CBD Tunnel Review: my thoughts on the Council document
As I noted in yesterday’s blog post, which focused on the Ministry of Transport review of the CBD Rail Tunnel business case, Auckland Council – in conjunction with Auckland Transport and a wide variety of international consultants, also reviewed the business case.…
19 Comments Outlining why Puhoi-Wellsford is a stupid project
It was good to read in yesterday’s NZ Herald that the Labour Party has committed to cancelling the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” if they’re elected at the end of the year. While the polls indicate that the chances of Labour actually being elected are reasonably remote, if we assume that they retain this policy into the future, the long timeframes for actually planning, consenting and eventually constructing Puhoi-Wellsford should mean that the project never goes ahead in its current form, as eventually Labour will become the government again.…
The UK approach to Wider Economic Benefits
When the CBD Rail Tunnel business case was released late last year the Minister of Transport was skeptical about many of its details – and in particular its approach to various forms of ‘wider economic benefits’ (WEBs). He was reported as calling many of the benefits outlined in the business case “WEBs on steroids”.…
Next steps for the CBD rail tunnel
The agenda for Auckland Transport’s board meeting tomorrow has been posted online (both the boring open agenda and the rather more interesting confidential agenda). In the closed agenda, along with various items that seem relatively normal, will be special consideration of the following: One imagines that the EMU Procurement item is responding to KiwiRail’s short-listing down to two of the preferred suppliers that was announced a few days back.…
Joyce wants more uneconomic RoNS
A couple of days ago I discussed one of the Ministry of Transport’s discussion papers that has been prepared to inform the development of the next Government Policy Statement (GPS) for transport. The GPS is an important document because it is effectively the government’s input to how NZTA should spend the $3 billion or so that sits in the National Land Transport Fund each year.…
Top economist questions RoNS
It was heartening to open up the newspaper this morning in Wellington and read this opinion piece on the poor economics of the “Roads of National Significance” (RoNS), prepared by Dr Michael Pickford, the former chief economist at the Commerce Commission and now an independent economic researcher.…
Waterview Connection – hearing starts Monday
After years of background work, arguments, designs, redesigns, re-redesigns and so forth, the Waterview Connection project will have its official planning hearing from Monday onwards. The hearing is likely to be quite lengthy, with NZTA putting forward a vast array of witnesses, Auckland Council doing similar, and a relatively large number of submitters also being very interested parties.…
Rod Oram on National Radio
In the comments, Rob Russell has alerted me to the fact that Rod Oram talked about transport and spatial planning on National Radio this morning. A link to listen to the item is here.
Somewhat coincidentally, I’ve also received today a copy of the original SAHA International assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the various Roads of National Significance that Rod Oram’s article a week and a bit ago referred to.…
Exploring the web of “wider economic benefits”
Steven Joyce’s main response to the release of the CBD Rail Tunnel business case seems to have been to immediately question the accuracy of the study. In particular, he has questioned the validity of including broad urban regeneration – or employment based – wider economic benefits of the project.…
Examining the CBD Rail Tunnel business case
After waiting months and months for the business case of the CBD Rail Tunnel to be released, it’s quite weird to now have literally so much information on the project at my fingertrips I don’t quite know what to do with it all.…
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