This blog has long been critical of the government for its Roads of National Significance (RoNS) program. This not because of political ideology (us bloggers have different political views) but because many of them they are being progressed under the guise of improving the economy despite the evidence suggesting that many of them, like Puhoi to Wellsford, don’t pass basic economic tests. There are also more questions about them with things like petrol frequently bouncing to new highs while at the same time traffic volumes on state highways continuing to remain largely flat. Local councils are also getting agitated as funding pressures start to bite due to more and more funding get diverted away to help pay for these massive roads. Pressure is likely to continue with the news the other day that fuel excise tax was likely increase again to help keep the funding going along with the NZTA being allowed to take out even more lending to pay for things. As time has gone on MPs and others have started increasing the level of noise talking out against the projects and the mainstream media are now starting to get on board with many of the messages.
Yesterday saw transport minister Gerry Brownlee fronted up to The Nation on TV3 to discuss the RoNS.
Click to play the video
Gerry has been in politics long enough to be able to fairly easily answer these questions but he and his colleagues must be getting concerned about the direction things are going. The pressure against them continues to mount and will likely only keep doing so and I believe that this was one of the key reasons Gerry was given the portfolio rather than hand it to a Junior minister like has often happened in the past.
It is also interesting to hear some of his comments about how projects like the Harbour bridge wouldn’t have stacked up to a cost benefit analysis yet it was built anyway, there aren’t many who would say that on the whole it was bad for Auckland. What he is really suggesting is that we can’t fully capture the benefits of certain projects through the economic analysis alone which I agree with him on however he continues to argue that the CRL must stack up economically. To me that is just another thing that confirms that what is and isn’t being supported by this government is purely based on ideology with the reasoning being changed to suit the situation.
On the CRL it was perhaps the least negative I have seen him talk about the project. The City Centre Future Access Study, which Gerry makes reference to, seeks to answer many of the questions that the former transport minister asked about the project. It is in full swing and closely involves Auckland Transport, Auckland Council, the Ministry of Transport and NZTA. Pehaps the two government agencies are starting to realise that the alternatives they suggested like just using more buses simply won’t work and are passing that on to Gerry so he doesn’t get egg on his face in the future (one can hope anyway).
Pressure is definitely mounting on the Government, however he mistakenly assumes it’s the ‘opposition’, as in political opposition, that are against it. This is utterly un-true, many of the people opposed to the spending allocation are National supporters, and the word was attempted to be spread long before the ‘opposition’ gained ahold of it. Only now that they realise that this is a potential election issue have they jumped aboard!
Good work by The Nation. Still no evidence presented by the minister that shows that there is currently any difficulty for export goods to reach any port that these roads will fix. As much as he and his supporters seem to feel it just follows that this is the case I can’t see it. What is the mechanism by which 1 billion dollars worth of additional value will be created by these roads? Please can someone explain? Is milk spoiling because it can’t get to dairy factories, do logs loose value by taking 5 minutes longer to get to port? I have never seen any claim for these roads that is anything other than incremental, small time improvements, a little fuel saved. How the big change?
Of course there is one blockage that will be fixed, the December 27th rush to Omaha will be easier in 2020. A billion right there for sure. That is the only day of the year that that road is congested. This is a delusion.
And if defies logic that freight that will be put on tankers (and often slowed en route to save fuel) will save any money on this route. Even a FedEx package will be stalled at the airport for a few hours.
I don’t know why this only just occurred to me, but could the Government’s confidence that Puhoi to Wellsford will “facilitate” Northland’s economic growth possibly be related to this? http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/106561/mineral-survey-could-bring-riches-to-northland-minister
The ‘reliability’ of travel time will apparently be improved. I imagine a proper rail link including Marsden port would offer the same for Northland’s logs, and at a cheaper price.
I also expect reliability must factor in the BCR calculations for commuter rail, given the actual impact on workplace productivity of late starts and missed meetings.
No rail doesn’t meet the governments BCR requirement, however the ‘Holiday Highway’ doesn’t need to meet these requirements because of the benefits that cannot be captured by the ratio. Rail however needs to meet these requirements before they can be considered, any other benefits are irrelevant.
Really annoyed about the Napier – Gisborne closure announcement as well.
Gerry has managed to learn that it is a “rail link”, no so TV3. How is the public supposed to learn when the media can’t get it right?
I do find it interesting how alot of people were up in arms about rate increases but ignore $12b spent on uneconomic roads. There is still alot of general apathy out there. The government view roads as revenue generators for the government I’m guessing thats why they want more of them. This is regardless of rising petrol prices, environmental concerns, road congestion and too much roads breeding dull cities. Still surprised they’re not talking about the CRL. THink it still provides the greatest economic stimuleous.
New Zealand’s media are resolutely refusing to ask the questions about the two ‘elephants in the room’ that would force the ‘Honorable Minister’ into an impossible corner on the Roads of ‘National’ Significance based on these criteria:
– the effect that carrying out these projects will have on New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions,
- the wasted opportunity to use available funding to build less oil-dependant infrastructure. ( i.e rail ) in order to consolidate New Zealand’s resilience against increasing oil prices and price shocks in what is now the post-peak/cheap oil age.
Either the media are oblivious to these aspects- or they are complicit with these agents for vested interests.
E-mailing print media,radio and television journalists directly to remind them of these fundamental but neglected aspects of the debate and calling talk-back radio hosts will help to raise awareness among the general public.
Personally I have tried to speak about these issues on talk back radio a few times but have been cut off pretty much every time as soon as I mentioned them –
We may not be dealing with the animal we think we are dealing with.
http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/The-Nation-The-Nation-Sunday-September-2-2012/tabid/59/articleID/7890/MCat/76/Default.aspx
Alan the government and its supporters [eg talk-back radio] just flat ignore climate change and indeed most externalities of auto-dependency. It is, sadly, a very effective technique, more effective than active denial, because that is pretty much untenable, and it seems to be working as a way of framing the argument away from an area for which they have fewer than no answers. It seems NZers largely don’t want to think about difficult things especially if we can’t see it right in front of us or makes us feel a like we might need to change some habits.
Good on you for trying to drag this big issue out into the daylight.
I’m pretty sure that I have heard the government in the past say that the RoNS won’t be bad for the climate because they will make it easier to get around and therefore less fuel will be used.
Which is hilarious, tiny changes are all will ever accrue from these massive investments and that is basically the whole problem.
Oh yes, the old idea that more motorways can fix congestion, and without congestion we’ll have much less fuel consumption and emissions.
Sad fact is more motorways just mean more driving, more fuel consumption and more emissions.
The government will argue that commuters all want to drive rather than take public transport despite the figures telling otherwise, therefore they will argue that it’s better putting money to improving the Roading network, RoNs, making travel more fuel efficient for the majority of NZ’s transport. This of course is built on beliefs that ignore statistics which suggest that investment in alternative travel have a better effect on reducing congestion.
Loved Gerry’s Harbour Bridge line…
His argument is that the Harbour Bridge may not have stood up on a BCR, but was built anyway – therefore BCR’s are not the “be all and end all”… Hypothetically it may well not stack up on transport benefits alone as a bridge between A and B – Northcote Point and St Marys Bay – but of course history tells us its essential benefit was that it catalysed the development of an entirely new city north of the harbour. That’s the bit BCR’s struggle with.
That same line of argument is applicable to the CRL – the government likes to look at it as a short section of track linking A to B – Britomart to Mt Eden; when its essential economic benefit (rail network capacity benefits aside) is the otherwise unattainable agglomeration in the CBD – again, that’s the bit where BCR’s struggle.
The government will deny the merits of CBD agglomeration to the grave because they are provincial anti-urban hacks don’t understand cities. However, to keep favour with his superiors, Gerry might want to be careful he doesn’t inadvertently make a case for the CRL with this line of argument…..
Well spotted Liam, i have a post coming on this very issue….
look forward to it!
The BCR method (as used by NZTA and MoT) is flawed, because it doesn’t take account of the changes in form and function of urban areas. A better way would be to include changes in the capital value of housing and land stock. For example the Transmission Gully BCR case could be improved a little by including the increase in capital value for suburbs that would then be 10 minutes closer to the city centre, with an allowance for foregone capital gain from closer suburbs. Since Wellington is growing only slowly, there would probably be little net capital gain. However in Auckland with its higher growth rate, there would be a greater net gain through project such as the CRL, which would turn middle suburbs into inner suburbs, and some outer suburbs into middle suburbs.
In the 1900′s to 1920′s the Pacific Electric Company in Los Angeles paid for its rail extensions by the uplift in land values. The company bought desert and orange groves and turned them into serviced housing blocks with a rail service. It is a shame that after about 80 years it is still rare to use such methods in our public sector accounting. (Although the uplift in land values within the CBD is proposed by the Council for a small part of funding the CRL).
The current BCR method is highly suited to rural roads where most of the drivers are driving in paid time. The economic case is simple, and doesn’t need to take account of other issues such as induced traffic, changed land uses, etc.. There must be a good world literature on evaluating the benefits of transport investment. It would be a good “citizen science” project to look at methods used around the world to compare and justify projects. I expect that most of the PT benefits that are “eligible” in most other countries are simply not counted by NZTA, and that they are well behind international practice.
Benefits that don’t seem to be accounted for are
- reduced oil dependence
- reduced requirement to import cars
- workers arrive fresher and more productive
- agglomeration
Exactly, the great problem with economics are all the assumptions… they so drive the conclusions. That and the fact that things, outcomes, inputs, effects that are hard to express numerically tend to just get ignored. In fact you could probably write a formula that showed the inverse relationship between the difficulty of counting something and the likelihood that it will be included in any economic theory….
Here’s a transcript for the interview:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00008/brownlee-defends-shortfall-in-roads-funding.htm
So many lies from Brownlee in that piece. On the supposed benefits to Northland of a new motorway from Auckland, it’s worth re-reading NZTA’s own conclusions about ‘Regional Economic Impacts’ pasted in this post: http://transportblog.co.nz/2011/11/14/comparing-the-city-rail-link-with-puhoi-wellsford/
He needs to be called on his bollocks forcefully and frequently.
Not sure if lies rather than difference in opinion, I truly think he believes in what he says. It’s the oldies way of thinking, and I’m afraid he is far beyond his actual age in his thoughts at this stage.
The old “Auckland Habour Bridge argument” for the RoNs is wearing thin.
The first reason is that maybe the Auckland Harbour Bridge (AHB) would have stacked up with a CBA – has anyone actually done a post-evaluation using existing BCA procedures? Now there’s a thought. The fact that there were a lot of ferries plying the Waitemata in 1962, serving the coastal settlements around Devonport, Takapuna, and Birkenhead, suggests that travel demands were well-established prior to the AHB going in.
The second point is that the AHB connected a city of ~500,000 with vast swathes of undeveloped greenfield land with quite exceptional natural amenity. The AHB reduced travel times between these two locations from ~3 hours around the upper harbour to ~10 minutes across the Bridge. Because of this bridge was quite obviously going to have a massive impact in the long run. Contrast that with the Puhoi-Wellsford RoNs, which connects – obviously – the small towns of Puhoi to Wellsford, while saving ~15minutes in travel-time. All sounds quite marginal compared to the AHB if you ask me.
It’s amazing that Brownlee thinks the Harbour Bridge is an example of why the RoNs are worthwhile investments – if anything does not our experience with the Habour bridge suggest that accessibility to the City Centre is the primary driver of long term economic benefits? Put simply, does not the AHB suggest that if anything we risk undercooking the potential benefits of the CRL rather than all these highways in the middle of nowhere … hmmm.
Great point Stu and exactly what immediately came to my mind – why wouldn’t the AHB have stacked up?
A more interesting question is Britomart and whether it would have stacked up with a good BCR back when only 1000 people a day were using the train. Was a BCR undertaken? Has that ever been looked at retrospectively?
considering that there were huge queues for the vehicle ferries, or a long trip around the upper harbour, I can imagine that the benefits arising from delay and travel reduction would be substantial