There was an interesting radio interview of Transport Minister Steven Joyce on Radio NZ this evening, with the topic of conversation being his response to the various large promises being made by mayoral candidates for the Auckland Super City. The interview is available to listen here, and it’s certainly worth having a listen to.
Here’s a brief summary from the Radio NZ the story:
Transport Minister Steven Joyce says candidates for the Auckland mayoralty need to consider who will pay for promises being made on the campaign trail.
Mr Joyce told a conference in Auckland on Thursday that talk of a rail link to Auckland’s North Shore or the airport could be some way off in the future.
Mayoral candidate Andrew Williams wants a rail tunnel built within eight years, while all the leading candidates are keen on a link to the airport.
Mr Joyce says many roading projects are still to be built and should come before any talk of new rail projects.
There are some aspects of what Joyce says in the interview that I agree with. As I have noted previously, I don’t think a North Shore railway line is a priority, predominantly because there’s a perfectly good busway there, which only opened a couple of years ago. The busway could not be easily upgraded to rail, because of the need to ease many of the grades and also of course to build a tunnel under the Waitemata Harbour. It’s likely such a project would come at a cost of at least $3 billion I think. Interestingly enough, even the 2010-2040 Regional Land Transport Strategy – a document which I imagine scares the living daylights out of Steven Joyce because of the number of large rail projects in it – does not actually include a rail upgrade on the shore within the 30 year timeframe of that strategy.
Now I am sure that one day we will need to build a railway line to the North Shore. The Northern Busway will certainly hit its capacity, and we will effectively have little choice but to upgrade it to rail. But, along with the ARC’s RTLS, I am doubtful whether that will happen for another couple of decades.
The other area where I can understand Joyce’s caution is with regards to an Airport Railway Line, which he doesn’t say much about but seems to throw into the group of “big expensive rail projects that aren’t needed for a long time” (although promisingly he does make some sounds to suggest that the CBD tunnel may not fall into that category). I think it’s essential that in the next couple of years we protect the route for this line, and steps are now being taken to do just that, but until a full business case analysis is done to determine the cost-effectiveness of such a project – I can understand caution, particularly when many overseas airport rail connections have not proven to be as popular as forecast (although usually that’s because they charge exorbitant fares). This project certainly needs to happen in the future though, and probably a lot sooner than a North Shore Line, as much to provide southwest Auckland with a rapid transit option as to provide rail connectivity to Auckland Airport.
So in general I support his caution with regards to supporting enormously expensive projects where there hasn’t been an analysis of cost and benefits yet (I only wish he extended this same approach to his pet motorway projects, but more on that later). However, there are at least a couple of places where I do take issue with Joyce’s approach to the whole “what big transport projects really should be happening in Auckland in the next 10-2o years” question. The first is that he seems to be continuing what I am tempted to call the “Auckland disease”, which is saying that “we’ll do public transport once we’ve finished building the roads”. We’ve been saying this for decades now, and we’re still finding new projects to form part of “completing the motorway network” to avoid having to make a concerted start on improving the public transport system. Surely once the Waterview Connection has been completed, that is the end of the motorway network.
The Puhoi-Wellsford holiday highway is not part of ‘completing the motorway network’, and as I have shown over and over again recently it is extremely poor value for money. A third harbour crossing, while being included on transport plans for Auckland over many many decades, could cost up to $6 billion according to Treasury, which seems completely unnecessary as traffic flows across the Harbour Bridge continue to decline. In other words, a project that could cost as much as four CBD rail tunnels is becoming less and less necessary by the day – why on earth would that be a priority? I just worry that if we don’t put an end to this “let’s finish the roads then shift onto the rail” mentality, we will keep finding new roading projects like the holiday highway to suck money away from desperately needed public transport projects. A pretty simple principle should be “do the project most needed first, regardless of type.”
Finally, and I hinted at this earlier, perhaps the thing that bugs me most about Joyce’s “careful careful, let’s not get carried away with big rail projects that haven’t been subjected to a business case yet” attitude is how he is completely disregarding these principles when it comes to the Puhoi-Wellsford road. To add to the multitude of reasons I have outlined recently why a full motorway from Puhoi to Wellsford shouldn’t be a priority, I found this graph the other day from an NZTA commissioned study on the cost effectiveness of the seven roads of national significance. It compares the benefits (both traditional transport benefits and wider economic benefits) of the seven different RoNS:
As well as showing once again that the cost-benefit ratio might well be significantly less than the 0.8 stated in previous documentation ($500 million in benefits for a $1.7 billion cost returns a lot less than 0.8 according to my calculator), what this graph shows superbly is how pathetically the Puhoi-Wellsford road compares against the other roads of national significance. Most notably, it would appear as though the Victoria Park Tunnel is expected to generate around four times the amount of benefit as the holiday highway, yet will cost around a quarter the price ($400 million instead of $1.7 billion). By my reckoning that means the Puhoi-Wellsford road has only one-sixteenth the cost-effectiveness of the Vic Park Tunnel. Now I know the Vic Park Tunnel probably has a pretty high BCR (heck even I support that project), but really what this shows is how pathetically Puhoi-Wellsford performs in terms of its return on investment.
We certainly have some interesting times ahead, with a show down between the CBD rail tunnel and the Puhoi to Wellsford road seeming increasingly likely once the business case for the rail tunnel has been released. As I have said many times before, I don’t think there’s enough money in the pot for both of them. Which project will we get? I think Joyce is going to have a tough time arguing for the holiday highway when its numbers look so bad (and when a pretty good alternative exists).
I listening to the interview and for me the biggest thing was what he said about the CBD tunnel, it appears that his speech is starting to shift, in the past he was saying how he wasn’t sure how it would stack up and that we need to get full studies done so we know all of the facts and figures where as now he is starting to say that the CBD tunnel could be viable, at least is the most viable of the lot which we all suspected anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if he already knows the outcome of the investigation so is starting to change his speech so that when it is officially released he can be on the front foot.
As for PTW I wonder what will happen after the next election, it is speculated that he is wanting to get the Rodney seat off Lockwood Smith. Promising to build a motorway might get him that seat and by that time he will be in another portfolio so another transport minister could drop it without him having losing face.
You’re right Matt, he did sound a bit more positive on the CBD tunnel than I have heard before. The business case isn’t too far away from completion so perhaps he has received an early “heads-up” that it’s looking pretty good.
In terms of PTW, that’d be a pretty expensive seat to “buy” (and it’s a safe National seat anyway) as NZTA are ploughing well over $150 million into investigation and design of that motorway. $150 million is about three times what is being spent on Auckland’s integrated ticketing system, for a bit of comparison.
He does seem to be quite a dyed in the wool fiscal conservative. I wonder if he really wants to build the holiday highway, or if he has been told by cabinet that it is a vote winner and that it is government policy.
I dunno, it has always seemed to me like his “pet project”. Nobody had really even thought of it much before he came along. NZTA’s timeframe for it was “some time before 2050″.
Actually in Rodney to be fair it has always been a issue having the motorway stop short at where it is now, and it was definately thought about, however not such a National base. He will be winning vote’s in the Rodeny district as they are keen as chips for this road to be built.
You could be right on that one. The funny thing is if he were to be pushing the CBD tunnel instead of PTW he would be one of the best transport ministers we have ever had, possibly even the best as even though many of the projects were first talked about years ago he is actually making things happen. It would be interesting to see the CBD tunnel on that list above so we could compare it these motorway projects, conventional benefits would hopefully be somewhere around the Waikato expressway/VPT level with WEB’s probably at a similar level.
It is wasn’t for his proposed changes to the PTMA, for his horrific Government Policy Statement for transport, for the holiday highway and his general reluctance to believe in public transport I would think he’d be great.
That’s quite a few changes that would need to be made though.
Yes he’d be a great minister if only we had a clue about transport….I’m sorry but building a CBD tunnel isn’t going to make Joyce a good transport minister.
No indeed, particularly given he is being dragged kicking and screaming into a change of opinion. I also wonder if he is changing his tone on the CBD tunnel as a way of creating a token (albeit large token) gesture to the public transport lobby. Then when the time comes to ask for an airport link or rail to East Auckland he can turn around and say “look you already got a tunnel and now your asking for more.”
Actually I would say it does to me, It would be one of the biggest funded public transport projects done by a government in New Zealand, and would change the face of Auckland’s Train Network. The fact that he does get things done, would mean it would still be completed before Labour would have if he takes it serious from now on. In the end it would make up for alot of underinvestment to me.
However if he doesn’t fund the whole project, as he said he expects rate-payers to foot half the bill, I’ll take that back.
“with a show down between the CBD rail tunnel and the Puhoi to Wellsford road seeming increasingly likely once the business case for the rail tunnel has been released”
Why do you think the show down has to be between the tunnel and a motorway, rather than the tunnel and any other significant government program? Government has hundreds of spending priorities and they’re all competing with each other. The amount of money available in each general area isn’t fixed.
I’m in Sydney this week and watching the federal elections. Labour promised a new rail line in Sydney. Rail is normally a state government responsibility, and the state government said just a few months ago that the line wasn’t a priority. Labour only made the decision to offer it up as a promise just a few days ago and the project hasn’t been through the normal infrastructure investment process. But it runs through a number of marginal electorates.
Sometimes government does things because they’re popular, and business cases don’t count for much. I suspect that if you put together a business case to justify hospital operations or cancer treatment for people over 75 then you’d find it completely unviable. Most climate change mitigation and “green” energy projects have a return far less than 0.1. I’d guess that a lot of non-vocational university courses would have tiny rates of return. But we still do all these things.
Well Obi the reason why I think one should transfer money from the Puhoi-Wellsford road to the CBD rail tunnel is because the holiday highway is such a poor value project. Perhaps there is other poor value spending around, but it makes sense to me to keep to transport projects as that’s what we exactly know about.
Matt wash your mouth out, his handling of transport makes him nothing less than a national economic vandal in my opinion…
“Mr Joyce says many roading projects are still to be built and should come before any talk of new rail projects.”
Why..? What is his justification for this..? What a moron…
The bad news about Puhoi to Wellsford is that the initial round of consultation with the locals has brought back really positive results according to NZTA – aarrrrghhh! Whether that can outweigh a loss of $500 million (or whatever we stand to make on the damn thing) who knows? We can only pray that Lockwood-Smith doesn’t retire this term.
Lucy, of course the locals are supportive. They’re sick of driving on one of the most (if not the most) dangerous stretches of road in the country with no relief in sight. I wonder how supportive they’d be if they had it explained clearly that this project is instead of near-future safety improvements, will take 12-26 years to be completed on current projections, and will be to the exclusion of re-engineering of the existing road if it goes ahead. Similarly I wonder what the residents of Wellsford and Warkworth think of their communities being drained of all the money that comes from through traffic, especially since the current design means that connecting those centres to the bypass will be several tens-of-millions of dollars more and will reduce the BCR further.
“He does seem to be quite a dyed in the wool fiscal conservative.”
Fiscal conservative??? Don’t know why I would apply that label to him.
“Sometimes government does things because they’re popular, and business cases don’t count for much. I suspect that if you put together a business case to justify hospital operations or cancer treatment for people over 75 then you’d find it completely unviable. Most climate change mitigation and “green” energy projects have a return far less than 0.1. I’d guess that a lot of non-vocational university courses would have tiny rates of return. But we still do all these things.”
Sure, which is because BCR never includes all benefits or all costs – especially when you look at benefits and costs to SOCIETY, rather than just to ECONOMY. BCR calculations are, at best, an educated guess which allows you to make better-informed decisions. At worst, it is just a way of fudging the numbers until they fit your prejudices. Which I am afraid the whole “wider economic benefit” thing is about. To use this on one specific project only, and without any testing of the real benefits (WEBs are experimental stuff, economic crystal ball gazing and advanced research only at this stage), is the height of politics masquerading as science.
I have no problem with a politican pushing for things that may not stack up economically. But then they need to explain to us WHY they should be done anyway, rather than devalue the economic tools we do have.
His comment was that any region can build whatever they like as long as they are happy to fund it. In that case I propose. A 10c per litre fuel tax for Auckland motorists, the funding of which to go to public transport. The political parties can then let us know whether 1. Will match it 2. take over funding it or 3. Leave it on. Aucklanders will then be asked to vote according in the next NZ election.
Problem for Joyce is that Auckland is where federal elections are won and lost. If he wants to underfund our public transport- we have many avenues through which to punish his party.
I love it when he talks about how much money they (presumably the government) are spending on Auckland PT, as if they were the instigators of all those projects. to my knowledge they haven’t proposed one single Auckland PT project in nearly 2 years. They were pretty well all the initiatives of either the previous govt, ARTA, local councils or ARC. Mary Wilson I presume is a Wellington person, so no surprise she never asked- well then what projects have you planned for the future other than new motorways? Do you know traffic usage of roads in Auckland are declining?
I don’t see this govt as inherently evil, just really naieve- they don’t seem to have any awareness of the wider world and what is coming during the next 20-30 years. It can’t be the 1950s forever.
The only transport project of any sort that has come entirely from Joyce is the Holiday Highway. That and the “Roads of Significance to National” concept, all the members of which except for the Puhoi SH1 extension were already underway when National took over. Everything else is a carry-over from Labour’s days, admittedly mostly things that have their genesis decades before but still things that got final planning and budget under Labour.
“His comment was that any region can build whatever they like as long as they are happy to fund it. In that case I propose. A 10c per litre fuel tax for Auckland motorists, the funding of which to go to public transport. ”
Ahh, we did have that all lined up and ready to go, it was Joyce and his associates that pulled the plug on it.
So effectively he’s saying yes you can do what you like as long as you fund it yourself…. except we aren’t going to let you raise your own funds so tough titties you’ll do what we let you do.