Auckland Transport Blog

The Local Government Commission has today released its finalised findings for what the details of the boundary of Auckland’s Super City should be, the boundaries for the various wards and the boundaries of the various local boards. Back in November their draft plans got absolutely panned for being unfair, unrepresentative and – at worst – appeared like blatant gerrymandering.

The main cause of all this angst was that the Local Government Commission were meant to ensure that no ward boundary was over or under represented by any more than 10%. This means that in determining the make-up of the future Auckland Council, whether my vote living in one part of the city was worth approximately the same as someone’s vote living elsewhere in the city. At their first crack, the LGC did a shocking job, and a huge number of the wards were vastly over or under represented. Submissions hammered them for this, as they acknowledge themselves:

We received a number of submissions on councillor representation and particularly the variation in fair representation ratios between the proposed wards. We agree that fair representation is very important. Consequently, while still providing for effective representation of communities of interest, we have made adjustments to ensure wards now more closely comply with the ‘+/-10% fair representation rule’. We believe this will assist achievement of our objective of public understanding of representation arrangements and help promote effective community engagement.

But have they really made things that much better? I don’t think so, and if you have a look at the table which details how under of over-represented each place is, there are still a large number of areas that fall outside that 10% threshold.

March 2010 final version:

The important column to look at is the one on the right, showing the deviation from the average population per councillor. Out of the 13 wards to be created, no fewer than six have a deviation of greater than 10%. That’s almost half of them. The table below shows the November proposal, and you can see that there have been some improvements, but really it’s still outrageous that 80,000 people in the Waitemata and Gulf Ward are only represented to the same extent that 54,000 people in the Rodney Ward are. That’s not fair democracy.

November 2009 draft version:

Some of the other changes that have been made make some sense. Orakei has been split off from Tamaki-Maungakiekie, and thankfully the central Auckland ward has been renamed from Mangawhau to Waitemata and Gulf. It seemed insane for it to be called Mangawhau (Mt Eden), when Mt Eden wasn’t even in it!

However, in general I still think the LGC have done an incredibly lousy job here. How hard can it be to ensure equal and fair representation across the different wards? What’s stopping them from shifting another 5,000 people from Manukau into Manurewa-Papakura to even up those two wards? What’s stopping them shifting more of Waitakere into Albany (some has been shifted) to ensure that those match up more evenly. I realise that some effort has gone into ensuring that the boundaries match “communities of interest”, but I actually think that’s far more important for the local boards than for the wards. The ward boundaries are about democratic equality, and the way they’ve been established is not fair.

Furthermore, if you look at the areas that are over-represented and under-represented it would seem there’s quite a political bias (Orakei excepted). Which is very worrying and suspicious.

In another critical step forwards for what I consider to be Auckland’s most important transport projects, today ARTA have announced the preferred alignment for the CBD Rail Tunnel. Here’s the media release:

Prefered Route Chosen for Transformational CBD Rail Loop Project
11 Mar 2010

A preferred route has now been identified for Auckland’s proposed CBD Rail Loop tunnel. The route was chosen out of three shortlisted options identified by consultants acting on behalf of ARTA and KiwiRail.

The tunnel would run between Mt Eden and Britomart, taking in Khyber Pass Road, Symonds Street and Karangahape Road, with the opportunity for three train station locations at Symonds Street/Khyber Pass Road; Karangahape Road/Pitt Street and on Albert Street between Victoria and Wellesley Streets (Refer to diagram attached).

The chairman of ARTA, Mr Rabin Rabindran says the project is regionally based and the preferred option has been discussed with the Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council. It has also been discussed with the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).

Mr Rabindran said, “The next step in the study will be to investigate potential costs and economic benefits that the tunnel would deliver to the region.

“Naturally we need to ensure there is a sound business case to support the project and have a clear understanding of the level of investment required to bring it into reality before we proceed to the next step.

“The project takes into consideration management of Auckland’s projected population growth to well over two million over the next four decades, which is over 70 per cent of New Zealand’s total projected growth”.

Mr Rabindran said, “This project for Auckland, made possible by the Government’s decision to electrify Auckland’s rail network is a transformational project for the region with the ability to provide significant economic, social and environmental benefits. These benefits would accrue to the whole of the region”.

KiwiRail chairman Jim Bolger says the study currently underway is a first step in the process of identifying and protecting the route for future construction.

“If we are to ensure rail is able to play its part in Auckland’s transport mix, both now and into the future we need to ensure the network has reasonable reach and flexibility.

“There is still a long way to go with this project, but it is vital that we take the necessary steps to protect the route for the future.

“The option chosen has the three station locations under public roads with the locations optimising redevelopment and growth opportunities for economic productivity and patronage; the least number of curves which means lower costs for the tunnel boring machine and better operational speed for trains thus reducing operational costs”.

The Chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee said. “The CBD loop tunnel will not only radically boost the efficiency of Auckland’s commuter rail network and nearly double the throughput of trains through Britomart, but a metro rail really will be the making of Auckland, revitalising the CBD and giving Auckland a truly international feel. The suggestion of running the line under upper Symonds Street is a stroke of brilliance –and will certainly revitalise this wonderful old part of the city”.

Mayor of Auckland, John Banks said, “Excellent urban regeneration and economic development opportunities are available around the proposed three station locations. This is particularly important given Auckland’s projected population growth. Opportunities include redevelopment work around K’Road with the station centrally located on a ridge between Grafton Hospital and Ponsonby Road.

“Current population levels within 500 metres of the K’Road station are in the region of 7,000 employees and 2,500 residents. With future amendments to the existing zoning there is capacity to provide for approximately 20,000 employees and 7,000 residents. Similar opportunities exist around Newton while around the proposed Aotea Station there is the capacity to more than double the employment opportunities from 40,000 to over 80,000”.

“While further analysis is required, at this stage train patronage projections out to 2016 and 2041 for these three train stations indicate strong potential growth which is driven by the station locations in the heart of the CBD. This will provide easy walking distance to all the CBD’s commercial, tourist, residential and educational opportunities as well as allowing more trains to use the network by unlocking the constraint of Britomart being a dead end station and doubling its capacity”, said Mr Banks.

Mr Rabindran says: “The next step in the project will progress concept design work to identify a required footprint and a business case which we regard as a key piece of work to identify the value to the public and private investment required to bring this project into reality. Projects like this have the potential to lift land values and dramatically boost economic productivity through focussed regional and government sector investment in infrastructure and services. Earlier investigations have shown the potential benefits of this project are likely to significantly outweigh its costs. This work will be undertaken from March to September this year with Phase Three, preparation of the notice of requirement documentation, completed by December this year”.

Mr Rabindran said the total cost of the project had not yet been finalised. Funding for the project would need to be negotiated between the region and the government, however in light of Auckland’s burgeoning population growth of almost an additional million people by 2050; forward planning for the region was not only prudent but essential.

Before I get on to discuss the details of the actual alignment itself, it’s worth commenting on the press release above. I have underlined various parts of it which I think are particularly noteworthy, in that they refer to the significant benefits that will arise from this project, in particular the significant economic benefits that it will bring to the whole Auckland region.

I agree with Rabin Rabindran that the project is transformational for Auckland. There is so much benefit to be had from Auckland having a stronger core, as it will reduce the requirement for people to drive significant distances from one side of the city to the other, it will improve the viability of public transport in general if more than 12% of the region’s jobs are located in the CBD and it will also have other longer term benefits such as helping to create a more vibrant city centre and giving the CBD a critical mass that could eventually lead to significant economic benefits as more and more employment opportunities are available within close proximity of each other. The most successful cities at regenerating over recent years internationally, such as Melbourne and Vancouver, have a very strong urban core with lots of people and jobs creating a vibrancy that leads to massive long-term economic benefits.

The opportunity for significant urban regeneration in areas around the stations, particularly around K Road and Newton station, would also have massive economic benefits. As I explained in a blog post a few weeks back, putting a station in Newton means that whole area could effectively become an extension of the CBD. This kind of urban development in Auckland is exactly what our current growth strategies envisage – significant intensification in the CBD and in fringe-CBD areas where appropriate, as well as significant intensification in various other nodes along the rail corridor. But this kind of urban outcome is not going to happen by itself, we need the infrastructure investment to work with the development strategies to make it happen. Which is exactly what the CBD rail tunnel does.

Turning to the alignment chosen, this is shown in the map below:

This is pretty much what was expected, and the only real difference between the three options preferred by the previous stage of the study was whether the K Road station would be next to the corner with Pitt Street or the corner with Queen Street. While a Queen St location may have been better from some perspectives (linking with our main street after all) I think that technical factors made that option difficult. In any case I don’t think it matters too much, as the corner of K Road and Pitt Street does very much come across as the heart of that part of the city.

I await with great interest to see the results of the business case study into this. I would be extremely surprised if this project doesn’t come up with a far better business case than the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”. In which case, there should be some serious questions asked why we’re spending $1.4 billion there instead of here.

I noticed on the bus yesterday that BP had put their prices up to $1.829 a litre for 91 octane petrol, and thought that was the highest price I’d seen in a while. It turns out that prices haven’t been this high for around 18 months, since the tail end of the oil spike in mid 2008. The NZ Herald says more:

AA PetrolWatch spokesman Mark Stockdale told NZPA the weaker exchange rate was partly to blame for the price rise.

Petrol was “hitting an uncomfortable price point” and motorists would be feeling nervous after prices passed $1.80, he said.

Until the rises of last week retail fuel prices had remained unchanged since January 19, when they fell 3c a litre across the board.

Crude oil and refined petrol prices rose between 4 and 6 per cent during February, with refined diesel up 10 per cent – reducing oil company importers’ margins.

In June 2008 there was a record fuel price jump of 12c per litre in just 48 hours. By the end of the month, petrol was selling at $2.11 per litre.

I don’t expect prices to go above $2 a litre any time particularly soon. The February 2010 “OilWatch Monthly” indicates that the amount of oil being produced is still well down on its mid 2008 peak, meaning that global demand for oil still has not hit uncomfortable heights of 87-88 million barrels a day, instead settling around 85-86 million, as shown in the graph below: In particular, the second graph shows that OPEC production is significantly less than it was in 2008. As a result, OPEC has some significant spare capacity that they can turn on to ease price issues should they so please, so there’s no real worry of a sharp spike for now.

However, the question in my mind is what happens when demand starts to jump above that 88 million barrels a day that was the max output during July 2008 when prices went completely nuts? That’s when I think things could get interesting again, with the result probably being that either prices will go incredibly high again (maybe even higher than July 2008) and stay there, or that the high prices will kick off another financial crisis like what happened in 2008, and prices will crash as a result.

I do wonder what petrol price would make Steven Joyce start to worry about the sense of spending $11 billion over the next decade on motorways. $2.50 a litre maybe? Or $3?

We haven’t heard much about progress on the implementation of Auckland’s integrated ticketing system recently, although I have been assured by ARTA that things are “coming along”. The winning tenderer, Thales, has set up an office in Auckland and it seems that things are slowly grinding into action. It would seem as though there will be a big push to get as much as possible of the integrated ticketing system operational by the time of the Rugby World Cup next year. This is utterly essential in my opinion, as our current fragmented ticketing system is an absolute joke that will make us the laughing stock of the world (along with our continuously breaking down trains).

However, perhaps what it even more important than implementation of the actual integrated ticketing system is the design of an integrated fare system for Auckland. What’s the difference between the two? Well the fare system will establish what kind of fares are available, whether we continue to have a “stage-based” system or shift to a “zone-based” system like there is in cities such as Melbourne and London, whether we have fare capping, what kinds of unlimited travel passes will be available and so forth. All the integrated ticketing part of this is getting the right software and hardware in place to implement the fare system.

I’m quite curious to explore what an integrated fare system would look like in Auckland. I have outlined my thoughts on this matter a few times in the past, as well as the matters what will need to be considered when putting together the fare system. It might be worthwhile stepping back from the end-point of coming up with various different types of tickets that should be available to answer some more fundamental questions, and then to examine possible options that would help achieve what the fundamental goals are. So let’s have a look first at what I think should/would be the aims of any integrated fare system in Auckland:

1. Complete multi-modal and multi-operator integration (same ticket can be used on any bus, train or ferry in the Auckland region.
2. The fare system should be designed to increase patronage and encourage more people to use public transport.
3. The fare system should, in particular, make it easier for people to transfer between one service and another.
4. The fare system should be generally revenue neutral compared to the current system, or if possible generate even more revenue.
5. The fare system should seek to maximise the efficiency of the public transport resource.
6. The fare system should ensure riders get ‘the best deal’.

Let’s look at each of these matters in turn in more detail:

Multi-modal, multi-operator integration:

To me this aspect is fundamental to creating an integrated ticketing system. Unless you can use your particular ticket on any bus, train or ferry then you don’t have an integrated ticketing system. However, in a way I don’t think it’s enough to simply say that there must be a ticketing option that works on all possible transport options, as we actually already have that in the form of the Discovery Pass (just that nobody uses it because it’s really expensive and incredibly poorly marketed). The point is that whether I buy a multi-journey pass, a monthly pass, a weekly pass or use a stored value system it needs to be valid on all buses, trains and ferries in the Auckland region.

I have a worry that what we could end up with is having an integrated stored value system, but any other ticketing options will remain in the disjointed mess they currently are. This would be similar to the situation where you can call a Telecom cellphone from a Vodafone one, but many of the special deals apply to the people you’re calling being with the same company as you. I wouldn’t want to see NZ Bus offering their own ticketing passes alongside a citywide integrated fare system as that would be incredibly confusing and not much better than where we are at the moment.

Increasing patronage:

Increasing patronage levels and encouraging more people to use public transport is, of course, the ultimate goal of any improvements made, and it will be a complex process to achieve this outcome. However, there are a few things that I think would encourage more people to use public transport, but perhaps even more specifically, to encourage those who do use public transport to use it more often. To get those who catch the bus or train to work during the week also catching them to shopping malls on the weekend. Or to get school kids using public transport to visit their friends after school and so forth.

There are a few ways I think a fare system could help achieve this goal. The first is to get as many people as possible purchasing “unlimited travel” weekly and monthly passes. Customers who purchase these passes are precious, in the same way as subscribers are precious to those who publish magazines and newspapers – because they are your core base. These people will want to get the best value for money out of their pass so they will want to use them as often as possible. This means that they might use public transport more at the weekends or in the evenings than they would otherwise, because they’ve effectively already paid for the trip. At the moment in Auckland it’s only really worthwhile purchasing a monthly pass if you live three stages or more from your destination, as otherwise the numbers stack up. If we had more options for unlimited travel passes then I think more people would use them (unlimited travel within a particular number of zones if we’re using a zone system for example.

Another way of boosting patronage is through time-based rather than trip-based fares. This links in with the point below about making transfers easier, because if one ticket effectively bought you two hours of travel, rather than one entry onto a bus or train, then the public transport system would become that much more useful to you as connecting services would effectively act as simple the second part to your trip, rather than another trip entirely. As I explained a few weeks back, this brings the network effect into play, which potentially hugely improves the attractiveness of public transport. Which leads to higher patronage.

Making transfers easier:

As noted above, one of the most important tasks of a new fare system will be to make the process of transfering easier. ARTA’s long term plans for public transport in Auckland do rely upon transfering between trunk and feeder services a lot more than we see at the moment, which is definitely the right approach so that resources can be used far more efficiently. However, as Paul Mees has said: “…from the passenger’s point of view, transferring between services is an inconvenience: requiring an extra fare for the disservice is like adding insult to injury”.

Having time-based ticketing, based around a zone system where the city is divided into chunks and passengers pay according to how many zones their trip passes through in a 2 hour, daily or whatever time period regardless of how many times they get on or off a bus or train is absolutely critical here. Unless our future fares system makes transfering dramatically easier then it will be a failure, no doubt about that.

Revenue neutral or better:

While ideally we would all like a new ticketing system to make our trips cheaper, I think it has to be recognised that ARTA does not have a huge pile of funding available to make up for any loss of revenue, so therefore the changes will have to be revenue neutral at worst.

Now this does not necessarily mean that fares have to go up. Mobile phone companies do not need to raise the per-minute rates for calling in order to make more money – what they do is try to offer options that will get people calling more often or using their phone for more stuff that is valuable enough to the user for them to be charged. The same sort of thinking should apply to public transport I think, in that there is a need to think cleverly about ways to increase revenue. For example, if you have 30 people willing to pay $5 for a particular trip, but 50 people would take the trip if it cost $4, then you’re actually pretty stupid to keep charging $5 for the trip as you’re effectively giving away $50 in revenue. I’m no expert of the price elasticity of public transport patronage in Auckland, but I expect that in the outer areas in particular big rises or falls in fares could make a big difference to possible patronage more than outweighing any benefit gained from increasing fares.

Another aspect to look at is what I hinted at earlier, in getting more people to buy weekly and monthly passes. Most people in Auckland at the moment who use public transport seem to use multi-journey passes or stored value passes, often because weekly or monthly passes don’t make sense. Many of these people will simply not bother using public transport at the slightest provocation (a bit of rain etc.) because they realise they can simply use that trip next time around. With more people using weekly or monthly passes they will feel as though they ought to catch the bus or train each and every day to make the most of their pass. This means that you’re getting full-time revenue out of that user rather than just occasional trips.

Maximise efficiency:

Just like all transportation resources, the demand for public transport is hugely higher at two points of the day than it is at any other times – namely the morning and evening peak hour. This is an incredibly inefficient use of resources in two senses. Firstly, it means that during peak times you need a lot of rolling stock, and in the case of trains you may need a lot of track capacity. If you’re running peak hour services at close to capacity and you attract another 100 people to use the service, then you’re going to need to buy two new buses to serve those people – even though you’re not going to need to use those buses at any other time of the day. The second way the peak spikes are inefficient is that during off-peak hours most of the stock rolls around fairly empty, meaning that fares really struggle to cover the costs of operating that service – leading to expensive subsidies being required.

The solution is to somehow spread those peaks a bit. Of course many people simply have to be at work by 9am, or at school or at university by a certain hour of the day. But a certain number of people probably would travel off-peak if there were incentives for them to do so. Unfortunately, at the moment on most routes the only time a decent frequency service is offered is during the peak hour so even those who don’t have to travel then are encouraged to do so, making the peak even more extreme. In terms of service provision, one can try to spread the peak by offering higher frequencies during the “shoulder-peak” periods of just before and just after peak hour, rather than buying another bus to operate at peak time. From a ticketing point of view, the solution in my opinion is to make a distinction between fares charged during peak hour and fares charged outside of peak hours. Perhaps fares between 7am and 9am, and 4pm and 6pm go up by 10%, while those outside those times are decreased by 20% (as more people travel during peak times the revenue might balance).

This would enable a far more efficient use of existing transport resources such as buses and trains.

Ensuring riders get the best deal:

There’s nothing more annoying that taking a few trips on public transport throughout a day and then discovering you would have been better off getting a day-pass. Or buying a day pass but then working out you would have been better off simply paying separate fares for each trip. Somehow you feel ripped off.

The solution to this is called “fare capping”, where you pay as you got up to a certain daily rate, and then you stop being charged for further trips. This is used on London’s Oyster Cards and is a fantastic idea that must form a part of Auckland’s future integrated fare system.

I’m keen for some feedback on these “overarching principles” for what our integrated fare system should look like. Perhaps in a future post or two I will try to put this into action and come up with something of a proposal for how ARTA should implement the future system.

As I noted a couple of days ago it has been a pretty horrific year for Auckland’s train system so far, with signalling failures, points failures and train failures seemingly occurring on a daily basis (quite literally actually). In that previous post I questioned whether the $11 million cutback to the rail contract was behind many of these problems (the train breakdowns, the daily signal and points failures are KiwiRail’s fault). It seems that trains running in Auckland this evening on the Western Line were subjected to another typical “day at the office” - a points failure leading to 45 minute delays.

I think it’s worthwhile doing a bit of a comparison between how the rail problems faced by Auckland and Wellington in recent weeks have been dealt with. Let’s start with Wellington, where a couple of weeks ago there were some serious problems relating to electric wires  that were not properly fixed during overnight maintenance, causing huge problems. KiwiRail got blasted in the Dominion Post Editorial, which had this to say:

On Tuesday 369 people were stuck on a train to Upper Hutt for two hours after a power failure halted all trains in and out of the capital. “No one told us anything,” complained a passenger. “We were locked up and were going nowhere. We were not allowed outside.”

The previous day 2000 commuters were delayed for up to two hours when another power fault brought services to a standstill. Some passengers waited more than an hour for replacement buses to show up. Others walked to work along the lines.

This week’s breakdowns are just the latest in a string of problems that have infuriated passengers over the past 12 months as historic under-investment in the commuter network and a $600 million upgrade have coincided to create what KiwiRail project manager David Gordon calls a “perfect storm”.

Passengers have been delayed by power faults, equipment failures, slips and contractor errors and, last winter, were left to shiver in carriages without working heaters.

Faced with such a difficult operating environment, KiwiRail might have been expected to do its utmost to retain customer loyalty by informing passengers of the cause and likely length of delays and having alternative forms of transport on hand to minimise inconvenience.

Instead it has operated as if its customers have no choice but to put up with its erratic services.

In response, KiwiRail actually did something. There was a free day’s travel as compensation for the problems and a real commitment to sort things out it would seem. Rail is taken seriously in Wellington and the trains are expected to work, so when something goes wrong because there’s only one agency involved (KiwiRail) things can be sorted out.

Meanwhile, back in Auckland, it’s arguable that we suffer (on a smaller scale, but far more frequently) significantly more problems with our rail network. As I have mentioned in previous posts, there were 406 signal or points failures on the Auckland rail network in the last year alone, and in January only 36% of Western Line trains reached the destination less than 5 minutes late, while 10% didn’t even reach their destination at all. And yet what have we heard from ARTA or KiwiRail about these horrific problems in Auckland?

Zilch.

Instead, we get bombarded with media releases about fun, nice to have, events and promotions that ARTA’s running. Like tomorrow’s Walk2Work promotion, which I’m sure is a good idea, but how about we sort those trains out? Or a “one-stop-shop” calendar for finding out about sustainable travel events, or some promotion with the Blues rugby team, or the refurbishment of the Maxx Website (without actually updating the horrifically outdated mapping system behind the scenes) or the bizarre “Make a Change” campaign. These are all “nice”, but once again please can we get the basics right first? Can we get more than two out of five trains running on time on the Western Line, can we ensure that 10% of trains don’t fail to make it to their destination? Can we get some progress updates on how integrated ticketing is coming along? Can we start implementing a paper-based integrated fare system like was promised “within a few months” back in 2008?

Now I imagine ARTA will throw their hands up in the air at all of this and say “but it’s not our fault, it’s KiwiRail/Veolia/ARC/City Councils/NZTA’s fault….” Which is probably true, but in a nutshell is the problem.

And having a massive Transport CCO is only going to make things worse, as they’ll be even less accountable while we’ll still have the dis-integration between KiwiRail, Veolia and the new Transport Agency. This isn’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it’s throwing the baby out but keeping the damn bathwater.

An excellent interview of Rodney Hide by John Campbell last night on Campbell Live. Click here to watch the video. I really struggle to understand how having Auckland Transport operating in secret will help improve accountability of this agency. Yesterday I wondered whether we would see some big changes to Auckland Transport or even whether it would survive the media thrashing it’s getting at the moment. Judging from this interview and comments from John Key in today’s NZ Herald, it seems unlikely there will be any significant changes made to the legislation to improve the accountability of this CCO. Which is a disastrous outcome.

If I were to ask Rodney Hide or Steven Joyce one question about this set up, it would be: “who do I complain to when my train’s late for the 10th time in a row?” The elected councillor who can do nothing about it or the unelected CCO staff member who doesn’t need to give a damn about my problems?

It has been a particularly interesting last few days for the plans going on to create the Auckland Super-City in November this year. In particular, it has been interesting to see the New Zealand Herald become more and more opposed to the “council controlled organisations” (CCOs) that will be set up to run water, development of the waterfront and (most controversially) transport.

First, there was Friday’s editorial, which included (among other comment) this:

The way it is shaping up, the single mayor and council will be a puppet show, purely for democratic appearances, while the real decisions are made by people the public has not elected and will never see. It cannot stand.

Now it seems that there’s a whole campaign within the Herald to expose exactly how unaccountable this new transport agency will be. In today’s paper there was a whole number of different articles on CCOs. Splashed across the front page of today’s newspaper were the words “The Lockout of Auckland“, and while the main article focused on the Waterfront Development Agency (transport will have its big article tomorrow), there is still mention of transport matters:

Aucklanders are to be locked out of decisions affecting their greatest jewels – including the waterfront – as well as important transport issues, including road congestion.

The two heavyweight contenders to be the first mayor of the Super City, John Banks and Len Brown, and an increasing number of other politicians and community leaders are aghast at a plan to set up agencies which will be virtually unanswerable to the public.

Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said the Government risked handing Aucklanders a lemon with its vaguely drafted plans for seven “council-controlled organisations” (CCOs).

The proposed organisations – run by directors appointed by the Government with no input from local leaders – will be responsible for at least 75 per cent of services in the new Super City.

There are particular concerns about the CCOs being set up to look after transport and a huge swathe of the waterfront.

Columnist Brian Rudman did an excellent piece (save the first few paragraphs which were not much more than a nasty swipe at ARC chairman Mike Lee) on the CCOs as well, making these comments on Auckland Transport:

As critics argue, the big issue is lack of accountability.

The British colonists in America in the mid-18th century coined the catchcry “no taxation without representation” to protest at their lack of representation in the British Parliament that levied taxes over them, and this is one of the major objections to the new governance structure. As Mr Lee told the local government parliamentary select committee, “The transport agency will be spending over 50 per cent of the Auckland Council’s rates revenue, $1.3 billion of Aucklanders’ money, yet the arrangements proposed do not make it accountable to the public for the expenditure of that money, and nor do they make it accountable to the Auckland Council.”

Another critic claims more than 75 per cent of council services will be in the hands of these arms-length entities. Which raises the question, what will be left for the mayor and councillors – and the 19 community boards and their members – to do.

I have a sneaking suspicion that about halfway through the Super City process, central government got very very worried about the power of the agency they were creating, and have been trying to dampen things down ever since, with the CCOs being the primary way of doing this.

Another article briefly outlines Auckland Transport, in none-too-complimentary fashion:

This mega-CCO will be responsible, but not directly accountable, to ratepayers for spending more than half of their rates – about $650 million – on everything from major roading projects to public transport services to fixing broken footpaths. It will not handle state highways or railways.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce pushed the idea through the Cabinet against the advice of Treasury and other Government departments. Mayors, councillors and community boards say transport is too much part of political life in Auckland to leave to a handful of business types.

If one wonders why Steven Joyce would ignore so many government departments to create Auckland Transport, I don’t think you need to look too much further than the debates between the government and the ARC over Auckland transport priorities throughout last year. This was Joyce’s ultimate revenge on the ARC in my opinion.

A fourth article (yes that’s right, fourth!) has this to say about CCOs in general:

CCOs are not transparent and accountable to ratepayers in the way councils are. They do not have to release agendas or minutes of their meetings, which take place behind closed doors. They are, however, subject to the Official Information Act.

Until the Super City came along, councils decided what services would by run by CCOs following public consultation.

The Government has unilaterally decided on three CCOs for the Super City – transport, water and waterfront development. Four others have been proposed – council investments; economic development, tourism and events; major regional facilities and property holdings.

With the promise of more articles tomorrow, taking a particular focus on Auckland Transport, it will be interesting to see if there is any response from the government. I do think that surely some steps will be taken to respond to these criticisms – and to me the question really is whether the Auckland Transport CCO can be fixed or whether it needs to be done away with altogether, with transport matters being subsumed back into the Auckland Council.

Auckland City Council released their “Draft Annual Plan” last week, and looking through it there is some interesting stuff on what capital investment in transport there will and won’t be. For example, if you are curious to know where the money’s coming from to do the various transport upgrades ‘necessary’ for the Rugby World Cup, then this plan is the place to find out. And that’s an interesting point actually, because if one has a look through the list of funds allocated to capital transport projects, there are some clear differences between what was proposed in the 10 year plan, and what’s happening in the actual Annual Plan.

This is outlined in the table below: I have highlighted the figures that I find particularly interesting. Figures in brackets indicate a funding cut compared to the ten year plan, while figures without brackets indicate a funding boost compared to what was previously anticipated. What initially stands out to me is that the walking and cycling improvements budget (which was already dramatically reduced by the 10 year plan) has been cut further, from around $1.5 million a year to just over $1 million a year. That’s a pretty pathetically low amount in my opinion.

Other places where money has been “saved” in order to spend it on the World Cup improvements include footpath renewals, road maintenance, wharf developments in the Gulf Islands and – perhaps most horrifically – safety around schools. One wonder how many children will die as a result of this funding cut?

Many of the funding changes are explained in the notes outlined below. In some ways what these notes detail is even more worrying, as once again it shows the effects of the Government Policy Statement changes starting to have an impact – less money for maintaining roads, less money for school safety. There’s lots of “talk” in the Draft Annual Plan about improving sustainability and improving transport choices. However, one look at the nitty gritty funding indicates that it’s all pretty much hot air.

This is a guest post by regular commenter Nicolas Reid. If you would like to have a guest post published on here feel free to email it through to jarbury[at]yahoo[dot]com. I may edit it where necessary and may not post it if I think it isn’t suitable, but hopefully on most occasions it would be posted.

Transport infrastructure and the policy behind it have been the main factors influencing the shape and form of Auckland since its inception. Auckland was originally founded as a port town on the strength of the deep all-weather anchorages available in the Waitemata Harbour. All the capital, goods, resources and colonists of the young settlement flowed in and out of this harbour. As the town grew outward from the activity at the docks at the foot of Queen St development was clustered in a tight band around the Queen St valley within walking distance of the waterfront. This was neither really choice nor accident as walking was the only form of transport available to the vast majority of early Aucklanders.

As the region prospered and the population swelled the town soon outgrew the amount of land available in the small walkable central area. While this did create demand for taller buildings in the Queen St valley, they primary solution to growth was the construction of transport infrastructure to access land further out. Some of the earliest suburbs of Auckland were waterside settlements connected to the Queen St valley by ferries crossing the sheltered harbour. At this time roads were unpaved and the going was tough on foot and cartwheel alike. Tram rails set in the roadway provided an answer to land based expansion, allowing speedy comfortable access along the main roads radiating out from the town centre. Wide ribbons of residential and commercial development sprung up along the tram routes which eventually extended their way right across the Auckland Isthmus.

Throughout the same period railways were extended south and north-west from the town of Auckland to provide reliable connections to the rest of the country, yet this infrastructure also allowed the development of satellite suburbs within the Auckland region. The characteristic shape of Auckland focused on the central isthmus and stretching to the south and northwest was founded by these early rail based transport
arteries.

As Auckland matured into a thriving city it was very much a product of its public transport links. The dense walkable core stretched out along the tramways covering the isthmus, while outer suburbs and towns were dotted along the railways and ferry wharves. This was the case for the first part of the twentieth century, however as the century progressed there was a pronounced shift away from rail transport as policy decisions began to favour automobile and road based transport. The private car was seen as the means to provide mobility and freedom to the masses, and as the car shifted from being a rich-man’s plaything to a consumer product transport policy shifted to an almost exclusive road focus. Starting in the 1930s plans were progressed for a series of motorways covering the region to provide fast and convenient access to all corners of Auckland. Around the same time Auckland’s central railway station was shifted from the Queen St waterfront to a more isolated location on the edge of the CBD.

Various plans were drawn to revitalise the railways through line extensions and tunnels under the CBD, however these were consistently passed over  in favour of accelerating motorway construction through the central city. The motorways were seen as a killing two birds with one stone, not only could they provide great capacity for private cars and trucks they could also support public transport through a system of express buses. Soon enough the growth of car ownership and the ongoing expansion of road infrastructure was severely affecting rail patronage. Following World War II the tramways of the isthmus were progressively removed. Faced with a huge backlog of deferred wartime track maintenance, old unreliable trams and discontent among the growing ranks of car drivers, it was decided to replace the ageing tram system with a fleet of new buses sharing the streets with cars.

By the 1960s the removal of the tram system was complete, while railways and ferries had been reduced to a small niche role. The transport and land use pattern of the next four decades was thus firmly established by choices in transport policy: Auckland’s transport system was to be based almost exclusively on private cars and trucks running on an expanded system of roads and motorways, while a limited bus service would be maintained to service peak commuters to the CBD and to provide a basic welfare service for anyone unable to have access to a car. The central government provided tax funds for ongoing road and highway expansions, maintained a low price of imported fuel and and removed tarrifs on importing new cars and quality restrictions on second hand cars from abroad. Meanwhile the crippled and neglected bus system was privatised, private companies were offered a windfall of commercial profits on a few highly patronised city commuter routes while given subsidies to stop the rest of the network from disappearing completely.

In the latter half of the twentieth century the shape and form of Auckland followed the accessibility provided by the new automobility. Land within and around the old tram and railway suburbs was filled in with low density housing as people were no longer limited to living within walking distance of a rail station or tram stop. For the same reasons industry shifted from a ring around the inner city and along the rail corridors to diverse locations further out, and the relative importance of the Queen St valley declined as commerce and retailing were no long restricted to downtown. Later the fringes of the urban area began to be rapidly expanded, as new housing subdivisions and industrial estates were built on huge tracts of previously inaccessible land. With the horrors of urban living during industrial revolution a not so distant memory, strict zoning regulations were impacted to limit density and provide a strict separation between homes, factories and other urban activates.

For a while it seemed Auckland had got it right, but soon enough the pitfalls of mass auto mobility became apparent. With almost one car per adult in the city and limited alternatives to driving, traffic congestion became rife as the act of travelling became synonymous with driving a car. Projects were continually progressed to widen roads and extend motorways, yet for all their increasing expense they could barely keep pace with congestion let alone decrease it. Providing sufficient parking became a constant problem, initially downtown then through out the city. Roadside parking vied for room with driving lanes, while in town centres vast open lots and multi-story parking buildings occupied valuable real-estate. High parking fees were charged to pay for this land and structures, and steep fines issued to prevent their misuse. Walking and cycling as means of transport had become virtually extinct. The focus on the automobile had made roadways dangerous and inaccessible outside of a car while suburban expansion meant that most places of interest were far too far way even if one did brave the roads by foot or pedal.

Many new suburbs were built without even a simple footpath up the side of the street, as no one was expected to walk anywhere and there was nothing to walk to anyway. Smog and air pollution had become an issue, however this was mercifully kept in check by the strong ocean breezes clearing the isthmus. There was no such natural mitigation of the fuel price issue however, as the total reliance on imported fuel left the city’s transport system at the mercy of international geo-politics. As congestion and fuel cost increased and journey times continued to expand, the simple act of getting to ones workplace each day was consuming an increasing amount of the region’s time and wealth.

By the end of the twentieth century Auckland had achieved exactly what it had been planning and building for the previous fifty years: a transport system of near-universal automobility at the expense of any other mode. A city where people generally had no choice but to drive anytime they wanted to travel anywhere for any reason. A city where being economically productive and having quality of life meant getting a drivers licence and having access to a car, or if that was not possible having someone else drive one where they needed to go. A city where traffic congestion, parking problems and high travel costs were an unavoidable fact of life.

At the cusp of the twenty-first century voices within the government and populace of Auckland had begun to question this policy, arguing that investment in rehabilitation the railways and expanding other public transport infrastructure would be an efficient and cost effective way to reduce congestion and meet further travel growth in the growing metropolis. It was argued that with near universal automobility in the congested city, any attempt to supply new road infrastructure would be rapidly swamped by the huge demand for car travel that already existed. Therefore the only real choice would be a transport policy focused on providing alternatives to private road transport. This view was naturally rejected by the establishment, as it went against half a century of establish policy and practice. The public, politicians and industry alike were so invested in private road transport that it was almost inconceivable to do anything else.

The very structure of transport politics and economics revolved around buying cars and building roads, successfully running buses, trains and ferries and building the city around them was a long lost memory. Many suggestions were made why public transport could never work again in Auckland: the land was the wrong shape, the city too spread, that the people were somehow involved in a ‘love affair’ with cars and the costs and congestion that came with them. Yet small gains have been made: Auckland’s station was moved back to the CBD, trains and tracks were refurbished, ferries upgraded and bus infrastructure built. Indeed wherever improvements in alternatives to driving were made, people flocked to the alternative.

Yet many reasons continue to be put forward as to why Auckland is necessarily so car focused, yet few seemed willing to acknowledge the only real reason: Policy. Auckland was once a public transport city, and it actively decided to become a private transport city. For fifty years its leaders pursued that agenda, and they have shown little sign of moving away from it. Auckland is at the crossroads, recent investment has show public transport to be not only viable but highly effective and the city now has a critical choice to make. The question is now how exactly should Auckland spend the huge amounts of money it sets aside each year for transport? Should it maintain the seemingly failed policy of the last half century or should it radically revolutionise the transport agenda in Auckland?

Put simply, 2010 has been a pretty shocking year so far for rail in Auckland. Despite two significant milestones: the opening of Newmarket station and the New Lynn rail trench, I think generally things have been worse than last year. This is illustrated in the problems faced around when Newmarket station opened, long waits suffered by Western Line travellers while drivers change ends at Newmarket, shocking performance statistics for January, numerous breakdowns occurring (including on Monday last week on the first day university was back) and poor press resulting from shocking customer service.

It seems to me that there are ultimately three issues:

1. KiwiRail still seem to be doing a terrible job at avoiding points and signalling failures. There were 406 such failures on the Auckland Rail Network alone within the last year. I realise that it’s tricky to avoid such events with crappy outdated infrastructure, but a lot of the problems seem to happen in areas that have been more recently upgraded – like Britomart and Newmarket.
2. The structural separation between the various agencies involved in running the train system means that nobody takes ownership of the problems. This is particularly evident when comparing things to Wellington, where recent problems there led to big public apologies from KiwiRail. Where’s our public apology for the 36% on-time performance on the Western Line for January?
3. The trains themselves seem particularly unreliable of late. Discussion on the Campaign for Better Transport Forum, with input from staff working in the system, suggests that an unusually high number of trains aren’t even operating because of mechanical problems.

I have discussed the first two issues at length previously, so for now let’s focus on the third matter – increased mechanical failures. While the main reason for these problems is the fact that the newest engines driving our trains around Auckland are almost 30 years old, and naturally these will become more unreliable over time, it would seem as though one reason for increased mechanical problems would be if the amount of maintenance being undertaken had been cut back.

Now I don’t know if there has been a cutback on maintenance, but what does become obvious if you have a good dig through ARTA’s financial statements is that there has definitely been a funding squeeze put on them in recent times. Let’s have a look at their “income statement” for January 2010: I have highlighted what I consider to be particularly interesting parts of it: Looking at the income side of things first, it is clear that ARTA’s budget has been revised from an original, with the result being a cut back of about $15 million. Most of this cut back was from reduced NZTA funding – most probably the result of the roads-obssessed Government Policy Statement, which revised down the amount of money NZTA were allowed to spend on public transport. The ARC also seems to have reduced its funding of ARTA from what was previously anticipated.

Unsurprisingly, a $15 million reduction in income is likely to result in some pretty significant consequences. And this comes through most drastically in the “Rail Contract” part of ARTA’s budget expenditure, where $11 million has been cut back from the original budget. Now I don’t know what that $11 million cut has actually meant in real terms – but it seems as though some of the money “saved” has come from a reduced amount of maintenance on the trains , hence the current problems. I also suspect that if we hadn’t had this $11 million cut we might be seeing more weekend and evening trains.

When I moaned about the Government Policy Statement back in May last year, this was the kind of thing that I was worried about.