Auckland City Council has produced a very interesting policy document on improving transport in the CBD. The whole document is here, with a council agenda item that provides a summary able to be read here. The document as a whole is well worth a read, and outlines a pretty exciting and refreshing approach to transport in Auckland’s CBD.
One of the most useful things highlighted in the report are current transport trends – in particular the growing number of people catching public transport into the CBD and the reducing numbers of people driving to the CBD each day to work: So officially now of those working in the CBD more catch public transport than drive to work every day. This is a useful statistic to mention next time someone tries to disparage public transport: imagine twice the number of traffic lanes into the CBD, imagine twice as much of the city dedicated to carparking – that’s what would happen without public transport. We pretty much wouldn’t have a CBD for all the roads and parking buildings.
Looking at future trends, it becomes pretty obvious that there’s going to be huge pressure on trying to get more people into the CBD via public transport – as remember we have little, if any, way to increase roading capacity into the CBD: With around 33,000 public transport trips into the CBD at peak times at the moment, and almost all additional trips by 2031 and 2051 into the CBD also being by public transport, that suggests we’re going to need to at least double the PT capacity over the next 20 years. The argument for the CBD rail tunnel becomes pretty clear.
The study is certainly worth reading through. I’m pretty impressed by the vision – we just need to make sure it happens.
Preliminary findings of the business case for the CBD Rail Tunnel should be released within the next month. Of course we all have our fingers crossed that the number-crunching confirms most people’s strong belief that the project is cost-effective and well worth the rather significant $1.5 billion pricetag. I think another critical thing to keep an eye on is how the business case for the CBD Rail Tunnel stacks up against the extremely poor business case for the Puhoi-Wellsford road. After all, both are transport projects that are likely to cost around $1.5 billion – so it would make sense to measure them up against one another to see which offers the best “return” on that investment of $1.5 billion.
It is interesting to note in recent weeks the Transport Minister has been a bit more positive in his soundings on the CBD Rail Tunnel – noting that out of all rail projects it was certainly likely to be the next off the block and may well be cost-effective (unlike others such as a North Shore Line – I agree with him on that point). Perhaps he has been informed a bit earlier than the rest of us that the project does stack up well?
Putting wishful thinking aside for the moment, what happens between the time the business case is released and the end of this year is critical in keeping the ball rolling on advancing the project. We must remember that there are a lot more steps in the process towards actually making the project happen – including the extremely important step of actually securing and protecting the route. Ensuring that all the work currently going into the project doesn’t end up as a giant door-stop, but instead advances onto the next phase of route protection is exceedingly important – as not only does it ensure the tunnel can’t be stuffed up by other projects, but it also continues to build momentum for the project.
Wellington’s bureaucrats are well aware of the process too, as a paper prepared by Treasury on the project shows. In response to a request by Steven Joyce to tell him more about “where it’s up to and where it’s going” (he didn’t already know?) the paper provides a very useful insight into the kind of advice that Joyce is getting on this project. Of particular note was how the paper (which was written in March this year) points towards “six months time” being a crunch point for determining the future of the project. It’s disappointing, but hardly surprising, that the paper is somewhat negative on the required timing of the project (I wonder what Treasury would say about Puhoi-Wellsford?) However, that’s not really the key point here. The key point is that there’s a huge decision to be made in the next few months – whether to lodge the notice of requirement to protect the tunnel’s route. That’s the second big hurdle for the project to get over (the first being getting the current study underway). As the paper notes, once there’s a commitment to lodging the notice of requirement to protect the route then serious money starts needing to be spent on the project – making a commitment that it’s only a matter of when, not if, the project gets constructed.
Of course the absolutely massive unresolved issue is “who will pay for the project?” One and a half billion dollars is a lot of money (assuming that’s roughly what it’s likely to cost) and unlike state highways, rail projects don’t have a dedicated funding source. It’s on this matter that I think the Treasury paper provides particularly interesting advice: This highlights what I think the biggest barrier to constructing the CBD Rail Tunnel is – and that is the fact that NZTA money cannot be spent on the project. Whatever the rationale behind Cabinet Minute (09) 8/11-14 was, the decision made to effectively ban NZTA funds from being spent on this project is devastating for the likelihood of it happening any time soon. This is for one basic reason: NZTA have money, nobody else really does. It’s very interesting indeed to see that Treasury is basically recommending that this decision be reversed, so that NZTA can use its money to pay for at least part of the project.
And it makes good sense too for NZTA to help fund the project, because road-users (who fund NZTA) will be amongst the biggest beneficiaries of the CBD Rail Tunnel – as it will enable the rail system to take huge numbers of people off the roads at peak times in particular. And, as the table below shows, each extra rail trip generates a huge amount of benefit for road-users: For all those championing the CBD rail tunnel, what we really need to focus on is changing Cabinet Minute (09) 8/11-14 and allowing rail capital projects to once again tap into the NZTA funding pool. That will enable the money freed up by a more cost-effective Puhoi-Wellsford project to be used on this project.
Ultimately, I think that’s the only likely way the project will happen any time soon. We build the $160 million “Operation Lifesaver” upgrade to Puhoi-Wellsford and therefore save around $1.4 billion compared to the cost of a full motorway upgrade, and we put that money into the CBD tunnel – supplementing it with a decent contribution from the Auckland Council. The outcome is that we save around 50 lives on state highway 1 between Puhoi and Wellsford and we direct our money more cost-effectively. I wonder whether that will happen though.
Finance Minister (and Infrastructure Minister) Bill English yesterday gave quite an interesting speech to representative of Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ). The topic of the speech related to the need for tax-payers and rate-payers to get the best return possible on infrastructure investment. He also stresses the need for central and local government to co-operate when it comes to prioritising infrastructure investment.
“This Government has increased infrastructure investment – we currently spend about $6 billion a year on the purchase and maintenance of our critical infrastructure and hold about $110 billion in physical assets,” Mr English says.
“However at a time when our finances are constrained, it is vital we get the most out of this investment. That means projects must be properly selected and must provide a justifiable return on taxpayers’ funds.
“The Government is determined to improve the management of its assets – both the current stock and how decisions are made about future investment.
Note the bit underlined. I do wonder whether this requirement applies to extremely expensive motorway projects like the Puhoi-Wellsford Road (which has more cost-effective alternatives) or just to transport and/or other infrastructural projects that Mr English or his colleague Steven Joyce aren’t so keen on.
It’s also interesting to note what he says about the need for co-operation between central and local government:
“A vital step in achieving smarter infrastructure investment in the future will be greater central and local government collaboration. This is one of the areas that will be developed further in the next National Infrastructure Plan.
“Greater collaboration and co-ordination will help ensure the right projects are built when they are needed and that taxpayers and ratepayers get the best possible return on limited funds. I welcome the mayors’ and LGNZ’s constructive approach to this issue,” Mr English says.
I fully agree, but is this basically another way of saying “you local governments need to agree with us!” or is it a genuine “we need to both agree on what’s most needed and what will provide the best return on investment”?
While John Banks appears to be backing away from his previous grand promises to help deliver a world-class rail system for Auckland, should he be elected mayor, most other candidates: both for mayor and for the council, seem to be focusing a lot of their efforts on the need to improve Auckland’s public transport system. While of course we won’t know the final composition of the council until voting closes on October 9th, and we also won’t know who the mayor is until then, I am reasonably confident that all sides of the political spectrum in regional and local government (with a few exceptions) accept the need for Auckland to improve its public transport system.
So it seems reasonably likely that, come October, we will have a council that is quite friendly towards public transport. As all local transport money will be lumped together into one pool of funds there is the potential for more money than ever before being available at the local level (if only I had so much faith in central government) to improve public transport. This is all positive stuff.
However, the way in which the future Auckland Council does transport will be fundamentally different to the way that any council (perhaps with the possible exception of the ARC) manages transport at the moment. That is because all transport activities, right down to decisions relating to the width and paving-types for footpaths, will be made by the Auckland Transport council-controlled organisation. I have written a significant number of blog posts on Auckland Transport over the past year, and over time my opinion of the agency has varied and changed at fairly regular intervals: so I’m quite pragmatic and realistic about what its benefits could be, but also mindful of how it could go wrong. My most recent position on the Transport CCO has been one of full support – largely because I have felt that many of the current councils (particularly Auckland City Council) are doing such a terrible job when it comes to transport that surely the new agency couldn’t do worse.
While that may well be the case, and while I also accept that integrating all aspects of transport into one agency – an agency that will hopefully avoid stupid situations like the Dominion Road T2 debacle by being one step removed from direct politicking – some things that I am hearing about the way in which Auckland Transport is being established bring back many of my original fears. My ultimate fear is basically this: while if Auckland Transport is doing a great job, then its independence will be very useful; however if Auckland Transport start doing a rubbish job – if the agency isn’t visionary for Auckland, if it doesn’t have a strong public transport focus, if it gets taken over by road engineers who think that we’ve done a marvellous job building places like Botany Town Centre (after all they must exist, as those really wide roads exist) – then we’re really really stuffed. We are stuffed because the politicians, who are somewhat forced to listen to the people, only have limited control over what Auckland Transport does. Furthermore, the separation of transport planning from all other types of policy and planning (that the Auckland Council will be doing) will place great strain on our ability to integrated land-use and transport. If we can’t make that connection work, then we’re really stuffed in trying to create a better city.
So a lot comes down to the quality of whoever will be driving the vision of Auckland Transport – which is why I must say I feel a tad underwhelmed by the lack of urban transport experience held by the agency’s new CEO. A lot will also come down to the structure of Auckland Transport: what prominence will be given to public transport? Will there be some level of integration with land-use planning? What role will urban designers play in the work done by this organisation? So many questions whose answers will be crucial in determining how transport gets done in the Super City. And it is in these respects that some worrying signs are emerging. Here is the structure of the top level of management within Auckland Transport: Only one third tier role directly mentions public transport, and that’s only within operations. There’s no mention of anyone who will be specifically guiding public transport policy at this level, or a public transport projects manager or anything of this type. Furthermore, a few rumours that I have heard from various people around Auckland who have greater access than I do the list of positions available within the organisation is a glaring lack of roles that directly relate to public transport. Many of the more general transport roles apparently involve some level of involvement on public transport projects, but that is not the same as having numerous rail experts or bus experts or whatever. On the other hand, if the rumours I have heard are true, when it comes to job descriptions for roading projects there are a huge number of roles and they are generally very specifically defined.
It’s as though those putting this structure in place don’t really have a clue about public transport. Very worrying indeed. There is also apparently an almost complete lack of integration with land-use planning or urban design within the Transport CCO. Perhaps the road engineers who have had their plans for massively wide highways stifled by annoying planners and urban designers during in-house discussions now feel free to go ahead with their preferences after all – and a clear effort is being made to allow them to do so. I suppose this sets things up for a huge number of environment court appeals between Auckland Transport and Auckland Council, although it would be nicer to see this avoided by having, for example, an urban design team within the Transport CCO.
Now things might not be as bad as what I’m putting together from snippets of information. Dr David Warburton – the agency’s interim CEO – may in fact have fantastic vision for transport in Auckland and may restructure the whole organisation to ensure it isn’t siloed, has sufficient public transport experts and integrates extremely well with planning and urban design. I’m not quite sure what my chances are of that hope being real though.
This report investigates ways that public transportation affects human health, and ways to incorporate these impacts into transport policy and planning decisions. This research indicates that public transit improvements and more transit oriented development can provide large but often overlooked health benefits. People who live or work in communities with high quality public transportation tend to drive significantly less and rely more on alternative modes (walking, cycling and public transit) than they would in more automobile-oriented areas. This reduces traffic crashes and pollution emissions, increases physical fitness and mental health, and provides access to medical care and healthy food.
These impacts are significant in magnitude compared with other planning objectives, but are often overlooked or undervalued in conventional transport planning. Various methods can be used to quantify and monetize (measure in monetary units) these health impacts. This analysis indicates that improving public transit can be one of the most cost effective ways to achieve public health objectives, and public health improvements are among the largest benefits provided by high quality public transit and transit-oriented development.
Considering the enormous amount of money spent on the health system in New Zealand (over $13 billion each year), looking at effective ways in which to improve health can potentially be extremely cost-effective. Add to that all the lost productivity from people dying earlier, or people being less healthy and productive and we’re talking seriously big numbers here.
Some of the connections between transport and health are obvious. The more we drive the more at risk we are of dying in a car accident. The converse to that is, because public transport is generally extremely safe, the more we use public transport per capita, the lower likelihood we will have of dying in traffic accidents. Statistics from US cities play out this correlation fairly well: There are also links between greater use of public transport, walking and cycling, and lower rates of obesity. This is once again reasonably obvious – as all public transport users are also pedestrians: while cycling is likely to keep you fit and therefore healthier in that sense:
Research also suggests that obesity rates tend to be inversely related to use of alternative modes (walking, cycling and public transit), as indicated in Figure 12. Rundle, et al. (2007) found that New York City residents’ Body Mass Index (BMI) ratings tend to decline significantly with greater subway and bus stop density, higher population density, and more mixed land use in their neighborhood.
Smart growth community design provides health benefits, particularly for children by encouraging physical activity (The American Academy of Paediatrics 2009). Residents of smart growth, multi-modal communities tend to walk more and have lower rates of obesity and hypertension than in sprawled areas (Ewing, et al. 2003). Frank, et al. (2010) found that residents of more neighborhoods with more and better transit service tend to walk significantly more and drive significantly less than residents of more automobile dependent neighborhoods. Research by Sturm (2005) found that, accounting for demographic factors such as age, race/ethnicity, education and income, the frequency of self-reported chronic medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension and cancer increased with sprawl (Sturm 2005). Overall, 1,260 chronic medical conditions are reported per 1,000 residents; each 50-point change toward less sprawled location is associated with 96 fewer conditions. For example, shifting from automobile-oriented San Bernardino, California to transit-oriented Boston, Massachusetts would reduce 200 chronic medical conditions per 1,000 residents, a 16% reduction.
Another interesting link between public transport and better walking or cycling conditions is that a good public transport system makes it possible to remove many cars from city street, narrow down roads of pedstrianise them completely: which has huge benefits for walking and cycling. But critically, at the same time the good quality public transport will enable the city to keep functioning. It allows the best of both worlds.
I seriously do see the day when the Ministry of Health funds cycleways.
The Auckland Transition Agency is finally got around to naming an interim CEO for the Auckland Transport council-controlled organisation, which is only a couple of months away from coming into existence. Rumours had been flying around that we might get some high-flying transport visionary from overseas, but that hasn’t happened.
The Interim Chief Executive of Auckland Transport is to be Dr David Warburton, the Auckland Transition Agency (ATA) announced today.
Dr Warburton, 60, has extensive senior management experience and is currently the chief executive for Australia and New Zealand of infrastructure and consulting company CPG, part of Downer EDI.
He will take up the role in September for a fixed term until 30 June 2012 and will live in Auckland.
Dr Warburton is the former chief executive of Wanganui District Council and serves on both Whanganui and Mid-Central district health boards. He has a PhD in environmental engineering from Massey University.
Dr Warburton said: “Transport is the number one issue faced by many Aucklanders and I’m looking forward to leading the team at Auckland Transport as it plays its part in making Auckland greater.”
ATA Executive Chairman Mark Ford described Dr Warburton as “an outstanding candidate for the role”.
Mr Ford said: “His background includes significant infrastructure leadership and he is experienced in working collaboratively with local government and other stakeholders. His experience will be invaluable to the new organisation as it delivers results for the people of Auckland.”
A former Auckland resident, Dr Warburton said: “I’m looking forward to returning to Auckland after being away for nine years. This is an exciting time for the city and I welcome the opportunity we have to address Auckland’s transport challenges.”
So he’s currently the CEO of part of an infrastructure building company, and formerly he was CEO of a District Council.
I look forward to seeing how Dr Warburton goes, and I hope he can be visionary for Auckland’s transport system in a way that doesn’t come back to “let’s build more roads”.
I have written a number of posts about Flat Bush in the past. For those that don’t know, Flat Bush is a large greenfields development in the southeast corner of Auckland. Over the next 20 or so years around 40,000 people are expected to call Flat Bush home. It approximately covers the area outlined in red in the map below:
As might be reasonably clear from the map above, Flat Bush doesn’t have particularly good transport links with the rest of Auckland. Links with the southern motorway are generally via quite highly congested roads (particularly to the north), while any form of half-decent public transport out in this corner of Auckland is completely non-existent. Bus timetables for the area show that trips between Flat Bush and the CBD are expected to take about an hour and a quarter.
That’s not to say that no thought has gone into the transport problem that Flat Bush creates. A recent NZTA board paper that I’m having a read through at the moment suggests that a lot of time, effort and money has gone into creating a transport network for Flat Bush. However, unfortunately in Auckland what that means is basically “we’ve build a pile of really wide roads for everyone to start driving their cars along and clog up”. Now short of building the much needed, but probably very expensive southeast railway line, it does seem as though Flat Bush’s transport future will be roads based. But I think it’s worthwhile having a look into how much this approach to addressing transport in Flat Bush is costing.
NZTA’s board paper outlines what’s happening and Flat Bush, and does point out that the area doesn’t gain access directly from the state highway network: So what’s it costing to make this new suburb viable in terms of its transport? Well that’s where things start to get expensive: $676 million to be spent on roading in the area is a lot of money. It is true that a significant portion of this money is to be paid for by developers, but that money will be paid for through higher property prices – not just out of thin air.
Of course this money doesn’t cover roading upgrades that will probably be necessary (or at least considered necessary by roading engineers) as a result of putting 40,000 people out in this corner of Auckland. You can add to the amounts above part of the cost of the $1.3 billion AMETI, previous expenditure on Te Irirangi Drive, the Highbrook interchange and so forth.
While it’s obvious that as our city grows we will need to spend money on improving transport infrastructure, I just wonder whether it would be possible to more cheaply accommodate 40,000 people than what we’re seeing with Flat Bush.
An interesting report on the likely effects of Peak Oil on the UK has been released by the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security. Here’s a summary from Going Solar:If the UK’s transport system is considered at risk of being seriously impacted by higher oil prices, I’d hate to even think what the risk is to New Zealand’s highly car dependent transport system.
A great initiative in San Francisco to help price parking spaces more accurately so they’re easier to find. I like the initiatives of adjusting parking prices to be dependent on the level of demand, and I also like how people will be able to check online to see how heavily “parked” the area they’re going to generally is, and also the parking rate they expect to have to pay.
I think we really need to look hard at parking policies here in New Zealand, which generally appear to swing dramatically from one end of the spectrum (there should be millions of “free” parking spaces everywhere) to the other (we should make as much money as we can out of parking fines). It would be interesting to see the results of something like this happening here in Auckland.
The excellent Captain Transit blog has a very interesting post on the fundamental question that all those interested in transport need to have a good think about – what is the best way to fund improvements, maintenance and upgrades to transport infrastructure.
Here’s a part of what he says:
Transportation is a challenge, because it’s a common-pool resource, that benefits everyone but can be hogged by a subgroup. You could fund it from general taxes or conscription, as sidewalks are funded here in New York. But some who don’t walk much object to funding sidewalks; for example, in North Carolina property owners are not required to provide or maintain them, so in many places they are nonexistent. The problem is even clearer if we imagine making all air travel free of charge: we would get people flying from New Jersey to Tahiti every week and using up all the oil.
If you fund transportation as a private good, where the user pays every aspect of transportation including energy, operations, capital construction, capital maintenance and security, then only the very rich will be able to afford it all. The closest example we have to this is in the Dark Ages, when the only people who could safely travel long distances were knights and those under their protection.
If you fund transportation as a club good, then you necessarily exclude the poor from enjoying its benefits, and the members of the club also pay for the economic benefits that are shared by everyone.
Obviously, the solution is some kind of hybrid funding system. You could have transportation security funded out of general taxes, but the construction of highways paid for by vehicle registration fees (club-type funding), and the purchase of vehicles and compensation of operators funded by individuals. The part that’s funded out of general taxes is often controlled by the government, but the parts funded by club taxes or individual resources can either be collected by the government and used to benefit the club or individual. Alternatively, it can be left up to independent organizations to collect the club and individual fees and spend them on transportation.
One problem is that it’s really hard to get the mix right. Should the users pay a single fee, or a fee per unit consumed? If it’s a single fee, that does nothing to encourage conservation. If it’s a fee per unit, that doesn’t take into account the fact that a dollar means a lot less to a rich person than it does to a poor person. This is the classic “regressive” argument against the gas tax or a per-mile tax: why should the government charge a poor person a much larger percentage of their income per unit of energy or road consumed? And why charge a percentage of what someone paid for gas, rather than a fee per unit?
If you ever do get the mix right, it’s not likely to stay right. As cars are becoming more fuel-efficient, people can travel more per gallon of gas, which means that they put more wear and tear on the road than they’re paying for. The cost of asphalt, steel and labor have all varied significantly over the years, not to mention fuel.
In New Zealand different transport projects are funded in different ways. Generally here’s the breakdown:
State Highways are 100% funded by petrol taxes, road-user charges and vehicle licensing fees (this money goes into the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF)).
Local roads are funded from a combination of city/district council rates and NLTF funds.
Public transport subsidies are funded from a combination of regional council rates and NLTF funds.
Public transport improvements (like ferry terminals, railway stations, busways etc.) are funded in a variety of ways depending on the situation. Often they are funded through a combination of city council rates, regional council rates and NLTF funds.
Rail capital projects (like electrification and track upgrades) are funded through KiwiRail, and therefore at the moment out of general central government taxation.
New local roads are generally built by developers when they subdivide an area, before being vested with council whose job it is to maintain them.
Public transport fares also help fund public transport operations, improvements and expansion.
So we have the general “mix” of funding options, or the “hybrid funding system” that Captain Transit talks about in his post. This makes sense too, as the benefits of transport are enjoyed both directly by users (whether they be petrol tax paying drivers or fare paying public transport riders) but also indirectly through the wider benefits brought by enabling people to get around towns, cities and country as a whole and be economically productive. The fact that users don’t fully cover the costs of providing the transport network, requiring a top-up (or that dreaded word, a subsidy) is OK, because there are significant indirect benefits from a functioning public transport network: whether those benefits be economic – through enabling economic activity; environmental – by encouraging modeshift to more environmentally friendly transport options; or social – by providing transport options for those unable to drive or unable to afford a full user-pays system.
Where the debate starts getting interesting is if we look at matters such as whether someone driving at peak times should pay more for the privilege than someone driving at 3am – because the extra roadspace they require is much more costly to provide and if that roadspace isn’t there they impact hugely on others trying to get around by contributing to congestion (remember, you’re never just in the traffic jam, you are the traffic jam). I think there is a good argument for a more fine-tuned method of pricing in that respect, although the practicalities of implementing it seem very difficult. Furthermore, petrol tax actually has a number of advantages in that the more you drive, the bigger your car is and the more you pollute the environment, the more you pay. Secondly, collecting petrol tax is extremely easy compared to collecting any other form of road pricing.
The other interesting point of debate is whether road users should contribute to spending on non-roading projects – particularly projects such as rail capital projects. In the May 2009 Government Policy Statement, the government made the decision that rail capital projects should not be funded by road-users through the NLTF and instead would have to be directly funded through general taxation. Oddly enough, they also decided that because road users benefit from people using trains (as they’re not congesting the roads), NLTF funds would still be available for rail operating costs. In my opinion, there is little logic to this argument – as clearly new rail projects such as the CBD rail tunnel will have significant benefits for road users (for example, it is logical that the petrol tax that I pay driving around on below-capacity roads at the weekend go into a project to provide me with a congestion-free way to get to work during the week when the roads are at capacity).
I’m curious to see what others think on this issue. What is the best, fairest, most efficient and most logical way to pay for transport projects? Have we got the mix right? Does “time-based” road pricing have a place in funding transport projects? Do the benefits of time-based road pricing outweigh the benefits of petrol tax? Does it make any sense to exclude rail capital projects from being funded by road-users? What equity issues may arise from all of this?
Overall, I think that one pot of funding for all projects makes the most sense. The funding pool should be contributed to by all the funding sources at the moment: road-users, public transport users, local councils, regional councils, developers and central government. Each project should be analysed in terms of its benefits – how great will they be and who will enjoy those benefits, and then the projects should be prioritised in a logical manner which ensures what I think should be the most fundamental principle of transport policy:
“The most necessary project gets done first, regardless of type”
We may well wish to have wider criteria for determining “necessity” than just the cost-benefit ratio, but the fundamental principle would be that each project competes against every other project for access to funding. You wouldn’t end up with the silly situation where cycling projects compete only against other cycling projects for a tiny share of funding, while motorway projects only have to be better than other motorway projects to get enormous funding. We would be able to stack up the CBD Rail Tunnel against the Puhoi-Wellsford road to really see which project is the best way to spend that $1.5 billion.
So officially now of those working in the CBD more catch public transport than drive to work every day. This is a useful statistic to mention next time someone tries to disparage public transport: imagine twice the number of traffic lanes into the CBD, imagine twice as much of the city dedicated to carparking – that’s what would happen without public transport. We pretty much wouldn’t have a CBD for all the roads and parking buildings.
With around 33,000 public transport trips into the CBD at peak times at the moment, and almost all additional trips by 2031 and 2051 into the CBD also being by public transport, that suggests we’re going to need to at least double the PT capacity over the next 20 years. The argument for the CBD rail tunnel becomes pretty clear.
For all those championing the CBD rail tunnel, what we really need to focus on is changing Cabinet Minute (09) 8/11-14 and allowing rail capital projects to once again tap into the NZTA funding pool. That will enable the money freed up by a 
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