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By admin, on March 12th, 2009 Well our house-shift is almost complete. We just need to finish off cleaning up the old house, and unpack a few final boxes, and it will be totally done. Waiting for the phone and internet to be flicked over to the new place is a bit of a pain in the ass too – come on Vodafone if you’re going to charge me $150 for the privilege of moving house you should at least get your ass into gear and not force me to wait days upon days upon days for someone to simply unplug one cord and plug it in somewhere else.
In any case, moving has been its usual mission. It started off last week with us starting to box things up. However, there were pretty big limits as to what could actually be boxed up – due to us having to continue living in the house in the meanwhile. Also, sorting out whose stuff was whose was a rather long process, and also meant that actually getting things packed up and ready to go was harder than what I’d probably anticipated. On Thursday night, last week, we got the keys and started shifting boxes to the new place. A few smallish pieces of furniture also got moved, but we couldn’t really start on the big stuff quite yet – until we had made the decision that “yes, we are actually shifting today”. That day was Saturday, which turned into a rather marathon length day of carrying heavy furniture out of the old place, into a trailer or the back of a car – then driving what felt like the longest 7km trip across Auckland ever – before unloading and heading back. Setting up the new house has involved numerous re-shifting of furniture: especially in the lounge where I think we’re up to the third or fourth variation on how all the furniture will be organised.
Since then there has been more unpacking, more trips back to the old house to clean it up (which will hopefully be concluded tonight) and ever more reorganisations at the new place. We have to keep the cats in for a few weeks so they don’t try to run back to the old place, which is a bit stressful having to work out where they are every time you open a door, but I guess that’s life. It is nice to be so close to the city, and to be able to just pop up the road to a really good selection of shops (on Jervois Road). The driving to the Shore to pick up Amalia is probably about 7 minutes quicker in each direction, which will add up, though probably my biggest annoyance is that I now have to drive to work each day (at least when I’m not working in town).
One of the strangest aspects of the whole “moving” process is when we’re back at the old place. It feels so familiar and still very much like ‘home’ to me. I guess we were there for almost two years, so it’s not surprising that it would feel so homely. Having it empty, and knowing that you’re moving on, actually feels quite sad – like you’re leaving a good friend behind, knowing for a fact that you will soon never see them again. Leila put it quite aptly, when she said that “it feels like you’ve broken up with your partner and are coming to the realisation of how much you did love them and how much you took them for granted”. I’m sure that over time the new place will start to feel like home, but at the moment I certainly do find myself already missing our old house and realising what an awesome place it was.
By admin, on March 10th, 2009 Keeping an eye on Auckland’s progress towards integrated ticketing over the past few years has been like experiencing Chinese Water Torture, or bashing one’s head against a wall repeatedly with frustration at the slowness and seeming ineptitude of all those involved. What should be a fairly straightforward process – OK, everyone gets the same ticketing system going and we work out a fair way to share around the money – has seemingly become more difficult than the search for extra-terrestrial lifeforms, or attempts to find world peace.
However, it seems like in the past few months we have finally started making some progress. Some important legislation was passed last year, giving ARTA a lot more teeth when it comes to enforcing integrated ticketing; we have seen them ask for tenders for the contract to build and operate a smart-card integrated ticketing system; and now we have some news (of course all the important news is always buried in the depths of the technology section) that a highly experienced French Company, Thales, seems to have won the contract. There is still a wait for confirmation of this, but Infratil’s tantrum in response to the possible news means that it seems fairly like that Thales have got the contract.
I’m happy that Thales have got the contract (if indeed that is the case). They sound like an experienced company - having “won deals to supply smartcard payment and integrated ticketing systems for Beijing, Toronto, Holland, Dubai, Madrid and most recently Oslo.” Furthermore, I am also happy that Infratil have not won the contract, largely because having a company that operates about 75% of Auckland’s buses also operating its ticketing system seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Perhaps Infratil could have done it a bit cheaper, but I’d rather get it right first time myself. Wellington’s Snapper Card system is fairly impressive, but many have called the cards “dumb smart-cards” as supposedly you can’t do a lot of things (like topping them up online or using them to store trips rather than just cash value) that are possible on the ‘smarter’ cards used in London, Hong Kong and so forth.
It is excellent that we are seeing some progress made on integrated ticketing. Hopefully by the end of the year we will have a “transition” paper-based integrated system. And then by the end of next year or in early 2011 we will see the rollout of a full smart-card system. Along with electric trains we might even start seeing the first signs of a 21st century public transport system.
By admin, on March 5th, 2009 University is back this week, and while I’m not heading off to lectures etc., it is interesting to see the effects that university students have on Auckland’s public transport system. To put it simply, this week it has really groaned under the pressure.
On Monday I managed to avoid the worst of it, as my 240 bus into town doesn’t go down Symonds Street and is therefore the kind of bus that students are likely to avoid rather than catch. So it had fairly normal loadings. The roads though, were definitely significantly busier than usual. On the way home I caught a train to Kingsland, once again to avoid the mess that is Symonds Street. The train wasn’t particularly busier than usual (university students don’t tend to catch trains as much as buses because there’s no really convenient station).
On Tuesday it did become increasingly obvious to me that university was back, as I caught a bus from Avondale into the city at around 10am. This is prime bus-catching time for students, and the trip (which has taken as little as 20 minutes during the uni holidays) took nearly 45 minutes to make its way into the city. It was completely packed out by the time we reached the university, and then probably emptied by about two-thirds at the two university stops. The ongoing Symonds Street roadworks (which would have been finished by now if it hadn’t been for the bad weather last weekend) seem to have really been creating havoc throughout the area, so I’m glad that I’ve chosen to avoid it most days recently by catching the train.
It’s interesting if you have a look at the fluctuations in public transport use over the past few years in Auckland, you can really see the impact university has. The below figure is from ARTA’s latest monthly business report:
What’s immediately obvious is how much bus use dominates. While rail has increased quite a bit over the past four years, it still pales into almost insignificance compared with how many people catch the bus in Auckland. The other thing that’s obvious is the enormous fluctuations in travel by the month. Clearly this is the result of lower use during school and uni holidays, and much higher use when everyone’s at work, school or university. Looking at the graph above, March 2006 and 2007 are really big spikes, while 2008 didn’t fluctuate quite as much as other months (due to much higher use of public transport in general last year). I guess that March stands out because it is the first month of university for the year (so everyone’s going to their classes), there aren’t any school holidays or university holidays, it’s a 31 day month and the weather’s generally not too bad.
Looking forwards to March 2009, I do wonder whether it will be the month that breaks through the 5.5 million trips barrier and pushes towards 6 million public transport trips made. There are a few things that point towards this being possible. Firstly, student numbers at universities and other tertiary institutes are up big time this year – largely due to the recession. Secondly, the increasing share of trips that public transport achieved last year (due to petrol prices) seems to have somewhat stuck around, with the most recent December and January having higher public transport usage than a year before, even though most of the rail network was shut down for almost all of January. Thirdly, it appears that public transport services have generally improved over the past year – particularly rail services. This could help contribute to bigger numbers of users, although I wonder whether the Symonds Street roadworks will prevent record levels from being reached.
I guess I’ll have to look forward to March ARTA report to find out. In the meanwhile, I suggest catching the train where possible! A busy train trip is much faster than a busy bus trip.
By admin, on March 4th, 2009 Well I have put my submission together.
It can be read here: http://transportblog.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/atp-submission.pdf
My conclusion:
It is clear that the Auckland Transport Plan has some good aspects to it. A number of important projects will be funded as part of this plan and it is excellent to see an integrated plan for Auckland’s transportation future. However, the Plan clearly has some significant shortcomings, most of which are the result of it giving effect to the 2005 Regional Land Transport Strategy – a strategy that is now clearly out of date and is currently being reviewed by the Regional Council. These short ]comings are most obvious in how the ATP ignores the effects of peak oil and rising petrol prices on transport in the longer term, how it underfunds public transport significantly throughout the 10 year period, but particularly so later in the period and how the plan does not include critical public transport projects like the CBD Rail Link.
I make the following recommendations, which would significantly improve the ATP in my opinion:
1) The ATP should give effect to the reviewed RLTS and not the 2005 version. This would avoid a situation where the ATP is ‘out ]of ]date’ before it has even become operative. Any delay in the implementation of the ATP is well worth it, considering the misspending of billions of dollars in funding that will likely otherwise occur.
2) The ATP needs to consider the effects of peak oil and rising petrol prices on transportation over the next 10 years, and respond accordingly.
3) Figure 6, Map 1 and Map 2 should be altered for the reasons outlined above.
4) The CBD Rail Link must be included within the 10 year funding plan of the ATP as it is an utterly critical project for Auckland’s transportation future.
5) Walking and cycling funding levels should be increased over the 10 year period, and not reduced.
6) A significant rebalancing of funding towards public transportation is necessary. Continuing to fund roading at much higher levels than public transport is an embarrassment to Auckland and is reckless when the effects of peak oil and rising petrol prices is taken into account.
By admin, on March 3rd, 2009 The Draft 2009 Auckland Transport Plan has been released by ARTA for public comment and submissions. The plan is “the region’s flagship 10 year transport planning document”, so therefore will have a pretty big effect on how transportation is funded over the next 10 years. It proposes a pretty big amount of money to be spent as well – just under $16 billion in that time actually. $16 billion does sound like an awful lot, but this is ALL the money that will be spent on ALL transport projects, infrastructure development, maintenance and service provision throughout that time. It excludes the construction funding for essential projects such as the CBD Rail loop and rail to the airport (and less essential projects like the SH20 Waterview Connection). If funding for those projects were included, it would be a total of around $22 billion to be spent throughout the next decade.
My feelings on the plan are fairly mixed. There are some positives to come out of it for sure. It’s good that we seemingly now have ONE major plan that identifies what’s going to be built/maintained/provided over the next decade rather than 53 million different plans. It’s also great that ARTA has a much more powerful role in integrating all the other transport providers (Ontrack, NZTA, councils etc.) so maybe we’ll have less squabbling over transport funds and more integrated planning and allocation of funds in the future. That’s a definite positive. It’s also a positive that more public transport projects are being planned than ever before, as shown in the map below:
So we have a fair number of public transport projects detailed there:
- Extension of Northern Busway to Orewa (not likely to be funded within the timeframe as it’s a bit of a silly project in my opinion).
- Waimauku Northern Inland Port (not really public transport but should assist in improving the freight viability of the North Auckland Line. It might take some pressure off getting freight trains through the city too).
- Rapid Transit between Henderson-Westgate-Constellation-Albany (probably a busway).
- Hobsonville/Beachhaven ferry service
- Additional Waitemata Rail crossing (not funded within the timeframe)
- CBD Rail Link (not funded within the timeframe… gahhhhhh!!!!!)
- Southdown-Avondale passenger and freight rail line (this one has been designated for 50 years so I’ll believe it when I see it)
- Onehunga Rail Line extended to port (this one might actually happen within 10 years!)
- Rapid Transit between Panmure-Botany Downs and Manukau City (sadly looks like this is more likely to be a busway than a rail line)
- Auckland CBD-Airport-Manukau City rail link (not sure if this is funded, probably not).
- Third rail freight line Westfield to Papakura (very useful for express passenger services too!)
So there are eleven projects here. Yet if you dig a bit further into the Plan it really does seem like most of the roading projects are the ones with funding locked in, while most of the public transport projects are those which are still sitting in the “maybe, some day” basket. I’ve moaned about what needs to happen many times before, so I’m not going to focus on that too much.
I think that the main problems I have with the Auckland Transport Plan relate to how it serves the 2005 Regional Land Transport Strategy. As one can clearly discover as soon as they go to the website for the Land Transport Strategy (RLTS), a new RLTS is currently being put together by ARC/ARTA. The new RLTS should be a huge leap forward from the 2005 version, which is obsessed with a 2/3rd v 1/3rd split in funding towards roading projects. The new RLTS actually mentions things like Peak Oil, Climate Change and other issues that make it essential for Auckland to invest in a more sustainable transportation future. I think the RLTS will be open for public comment later in the year, and I will generally support it I think. However, when it comes to the Auckland Transport Plan it has used the out-of-date 2005 RLTS as the basis for deciding where money should be spent. Therefore, while it balances things out a little more towards public transport, the bias towards funding roading first still clearly exists.
Let’s have a look at things in a little more detail:
The first thing I notice is “wow those are some big numbers”. The second thing I notice is “yikes, spending on rail infrastructure and passenger transport infrastructure really decreases later on in the period”. By contrast, funding for “new and improved local roads” and “new and improved state highways” stays pretty steady throughout the period. Clearly, the indication is that once the current public transport projects are out of the way the region can get back to funding roads, roads and more roads like it should.
Let’s have a look at how it comes together, compared with the funding ‘targets’ in the 2005 RLTS. To start with, let’s have a look at what the RLTS in 2005 said the funding split “should” be like:
Wow, so for every dollar in public transport we SHOULD spend almost $2 on roads. That’s a very visionary plan to reduce our automobile dependency, congestion, environmental effects of vehicle emissions and energy security in the face of peak oil if I’ve ever seen one. NOT!
Below is how the Transport Plan compares with the RLTS:
On the good side, the Plan is trying to do better (within its first three years) than what was originally planned for in the RLTS. I suspect that later on in the 10 year period the balance goes way back towards roading more than this (when it should be going the other way), but at least it’s a good start. Roading infrastructure for 2009-2012 is actually the same as public transport infrastructure investment over that time. Almost unbelievable. However, the legacy of the terrible 2005 RLTS means that as time progresses the bad old habits kick back in. For the 2015-2019 period we have about $1.7 billion to be spent on roading infrastructure, but only about $140 million to be spent on public transport infrastructure. That’s truly disgusting at a time when we should be nearly finished building the CBD rail loop, be constructing the North Shore train line and looking at building the Howick train line. Maybe ARTA hope that everyone will just look at the first 3 years and be happy about the equal funding public transport appears to get.
Fortunately, we all have the opportunity to tell ARTA to sort this out. A few things need to be changed.
- The 10 year plan needs to be informed by the updated Regional Land Transport Strategy, not by an out-of-date roads-centric 2005 plan.
- The 10 year plan needs to at least mention peak oil, and how it could dramatically affect transportation in the future. The International Energy Agency is looking at a 2015 date for peak oil, and they’re one of the most conservative estimators about this in the world.
- Significantly greater weighting needs to be given to public transport investment. This can come directly from roading investment in the region, which may turn out to be pretty unnecessary in the future.
- The 10 year plan needs to take advantage of recent research done by the NZTA into projected future traffic flows. The linked report expects 2007 levels of traffic flows to not return until 2016, or potentially not in the foreseeable future at all if certain pro-public transport steps are taken. If that’s the case then why are we expanding our roading systems at all?
- Major public transport projects like the CBD rail tunnel and rail to the airport needs to be included in the plan, in recognition of its significant need and also of its strategic importance. Projects like this will never get built if they don’t at least end up in plans.
I will be making a submission to ARTA about this Plan, and hopefully will have the chance to present my submission to them in person in May, when the hearings for this are held.
You can make a submission too, here.
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