First, here are some good extracts from yesterday’s editorial:

[last week]…the Herald said the current proposal could not stand. This week’s articles on the extent of the work to be undertaken by the CCOs and the powers at their disposal have served only to reinforce that verdict.

In several ways, they will bring an undemocratic element to the Super City. First, they will operate out of the public eye and be virtually unanswerable to Aucklanders. They can meet behind closed doors, and do not have to issue agendas and minutes, apparently to lighten the administrative burden.

Such a paltry attempt at an explanation can only underpin the view that the directors of the CCOs are deliberately being cushioned from local pressure and political influence. In no way can this be healthy.

The “secrecy” of how Auckland Transport and the other CCOs are proposed to operate is to me the most unpalatable part of the proposal and it is relatively easy to fix. Somewhat surprisingly, neither Rodney Hide nor Steven Joyce have shown any inkling to make changes to this aspect of the CCOs.

There are more fundamental issues here though, as the editorial explains further:

There is also no guarantee that Super City mayors will be able to deliver the platforms on which they were elected. The Auckland Council will also find its hands tied.

Under the third and final Super City bill, the transport CCO can, for example, prohibit the council from exercising any transport functions unless it delegates them. The directors wielding this power will, in the first instance, be largely appointed by Mr Hide and Mr Joyce. Thereafter, the council will appoint but not directly control them.

In essence, the CCO boards will run more than 75 per cent of services in the Super City at arm’s length from its elected representatives. The councillors will be restricted to writing spatial plans and statements of intents with the CCOs. Even the most worthy of these will be a pallid expression of democracy when every level of the decision-making is in the hands of unelected directors. Local-body politicians of every hue, including the leading mayoral aspirants, John Banks and Len Brown, have voiced their concern over this flight from democracy. They sense, correctly, that this is the recipe for a frustrated and disappointed citizenry.

In response, the Government has hinted at minor changes to make the CCOs more accountable to the council and ratepayers. But there has been no sign that it might, say, shelve the transport CCO or limit the waterfront agency to development issues. It seems resolved to impose this model on Auckland.

Better sense must prevail. If not, Aucklanders will, indeed, feel locked out of the major decisions on their city’s future. It is hard to think of the Super City starting life under a more serious handicap.

There has been quite a lot of debate about whether you want to only have the high order strategic parts of transport politicised and debated, or whether the more operational and delivery elements should also be under the control of the council. While certainly there are poor decisions made by politicians when it comes to transport matters, such as the Helensville rail service and cutbacks to bus lanes along Tamaki Drive, this has to be balanced against what is lost when these operational matters are put behind closed doors. Will unelected officials give as much of a damn about how unreliable Auckland’s train services are as an elected politician would? Experience so far this year suggests not.

Nevertheless, on balance I think that ARTA has been good for Auckland, having an agency that is dedicated to improving transport has had its benefits. But then it’s fairly strongly (though arguably not strongly enough) under the control of the ARC. So having some level of structural separation can be a good thing, but I guess the question is where you draw the line between what should be “in” council and what shouldn’t be. That is a difficult question, and surely one should err on the side of more political accountability rather than less. The current proposal errs enormously the other way.

The reason to do this is perfectly illustrated by the concerns of mayoral candidates Len Brown and John Banks. Clearly, in Auckland transport is going to either be election issue number one or very damn close to it. While both candidates seem sensible in their approach to the need for a balanced transport system (rather than the roadsfest central government seems keen on), there will undoubtedly be debates about which project should get priority, which candidate’s going to be best at getting the CBD rail tunnel built, which candidate’s going to ensure the reliability of trains in Auckland’s improved, which candidate’s going to promote more bus lanes and so forth. The same will be true of all the councillor candidates – who will actually be pretty powerful politicians given how few of them there are. And yet, while we could end up electing a hugely pro public transport council (or anti-public transport I suppose, although that seems unlikely in my opinion) they may be powerless to actually implement the policies on which they were elected. That just seems wrong.

Another article in yesterday’s paper, by John Roughan, explained in a very well thought out manner, why having CCOs for debatable issues like transport and the development of the waterfront is a bad idea:

Non-elected boards have worked well for government departments that can charge for their services, and for the chargeable services of local government. They can be given a measurable financial objective and left to decide how to organise and price the service to meet it.

The system works when the public doesn’t care how the service is organised so long as it remains reliable. The boards that will manage the Auckland Council’s property, water supply, stadiums, events and the like, should be fine.

But the system is problematic when the public cares about the means to an end. It is the means, not the ends, of solving traffic congestion or developing a public waterfront that are likely to arouse public interest and political disagreement. The ends are readily agreed.

While I disagree with other parts of Roughan’s article, I think he’s hit the nail on the head here in distinguishing between situations where CCOs make sense and situations where they don’t. It we compare water to transport, the difference becomes most clear. With water (wastewater and water supply) we don’t really care exactly how we get clean water, or how our wastewater is disposed of, as long as the water is good quality, the wastewater doesn’t end up in our harbours and it’s all done as cheaply as possible. Transport is hugely different to this, as while we are likely to all agree that the “ends” of less congestion, greater choice and so forth are what we’re aiming for, we really do care how we get there.

Whether we try to build our way out of congestion through massive motorway investment, or whether we build new railway lines, or whether we focus on improving bus lanes or whatever, are all matters of great public interest and debate. There is no clear right and wrong answer, the problem is not one that some engineer can simply work out with a computer programme and the different paths we take to getting the outcome we’re all aiming for will have tremendous impacts on people’s lives. It’s not a matter of debating whether this water pipe is plastic or concrete, transport is about debating issues that affect lives in a huge number of different ways. It’s complicated, it’s ugly, it’s debatable – and that’s why it needs to be accountable, transparent and democratic.

Today’s Herald on Sunday has an editorial that again looks at the CCOs. While it’s largely similar to previous articles, it does involve some interesting parts:

But an unelected mega-board looking after transport is even more chilling: if one thing unites Aucklanders it is the lament about how hard it is to get around the place, whether by public or private transport. Neither area is one that any sane Aucklander would want under the control of someone beyond the reach of electoral accountability. Ditto water, council investments, economic development, regional facilities and the city’s property holdings.

There is nothing yet in the proposed organisational set-up that says the council – and by extension the voter – will not be able to exercise control over these boards. But there is nothing explicitly to say that they will, either. Hide and his Cabinet colleague, Transport Minister Steven Joyce, have been quick to make placatory noises: in a jointly written op-ed piece in the Herald, they said that “transparency and accountability is [sic] a key feature” of the plan. But if the lines of accountability are not plainly laid down, that is so much cant. These boards are called “council-controlled organisations” (or CCOs), but there is no provision for the “council” to exercise any “control” over the “organisations”. The ministers seek to respond by saying “Trust us: we know what we’re doing”. We say “yeah right”.

It will certainly be interesting to see what changes, if any, come out of the select committee analysing the legislation that is setting all of this up. They report back to parliament on May 4th.

While it’s obvious that NZTA are going to fairly significant lengths to mitigate the adverse effects of the project, there are still a number of unresolved matters in my opinion, a number of areas where I think there could be relatively minor design tweak that could lead to significant benefits, as well as some fundamental problems I have with aspects of the proposal that unfortunately probably won’t be changed, but at least I can reserve “I told you so” rights in future years. This post will focus on the more fundamental matters – in particular the works to state highway 16 – while future posts will talk about other matters.

The biggest problem I have with the upgrade is not actually the Waterview Connection, but rather the upgrades to State Highway 16 that are occurring in conjunction with the SH20 actual Waterview Connection. I’m not exactly sure why these two projects have been bundled together, although the thinking is that because the Waterview Connection will feed extra traffic onto SH16, it needs to be widened (the causeway between Pt Chev and Rosebank also needs to be raised up a bit). And not widened by just a little bit either, widened by three lanes as shown in the diagram below: The end result will be a nine lane wide motorway between Pt Chevalier and Te Atatu: five lanes westbound and four lanes eastbound. Inevitably, within a few years this super-wide motorway will become congested just as every other motorway widening project around Auckland has never eliminated congestion – just pushed it back a little bit until induced demand kicked in.

I pointed this out to many of the NZTA staff at the expo, and how silly it seemed to effectively flush $800 million down the toilet on widening a motorway that will become congested again within a few years. They pointed out that some of the work is necessary anyway, such as raising the causeway, and probably one additional westbound lane will be necessary to soak up vehicles from SH20. They also pointed out that bus “shoulder lanes” would be provided. However, the problem with bus shoulder lanes is that whenever they come up to a road overbridge or an on-ramp or an off-ramp they end abruptly, the bus needs to pull out into traffic again and much of the benefit is lost. Furthermore, bus drivers (understandably) wanting to avoid having to pull out into motorway traffic often simply avoid the shoulder lanes. In short, shoulder lanes are of limited benefit to buses and generally are just sop to shut public transport advocates up (kinda the same process as “future proofed for light rail”).

As I have detailed previously, it seems quite unbelievable that we’re spending around $800 million on upgrading state highway 16 yet not build a busway. The Northwestern Motorway is perfect for a busway, as there are station opportunities at St Lukes, Pt Chevalier, Te Atatu, Lincoln Road, Massey and Westgate just sitting there as I explained last year. Furthermore, it seems as though the problem isn’t that NZTA don’t want to build a busway, but that ARTA/ARC have only ever designated state highway 16 as a “Quality Transit Network (QTN)” rather than a “Rapid Transit Network (RTN)”. In terms of busways/lanes, apparently QTN means shoulder lanes and RTN means full busway (like the Northern Busway). Therefore, if state highway 16 were to be designated as an RTN then NZTA would be somewhat forced into at least strongly considering putting a busway along there.

Most of the arguments put up against SH16 being an RTN are along the lines of “but the train line is the RTN out west” or that “the busway would cannibalise patronage on the train system.” What this misses is the completely different alignments of the two. How many people living in Pt Chevalier take the train to work? How many in Te Atatu? How many in Massey? How many in Westgate? The answer all up is probably a big fat zero. They either drive or they use the incredibly messy, slow and complex system of buses that serves those parts of West Auckland at the moment.

This is clearly shown in the map below, with the Western Line shown in green and the route of a possible northwest busway shown in red. West of Pt Chevalier, the two are never less than three kilometres apart (the yellow stars indicate possible busway station sites):

Now I wouldn’t argue that the northwest busway is one of the most pressing public transport projects in Auckland, and perhaps that is why it has been ignored by just about everyone as a possibility, but the fact remains that NZTA is going to be spending $800 million here. Shouldn’t we at least ensure that money is spent on something that will have long-term benefits of giving people more transport choices (like the rampantly successful Northern Busway) rather than on simply widening SH16 and watching all that extra capacity being eaten up by induced demand?

The response I got today from most NZTA staff about this situation was that a busway should be considered as “another project”. The problem with that approach is that the money for the future busway is being spent on pointlessly widening SH16. I don’t think it’s that likely we’ll spend $800 million here on widening the motorway and then in 10 years spend another $600 million on putting a busway next to our superwide (but of course now super-congested) motorway. If we want the busway we need to do it now.

Why aren’t we doing that? Why are we flushing $800 million down the toilet widening SH16 instead?

Work is now well underway on the rehabilitation of the Onehunga Branch Line, which is scheduled to open for passenger rail services in the first half of 2011.

I sincerely hope this is not the case. The Onehunga Line was meant to open last year. Come on ARTA, get it together.

Analysis of the proposed Auckland CBD rail tunnel project, and a potential modification to increase capacity and operational performance

The Auckland rail system is currently approaching capacity due to the limit on the number of trains that can fit through the twin-track approach to Britomart station. A CBD tunnel project is being investigated to connect Britomart with the Western Line at Mt Eden via the central city. This will provide two more tracks accessing Britomart allowing an increase in system capacity as well as shortening the route of the western line while providing greater accessibility to the rail system via three new stations under the CBD. The project represents the most significant investment in the history of Auckland passenger rail and will form the centre piece of the network for generations to come.

However, it is identified that the proposal connection to Britomart has some unnecessary drawbacks despite the substantial capital investment, namely that the expansion in capacity will be less than double the current limited capacity, and that the central capacity would still be only two-thirds of the capacity of the existing suburban system. Furthermore conflict between through-running and terminating trains for slots in the existing Britomart approach tunnel would greatly limit the peak capacity of the Auckland rail network, as terminating trains must necessarily occupy two slots on existing approach tunnel as they enter and exit via the same route. Other drawbacks include the inter-mixing of operationally different ‘rapid transit’ and locomotive hauled trains at Britomart, the reduction in the potential for Britomart to function as a regional terminus, and the need to retrofit Britomart to support rapid transit style services on platforms 1 and 5 at great expense. There is also a strategic drawback of the proposal. While the system is approaching capacity now, no new capacity would be available until the entirety of the project was complete at a lead time of 7 to 10 years and a cost of approximately $1.5 billion dollars. This represents a significant period of unrealisable potential patronage growth on the network.

A modification to the CBD tunnel concept is proposed to address these drawbacks. It is proposed that the CBD tunnel be extended a further 900m eastward connect directly to Quay Park junction via a cut-and-cover tunnel under Quay Street. The existing Britomart station and approach tracks would be bypassed, while a new pair of tunnel platforms would be built adjacent to Britomart and connected to the existing station concourses via short underpasses.

The existing Britomart station and its approach tunnel would be untouched and continue to operate in their current capacity as terminal station for diesel and electric powered services, while all services using the CBD tunnel would use the new purpose-built ‘rapid transit’ platforms adjacent. Connecting the eastern end of the tunnel to Quay Park junction via a new pair of tracks (rather than the existing Britomart approach tracks) would provide triple the current system capacity (rather than double), and would therefore match the capacity at the core of the system to that at the periphery. This would allow the CBD tunnel to be utilised to its fullest capacity for electric suburban rapid transit services while allowing the existing station to accommodate various diesel or electric express, regional and intercity services.

The modified proposal also allows for capital expenditure and capacity increases to be introduced in stages. As a first stage the initial 900m cut-and-cover tunnel and new platforms adjacent to Britomart could be constructed and opened first, allowing a doubling of system capacity with a 3-4 year lead time and a cost of approximately $250 million dollars. This would allow rail patronage to continue to grow while the second stage extension through the CBD to Mt Eden was being constructed.

The modification represents the addition of 900m of new tunnel and an fourth pair of underground platforms to the existing proposal at an estimated increase in total project cost of 15-20%. However, the modification would provide 100% more capacity over the existing proposal plus considerable benefits in terms of in operational flexibility and project staging. Therefore the relatively minor additional expenditure of the modified proposal may result in greatly improved outcomes in cost-benefit analysis, particularly if long term growth over the lifetime of the infrastructure is taken into account. Green & Yellow Lines – existing tracks into Britomart
Blue Line – track from Newmarket & Orakei heading into CBD rail tunnel
Red Line – track from CBD rail tunnel heading to Newmarket & Orakei
Black lines – indications of pedestrian access points to new station & station outline

I certainly agree with Nick that the problems experienced on the rail network generally aren’t ARTA’s fault, and perhaps I was being a tad harsh on them. But certainly it seems as though things could be done quite a lot better in a number of areas – both to minimise the inconvenience of delays, to make people feel as though the various agencies involved are really trying their best to fix things up, and to also offer some hope that things will get better some time before 2013 when electrification is completed. Quite simply, I think people want to know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

A good example of how to do this was shown last year when the Central Connector bus lanes were being built along Symonds Street. The construction did cause chaos and mayhem, but there was pretty good signage around explaining what was going on, people knew well in advance when the connector would be open and what benefits it would bring. In particular I remember a sign that read “Road Works Today so our Roads Work Tomorrow” which I thought was quite clever.

And there is a lot for rail passengers to look forwards to in the next few months. Next month Grafton station will open, which means that the stretch of single-track between Newmarket and Boston Road will be history. This should improve reliability of the Western Line quite significantly. Beyond that, in July the Onehunga Line will supposedly open (I’ll believe it when I see the station under construction) opening up a whole new corner of Auckland to the rail system. Later in the year, around September/October the New Lynn station will be completed – meaning the complete elimination of single-track on the Western Line. Oh, and some time in there the new Avondale station will open in a far more convenient location to the town centre.

It also seems as though in July we’ll see a new and improved rail timetable, perhaps even with 10 minute frequencies on the Southern and Eastern lines at peak hour (that’s the rumour I’ve heard anyway). Hopefully we’ll also see trains running later at nights, and more weekend services on the Western Line in particular (this might only come after double-tracking is completed in October). Beyond that, the Manukau Branch Line will open some time next year.

The point being that there is a lot to look forward to, and also that many of these improvements (such as the elimination of stretches of single-track on the Western Line) will lead to greater reliability on the rail system. Yet outside of a pretty small circle of transport nerds like myself, I don’t know how many people know how close we are to completing many projects that have been going on for years now. They’re also unlikely to know about timetable improvements or anything like that. They can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I also think that ARTA needs to get together with KiwiRail and Veolia to work out exactly what’s causing the problems that seem to have been plaguing the rail system throughout this year. Obviously some of the problems won’t have an easy solution, but surely some of them might and effort should be going into eliminating those small issues. Even if we can reduce the number of problems by 20%, that’s well worth the effort. And ARTA should tell us about all of this, they should let the customer know that they’re working hard to fix the issues: that KiwiRail has analysed exactly where points failures occur most frequently and is doing something about it; that Veolia and ARTA are working to identify their most unreliable trains and using them as infrequently as possible or undertaking additional maintenance to reduce the number of mechanical faults; or ensuring that when staff on a train apologise for a delay they actually do so in a way that sounds like they mean it.

It’s annoying enough to experience problems on the rail network, but feeling as though none of the agencies responsible give a damn is like adding insult to injury. For this approach to work it has to be genuine though, ARTA really does have to get together with KiwiRail and identify why there are over 200 points failures on the Auckland rail network each year and establish a process of doing something to reduce this number, they really do have to find ways to communicate better to passengers when things are going wrong, how long the delay will be, what other options people have and so forth. Ultimately, I do believe that ARTA cares about its passengers – but they need to show that better.

What do others think? What could ARTA do better here, aside from the obvious of ensuring that the problems didn’t happen in the first place?

• It’s a good boost to off-peak public transport services by giving them the patronage they need to operate at decent frequencies.
• In places like Waiheke Island the local economy has significantly benefited from travellers taking the ferry for free.
• It enables those too frail to drive to still be well involved in their communities by being able to get around for free.
• It’s just a damn nice thing to do.

However, its costs have turned out to be fairly significant – around $18 million a year, of which $2 million alone is for the Waiheke ferries.

As a result of this cost, the government and NZTA are currently reviewing the scheme:

Transport Minister Steven Joyce says the government is committed to the scheme but some changes will need to be made because it is currently stand on track to exceed the available budget.

“The highest priority of the review process is to consider how to keep the scheme within the available budget of $18 million a year, while continuing to provide improved mobility for older people.”

Among other things, officials will consider:
• the level of reimbursement operators and councils receive
• how “off peak” should be defined
• the eligibility of certain high cost services- including the Waiheke ferry and the train service between Wellington and the Wairarapa

“The transport concession of the SuperGold card has an annual budget of $18 million dollars across the country – $2 million of that is currently spent on the Waiheke ferry alone,” says Mr Joyce.

The current review began in October last year and is expected to be complete by May of this year.

I reckon it’s pretty obvious why the costs have blown out, and it is symptomatic of what is wrong with public transport in Auckland at the moment. Because of the way public transport currently operates, generally routes are either subsidised or commercial (a small minority are gross-contracted where ARTA pays a set fee to an operator to provide the service and ARTA gets the money from fares). Subsidised routes are those where fares are ‘topped up’ by ARTA so that a decent service can be provided, while commercial routes effectively operate outside ARTA’s control.

This system will eventually be changed by the Public Transport Management Act to make it possible for all services to be ‘gross contracted’. This Act was passed in 2008 but hasn’t really taken effect much yet because… well I’m not exactly sure why, something to do with the timing of contracts being rolled over I think. Steven Joyce has indicated he doesn’t really like the PTMA very much, and is likely to amend it at least to some extent to reintroduce the current distinction between commercial and subsidised services, while still retaining a greater level of control over commercial services than currently exists.

But anyway, how does this all relate to the Super Gold Card? Well, most services that operate off-peak are subsidised services, meaning that ARTA assists the operator in making providing the service commercially viable. This happens everywhere around the world and is done to recognise the wider benefits that public transport provides, such as reducing congestion, improving environmental outcomes and alleviating the need to build more and more roads. When someone with a Super Gold Card gets on a bus, train or ferry their full fare is paid directly by NZTA to the operator. So let’s say the Super Gold Card doubles the number of elderly using public transport, then the operator receives twice as much money as they used to – and as a bonus doesn’t have to worry about handling it as NZTA send around a big fat cheque every once in a while.

What doesn’t happen, as far as I know, is a reduction in the amount of subsidy paid by ARTA (and NZTA who in another capacity help fund ARTA).So effectively the operator gets to “double-dip” on the public purse – enjoying both the increased amount of money they’re getting through the Super Gold Card scheme while still getting to keep all their previous subsidies. No wonder companies like NZ Bus have advertised like crazy to get elderly to use the Super Gold Card, it’s a win-win situation for them and they get to make out like bandits with the extra cash.

The solution is pretty obvious in my opinion, and that is for all services to become gross-contracted by ARTA. If this happened then the Super Gold Card money would go directly to ARTA and would help off-set the costs of contracting the service in the first place. Each dollar of Super Gold Card money would actually go into improving the provision of public transport in Auckland, rather than into the rather deep pockets of the various service operators. There would be no “double-dipping” by the operators and either the amount of NZTA funds required for the Super Gold Card could be reduced, or (preferably) the extra cash could go into helping to fund improved public transport services – like filling that $11 million hole in ARTA’s rail budget.

It beggars belief that Steven Joyce is so keen to improve the cost-effectiveness of public transport through crude measures such as imposing arbitrary farebox recovery ratios that (by forcing higher fares and therefore reducing patronage) could end up making public transport even less economically viable, while at the same time is also looking to weaken the very piece of legislation (the PTMA) that is designed to improve the cost-effectiveness of public transport.

The main cause of all this angst was that the Local Government Commission were meant to ensure that no ward boundary was over or under represented by any more than 10%. This means that in determining the make-up of the future Auckland Council, whether my vote living in one part of the city was worth approximately the same as someone’s vote living elsewhere in the city. At their first crack, the LGC did a shocking job, and a huge number of the wards were vastly over or under represented. Submissions hammered them for this, as they acknowledge themselves:

We received a number of submissions on councillor representation and particularly the variation in fair representation ratios between the proposed wards. We agree that fair representation is very important. Consequently, while still providing for effective representation of communities of interest, we have made adjustments to ensure wards now more closely comply with the ‘+/-10% fair representation rule’. We believe this will assist achievement of our objective of public understanding of representation arrangements and help promote effective community engagement.

But have they really made things that much better? I don’t think so, and if you have a look at the table which details how under of over-represented each place is, there are still a large number of areas that fall outside that 10% threshold.

March 2010 final version:

The important column to look at is the one on the right, showing the deviation from the average population per councillor. Out of the 13 wards to be created, no fewer than six have a deviation of greater than 10%. That’s almost half of them. The table below shows the November proposal, and you can see that there have been some improvements, but really it’s still outrageous that 80,000 people in the Waitemata and Gulf Ward are only represented to the same extent that 54,000 people in the Rodney Ward are. That’s not fair democracy.

November 2009 draft version:

Some of the other changes that have been made make some sense. Orakei has been split off from Tamaki-Maungakiekie, and thankfully the central Auckland ward has been renamed from Mangawhau to Waitemata and Gulf. It seemed insane for it to be called Mangawhau (Mt Eden), when Mt Eden wasn’t even in it!

However, in general I still think the LGC have done an incredibly lousy job here. How hard can it be to ensure equal and fair representation across the different wards? What’s stopping them from shifting another 5,000 people from Manukau into Manurewa-Papakura to even up those two wards? What’s stopping them shifting more of Waitakere into Albany (some has been shifted) to ensure that those match up more evenly. I realise that some effort has gone into ensuring that the boundaries match “communities of interest”, but I actually think that’s far more important for the local boards than for the wards. The ward boundaries are about democratic equality, and the way they’ve been established is not fair.

Furthermore, if you look at the areas that are over-represented and under-represented it would seem there’s quite a political bias (Orakei excepted). Which is very worrying and suspicious.

Prefered Route Chosen for Transformational CBD Rail Loop Project
11 Mar 2010

A preferred route has now been identified for Auckland’s proposed CBD Rail Loop tunnel. The route was chosen out of three shortlisted options identified by consultants acting on behalf of ARTA and KiwiRail.

The tunnel would run between Mt Eden and Britomart, taking in Khyber Pass Road, Symonds Street and Karangahape Road, with the opportunity for three train station locations at Symonds Street/Khyber Pass Road; Karangahape Road/Pitt Street and on Albert Street between Victoria and Wellesley Streets (Refer to diagram attached).

The chairman of ARTA, Mr Rabin Rabindran says the project is regionally based and the preferred option has been discussed with the Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council. It has also been discussed with the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).

Mr Rabindran said, “The next step in the study will be to investigate potential costs and economic benefits that the tunnel would deliver to the region.

“Naturally we need to ensure there is a sound business case to support the project and have a clear understanding of the level of investment required to bring it into reality before we proceed to the next step.

“The project takes into consideration management of Auckland’s projected population growth to well over two million over the next four decades, which is over 70 per cent of New Zealand’s total projected growth”.

Mr Rabindran said, “This project for Auckland, made possible by the Government’s decision to electrify Auckland’s rail network is a transformational project for the region with the ability to provide significant economic, social and environmental benefits. These benefits would accrue to the whole of the region”.

KiwiRail chairman Jim Bolger says the study currently underway is a first step in the process of identifying and protecting the route for future construction.

“If we are to ensure rail is able to play its part in Auckland’s transport mix, both now and into the future we need to ensure the network has reasonable reach and flexibility.

“There is still a long way to go with this project, but it is vital that we take the necessary steps to protect the route for the future.

“The option chosen has the three station locations under public roads with the locations optimising redevelopment and growth opportunities for economic productivity and patronage; the least number of curves which means lower costs for the tunnel boring machine and better operational speed for trains thus reducing operational costs”.

The Chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee said. “The CBD loop tunnel will not only radically boost the efficiency of Auckland’s commuter rail network and nearly double the throughput of trains through Britomart, but a metro rail really will be the making of Auckland, revitalising the CBD and giving Auckland a truly international feel. The suggestion of running the line under upper Symonds Street is a stroke of brilliance –and will certainly revitalise this wonderful old part of the city”.

Mayor of Auckland, John Banks said, “Excellent urban regeneration and economic development opportunities are available around the proposed three station locations. This is particularly important given Auckland’s projected population growth. Opportunities include redevelopment work around K’Road with the station centrally located on a ridge between Grafton Hospital and Ponsonby Road.

“Current population levels within 500 metres of the K’Road station are in the region of 7,000 employees and 2,500 residents. With future amendments to the existing zoning there is capacity to provide for approximately 20,000 employees and 7,000 residents. Similar opportunities exist around Newton while around the proposed Aotea Station there is the capacity to more than double the employment opportunities from 40,000 to over 80,000”.

“While further analysis is required, at this stage train patronage projections out to 2016 and 2041 for these three train stations indicate strong potential growth which is driven by the station locations in the heart of the CBD. This will provide easy walking distance to all the CBD’s commercial, tourist, residential and educational opportunities as well as allowing more trains to use the network by unlocking the constraint of Britomart being a dead end station and doubling its capacity”, said Mr Banks.

Mr Rabindran says: “The next step in the project will progress concept design work to identify a required footprint and a business case which we regard as a key piece of work to identify the value to the public and private investment required to bring this project into reality. Projects like this have the potential to lift land values and dramatically boost economic productivity through focussed regional and government sector investment in infrastructure and services. Earlier investigations have shown the potential benefits of this project are likely to significantly outweigh its costs. This work will be undertaken from March to September this year with Phase Three, preparation of the notice of requirement documentation, completed by December this year”.

Mr Rabindran said the total cost of the project had not yet been finalised. Funding for the project would need to be negotiated between the region and the government, however in light of Auckland’s burgeoning population growth of almost an additional million people by 2050; forward planning for the region was not only prudent but essential.

Before I get on to discuss the details of the actual alignment itself, it’s worth commenting on the press release above. I have underlined various parts of it which I think are particularly noteworthy, in that they refer to the significant benefits that will arise from this project, in particular the significant economic benefits that it will bring to the whole Auckland region.

I agree with Rabin Rabindran that the project is transformational for Auckland. There is so much benefit to be had from Auckland having a stronger core, as it will reduce the requirement for people to drive significant distances from one side of the city to the other, it will improve the viability of public transport in general if more than 12% of the region’s jobs are located in the CBD and it will also have other longer term benefits such as helping to create a more vibrant city centre and giving the CBD a critical mass that could eventually lead to significant economic benefits as more and more employment opportunities are available within close proximity of each other. The most successful cities at regenerating over recent years internationally, such as Melbourne and Vancouver, have a very strong urban core with lots of people and jobs creating a vibrancy that leads to massive long-term economic benefits.

The opportunity for significant urban regeneration in areas around the stations, particularly around K Road and Newton station, would also have massive economic benefits. As I explained in a blog post a few weeks back, putting a station in Newton means that whole area could effectively become an extension of the CBD. This kind of urban development in Auckland is exactly what our current growth strategies envisage – significant intensification in the CBD and in fringe-CBD areas where appropriate, as well as significant intensification in various other nodes along the rail corridor. But this kind of urban outcome is not going to happen by itself, we need the infrastructure investment to work with the development strategies to make it happen. Which is exactly what the CBD rail tunnel does.

Turning to the alignment chosen, this is shown in the map below:

This is pretty much what was expected, and the only real difference between the three options preferred by the previous stage of the study was whether the K Road station would be next to the corner with Pitt Street or the corner with Queen Street. While a Queen St location may have been better from some perspectives (linking with our main street after all) I think that technical factors made that option difficult. In any case I don’t think it matters too much, as the corner of K Road and Pitt Street does very much come across as the heart of that part of the city.

I await with great interest to see the results of the business case study into this. I would be extremely surprised if this project doesn’t come up with a far better business case than the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”. In which case, there should be some serious questions asked why we’re spending $1.4 billion there instead of here.

AA PetrolWatch spokesman Mark Stockdale told NZPA the weaker exchange rate was partly to blame for the price rise.

Petrol was “hitting an uncomfortable price point” and motorists would be feeling nervous after prices passed $1.80, he said.

Until the rises of last week retail fuel prices had remained unchanged since January 19, when they fell 3c a litre across the board.

Crude oil and refined petrol prices rose between 4 and 6 per cent during February, with refined diesel up 10 per cent – reducing oil company importers’ margins.

In June 2008 there was a record fuel price jump of 12c per litre in just 48 hours. By the end of the month, petrol was selling at $2.11 per litre.

I don’t expect prices to go above $2 a litre any time particularly soon. The February 2010 “OilWatch Monthly” indicates that the amount of oil being produced is still well down on its mid 2008 peak, meaning that global demand for oil still has not hit uncomfortable heights of 87-88 million barrels a day, instead settling around 85-86 million, as shown in the graph below: In particular, the second graph shows that OPEC production is significantly less than it was in 2008. As a result, OPEC has some significant spare capacity that they can turn on to ease price issues should they so please, so there’s no real worry of a sharp spike for now.

However, the question in my mind is what happens when demand starts to jump above that 88 million barrels a day that was the max output during July 2008 when prices went completely nuts? That’s when I think things could get interesting again, with the result probably being that either prices will go incredibly high again (maybe even higher than July 2008) and stay there, or that the high prices will kick off another financial crisis like what happened in 2008, and prices will crash as a result.

I do wonder what petrol price would make Steven Joyce start to worry about the sense of spending $11 billion over the next decade on motorways. $2.50 a litre maybe? Or $3?

However, perhaps what it even more important than implementation of the actual integrated ticketing system is the design of an integrated fare system for Auckland. What’s the difference between the two? Well the fare system will establish what kind of fares are available, whether we continue to have a “stage-based” system or shift to a “zone-based” system like there is in cities such as Melbourne and London, whether we have fare capping, what kinds of unlimited travel passes will be available and so forth. All the integrated ticketing part of this is getting the right software and hardware in place to implement the fare system.

I’m quite curious to explore what an integrated fare system would look like in Auckland. I have outlined my thoughts on this matter a few times in the past, as well as the matters what will need to be considered when putting together the fare system. It might be worthwhile stepping back from the end-point of coming up with various different types of tickets that should be available to answer some more fundamental questions, and then to examine possible options that would help achieve what the fundamental goals are. So let’s have a look first at what I think should/would be the aims of any integrated fare system in Auckland:

1. Complete multi-modal and multi-operator integration (same ticket can be used on any bus, train or ferry in the Auckland region.
2. The fare system should be designed to increase patronage and encourage more people to use public transport.
3. The fare system should, in particular, make it easier for people to transfer between one service and another.
4. The fare system should be generally revenue neutral compared to the current system, or if possible generate even more revenue.
5. The fare system should seek to maximise the efficiency of the public transport resource.
6. The fare system should ensure riders get ‘the best deal’.

Let’s look at each of these matters in turn in more detail:

Multi-modal, multi-operator integration:

To me this aspect is fundamental to creating an integrated ticketing system. Unless you can use your particular ticket on any bus, train or ferry then you don’t have an integrated ticketing system. However, in a way I don’t think it’s enough to simply say that there must be a ticketing option that works on all possible transport options, as we actually already have that in the form of the Discovery Pass (just that nobody uses it because it’s really expensive and incredibly poorly marketed). The point is that whether I buy a multi-journey pass, a monthly pass, a weekly pass or use a stored value system it needs to be valid on all buses, trains and ferries in the Auckland region.

I have a worry that what we could end up with is having an integrated stored value system, but any other ticketing options will remain in the disjointed mess they currently are. This would be similar to the situation where you can call a Telecom cellphone from a Vodafone one, but many of the special deals apply to the people you’re calling being with the same company as you. I wouldn’t want to see NZ Bus offering their own ticketing passes alongside a citywide integrated fare system as that would be incredibly confusing and not much better than where we are at the moment.

Increasing patronage:

Increasing patronage levels and encouraging more people to use public transport is, of course, the ultimate goal of any improvements made, and it will be a complex process to achieve this outcome. However, there are a few things that I think would encourage more people to use public transport, but perhaps even more specifically, to encourage those who do use public transport to use it more often. To get those who catch the bus or train to work during the week also catching them to shopping malls on the weekend. Or to get school kids using public transport to visit their friends after school and so forth.

There are a few ways I think a fare system could help achieve this goal. The first is to get as many people as possible purchasing “unlimited travel” weekly and monthly passes. Customers who purchase these passes are precious, in the same way as subscribers are precious to those who publish magazines and newspapers – because they are your core base. These people will want to get the best value for money out of their pass so they will want to use them as often as possible. This means that they might use public transport more at the weekends or in the evenings than they would otherwise, because they’ve effectively already paid for the trip. At the moment in Auckland it’s only really worthwhile purchasing a monthly pass if you live three stages or more from your destination, as otherwise the numbers stack up. If we had more options for unlimited travel passes then I think more people would use them (unlimited travel within a particular number of zones if we’re using a zone system for example.

Another way of boosting patronage is through time-based rather than trip-based fares. This links in with the point below about making transfers easier, because if one ticket effectively bought you two hours of travel, rather than one entry onto a bus or train, then the public transport system would become that much more useful to you as connecting services would effectively act as simple the second part to your trip, rather than another trip entirely. As I explained a few weeks back, this brings the network effect into play, which potentially hugely improves the attractiveness of public transport. Which leads to higher patronage.

Making transfers easier:

As noted above, one of the most important tasks of a new fare system will be to make the process of transfering easier. ARTA’s long term plans for public transport in Auckland do rely upon transfering between trunk and feeder services a lot more than we see at the moment, which is definitely the right approach so that resources can be used far more efficiently. However, as Paul Mees has said: “…from the passenger’s point of view, transferring between services is an inconvenience: requiring an extra fare for the disservice is like adding insult to injury”.

Having time-based ticketing, based around a zone system where the city is divided into chunks and passengers pay according to how many zones their trip passes through in a 2 hour, daily or whatever time period regardless of how many times they get on or off a bus or train is absolutely critical here. Unless our future fares system makes transfering dramatically easier then it will be a failure, no doubt about that.

Revenue neutral or better:

While ideally we would all like a new ticketing system to make our trips cheaper, I think it has to be recognised that ARTA does not have a huge pile of funding available to make up for any loss of revenue, so therefore the changes will have to be revenue neutral at worst.

Now this does not necessarily mean that fares have to go up. Mobile phone companies do not need to raise the per-minute rates for calling in order to make more money – what they do is try to offer options that will get people calling more often or using their phone for more stuff that is valuable enough to the user for them to be charged. The same sort of thinking should apply to public transport I think, in that there is a need to think cleverly about ways to increase revenue. For example, if you have 30 people willing to pay $5 for a particular trip, but 50 people would take the trip if it cost $4, then you’re actually pretty stupid to keep charging $5 for the trip as you’re effectively giving away $50 in revenue. I’m no expert of the price elasticity of public transport patronage in Auckland, but I expect that in the outer areas in particular big rises or falls in fares could make a big difference to possible patronage more than outweighing any benefit gained from increasing fares.

Another aspect to look at is what I hinted at earlier, in getting more people to buy weekly and monthly passes. Most people in Auckland at the moment who use public transport seem to use multi-journey passes or stored value passes, often because weekly or monthly passes don’t make sense. Many of these people will simply not bother using public transport at the slightest provocation (a bit of rain etc.) because they realise they can simply use that trip next time around. With more people using weekly or monthly passes they will feel as though they ought to catch the bus or train each and every day to make the most of their pass. This means that you’re getting full-time revenue out of that user rather than just occasional trips.

Maximise efficiency:

Just like all transportation resources, the demand for public transport is hugely higher at two points of the day than it is at any other times – namely the morning and evening peak hour. This is an incredibly inefficient use of resources in two senses. Firstly, it means that during peak times you need a lot of rolling stock, and in the case of trains you may need a lot of track capacity. If you’re running peak hour services at close to capacity and you attract another 100 people to use the service, then you’re going to need to buy two new buses to serve those people – even though you’re not going to need to use those buses at any other time of the day. The second way the peak spikes are inefficient is that during off-peak hours most of the stock rolls around fairly empty, meaning that fares really struggle to cover the costs of operating that service – leading to expensive subsidies being required.

The solution is to somehow spread those peaks a bit. Of course many people simply have to be at work by 9am, or at school or at university by a certain hour of the day. But a certain number of people probably would travel off-peak if there were incentives for them to do so. Unfortunately, at the moment on most routes the only time a decent frequency service is offered is during the peak hour so even those who don’t have to travel then are encouraged to do so, making the peak even more extreme. In terms of service provision, one can try to spread the peak by offering higher frequencies during the “shoulder-peak” periods of just before and just after peak hour, rather than buying another bus to operate at peak time. From a ticketing point of view, the solution in my opinion is to make a distinction between fares charged during peak hour and fares charged outside of peak hours. Perhaps fares between 7am and 9am, and 4pm and 6pm go up by 10%, while those outside those times are decreased by 20% (as more people travel during peak times the revenue might balance).

This would enable a far more efficient use of existing transport resources such as buses and trains.

Ensuring riders get the best deal:

There’s nothing more annoying that taking a few trips on public transport throughout a day and then discovering you would have been better off getting a day-pass. Or buying a day pass but then working out you would have been better off simply paying separate fares for each trip. Somehow you feel ripped off.

The solution to this is called “fare capping”, where you pay as you got up to a certain daily rate, and then you stop being charged for further trips. This is used on London’s Oyster Cards and is a fantastic idea that must form a part of Auckland’s future integrated fare system.

I’m keen for some feedback on these “overarching principles” for what our integrated fare system should look like. Perhaps in a future post or two I will try to put this into action and come up with something of a proposal for how ARTA should implement the future system.