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By admin, on July 21st, 2009 We hear a lot of talk about the need to integrate land-use planning with transport planning. Stuff like intensifying around transport nodes and developing “corridors” and so forth absolutely permeates any planning or transport document that one is likely to have a read through in Auckland. Obviously it’s smart thinking – if we can’t bring trains (or buses) to the people, let’s bring the people to the trains or buses. Properly integrated land-use and transport planning should result in reduced automobile dependency, it should result in less congestion and greater public transport use and it should result in more sustainable communities.
However, this is all just talk, and when you look around Auckland that fact gets hammered into your head again and again and again. To be honest, the integration between transport and land-use planning in Auckland over the last 20-30 years has been pathetic. There are two examples of this that have the potential to be fixed up in the future, but for now stick out like a sore thumb in terms of what happens when you don’t look at these two fundamentals in an integrated manner, but rather see them as isolated and separate concepts.
The first example is what I called “far-east Auckland”, the area that is located to the east of the Tamaki River. This includes Howick, Pakuranga, Botany, Flat Bush, Dannemora and all those other suburbs in between. This area has grown like crazy over the past few decades, and has really been Auckland’s main area of growth in the past 20 years in particular. This area is shown in the aerial photo below:
 This part of Auckland is a classic example of having a lot of land-use planning having taken place, but almost no “higher-level” transport planning. Traffic from this whole entire area gets fed into the two roads at the top left of the photo: Lagoon Drive and Pakuranga Highway, if people are trying to access the bulk of the rest of Auckland. A new interchange at Highbrook has slightly improved this situation, but in terms of roading the very limited number of arterial routes and the fact they all converge on basically the same spot leads to utter traffic chaos. I talked about this in more detail a few months ago.
From a public transport perspective the situation is even worse. There is nothing out here – almost quite literally nothing for public transport. No railway line, no bus lanes, no busway, no transport interchange. All we have are a bunch of buses that, with no priority over general traffic at all, take up to an hour and a half to link this part of Auckland with the CBD. As a comparison, it usually takes a train from Pukekohe to Britomart under an hour to do its trip.
It really does beggar belief that this situation was allowed to happen. The most remarkable thing is that this process continues to be allowed to take place. Manukau City is promoting Flat Bush as one of the main growth areas in the future, with potentially up to 40,000 people living in this part of the city. In the above map, Flat Bush would be the lower-right quarter of the map – where some recent earthworks are visible. In other words, it is miles from any decent transport links other to Te Irirangi Drive. If someone was to ask the question “how long would it take on a bus from Flat Bush to the CBD?” the answer would be pretty scary – one hour and 15 minutes according to the timetable of the 681 bus route). For all the talk about integrating transport and land-use planning, this is a pretty pathetic outcome – simply due to the fact that transport planning has been completely ignored in this particular situation. Only the Howick/Botany Railway Line can ever possibly fix this situation – so why is it not even being planned for?
The second example of terrible integration between land-use and transportation planning is far more fixable, yet it still quite telling. And that is the Northern Busway. In this situation the transport planning has been done excellently, but there has been little if any integration with surrounding land-use planning from what I can see. This may change further into the future – but there’s an amazing irony that most of the busway stations (Albany, Smales Farm and Akoranga in particular) are pretty much surrounded by wasteland. I won’t go into too much detail here about what could and should be done about this, as you can read all about it in a previous post, but once again it’s a tad disappointing to see such little integration between planning and transport.
So, how can land-use planning and transport planning be properly integrated? I think we can learn a lot from what’s happening in New Lynn at the moment. In New Lynn at the moment there is a significant trasnport redevelopment that I outlined a few days ago. This will put the railway line in a trench, and also rebuilt the bus terminal around that new train station. Crucially, in this particular situation we also see the council coming on board and having some vision about how to best take advantage of the good transport links that New Lynn has. This vision is outlined below, and much more information on this project can be found on the council page I linked to earlier in this paragraph.
 This is an excellent example of what we need to see in Auckland. This significant development project around a transport node is an integration of transport planning and land-use planning that unfortunately we just haven’t seen in many other parts of the city. Hopefully it’s a good sign of where things are heading, and we will see many other proposals like this. I also hope that this plan for New Lynn actually happens.
By admin, on July 21st, 2009 For this post I’m just going to refer to a media release by the Campaign for Better Transport on the NZTA’s proposal to allow bigger and heavier trucks on our roads – a sure sign that once again our Minister of Transport should really adopt the title of “Minister for Trucking” as he’s really little else.
Road users urged to submit against law change allowing bigger trucksThe Campaign For Better Transport is urging concerned road users and organisations to make submissions against the Government’s proposal to let larger and heavier trucks on our roads from next year.Spokesperson Cameron Pitches says the move would greatly increase the risk of an increase in the number of accidents involving trucks.
“If existing trucks are allowed to carry much heavier loads, braking distances will have to increase leaving less room for error. Rollover accidents are will also be more likely as heavier containers will have a higher centre of gravity,” says Mr Pitches.
“Trucks are already involved in a disproportionate number of accidents. This can only get worse if we allow these changes go through.”
Earlier this year, Police ran a road safety blitz targeting trucks on concerns that half of all fatal accidents in the South Island involve trucks.
Proposed changes to transport rules will allow large trucks “with a gross mass of up to and including 53,000 kg or more” on to the roads, subject to a permit being issued by the New Zealand Transport Agency. Logging trucks will also be 2m longer.
Standard sized trucks will also be allowed to carry heavier loads as allowable axle loadings are being increased under the proposals. Truck and trailer units are currently limited to 44 tonnes.
“The accepted formula is that if you double the size of the truck, you will do sixteen times the damage to the road,” says Mr. Pitches.
“In moving from 44 to 53 tonnes, twice as much damage will result for each truck movement. It would be unreasonable of the trucking industry to expect other road users to carry this additional cost. We are also concerned at moves to replace road user charges with a flat diesel tax, which would effectively subsidise the trucking industry even further.”
Government claims that the change would result in fewer trucks on the road were also rubbished by the Campaign for Better Transport.
“Unless the trucking industry is about to make hundreds of truck drivers redundant, claims that there will be fewer trucks on the road are laughable,” says Mr Pitches.
The New Zealand Transport Agency projects the amount of freight to be moved on New Zealand’s roads will double in the next 20 years.
In launching the proposed changes, Minister of Transport Steven Joyce said that New Zealand would receive productivity gains of $250-$500 million. However, attempts by the Campaign for Better Transport for the report containing the figures were blocked by officials, as it “contains commercially sensitive information gained from the freight/trucking companies who took part.”
“Without being permitted to see the business case for heavy trucks, we remain sceptical about the costs and benefits,” says Mr Pitches.
Submissions close Friday, 24th July and can be made online through the Better Transport website www.bettertransport.org.nz
There’s a good article in today’s Herald on this issue too.
By admin, on July 20th, 2009 There’s a very interesting article on the Stuff website today which suggests that we might hear news on the integrated ticketing project this week. It seems like NZTA and the ARC have come to an agreement on the funding structure for this critical project that will replace the money that Auckland’s regional fuel tax was to provide. About six weeks ago I blogged about how an arrangement had been found to finish off a few train station developments around Auckland, but a huge question mark still hung over who would pay for this project. What was really concerning at that point was the ARC saying they were having “to try to scale back the integrated ticketing project”.
Today’s article seems to make it sound like the original deal struck between ARTA and a French company, Thales, to provide a smart-card integrated ticketing system, will go ahead after all. The alternative, which was probably cheaper, involved Auckland getting the Snapper Card system used in Wellington. The big problem with this system is that it is owned and operated by Infratil – who themselves operate about three-quarters of Auckland’s buses. The potential for a conflict of interest between operating the ticketing system and running a significant portion of the public transport services seemed quite significant – and may have been a deciding factor in ARTA prefering Thales. The other advantage of Thales is their enormous experience in implementing smart-card systems across many European cities.
What I hope for this week is to see the contract with Thales confirmed, to see a clear timeline for implementing integrated ticketing and to get some idea of what we can expect our future integrated ticketing system to be like. Hopefully in a year or two’s time we’ll have our own version of London’s Oyster Card.
Update: there’s a fantastic insight into what a smart-card integrated ticketing system for Auckland could be like on the Thales website here.
By admin, on July 19th, 2009 This post is a bit different to a lot of what I have posted on in the past few months on this blog. It isn’t a bunch of photos from a trip around Auckland showing some latest public transport development, it isn’t an analysis of some transport policy document, or another rant against Steven Joyce. It’s going to be (I hope) a bit of a stream of consciousness that will relate back to transport on a few occasions, but will probably be largely a chance for me to put my thoughts together into something fairly coherent on the matter.
Basically, this is about housing affordability in Auckland. Most Aucklanders have a good understanding of what has happened to house prices here over the past decade – in that they have increased quite dramatically. Over the last year there has been somewhat of a correction, due to their extremely high value at the November 2007 peak, but also due to the wider effects of the worldwide recession. However, signs seem to be emerging that the housing market is likely to pick up again in the future, and that perhaps we’ve ‘hit the bottom’ of this particular downturn. Perhaps in the next few months we will see prices head back up again, and – as hoped for by real estate agents – the last year will just be a blip on a long-term trend of increasing house-prices. And we’ll all just pretend that 2008 and 2009 didn’t happen.
While that may be a good outcome for real estate agents, and for those who bought during the boom times (particularly at the end of those times), I do question whether a return to the housing boom times of the last decade is really in the best interests of Auckland as a whole. Perhaps my opinion on the matter is slightly biased, as someone who doesn’t currently own their house and who would benefit greatly from a significant decrease in house prices, but I can’t help but feel that I do have a justifiable gripe. My gripe is that in just two years time I will be at the age my parents were when they bought the house that I currently live in – and they didn’t even need a mortgage. Now I am sure they saved incredibly hard over the few years before they were able to buy that house, and I am forever grateful that they did, but the fact of the matter is that housing was just so much more affordable then than it is now. I am not quite sure what the comparison of average wage level and average house price back in 1980 would have been, but I am absolutely sure it would have been significantly less than it is today.
It does seem rather strange, unfair even, that even though I have a pretty good job, no student loan, no other large debts or anything of that kind, I really can’t consider actually being able to afford to buy a house any time in the next decade or so. On the up side, renting definitely has its advantages at this stage of my life – it means I can fairly easily hop from place to place, checking out what various parts of Auckland are like to live in. It also means that I’m not hugely in debt and at risk of being totally screwed if I was to lose my job or if mortgage interest rates were to skyrocket (anything is possible in current economic times in my opinion). However, being locked out of home ownership also has some significant disadvantages. I am excluded from the significant wealth gains that occur when house prices go up, the rent I pay each week is just money the disappears into paying for someone else’s mortgage rather than me slowly acquiring my own asset, while there are a whole bunch of other things like the chance I will have to find another place to live if the landlord wants to renovate and that I can’t choose what colour to paint the bedroom if I so pleased. Continue reading Housing affordability and inter-generational inequity
By admin, on July 19th, 2009 Well I finally did get around to taking some photos of the progress being made on the New Lynn rail trench.
 This photo looks eastwards towards the Clark Street roundabout and where the future New Lynn train station will be.
 This photo looks west from roughly the same spot. The current line is on the right of the image and the location of the trench walls are quite obvious.
 This photo looks towards where the future train station will be. One of the big cranes is shown in the foreground. I think their job may be largely over as the piles needed for the trench walls have been completed.
 This photo looks directly towards where the future station will be. The excavated area is below where the orange pipes can be seen.
 This photo looks at an excavated part of the rail trench, from the current train station platforms. It looks pretty damn deep. I think this would be the area of the future station.
 Another angle of the photo above.
Overall it certainly is interesting to see how this project is coming along. I am surprised at how deep the trench is, although perhaps it is extra deep in the vicinity of where the station will be (the only bit that has been excavated out so far). Over the next few months the digging out process should continue quite quickly I imagine, as both the trench walls have now been constructed. This will mean that visually the progress should be quite fast over that time. I look forward to heading back there in 2-3 months to see how things have changed.
By admin, on July 17th, 2009 It’s good to see the NZ Herald doing a “good news” article on rail, on the progress of the New Lynn Rail Trench specifically. It seems as though digging the trench is coming along at a surprisingly fast pace – and we can actually see some of the progress for the first time now, as shown in the (small) image below:
 The New Lynn Rail Trench is a critical project, and will be the last little bit of the Western Line to be double-tracked. The trench will allow for a higher frequency of trains to operate on the Western Line, and will also ensure that the train line doesn’t cut New Lynn in half as much as it does at the moment. I am pretty sure that funding has been secured to complete the New Lynn railway station – which will sit in the trench – and will quite probably end up being one of Auckland’s busiest suburban stations. I shall try to get out to New Lynn some time in the next week or so and take some photos of the progress that has been made – it just seems recently every Sunday the weather is total rubbish.
The article provides a couple of quite good quotes from contractors currently working on the rail trench about how things are progressing, which apparently is “faster than expected”. I doubt that we’ll see the project actually completed before it is meant to – but it is always good news to be ahead of schedule rather than behind.
Ontrack project director Ted Calvert said yesterday that about 40m of the trench had taken shape between long, pre-sunk retaining walls, at the site of a new railway station to be built between road bridges at the Clark St roundabout and Hetana Ave.
A concrete slab 800m thick has been laid along about 12m of the trench, enabling steel workers to start building a 200m platform, which will be large enough for trains of at least eight carriages once the project is completed next winter.
Next year does look like it will be quite an exciting year for Auckland’s train system, with this opening along with the Onehunga Line. Hopefully we might get integrated ticketing too!
By admin, on July 16th, 2009 OK I admit it: I was really harsh on ARTA yesterday, calling the Auckland Transport Plan – their flagship transport document for the next 10 years – an “epic fail”. The main reason I admit to being harsh on ARTA is because they would probably agree with me that the bits I pointed out as being pathetic, are most certainly pathetic in their eyes too. Furthermore, it’s incredibly unlikely – if not absolutely impossible – that between 2015-2019 we would only spend around $110 million on new public transport infrastructure. Yet that figure still did end up in their flagship document and I still think they deserve to be called on it, but let’s put that aside for now and perhaps focus a bit more on what the Auckland Transport Plan does and more specifically – what are some of the good aspects of it.
For a start, here are some of the highlights of the Auckland Transport Plan. Specific mention must be made of the inclusion of the CBD Rail Tunnel – I am rather excited by the wording “… has allowed work to begin on protecting and constructing the CBD Rail Tunnel”. While the funding for this significant job has not yet been put in place, it is damn good that ARTA are thinking about its construction within the next ten years.
 In the draft ATP a much more vague reference was made to the CBD Rail Tunnel, which I attacked in my submission. Hopefully my submission played at least a small part in bumping this project up the priority list in the ATP. It is also interesting to see the CBD Rail Tunnel being accorded $2.4 billion in economic benefits. I wonder how its cost-benefit ratio would stack up against that of the Waterview Connection?
There are a number of other good bits to the ATP. My submission’s strong critique of the plan not mentioning peak oil, and its potentially huge effects on transport planning over the next decade, has been taken into account and the following section included in the ATP:
Peak oil
Sources of oil are finite. When oil’s maximum rate of extraction is reached globally, the rate of petroleum production will terminally decline, a phase known as oil depletion. Optimistic estimates of peak production forecast that global decline will not begin until 2020 or later, and assume major investments in alternatives will mean people in economies that are dependent on oil will not experience major lifestyle changes. They suggest the price of oil will increase quickly but then fall as other fuels and energy sources come into general use. Pessimistic predictions operate on the premise that peak production has already occurred or will occur shortly.
Proactive mitigation may no longer be an option and a global depression might result in the collapse of global industrial civilisation, potentially leading to large falls in population numbers within a short period. Fuel price volatility is the major effect of peak oil. Using 2007 inflation-adjusted dollars per barrel of crude oil for comparative purposes:
In 1980, the maximum price was $95–100
In August 2003, the price was about $25
By May 2008, the price was more than $130
Price peaked on 30 June 2008, at more than $143
With prices much higher than those that caused the 1973 and 1979 energy crises, there were fears of a global economic recession similar to that of the early 1980s due to the impacts that high oil prices have on the global economy (referred to as price shocks). This was realised at the beginning of 2009 when the combination of high debt levels and oil price shocks caused several western nations to declare their economies officially in recession.
The effect of oil price volatility on travel patterns differs over the short and the long term. In the short term, extreme fluctuations in fuel prices will cause moderate changes in travel patterns and transport mode shifts unless demand is reduced through planned conservation measures (such as pricing) and the use of alternative travel choices. If fuel prices remain high in the longer term, there will be major changes in travel patterns, population movements, transport mode shifts and land use. Such changes, in the absence of major technological innovations, could threaten the fabric of society. High population densities in cities will affect the use of inner city infrastructure and have a flow-on effect to critical industries such as agriculture, trade and tourism.
It is certainly good to see a transport document actually looking at the potential effects of peak oil. Generally the approach by governments all around the world is to stick their heads in the sand and pretend peak oil doesn’t exist. Our government is especially bad at this actually.
Further parts of the ATP also look at the potential effects of climate change on transport policy. This is another area where there is a massive disconnect between the macro-level “talk” about having to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector, but where money is being ploughed into building more motorways at a seriously rapid rate. And no, building roads to ease congestion does NOT reduce CO2 emissions – it just encourages more cars to use the roading system.
Looking at the positive aspects of the ATP a bit further, the “Long-term transport plan” that is detailed from page 27 to page 29 actually shows some vision about the projects that ARTA wants to see built in the future. The passenger transport and rail projects included in this “long-term plan” are detailed below:
 
So as we can see, the vision is there. The long-term transport network includes pretty much every rail line that I have ever thought should be added to the Auckland network (as long as the rapid transit corridor from Manukau to Panmure isn’t a busway). So the problem clearly isn’t with “the vision” – big kudos to ARTA for that. The focus now must be on making that long-term network happen – and happen soon. Unfortunately the only projects that are actually “set in stone” to happen from the lists above are electrification, some additional ferry terminals and the railway trackworks that are associated with electrification.
One further table that I found particularly interesting is shown below. It details the economic benefits to Auckland, in terms of reduced congestion, of each additional user of the public transport system – comparing additional users of the rapid transit (core rail & busway), quality transit (bus lanes) and local connecter networks. Definitely a useful diagram to roll out in front of the Minister of Transport occassionally I would think!
 Now that’s it for the good stuff, as once we dig past the nice fancy talk about visions of long-term transport networks and so forth, and actually get into the nitty gritty things don’t look anywhere near as good as one would hope – as I mentioned in my post yesterday. However, I think this is actually the most interesting aspect of the whole entire document in that ARTA spell out quite clearly the current funding system doesn’t work. The image below shows how the current funding system operates – and I think shows quite clearly exactly why that system doesn’t work:
 Quite simply, it is too complicated. Different things are funded from different means – below track rail directly from Treasury, above track rail from NZTA and ARC rates, State Highways directly from NZTA (which itself is funded from petrol taxes etc.), local roads from a mix between NZTA and local government, passenger transport from that same mix, while there are also some non-subsidised local roads thrown in for good measure. It’s all too damn complicated and has the outcome that projects end up not being prioritised by need, but rather by how secure their funding arrangements are. State highways have the most secure funding arrangements, as it is reasonably de-politicised (apart from the roads of national importance that Steven Joyce & his trucking buddies dreamed up) so therefore state highways can be easily prioritised. For other stuff, like a new railway line for example, the funding arrangements are incredibly complicated – with money potentially coming from treasury, NZTA, the ARC and the local council. While the division between the ARC and the local councils will disappear from next year it is still a hugely complex arrangement compared with the simple funding mechanism used by NZTA for building state highways. This inadequate situation is highlighted by ARTA as a major problem facing Auckland in the future as we try to embark on constructing some pretty major public transport projects:
Based on current (indicative) estimates of planned expenditure and available funding, a significant transport funding gap exists in Auckland. Three major projects – the CBD rail tunnel, rail to the airport, and the additional Waitamata Harbour Crossing are not included within current funding plans. Furthermore, whilst financial prudence is important, council expenditure constraints have led to a significant reduction in local projects to make budgets balance. Councils have moved projects they cannot fund to beyond the ten-year funding horizon, masking a potential funding gap. We have effectively moved from a funding gap to an outcome gap.
The concern for ARTA is that funding is not adequate to deliver the full ten-year programme, and that the programme itself may be too little and too late to make acceptable progress towards Auckland’s and the Government’s objectives and targets.
A second major concern for ARTA is the fragmented and siloed approach to funding. More flexibility is needed to allow the redistribution of funds between activity classes. One way that ARTA supports for addressing these funding inconsistencies is to move towards a pool of regional transport funds that can be allocated consistently.
I could not agree more. The current approach to transport funding – where projects of a different kind have different funding arrangements – clearly does not work. It means that we cannot compare projects across different activity classes to work out which is the most needed. Why shouldn’t we be able to do a comparison of the CBD Rail Tunnel and the Waterview Connection as the best way to spend the $1.5 billion that both projects are likely to cost? Why shouldn’t they be competing for the same pool of funds rather than the Waterview Connection having a huge pool of funding to work with while the CBD Rail Tunnel – to be honest – doesn’t have a hope in hell of finding $1.5 billion for its construction any time in the next decade or two?
Money for transport projects comes from a variety of sources – general taxation funding treasury (who fund rail), petrol taxes that fund NZTA, rates from both city and regional councils, as well as other things like Ports of Auckland dividends and development contributions. Why shouldn’t all that money go into a single pool of funds and the various necessary transport projects for Auckland compete on an equal footing for that money? If we are ever to move forwards in terms of actually finding the money for big projects like the CBD Rail Tunnel then I think it is essential that this shift is made. The current approach means that it will be almost impossible to construct the significant transport projects this city desperately needs.
By admin, on July 15th, 2009 The 10 year Auckland Transport Plan has been released by ARTA. This is the flagship document to drive transport planning and construction over the next 10 years in the Auckland Region.
I will comment a lot more on this plan over the next few days, and there are some pretty good things in it. But for now, let’s just see what it proposes for transport spending:
In the 2015-2019 period we will be spending about one tenth of the money on public transport infrastructrue than will be spent in the next three years. With rail projects the 2015-2019 spending will be about 6.4% of what the 2009-2012 spending is.
As I said above, while there are some good aspects to this plan (largely the result of my submission – LOL) for the two reasons outlined above alone this is an epic failure.
By admin, on July 15th, 2009 Yesterday I looked at the Regional Land Transport Programme in quite a bit of detail, so I’m not going to rehash everything I said in that post obviously. The main point I came to was that ARTA had done their best to ignore the stupid changes to the government policy statement for transport – and good on them for doing so. This becomes more obvious when you look at the differences between what the government anticipated ARTA spending their money on and what ARTA is actually proposing. For a start, it’s useful to actually have a look at what the government’s proposed changes would have actually meant:
 It took me a while to get my head around this table, but what it basically outlines is a comparison between the continuation of current funding arrangements (column one) with the funding levels proposed by the 2008 GPS (column two) and the 2009 GPS (column three). The key “activity class” that I always focus on is “Public Transport Infrstructure”. This includes things like bus interchange upgrades, ferry terminal constrction, railway station upgrades that aren’t covered by Ontrack, integrated ticketing funding and so forth. I have to put the following sentence in bold because it really hits the nail on the head when it comes to showing how utterly pathetic the GPS is. Under the government policy statement ARTA would have $297 million LESS to spend on public transport infrastructure over the next three years than what a continuation of current funding levels would provide. That is a pretty staggeringly bad figure. Meanwhile, the GPS would provide $463 million MORE for building state highways in the Auckland Region than what current levels would provide. Talk about robbing public transport to build motorways! The other big loser from the GPS is funding for new and improved local roads – quite bizarre considering ARTA’s number one priority is to improve arterial routes. It makes me wonder whether the Ministry of Transport discussed their GPS with ARTA at all when preparing it.
Fortunately, as I outlined above, ARTA have done their best to ignore the stupidity of the GPS. This is shown in the figure below:
 The key figure in this table is the one on the far right which compares how NZTA funds required by ARTA for the various activity classes (column 2) compares with what the GPS expects ARTA to spend the money on (column 4). We see an over-spend on our key class – public transport infrastructure – and an underspend on pretty much everything else. Looks a bit like ARTA giving the GPS the proverbial middle finger to me. And damn good on them for doing so!
Yet before I can be accused of being too kind towards ARTA, there are couple of things that are still pretty unacceptable in my opinion. The first is that for all the battling against the GPS that ARTA have managed, we will still see a decrease in funding levels for public transport infrastructure over the next three years compared to what a continuation of current funding would provide – from $432 million to $359 million. This comes at a time when public transport patronage continues to boom and traffic levels on our roads and motorways continues to decline. Secondly, a deeper look into what we might expect to see from their 10 year Auckland Transport Plan when it is finally released (maybe they’re too embarrassed to publish it on their website yet) reveals some incredibly worrying trends in transport funding over the next decade. These are clearly highlighted in the graph below:
 Once again, if we focus on the key activity class of Public Transport Infrastructure we see an absolutely woeful projection. This is even highlighted by the RLTP:
There is a signifi cant decrease in expenditure on passenger transport infrastructure from $141 million in 2009/10 to about $8 million in 2018/19. This includes rail-related infrastructure but not electrification or electric trains. It represents a potentially worrying trend as the expenditure on public transport services is forecast to increase. A declining expenditure on passenger transport infrastructure such as bus priority measures will significantly reduce the benefi ts from, and increase the costs of, providing improved public transport services.
A worrying trend? Is that the under-statement of the century I wonder? Let’s just repeat what ARTA are proposing here for spending on public transport infrastructure over the next 10 years – the very 10 years that we will need to respond to the effects of peak oil, provide for continued increasing patronage of public transport, somehow cut the emissions from our transport sector – a decrease in funding from $141 million to $8 million. That’s beyond unacceptable, I think it’s almost criminal.
By admin, on July 14th, 2009 The ARTA 2009/10 to 2011/12 Regional Land Transport Programme has been released. This particular document is the kind of “end product” when it comes to transport planning and funding in the Auckland Region, and talks about all the transport projects that will take place in the next three years. There are no real surprises anywhere, because by the time we get to the point of having something ready to construct in the next three years it is likely to have been through the planning process already and had its funding already finalised. However, the programme makes reasonably interesting reading, and does give us a good idea about what to expect to actually see completed or under construction in the reasonably near future.
Reading through the RLTP I guess the first thing that is particularly noticeable is just how much money is to be spent on transport each year for the next three years. Over that complete time period $4.36 billion is to be spent on transportation, with $3.19 billion of that coming from NZTA (basically from petrol taxes, road-user charges and the like). The balance is to come from rates of the various councils in the Auckland region and – perhaps – from other central government sources (particularly the case for rail). A summary of the RTLP is outlined below:
 Somewhat unsurprisingly most of the talk is about completing all the roading projects that are going on around Auckland at the moment – and then seemingly embarking on the number one priority for ARTA to improve arterial roads (who decided on that being such a high priority I wonder??) If I was being a bit tough on ARTA I would say that this seems like just another example of having the “airey-fairey” strategies doing a lot of talking about improving public transport and focusing on getting people out of their cars and into buses and trains, yet when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of actually putting money into transport projects we see roads completely dominating yet again. It seems as though even the main justification for investment in the Northern Busway and the rail corridors is to make life easier for those still using their cars. I would have thought the main benefit would be for those able to use a public transport system that is (slowly) getting better and better. Another sign of where the real priorities lie when it comes to transportation I wonder?
That said, it certainly seems like ARTA’s hands are rather tied when it comes to what transport projects are prioritised. They have little, if any, say over what NZTA wants to do with the state highways – although seemingly NZTA has little say in that these days either and the whole process of prioritising state highway projects has come down to what Steven Joyce and the Road Transport Forum think are important routes. But let’s not get too side-tracked here. The main issue is that the current local government structure that has created the situation where ARTA’s hands are very tied is going to change quite significantly over the next year and a half. So I am hoping in the future we will see a more “regional” approach to the prioritisation of transport projects – and hopefully the new transport agency that is created will “put its money where its mouth is” when it comes to actually providing the necessary funding for public transport.
Nevertheless, there are still a reasonable number of public transport projects that we will see being completed over the next three years. All major projects are outlined in the image below – which kindly was reproduced by ARTA in a completely impossible to read font. So I have taken the liberty of listing the projects myself:
 1) Penlink – road
2) Albany Highway upgrade – road
3) East Coast Road upgrade – road
4) Glenfield Road – road
5) Taharoto/Wairau corner – road
6) Lake Road widening – road
7) Birkenhead wharf – ferry
8 ) Hobsonville fery terminal – ferry
9) Hobsonville deviation – road
10) Te Atatu Road development – road
11) New Lynn TOD projects – road/public transport
12) Dominion Road passenger transport – public transport
13) Tiverton/Wolverton upgrade – road
14) Central Connector – public transport
15) Newmarket Viaduct – road
16) Manukau Harbour Crossing – road
17) SH20-SH1 connection – road
18) Manukau Rail interchange – public transport
19) Flat Bush walking/cycling/road upgrades – I’ll say both road & public transport for this one.
20) Porchester Road construction – road
21) Great South Road/Beach Road intersection improvements – road
22) Franklin interchange improvements – public transport/road (I think)
So certainly we still see the majority of projects to be undertaken in the next three years are roading projects. In addition to those specific projects there are regional projects such as integrated ticketing, travel planning, developing the regional cycle network and funding public transport services. Yet I still can’t help but feel it is simply more of the same – a continuation of roads building dominating transport funding to a far greater extent than I think is justifiable.
In many ways this imbalance towards funding roads comes back to the funding mechanism for transport – with most money seeming to be raised from petrol taxes and an ideology that says petrol tax money should be spent on roads and roads alone. Personally I can’t see much sense in this ideology as surely road users will benefit from quality transport networks – no matter whether those networks involve spending more on motorways, more on railways or whatever. Furthermore, those who drive around on the weekends but catch buses during the week (like myself) don’t really contribute to peak hour congestion (and therefore don’t really need the motorway system to be expanded) but still pay fuel taxes and would certainly benefit from improved public transport services during the week. The funding system is complicated – with the government making it especially complicated by recently changing the way rail infrastructure is funded. This complexity is outlined below:
 Anyway, I’ve given ARTA enough abuse for not being visionary enough with their transport funding priorities. Now for the good news – things don’t really seem to have changed much to this plan as a result of the moronic changes to government transportation policies over the past few months. It may be that those changes are yet to properly filter through the system, and we will see their effects in the longer term, but I have to say that (somewhat depressingly) the boringness of this Regional Land Transport Programme is a good thing. The mini-steps in the right direction that have been taken over the past few years are set to continue for at least another three years. Things absolutely could be a whole heap better, but at least they haven’t got significantly worse – as I had been worried about. This “reasonable outcome” is more clearly highlighted in the funding breakdown for what all this $4.3 billion is to be spent on over the next three years:
 We can see the money set aside for “public transport infrastructure” is set to increase over the next few years from what it is now (although I suspect that might have something to do with the new rail funding arrangements rather than an actual gain) while a significant amount is also available for public transport services – which effectively is ARTA-speak for subsidies. Of course I still have some significant problems with the 2011/2012 year providing $5.21 for new state highways for every dollar to be spent on new public transport infrastructure – but that is certainly better than the government policy statement’s ratio of $27 on new state highways for every dollar on public transport infrastructure!
All in all, it seems like ARTA have tried their hardest to ignore the stupid changes made to transport by the government over the past few months, and for that alone I give them a lot of credit. We may not really be going forwards with this RLTP, but we’re certainly not heading backwards at a great rate of knots either – which I had feared. The 10 Year Auckland Transport Plan should be released in a few days time, which should be a bit more interesting to read through – especially after I gave ARTA a bit of a bollocking over their draft version a few months back.
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