Other RoNS to cut back?
Yesterday’s announcement by NZTA that they are scaling back the Otaki to Levin section of the Wellington Northern Corridor Road of National Significance, from a four-lane highway to an upgrade of the existing road, has some really interesting implications – as Matt commented on in his post last night.…
28 Comments Peak traffic?
Another article has highlighted that Auckland’s traffic volumes aren’t growing anymore – rather stagnating and even falling slightly:
More Aucklanders are leaving their cars at home for the commute to work as high petrol prices bite.
New figures show almost 900 fewer cars a week travelled over the Auckland Harbour Bridge this year compared with last year.…
The deal on discount rates
In a post a couple of months ago I looked at how the way we calculate the transport benefits of different projects ends up having a huge difference on its cost-benefit ratio. In particular, it was extremely interesting to note that if we had used the British discount rate and length of assessment when analysing the benefits of the City Rail Link project, it would have around five times the amount of benefit compared to the way such a project is analysed in New Zealand.…
Looking at the CBD’s car & bus capacity
Many of the debates over the City Rail Link’s cost-effectiveness have revolved around the question of rail capacity. At what point does the railway network, without the CRL, become overloaded? How many people will be discouraged from taking the train because of this overcrowding?…
Sustainable transport
Yesterday I was invited to speak on Sustainable Transport, as part of the “Friday forum” which is run by the Sustainability Society. My fellow speakers were David Warburton – CEO of Auckland Transport, and Julie-Anne Genter – transport consultant and (on currently polling) likely to be a Green Party MP after the upcoming election.…
Re-analysing the City Rail Link’s benefits
It has been frustrating to see the assessment of the City Rail Link’s benefits become so politicised over the past few months. You would think that something like undertaking a cost-benefit analysis of a transport project would be a fairly objective task, but as we have learned there are so many assumptions made when assessing transport projects – that the objectivity of the process has really become something of a myth.…
Looking closer at “Operation Lifesaver”
Labour’s announcement on the weekend that they would provide $1.2 billion to help construct the City Rail Link was credible because they have a source for the funding: redirecting the money from the Puhoi-Wellsford project which is often termed the “holiday highway”.…
The real benefits of the City Rail Link
My post on Tuesday, which looked at the ongoing debate occurring over the economics of the City Rail Link (and the huge under-counting of benefits under New Zealand’s system, by comparison to the UK’s system), prompted some interesting debate in the comments over what the real benefits of this project are, and who experiences them.…
The disputed economics of the City Rail Link
A few months back when Auckland Council and the government released vastly different results from their (supposedly) joint review of the City Rail Link’s business case, we learned that the process of determining whether a project is “worth it” is not the objective exercise that is so often portrayed.…
NZTA revisiting their assessment of PT projects
One thing that came across most clearly in the excellent Radio NZ piece about the City Rail Link project that played on Sunday morning was that the difference between the government’s measurement of the project’s cost-effectiveness and the assessments undertaken for Auckland Council doesn’t just come down to whether one is right and one is wrong.…
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