a hard copy from the launch but you can see it here http://keepaucklandmoving.org.nz/documents/Funding%20Auckland's%20Transport%20Future.pdf
KPMG recently released a report looking at the future of transport in cities – this local blog refers to it http://goo.gl/XUQNH
Here;s a quote from KPMG:
“An essential implication for an autonomous vehicle infrastructure is that, because efficiency will improve so dramatically, traffic capacity will increase exponentially without building additional lanes or roadways. Research indicates that platooning of vehicles could increase highway lane capacity by up to 500 percent. It may even be possible to convert existing vehicle infrastructure to bicycle or pedestrian uses. Autonomous transportation infrastructure could bring an end to the congested streets and extra-wide highways of large urban areas. It could also bring the end to battles over the need for (and cost of) high-speed trains. Self-driving vehicles with the ability to “platoon”—perhaps in special express lanes—might provide a more flexible and less
costly alternative.”
Worth considering before we make decisions and spend money we don’t need to.
We have looked at the issue of driverless cars before, in short there seem to be a lot of aspects that proponents seem to not think about when pushing them and they don’t seem to be the revolution that these people think.
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2012/10/28/are-driverless-cars-the-future/
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/01/11/what-future-for-driverless-cars/
The average age of the NZ vehicle fleet is nearly 13 years, and climbing. Fully-automated cars are still not ready for prime-time, and optimistically are a couple of years away from retail in any overseas market. On that basis it’ll be probably 15 years before they’re enough of a presence on NZ’s roads to be worth making transport planning decisions around (and they’ll still be far from the majority of vehicles), and Auckland has a transport planning crisis now! We can’t wait 15 years to see whether these cars will make a huge difference, because the city will have ground to a halt and dragged the national economy with it.
Absolutely, I would say it would be a minimum of 30 years before they’re in the NZ fleet in reasonable numbers, and that’s if they started to be adopted internationally in the next decade.
increasing the lane capacity of motorways is all very well, but what happens when the cars need to come onto city streets? I can’t see autonomous cars making a substantial difference system wide
And you still have to park the buggers somewhere…
Someone with IT skills needs to build a website similar to the one they did for intensification.
Have users choose which projects go ahead from which dates, and
Which funding options are used.
Those inputs would vary the first graph produced above.
Excellent idea Harvey
Yes great idea. Click on and off projects on a map, see how far you can get within the budget, how much extra you need to do your selection etc.
I agree that’s a great idea. Sounds relatively straightforward too, at least to create the graph just from a tick list with or without a map. Just with a summary list of the top 20 projects (maybe lump some together e.g. “cycling infrastructure improvements” might be one line item, or two if the Skypath were listed separately).
But to get the real *wow* factor could the list include each projects’ benefits as well as their costs?
I know the playing field isn’t level.. but this blog has posted on that. We have somewhere in recent months more or less all the data. Could such a tool be posted here?
Wider perceptions might even begin to shift a little faster if “level playing field” costs AND “level playing field” benefits of PT / active / roading infrastructure options were easily and clearly accessible, side by side.. and not just in theory but in the context of the actual Auckland get moving plan?
Read this morning’s blog post including the link at the end to the Rubman article and I found myself agreeing with his final paragraph;
We should confess the road taniwha is an over-fed failure and that after 50 years of favouritism, it’s time to look elsewhere for solutions to our transport woes. The obvious alternative is to redirect our favours and priorities and cash towards fast-tracking Auckland’s promised modern integrated public transport system. Spoil it rotten to make up for decades of neglect. But stay within budget.
Had a nice trip to work this am;
Chauffeur to Newmarket train to Takanini walk to work and got a pile of work done on the way!
Yes, what Patrick said is absolutely right. So often we start from third principles, rather than first ones. It’s extremely important to start by asking – what are we trying to maximise? And these things start from an abstract level, and work up.
And those things are such things as safe and sustainable communities, efficient and painless movement, spaces of enjoyment, and the ability to keep resources to spend on other things we value. Starting from the question: ‘Where do we need roads and transit infrastructure?’ misses some rather important points which guide rather different decision processes.
I will be talking to Wallace Chapman on this topic on RadioLive after10am on Sunday morning.
You need to have the same “in” to mainstream media such as National Radio and the TV stations.
I selected Option 2 in the survey. We need to quickly reduce single occupant vehicle dependence at peak times in the most congested parts of the city by providing more dependable and frequent public transport options. In planning for change the measure should be actual people numbers moving around and not vehicle counts preferred by the NZTA and those advocating building more roads.
Let’s not call this a “funding gap”. It’s a planning gap.
There’s a large gap in planning, in which those responsible have been unwilling or unable to design a system that delivers the outcomes we need, within our means. When that happens in other arenas, those responsible are asked to sit down and redesign their plans, or they’re replaced entirely. Either of those needs to happen.
I am sorry, but we need an AWHC, not necessarily the AWHC but an AWHC.
We need either rail or a bus way going over the bridge. Also, the descriptions seen in comment threads are pretty disingenuous.
We get 1 more land southbound in the CMJ for a total of 6.
We get rail built from Wynyard to Akoranga and station built inside the quoted price.
We get bus lanes, and walking and cycling on the bridge.
There will only be 5 traffic lanes on the bridge.
Please actually argue against the proposed project, not the project you are strawmanning.
1. We are adding cycling and walking to the bridge which is not in anyway dependant on the AWHC.
2. The bridge could be bus laned now, again without adding any other infrastructure.
3. No rail is included in the figures, but rather: ‘future proofed for rail’
4. We get all the dis-benefits of increased road space for general traffic both between the city and the Shore and the at capacity CMJ and the Shore.
6. We get the additional cost burden of increased driving on local roads especially on the Shore and in the City, and further demand for parking.
7. We get a less used busway, lowering the value of that investment.
All this and it only costs 5bil! Yay us.
Note that the Bridge land 1 south bound use to be a bus only (and ponsonby traffic) during peak hour but was changed in the latest lane reshuffle.
This should be added to the list of removed bus lanes but no additional bus lanes that has occurred since Auckland Transport was established.
I like your preference to retain a biased view on the crossing based on your own self imposed conclusions for a project that is some 20 years away.
It’s an impressive display of keeping ones head in the sand and writing posts to the world outside.
It is very childish to describe every view unlike your own as biased. I do not work in the transport industry, so where can this bias come from? Is this something you can also claim? As a Traffic Engineer who works on motorway projects funded by NZTA isn’t it more credible that your motorway sympathetic views can be more accurately described as biased?
It would be safer for you to try to understand alternative view points and offer coherent arguments than just name call. I know it is difficult to get people to understand things when their salary depends on the opposite position, but to then accuse other of bias is more than a bit rich.
Patrick, you rightly defend your view by stating “It is very childish to describe every view unlike your own as biased. I do not work in the transport industry, so where can this bias come from?” Could you perhaps take a dose of your own advice when commenting on the opinions of those who hold views with which you do not agree ?
That rather depends on the evidence don’t you think, Tony?
Here is some sound advice: “It would be safer for you to try to understand alternative view points and offer coherent arguments than just name call.”
Thank you Tony, great we agree. And I look forward to you answering my long rebuttal of your little bus only scheme for Auckland on previous threads.
The level of interest in a bus-only PT system in Auckland is the same as it is in Wellington: very low.
And rightly so; certainly in Auckland we need to work every mode as hard as possible to gain the maximum utility and effectiveness out of the resources we already have. And in this the coming upgrades to the bus network, the rail network, and the transaction systems for all modes (including car parking; which will also be able to be paid for with HOP) are going to make a huge difference to the appeal and usefulness of AT’s Transit offer, which will help it work as a more effective compliment to the dominant private car system.
The next questions are around what, if any, capital works are needed to most effectively further increase efficiency of access and quality of place throughout the city, and the answers to these questions are clearly going to involve all mode as well.
Patrick, you will notice it was aactually sailor boys view that you didn’t agree with and not my own.
Also for yoit information I design tranport projects and not just motorways. I’ve even worked on your loved CRL along with airports and coastal shipping. So my bias is for transport.
As for a coherent argument I recall sending you a roughly 10 page document and what the harbour crossing. I also recall not getting a single word back but have seen you numerous times since then imagining any new crossing to be of the worst possible layout you can think of.
Reil is included to the short line that I stated. It clearly says that in NZTA’s matter.
Not it isn’t, a couple of tubes across the harbour is costed for rail, but there are no detail designs included for where any lines might then go, or any stations. Now contrast that with the extensive connections and land-side works that are fully developed for the motorway. The rail part of this scheme is just PT wash, and ready to be the first thing cut when the issue of how much it will cost is discussed more as the project approaches.
The fact is that NZTA’s proposal is far too expensive for any benefit, and comes with considerable dis-benefit (well the road part does) so there is no way that we would build both. Clearly NZTA only intends to build the road tunnels and connections but it is my contention that that is the wrong way round.
We should build the currently missing modes across this barrier before adding any more traffic lanes.
Skypath first; cycling and walking, (drop the stupid toll), then a dedicated RTN connection.
To do this we should investigate getting further value out of the existing nearly-there Northern Busway. Clearly it needs better priority on the city side parts of its route, and bridge approaches, and possibly over the bridge. It could certainly be further incentivised by road pricing (along with other important and congested routes around the city). A move like this would be so cost effective compared to any built infrastructure and prolong the useful life of the existing road capacity for years or decades to come.
Then we could examine the problem again and think about how to add the missing RTN route across the harbour, most likely high capacity and efficient electric rail, but it is vital that we we wring more value out of the huge sunk cost in our huge, and nearly complete motorway system while we invest in catching up with the missing modes; Transit and cycling & walking.
Surely something that could be done quickly and easily, would be to make the ‘tidal’ peak time lane bus or T3/T4 only? It would be a far more efficient use of road space.
Agreed Louis, That would be a good short term solution.
Also, Patrick you are looking awful like a National minister on this issue. Shooting down the projects and suggesting no alternatives.
From my research there was a train staion at Wynyard priced and at Akoranga priced.
I think what Patrick is getting at is ‘why build cross harbour rail at this time when we have an existing busway that is not at capacity’. There are other projects that need doing first of which building the missing bits of the Northern bus way could be included. From a ratepayer / tax payer point of view I’m comfortable with that. I also want to see a bucket load less spent on roaring projects. NZ is spending above its ability to pay.
Damn phone – ‘roading’.
Well i am saying that but not just that, it is our view here that there are meassures that should be done first to increase the efficiency of our existing infrastructure over the harbour:
1. Adding the missing active modes to the bridge
2. Improving the efectiveness of the bus routes, especially in the city itself but also on the Bridge and the Bridge approaches
3. Consider other incentives and improvements to encorouage bus and ferry use across this barrier
Then look at what if any additional infrastructure could further improve access, effectiveness, and quality of place in the City, on The Shore and the whole region and beyond.
Do not just start by asking; ‘where can we put the next road’!
Two important contextural points:
1. The busway is only an RTN for 41% of its length, way way cheaper to finish this project first as it has already been remarkably effective at getting increasing numbers of people across the bridge as the numbers of cars have fallen or steadied, especially at the all important peak times. And the rest of the time there is plenty of capacity.
2. We are currently in the middle of spending 4billion dollars on the Western Ring route which is supposed to attract traffic around the whole of the central city and lower North Shore, especially for trucks, this is lovely big spend especially for the road freight industry so they can avoid the structures we have been building for them for decades in Auckland, especially the CMJ and the Harbour Bridge. So if this is going to justify its cost we should wait for that to kick in before spending the next vast fortune on this mode.
Your mad if you think that even a completed busway would satisfy demand for another 30 years.
There is no way we can reasonably hope to not replace the bridge by 2040, so the question should be what and when to build something.
I actually favour a bus, rail, cycle, walking, bridge as a supplement to the existing bridge, built in such a way that it can simply be double stacked when we need to pelace the existing bridge.. But that is my opinion.
By the way, you also forgot the removal of the Vic Park Fly Overs as an advantage of the tunnel.
Well I don’t. I see a rail only tunnel as the next crossing after the Skypath and optimisation of the current bridges.
Vic Park flyovers should have gone with the recent work there and can be replaced with a tunnel anytime without any new harbour crossing.
I am not so bold as to claim to know what will be the imperatives in 2040, but there certainly is a very good chance we still won’t be wanting last century’s vision.
Yeah, I figured that Patrick but didn’t add it as I was typing on a phone – #lazy. As for an extra harbour crossing, I too believe a rail only tunnel is the way to go. The St Mary’s bay motorway route exists now. If the bridge needs replacing then we should incorporate the existing structure into the build – whether it be maintenance or build a new one next to it prior to pulling the existing one down – as per Newmarket flyover.
@Patrick, I didn’t say that the VPF were only possible with AWHC just that they were one more thing that we were getting with it.
If it costs 550m to do it then the cost of AWHC is 4.5b + VPF removal, or 5b including it, you can’t argue both ways.
My problem with Skypath is that I don’t think it will have capacity for the number of people that it will need and I don’t think NZTA will ever allow ‘their’ lanes to be reshuffled to allow a bus lane or a cycle/ pedestrian lane unless another road bridge/ tunnel is built.
I agree that St Mary’s Bay will probably be that hell hole of a motorway at least until we run out of fuel, realise electric cars won’t work and that biofuels are crazy expensive, But that is probably 100 years away.
Sailor you’re probably right about Skypath being insufficient for the demand, but it sure as hell will be better than nothing, and the fact that it will cost (insanely) will limit its uptake. And if it is a wild runaway success, we can always whack another one on the other side and either separate cycling from walking or have our own little Active Transit one way system! If the structure can take it on one side it surely can on the other too…?
The time to remove the viaducts was missed, they had a bargain offer to do it along with the first VPT, but that bird has flown, so miserably do the the powers that be in Wellington value quality of place. So it goes.
As to the future of Motordom, looking overseas it appears to be in a fairly rapid retreat already; we just haven’t caught on with that yet much. You know, things don’t change till they do, and sometimes that can be more than a little surprisingly rapid. But who knows. I am just on the side of not rushing further along the current path of assuming that today’s conditions are permanent with such confidence.
We have already seen how relatively small investments in transport infrastructure can reveal quite large changes in behaviour. Changes that were predicted to be impossible by the same people that still predict that change won’t or can’t happen. The Northern Busway and Britomart cost in the low hundreds of millions each and both continue to exceed the predictions of the unimaginative business-as-usual naysayers. So how about we act a bit more boldly and complete both those projects next and see what that does to the transport demand picture in Ak?
What’s the risk? Both will improve resilience, quality of place, modal options and depth, environmental performance, and cost of our transport mix…. We can still build the next bit of kit another day. And if it is not needed till 2040 then there really is no need to be doing more than protecting the possible routes at this stage…. In fact it would be daft to do more.
That is looking a bit more reasonable.
I think that what NZTA andAT are doing so far is prett wise, designing the solution that would work if money were no object and including everything possible within it, designating that route and protecting it.
Unfortunately I fear it will just get rammed through as is instead of being scaled back, because ‘aucklanders like roads’.
They need to stop viewing PT users as a cash source. Our fares are already excessive relative to incomes, and certainly excessive for the quality of the services available. PTOM and electric trains should see more money returned to the Council’s coffers, and I’d like to see that happen before the bastards start trying to screw PT users for yet more money. If there’s still a shortfall after we’ve seen the impact of those changes then fare increases over and above inflation can be discussed, but at this point in time I see precisely zero justification for increasing fares. They can’t even argue that it’s to pay for better PT infrastructure, either, because what’s on the plan is well over 80% highways with little or no PT component.
There are more interesting questions around fares anyway. It may be that lowering fares could in fact lift the total farebox recovery by helping to stimulate uptake. We know that pax is sensitive to fare cost so this certainly warrants study and testing.
Indeed, though there’s zero evidence of such nuanced thinking in this document. The only reference to PT fares is “a small increase” rather than “examine ways to improve contribution by public transport fares”.
I’m considering a post on this issue. The long run elasticity of demand with respect to fares is relatively high (-0.60), which in turn suggests that either PT users are price sensitive, or they will readily accept alternatives to using PT. Ultimately I don’t think you can really raise cost recovery very much by increasing fares. In fact it’s largely a self-defeating prophecy.
In the long run I suspect there are the three effective ways to improve PT farebox recovery are through:
1. Pricing of alternatives, namely parking and congestion charging; and
2. Economies of density, or scale, achieved through capital investment, e.g. bus lanes; and
3. Managing gross costs through effective tendering processes and resource optimisation (i.e. scheduling).
I don’t think increasing fares is the way to achieve significantly higher cost recovery.
Stu you need to add:
4. By improving the effectiveness and appeal of the service.
Stu,
I think there is a wide spread perception that PT is expensive compare to other modes.
So any price hikes immediately provoke a knew jerk reaction of finding alternatives to PT.
Whether that make strict economic sense or not.
In some cases, the presence of free or cheap car parking makes this argument somewhat more real that it should be.
Lack of off peak fare or other “capped” spending plans feeds into this perception [and reality in weekends], where you pay full fare like its a work day even though it isn’t [and the PT service thinks its in weekend mode frequency wise, even if the fares don’t]..
So I think Patricks #4 is the immediate priority (i.e. its actually P1) – as thats the single biggest bang for the buck thing you can do right now to make the system recover more money (and of course, clamping down on fare dodging as you do this or you’re wasting your time).
We need to let those future .5 to 1m Aucklanders to always understand that they get somewhere faster and cheaper by PT than any other mode – all things being considered.
We’re not there yet, but this is how you get there.
Has anyone identified a way to provide feedback on this proposal that does not endorse either one of the options, but points that the more important question?
No email or contact details only provided in the documents / website, and you need to select one of the options to submit views. Any other routes I have not spotted?
Meant to say “but points to that the more important question?”