There’s an interesting section in the NZ Herald today, which talks about the need for NZ to significantly invest in more infrastructure over the next decade or two – to bring us up to scratch with Australia. There are a variety of articles that talk about PPPs, the electricity sector and so forth, but what is of most interest to me is talk about transport (of course). There are a couple of interesting articles that relate to transport – and they show the frustrating dichotomy that we’re seeing when it comes to longer-term discussion about where we need to direct transport funding to really make a difference, particularly in Auckland.
The first article is basically a piece of road lobby propaganda, that is totally oblivious to the issues I talk about most days here – the effects of rising oil prices, the changing travel patterns of Auckland and the need to reduce our transport sector CO2 emissions. First of all, we have Michael Barnett of the Auckland Business Forum telling lies:
Barnett says it is possible to “consult to death” on infrastructure but the need to have an integrated transport system for moving people and freight efficiently across Auckland is paramount. “There have been knowingly a lot of mistruths around the Waterview link. There are people who talk about the loss of green space but that green space was designated for road or rail. There were people who bought houses or land there in the past 20 years who knew there were designations for road or rail.”
He says the environmental planning of motorways has improved dramatically in recent years and people should welcome the new links. “At the end of the day we do need a network of roads and once we have done that we can look at better bus services and things like congestion charges.”
For a start, the green space Barnett is talking about is Allan Wood Reserve, which was designated for a railway line – but only that. Not a road. There was never a road designation through the area in the last 20 years, and the effects of a 6 lane motorway are quite different to that of a 2 track railway line. So please stop lying Michael. The other thing that annoys me is the insistence that we “complete” the roading network before shifting our investment to public transport. Why must the roads come first? Surely with rising public transport patronage and falling traffic volumes it should be the public transport that comes first? I guess at least he is suggesting that investment in public transport is a good idea – maybe around 2100? The articles goes on:
The public debate has moved on from a single solution to Auckland’s transport needs, such as a choice between better public transport and more roads, to a comprehensive approach. “There is no one silver bullet to Auckland’s transport needs”.
Barnett says people are starting to look at the productivity gains that could be achieved by an efficient transport network but planning for future transport needs is inadequate. “We are planning … not future-proofing. We are standing still. By 2015 when the network is complete we will have done little else but stood still.”
He urges people to look at developments such a third harbour crossing, an east-west link and better roads to extend Auckland into Northland and Waikato.
So after telling us that the focus will need to shift onto public transport funding AFTER the roading network is complete, he is now suggesting a whole pile of extra roads to be built in the future. So when exactly will the road network be complete Michael? When will we be able to start investing in public transport? Perhaps never?
There are some even more stupid comments from other road lobbyists, but they’re to be expected. Finally, the article turns to the role of ARTA:
The enthusiasm that business is showing for Auckland’s new roads is in contrast to the direction of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (Arta), which tends to favour public transport over roads.
While Arta talks of the need for a transport system to “support national economic growth and prosperity”, it places considerable weight on community rights, what it calls “environmental sustainability”, human health and personal security than the need to build (or complete) roads.
It talks of the need to implement “behaviour-change programmes” to switch people from using cars to public transport, walking or cycling. It does, however, support car-pooling.
Arta, whose future is uncertain with the reorganisation in Auckland governance, says it would like greater investment in regional arterial roads to improve connections with neighbouring regions. It would like a shift in spending from state highways to local roads, public transport, walking and cycling.
It says investment in public transport services and infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth in travel demand. “This means that for many people there is little or no choice but to use private vehicles,” it says in a paper on its proposed strategic direction.
Ah finally, some sense! While ARTA’s future is somewhat limited, it should end up being replaced by an agency that’s quite similar to it – just more powerful. So at a local level public transport advocacy should have a bright future. The most significant point ARTA makes is how we need to invest in public transport in response to rising patroange. This is the key: more people are using public transport than a few years ago, less people are driving than a few years ago.
OK, let’s move on to the second article, which actually has some interesting information hidden away in it about timelines for electrification, and also even mentions the CBD Rail Tunnel!
Stringing 175km of power cables above Auckland’s rail network is not as simple as it seems.
While a straightforward idea in principle, the man charged with powering up our rail lines from Swanson to Papakura is having to re-engineer the old network to install overhead cables in places they were never designed to be. The scheme also involves building the infrastructure to get electricity to where it is needed and put power control systems in place.
John Bridgman of global engineering firm Aecom is the project director for electrifying Auckland’s rail network. His team quickly realised that the height restrictions of some rail bridges meant more clearance was needed to accommodate power cables.
Well one would expect that if all this work is happening, electrification certainly won’t be cancelled. I wonder when we’ll find out about the funding for the trains to run on the system? That was meant to happen by the end of last month. We don’t find out about that, but we do get some further information on the timeframes of the electrification project:
Bridgman says design of the electrification project is to be completed by the year-end, work will start next year and electric-powered trains should start running on the route by 2013. Working on the design is a team of engineers in Auckland, Sydney and Britain.
Well, that’s promising. I must remind people that if we hadn’t stuffed around with the funding of electrification earlier this year then there’s a reasonable chance we would have had electric trains up and running for the Rugby World Cup in 2011. That’s now an impossibility. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope the train system doesn’t collapse on the evening of the world cup final. Then, Mr Bridgman does go on to talk about the CBD Rail Tunnel:
“It is heartening to see enthusiasm for infrastructure here because there is an opportunity for these sorts of projects, such as the Auckland CBD rail tunnel. That type of project will change the way the city will feel to its communities in the future.”
And it’s mentioned yet again later in the article:
Looking ahead, Bridgman says work needs to be done to complete Auckland’s Western Ring route “to get that up and running as quickly as we can”.
“It is such a necessary part of the infrastructure and will deliver so much benefit when it’s done,” he says.
“And we need to complete the rail network, its electrification, and getting a system in place so it can deliver the value for users in terms of rail stations, connectivity, frequency of service. So projects such as the CBD rail tunnel can unlock capacity in the network and allow a real transport passenger system to work alongside buses.
“They are big spends. But they will both make a big difference to transport in Auckland and people living and working in the city will feel the benefit every day.”
While it’s good to hear more information on the timeframes of electrification, and it’s very good to see the CBD Rail Tunnel findings its way into the press, overall I must say I was disappointed by the general tone of the articles that I read in the ‘lift-out’. It still seems like we’re locked into a 1960s mindset when it comes to investing in transport – that we can build our way out of congestion through more and more roads. A lot of the “key people” involved in debate on infrastructure investment seem to be middle-aged men who have grown up in an era of cheap oil and just haven’t quite got their heads around how we’re going to need to change in the future. There is a huge amount of “vested interest” in what a lot of the articles say too – as there are a lot of companies that benefit hugely from the government spending squillions on roads, even if they actually realise that it would be smarter to spend that money elsewhere.
Combining this with yesterday’s post on the cluelessness of our transport minister, it’s easy to be disheartened about the future of transport planning and funding. I shall soldier on though, I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.
Funny you should get the feeling that the Herald’s special supplement reeks of the 1960s. The ‘transport’ article ‘Roads at standstill despite send up’ was written by Graeme Hunt, author of a discredited, factually dishonest, ‘anti-Communist’ rant about Bill Sutch. Still fighting the Cold War, Hunt does for journalism what Owen McShane does for planning. Pity but unsurprising that the Herald sees fit to print such utter rubbish.
Ah thanks for clearing that up Chris. Apparently the herald advertised for people to write in articles for that supplement – I should have kept an eye out a bit better and written up a really pro-PT piece.
I was amused to see an ad from the usual suspects (EMA, RTF etc) begging for the Waterview connection to go through as soon as possible – comparing an incomplete motorway network to a candle without matches, or a TV without a power point, or… a bicycle without wheels.
The first and last time you’ll ever hear of the detested bicycle in anything these chaps put out, I think (the “national cycleway” clearly doesn’t count). Silly hippies, ‘infrastructure’ means more flyovers for cars and trucks…
I know that the Herald publish occasional opinion pieces from outside contributors. You write well, I think you’d have a good chance of being published if you wrote something opportune and relatively punchy (not too combatitive though, they don’t often like that).
The language coming from the Minster for Roads is most disappointing. It’s take a lot of time for the Transport-not-Roading “changing of the guard” at the policy and practitioner level. At the political level Auckland’s transport is swingin’ back to the 60′s, but I’m optimistic that at the practitioner’s level it’s still in the now.
We’ve got a few good transport projects (rail electrification, the new and upgraded stations, integrated ticketing) to tie us over for a couple of years, but if National get back in and Mr Joyce retains the transport portfolio, we’ll be in serious trouble. As Josh does a great job of illustrating, there are real benefits starting to flow through to Aucklanders from an improved PT network. Improvements like; proper transport choice, the influencing of land use decisions – both private & public, and environmental & safety benefits from fewer cars. These are REAL benefits, not the mysterious “travel time savings” made up by creative economists/modellers to justify new roads. It’s taken a big investment to get these benefits and it will be sad to see all that progress grind to a halt while a few backwards thinking moneymen play real life Sim City in Auckland, without the vital Sustainable-Transport Expansion Pack”.
A good sign of how we’re place for the short term will be whoever is appointed head of the RTA. If it’s a Minister Joyce Yes-man with a road fetish (Ford…) then it might be time to move to Wellington. Ironic really.
Oh yeah, I second George – try for a Herald opinion piece. No doubt your piece would be a million times better that some of the crap that gets published!
Thanks for the vote of confidence everyone
. Yes I will think about putting together a piece for the opinion page of the Herald some time in the next few weeks.
R.Lin – yes I think we’re only just starting to get our heads around the wide array of benefits that investment in public transport can create. I would be interested in looking at a study comparing house prices with public transport provision. Whether soemthing like the Northern Busway has increased house prices in Sunnynook, whether the reopening of the Onehunga Line is likely to increase house prices in that part of Auckland and so forth.
One of the interesting things about public transport is that its provision near someone’s house is likely to have a positive effect on house prices, whereas the provision of a motorway is likely to negatively impact house prices. Perhaps that’s a better way of measuring the costs/benefits of transport projects?
One of the interesting things about public transport is that its provision near someone’s house is likely to have a positive effect on house prices, whereas the provision of a motorway is likely to negatively impact house prices. Perhaps that’s a better way of measuring the costs/benefits of transport projects?
Increasingly I fear that the cost/benefit systems used in a particular case may simply reflect the authorities’ desired outcome, rather than the reality on the ground. There’s no need for the present authorities to update the way they analyse costs and benefits for different kinds of transport, as the existing methods allow them to do pretty much what they wanted to do already.
Yup, I’m just a ray of pure sunshine…
By all means write the Herald piece, it’ll probably be the best thing they’ve run on the topic in a year at least!
Absolutely. Time-savings benefits are a complete sham designed to make roading projects seem economically justifiable when they’re not.
“Yes I will think about putting together a piece for the opinion page of the Herald some time in the next few weeks.”
I hope you do, and it gets published (it will deserve to). I really like your proposal that if time savings are so imprtant, why the government doesn’t buy everyone a dishwasher point. And your red socks/blues socks analogy in your May 13 “more dodgy workings from Steve joyce” post. I would also do a comparison of the cost/benefits of Waterview verses the CBD rail tunnel. They will probably mention you run this blog, which will get you more readers.
The only problem is that because you don’t hold public office, or not a transport planner, you nwon’t carry much authority.
You’ve mentioned the dishwasher time saver thing a couple of times and I’ve heard it mentioned before by public transport advocates. Is there a piece of analysis (quick few sums on the back of an envelope even) to support this claim?
Also, could you give a bit more detail into how the time savings are calculated for motorway cost/benefit analysis. An example perhaps?
The Herald article is the normal one sided road lobby crap. In one of the articles were comments from an ex chair(?) of the Auckland airport company raising all sorts in inane objections to a rail link to the airport. As an ex Aucklander who now has to commute there for few days back once to twice a month and hire rental cars there because of public transport gaps, the road lobby seem ever more introspective. I presume the desire of the airport company to be a world-loser rather than a world-leader for transport links to the CBD comes out of a short sighted desire to retain parking and taxi etc revenues? Seeing the twinning of the Mangere Motorway Bridge without a rail link almost beggers belief. Labour seems to have left its run in supporting rail way too late. There’s a real hypocracy in polititions who benefit from our Wellington rail network (run down as it has become!) with lighter traffic flows about this region, not supporting rail up in Auckland or only tinkering at the edges, at best.
Getting a pro rail mayor into the super-mayor-ship seems imperative. They might have to do an “obama” and be so demonstrably well supported that even the Herald would not go all out to sink their candidacy with its constant tweaking of material to please the road lobby. Whats the point of a new convention centre if its not accessible to most of the region for most of the time, due to gridlock?
I plan to do a post in the future which details why I think time-savings benefits are rubbish, but basically they assume that for each person using a new road they will save time compared to the way they previously travelled. Time savings benefits calculate the aggregate amount of time saved over the 20 year period, and then multiply it “by an amount”. That amount is worked out as some sort of composite of what someone’s minute is worth.
The issue I have is that only around 10% of trips are for “employer’s business” – so technically for the other 90% the time saving might not actually have an economic value for each minute saved. I agree there is a benefit of reducing the time it takes to travel a distance, but perhaps this isn’t the best way to calculate that.
There are two other issues with time savings benefits. The first is that international studies show that improving transport doesn’t actually lead to people taking quicker trips, but rather than people travel further. There seems to be a natural limit of a 60 minute commute (has been observed for centuries) and as transport projects improve the speed one can travel from one place to another, people just travel further instead of having trips that take less time (on average). Once again, there is a benefit of that ‘improved accessibility’, it just shouldn’t be measured via the ‘time savings benefit’ method.
The third issue I have is that time-savings benefits ignore ‘induced demand’. It is well proven that adding a lane to a motorway or building a new motorway encourages traffic. We have ‘triple convergence’: traffic is induced to travel at peak times when it current travelled in shoulder peak times, traffic is induced away from public transport, walking or cycling and traffic is induced that simply wouldn’t have taken the trip before. So new roading projects can induce traffic in three different ways.
If we take a look at the cost-benefit analysis of the Waterview Connection we see that it was given $2.62 billion in travel time savings benefits and an additional $690 million in congestion cost savings. That’s an enormous amount of ‘benefit’ that I think is on dodgy ground.
Richard Small – in terms of rail to the airport there’s a clear reason why the airport doesn’t want it: they make a killing from parking charges. The airport’s biggest source of funds comes from retail rents, and then from parking charges. Actual aviation income is in third place. They will fight rail to the airport tooth and nail.
A study into rail to the airport estimated that in 2050 around 4000 people an hour would use the link. I’m not sure whether that’s enough to justify the cost, but it might be?
Assuming an average occupancy of 1.2 persons per vehicle, 4000 people an hour means around 3300 cars off the road per hour. Assuming that each highway lane has a capacity of 1500 vehicles per hour, the line would carry the equivilant of more than one lane’s worth of traffic in each direction.
Looking at it from purely a motorists point of view, it would be great have one lane on the Mangere bridge freed up. Of course, the benefits of this connection are much wider than merely freeing up road space, such as allowing more reliable and affordable access to the airport for travellers.
It would be interesting knowing what projects the road lobby thinks there are that would complete Auckland’s motorway network once the Western Ring Route is finished. And I hardly think that is going to solve much congestion at all, as it will quickly become congested by the car dependent new development that is sure to happen along the route. The only other project I have seen in any official documents is a short link between SH20 at onehunga and SH1 near Penrose, and looking at the gmaps there is no obvious route where it could go without demolition of many businesses, so it would be prohibitively expensive agian.
Luke, there is always potential for widening existing motorways.
Luke, not that I want to give the road lobby ideas – but I’m sure another harbour crossing, the resurrection of the Eastern Motorway and the four-laning of SH1 to Whangarei would be the kind of stuff Steven Joyce has wet dreams over at night.
Isn’t it more like 2,400 cars an hour per lane on a motorway..?
I think the link between SH1 and SH20 is a good idea if an easily identifable route can be found, not having a link between Manukau and the CMJ is a bit far… Improving the connectivity of existing infrastructure is always a good idea which is why passionate people must kick up a huge stink after the WRR to ensure the CBD rail link is done first…
I don’t think we have to worry about the Eastern Motorway, the blue bloods will kick up too much of a stink again, after what happened last time I think if Banks is elected Lord Mayor (or running for it) it’ll be over his dead body, unless of course they can figure out a way for it to only be close to or over state houses or they’ll tunnel it from Panmure to the city………
I don’t get this north of Orewa SH stuff, seems like a money hole to me, the WRR stuff is important but I haven’t been hearing about major traffic complaints up there except for holidays, much better to spend that money in the urban area (preferably PT) to ease congestion…
I think Joyce has a beach-house up north.
And the trucking lobby keep on going on about all the time they lose having to drive over those big mountains north of Puhoi.
Once thing that puzzles me somewhat, is that it is quite clear that roading contracting companies gain from motorway construction etc (and probably the busway construction come to think of it), but which companies gain from rail construction? Surely these companies that benefit from motorways would likely benefit from rail too? Why should they particularly care how they make their money? Why don’t the roading companies start investing in rail infrastructure companies for example…(I can’t help but think sometimes that NZ has very few business people with any conception of lateral thinking).
As for Auckland airport/Whenuapai, I think it that given the state of the airline industry now, and add peak oil to that situation, that demand for air travel and airport services isn’t likely to increase significantly. Whenuapai I think is pure pie in the sky…
Furthermore, if the Airport stands to lose from trains, then why can’t it be have share/stakeholding in the ‘airport’ train system to compensate inital ‘losses’ but that decreases over time? But quite apart from that, do the various Auckland councils still have shareholdings in the airport co…because between a partially ‘supercity’ owned airport and a supercity owned PT network, we are merely talking about shuffling money between one pocket and another anyway… so where is the problem?
As a side note, you mention prepay tickets for your proposed northwestern busway; would a system like that used in Curituba in Brazil work? One where the tickets give entry to the bus station, and from inside the bus station getting on the bus is the same system as getting on a subway train? see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Public_transport
Regarding companies that build railway tracks, not sure who’s doing ProjectDART stuff at the moment – but I guess similar companies do both. The real road lobby isn’t construction companies though – it’s trucking companies and the Automobile Association.
Regarding the airport, yeah I think at least one council (and the government I think) has kept some stake in the airport. They don’t seem to use that influence much though.
And about Curitiba, yeah there’s a lot we can learn from that place. The kind of bus stations there would be very useful in Auckland.
Bear in mind that it is a 1970s solution that to fix congestion in a major city you just build more public transport. Your constant talk about the road lobby is curious, when you are the rail lobby – a lobby that focuses on increasing charges on everyone but the users, to produce next to no relief of congestion. The goals you are pursuing are NOT about reducing the costs of transport, but on building flash shiny railway lines and trains – just like road lobbyists who want big roads. No new world city anywhere has relieved congestion through pouring money into railways – it has induced demand, yes. It encourages people to live near railway stations, it guts bus services and helps to encourage a shift from cycling to railways, but no one who promotes gargantuan taxpayer spending on public transport can point to evidence of it reducing net overall transport costs.
You say time savings benefits are a sham, yet travel time is most clearly valued by transport users who almost always choose the option that reduces their end to end travel time. Given you are promoting public transport when the users wont even pay for the running costs of the vehicles (unlike private motorists who do), it is a bit rich to complain about motorists paying for improved roads. I know plenty of transport economists, and they are not pursuing some sort of secret conspiracy agenda to make rail not look economically efficient – it’s just that you don’t like the result, so you attack the tools used to deliver it, rather than question the blind faith that it must be rationally good to subsidise rail based public transport.
Liberty, if you read this blog often you will notice that I talk about investment in improving bus services about as often as I talk about investment in rail. Rail has some advantages that simply can’t be offered by the bus.
All I am generally arguing for is that we have a balanced transport system. I don’t advocate for the ripping up of roads across New Zealand. I advocate for a transport policy that offers people legitimate options in how they travel. With there being great uncertainty about future oil prices, I think it’s incredibly reckless to pursue a transport policy that will only further increase our auto-dependency. If you compare Auckland to almost every other city in the world we are enormously behind when it comes to the share of transport funding we put into public transport.
Is Steven Joyce right and the rest of the world wrong, or the opposite? I tend to go with the majority.