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By Patrick Reynolds, on May 21st, 2012 Councillor Brewer continues to play politics with the CRL as reported in this morning’s Herald; here. I guess this isn’t a surprise as he wants the mayor’s job and Brown’s mayoralty is identified with the CRL. Brewer has in the past made the now common National Party claims of ‘supporting’ public transport while going out of his way to attack any real steps towards meaningful change in this direction. Here is the wonderfully vague waffle on his website:
Promoting transport solutions
Gridlock traffic has long been the number one complaint about Auckland. With the roads only set to get busier, the Auckland Council will need to find sustainable transport solutions, while making sure our neighbourhoods are protected.
Cameron has worked effectively with the New Zealand Transport Authority, the Automobile Association, rail authorities, public transport providers and advocates. He is committed to leading the charge on addressing local transport issues.
This is after the article congratulating himself and other retrogrades like Ken Baguley for getting the bus lanes on Remuera Rd downgraded to uselessness.
But enough on political game playing; there really is nothing duller, the interesting point is not that Brewer is going to spend the next year painting the CRL as black as he can but rather that his current complaint exactly expresses the reverse of what I believe the Council ought to be doing with the CRL. Here is his big idea:
Orakei councillor Cameron Brewer yesterday said it was crazy to spend $112 million in the coming financial year on land purchases for the rail loop when it had no funding certainty.
Well of course buying property is a really exchanging one asset for another, so not really ‘crazy’ unless a particularly poor deal is made. And here’s the thing, transit stations transform land use and value positively, so the Council is in a strong position to make good deals through the purchases around the CRL. Two of the financially most successful transit systems in world, in Hong Kong and Tokyo achieve this success through the very act of investing in and developing property around subway stations. A recent article at Atlantic Cities on the Tokyo system begins with this observation:
Twice during my recent trip to Tokyo, once at Shibuya and again in a suburb to the west of the city, I exited a subway platform only to find myself swaddled in a massive department store. This was the Tokyu store.
Really innovative councillors, especially from the supposedly business savvy right, should be pointing out the investment opportunities for the Council Property CCO especially around Aotea station and at the Downtown Centre that the CRL offers. The article continues:
…the Tokyu Corporation. Established in 1922 as a regional development company, Tokyu today is a massive “rail-based conglomerate” of nearly 400 companies that employs 30,000 people, only a tenth of which work directly for the railway. Beginning in the 1930s Tokyu surrounded its hubs with commercial and retail buildings and sold land near its intermediate stations to universities at good prices, to create reliable residential (and thus passenger) corridors.
My compliant with the Council is not that it shouldn’t buy property where it intends to change that property’s value through transport initiatives but rather that the Property CCO seems rather lacklustre and lacking in sufficient energy to maximise these opportunities. I guess it doesn’t get any such lead from the Council itself.
No surprise as we certainly don’t seem to be blessed with much quality from the C&R ticket. I am most disappointed with Councillor Fletcher, to whom all Aucklanders owe a debt of gratitude for the construction of Britomart, as she is reported as observing:
C&R leader Christine Fletcher said the time was not right for a big budget and a big spend-up.
Well Sydney built much of its metro in the Great Depression, and in many ways it is the perfect time, interest rates are low, especially for local authorities, the construction industry is largely idle, the city and country needs investment in game changing infrastructure, and property can be easily bought. And we are only talking about getting ready to start the real work later which gives a few years for things to change in Wellington.
Instead these local politicians seem to all be taking the lead from the visionaries currently in charge in Wellington; the big idea is to invest in nothing, construct nothing, change nothing, and hope that somehow through all this inaction that there’s a brighter day around the corner.
So my question to Mr Brewer, the man ‘committed to leading the charge on addressing local transport issues’ other than not investing in Auckland’s future, where is your charge heading? Gridlock I guess.
By Matt L, on May 14th, 2012 An interesting report goes to the transport committee on Wednesday which looks at how the land use plans on the North Shore as identified in the Auckland Plan would be impacted by various options for improving rapid transit (RT) in the area. Over the next 30 years there are expected to be an extra 750k-1m people living in the Auckland region with 85-120k of those living in the area of the old North Shore City. To achieve that growth there are going to be a number of infrastructure investments, especially when it comes to transport or the set targets may not be achieved.
The report confirms that providing we improve how buses move around the city centre that there is sufficient capacity in the busway until around 2041. One of the improvements to the city centre that is listed as needed is the City Rail Link which will have the effect of removing a large number of buses from the South and West from the cities streets which will free up that space for additional buses from the North Shore. With the busway moving an increasing number of people over the harbour bridge each morning along with the completion of the western ring route in 4-5 years time, we should also see the need for another harbour crossing pushed out to a similar timeframe.
The report starts with the assumption that the busway has already been extended to Silverdale and that the city side improvements have been completed to allow for up to 250 buses per hour to feed into town. It then goes on to look at a number of different routes and technologies for futuredevelopment options but also notes that experience, particularly in Australia, shows that bus based RT systems don’t get same level of land use change as rail lines/stations do. The options range in cost from $1.5b all the way up to $15b and all options were put through an evaluation matrix and the heavy rail options came out with the best results. All of the options considered are listed below:
There are quite a few options there and I think we can all agree that the options costing $13b+ are simply not going to happen, even though they came out the highest in the evaluation criteria. The conversions of the busway to heavy rail still very highly and at $2.5b (which I assume includes the cost of the crossing) actually seems fairly reasonable, especially if we can hook it into the existing network with something like the X pattern we have discussed on here before.
The report to the council also includes an image from the Auckland Plan that we haven’t seen before, presumably it will be in the final version of document which is being worked on at the moment (the content has already been signed off). It seems to show that thinking is starting to shift within the council that any future rail connection interface with the existing rail network at Aotea rather than at Britomart.
There is quite a bit of detail in the report but in all it is good to see some thought going into when we will likely need to start making improvements, that is unless the good folk of the North Shore start to increase their usage of the busway at a faster rate than predicted which is something that could very possibly happen.
By Patrick Reynolds, on April 26th, 2012 Pronouncements on Auckland by Unitec’s Dushko Bogunovich’s are consistently curious to say the least, not many urban designers seem so anti urbanist. Generally they are best puzzled over then ignored, but his latest effort, dutifully reported by Anne Gibson in the Herald, deserves a brief response. The baffling outburst is here. Basically he is trying to claim that by repurposing an office block into apartments in Vincent St nothing is being gained. Because there won’t, he argues, be a net gain of humans in the inner city. Here is his math:
“Does he not realise that the conversion leaves the physical density the same as before and keeps roughly the same number of bodies in the CBD as before, only the bodies were there eight hours during day?
Where to start? Well there clearly will be an increase in residents in the inner city through this move, and they may or may not also all work in in the CBD, this can’t be known, although it is not a long stretch to assume that some or even most will, as it would be probably be a little odd to decide to live right in town but commute to, say, Takanini. Odd but not impossible, and just fine if that’s what occurs. This is of no consequence. What really matters is that a whole block of commercial space will be withdrawn from that market and because of this will help to encourage demand for new construction elsewhere in town. And at the same time a bunch of new grocery-buying, theatre-going, who-knows-what doing people will be moving in. Now as we are told in the original article that BECA, the current tenants of this block, are moving up the road to the old ARC building and not out to the suburbs, we can safely conclude that this will indeed increase net amount of ‘bodies’ in the city.
Beca staff will soon leave the block which is still their international headquarters even though only a handful of staff remain, after divisions gradually shifted to the former Auckland Regional Council headquarters on Pitt St.
So the complete reverse of Bogunovich’s next claim:
“Now they will be there eight hours at night. And that this is yet another sign significant businesses are decentralising rather than compacting in the city?”
This development is clearly putting a small squeeze on the availability of commercial space in the CBD, removing an older lower value block from the market and giving it a new use. Bringing construction and new residents into town which will support new and existing businesses there. Put it this way: If every current office block in the CBD was converted to apartments then demand for new office space would clearly grow, stimulating construction as well as increasing the economic life of the CBD as the needs and desires of these new residents are met.
So of course this is an encouraging move and exactly the kind of thing the Council wants to see. Churn in existing buildings is a sign of economic activity and dynamism in a market. And this sort of repurposing is exactly what we’ed expect to see as a start of vitality returning to the CBD residential market. Is this what so angers the anti-intensivist Bogunovich? Roger Blakeley in the earlier Anne Gibson article here:
“This is music to our ears as we look to quality residential development in the city centre and other centres as part of the quality compact city in the Auckland Plan.”
Quite. But also this but also from the developer:
“Three Malaysian and Singaporean investors have bought apartments.
“They are very impressed with the growth in Auckland City amenities, for example the Auckland Art Gallery, Wynyard Quarter, Britomart and the strategic plan for Auckland City.”
Vincent St is a great location for apartments, so handy to all those amenities. They could also have mentioned just how close these new apartments will be to not only the new Aotea station but especially to the K’rd one on the City Rail Link…. especially useful for when these new city residents wish to visit the rest of the isthmus, including Takanini.
 Vincent St and Greys Ave Public housing on Greys Ave and other residential on the Myers Park side. The sheds at the lower end currently used for that most valuable of resources; parking, are surely due development. The building in question ‘A’. Just out of shot on the left is the building that BECA are moving to; bit of a stretch to call this decentralisation. Both streets ennobled by London Planes, arguably the greatest of street trees. It would be lovely to see the gaps on these streets planted.
By Matt L, on April 17th, 2012 They say that history never repeats but that doesn’t quite seem true when it comes to transport in Auckland. Our transport history is littered with examples of poor planning, bad decisions, underestimated demand, a lack of vision and corner cutting in order to save a few dollars. A couple of prime examples are:
- The harbour bridge – we have all heard the stories about how the design was cut back to save a little but of money at the time only for traffic volumes to require the capacity to be expanded a decade later. Also cut were things like walking and dedicated PT connections, things that are still missing to this day.
- Britomart – built at a time when rail patronage was low, its five platforms fed by only two tracks was considered to be sufficient capacity for 50 years yet less than 10 years later we have all but run out of space for more trains at peak times. Electrification will give us longer trains but history shows that will only work for so long.
We can now add the Manukau rail link to that list. There are three major issues I, and others, have with the station:
- It stops short short of Manukau – Officials will praise how MIT is building a campus on top of the station but that doesn’t make the location good, even extending it just another 150m would have made a huge difference and the campus could still have had a direct exit for students, like how the Westpac building is now at Britomart.
- That there is no Southern link – This means that the only way to access the station from the south by train, which would likely be it’s largest catchment, would be to get a train to Puhinui and transfer to a train heading back to Manukau. The NZTA even designed the motorway for it which can clearly be seen in aerial photos, they even built the formation for it so it would be easy to build in the future.
- That the station appears not to have been designed in a way that would allow for future extension.
I remember reading some information on this a few years ago on the first point and so went looking for it and what I found surprised me. This story was in the Herald on 1st April 2008 but is no April Fools joke
The council decided last week that an estimated extra cost of $10 million to bring the line 60m east of Davies Ave, into a carpark near its headquarters, was too high when it was trying to stop rates from rising more than 4.9 per cent.
That followed advice from Government agency Ontrack that its budget of about $50 million towards the $72 million link from the main trunk line at Puhinui would not extend past a 9m-deep trench on the western side of Davies Ave, except for a basic pedestrian underpass to the carpark.
Although that would still leave passengers 140m short of the civic offices, and even further from the Southmall shopping centre, the station would be on the doorstop of a potential tertiary education development in Hayman Park.
Most people would probably agree that 60m doesn’t sound like much, especially when it would cost $10m but it can make a massive difference to peoples perception and use of the station. There is meant to be an underpass into the carpark from the station except when I visited the other day, there was no sign of it and no one else seems to know what happened to it either. We also learn that the MIT campus wasn’t even agreed to at the time, in fact another report I found indicated they were looking at several different options so there was a chance nothing would have been built on top of the station.
So what about that Southern link and future proofing the station
But Forum for Auckland Sustainable Transport spokesman Bevan Woodward, representing a coalition of several groups such as Walk Auckland and his own Cycle Action Auckland, said similar limited thinking was behind capacity constraints already emerging at the Britomart rail terminal.
“We have to future-proof these things and start getting it right,” he said
Mr Woodward’s coalition wants provisions for a rail link to be extended east in a loop through Botany Downs to Panmure, rather than relying on feeder buses to bring passengers to an interchange at the proposed Manukau rail-head.
Although Manukau transport planners are prepared to envisage replacing buses with a light-rail link through the east once the population grows large enough in new suburbs such as Flat Bush and Dannemora, they believe it would be too difficult to run heavy trains under or over the Southern Motorway.
But Mr Woodward said that should not be insurmountable, and noted that a road flyover of the motorway was already being built with full Government funding as part of the $210 million link between State Highways 1 and 20.
And
Manukau councillor Bob Wichman said he had always believed the rail link was to extend to Dannemora, and he was disappointed by the limited nature of what was now proposed.
“We are being told we are getting less and less for our buck,” he told fellow councillors, after hearing that the link would initially serve only rail movements to and from central Auckland, and that it might be 10 years before Manukau could be linked to stations further south.
Even back then it appears there was never any real plans to allow the line to be hooked up to the South but next is the part that really pisses me off.
But Manukau Mayor Len Brown said that, while he remained committed to early planning for rapid public transport to and from his eastern suburbs, the priority was to accept the money already on offer from the Government.
If his council hesitated in doing that, it risked having the money reallocated “to other squeaky wheels, and there are lots of squeaky wheels in transport”.
He told the Herald that although light rail might become more viable than buses to and from the east, there would always have to be some form of interchange at central Manukau, as he would not countenance extending heavy rail to his suburban hinterland.
“You can’t do it in local residential areas and I’m not going to.”
So Len Brown seemed to care more about getting some money from the government and saying he signed the project off than getting the best solution for his constituents and the region. What’s more he also ruled out the possibility of ever extending the line in the future which is just plain lunacy. It even appears from this document in September 2007 that both Ontrack and ARTA strongly preferred the station to have a central platform which at least would have made it a bit easier to extend but that appears to have been ignored somewhere along the way. Of course all of this wasn’t helped by other councillors like Dick Quax who hates rail and who pushed for the whole thing to be delayed like this article from 2007 indicates (without a doubt he would have tried to push out the decision again and again).
Now of course this is old news and with the exception of the southern link there isn’t a great deal we can do about these issues right now but just the other day we heard something even more concerning. That Auckland Transport and the Council are looking at how they can cut costs from the CRL. In particular they are looking at cutting out stations which would negatively impact potential patronage. Even more concerning is that they are looking to drop the Eastern connection which would mean it was not possible for trains to get to the CRL tunnel from Newmarket. Here is a comment from that post that describes exactly why that Eastern link is needed
As a network modeller who did some investigatory work on this project a year or two ago, I cannot understand the statement that “current modelling shows its more “efficient” with only 1 direction of link”. The modelling I did envisaged a triangular junction at Mt Eden and crucial to the scheme was the creation of a “CBD Loop” which the east-facing spur would achieve. The pattern of service that I modelled was that all trains entering the CBD would travel around the loop and exit by the same or by another route, with the loop linking the inbound and outbound journeys together into one. Thus nothing “terminated” in the CBD. This is exactly how both Sydney and Melbourne structure their services with a high degree of success. And combined with additional CBD stations, this gets right away from the flawed notion that focussing the entire service on a single CBD access-point will suffice, and that it is somehow OK to “inject” thousands of travellers into the CBD at this one point and expect them happily to disperse under their own steam.
My objective with the Auckland model was to demonstrate the feasibility of a 10-minute peak frequency on all lines, combining to give a 5-minute frequency in each direction around the loop. Under this model, the east-facing spur carried significantly more traffic than the western one, and without it the concept of a CBD Loop would be effectvely lost.
I am concerned that there are decision-makers out there who are not fully aware of what this scheme is all about and what it is capable of delivering. The danger in allowing politicians to pare it back to fit under some arbitrary bar of cost-acceptability, is that a lot of money could still end up being spent on something that proves ineffective. I also wonder whether there may be areas of overdesign in the scheme from which costs could more effectively be cut. I am mindful that at the reinstated Parnell Station, someone considered it necessary to spend a lot of money altering the gradient profiles to make the track through the station less steep (was 1 in 40, now 1 in 80), and the track approaching the station even steeper (was 1 in 45, now 1 in 37.5). I question the need for this, given that stations on Wellington’s Johnsonville Line have managed quite acceptably at 1 in 40 for many years. Maybe in Parnell’s case there are reasons that I am unaware of, but the tendency to insist on “rolls-royce standards” can kill the viability of otherwise worthwhile projects. If cost-savings are are to be made on the CRL scheme, they need to be made competently in a way that will not leave a gold-plated white elephant.
The CRL got overwhelming support as part of the Auckland plan with 80% of people agreeing with the need for it now and this is without the council doing anything to even promote the project (because their current attempts have been pathetic), if they did a proper job of informing the public about what the project actually was and why it is needed then that would put the pressure on the government to support it and cough up some money for it. Sadly in light of what has happened previously at Manukau when Len was in charge it seems we could be seeing exactly the same tactics, get the price low enough to secure the government funding even if that means critically damaging the whole project. When it comes to transport in Auckland it seems that history definitely does repeat and is doomed to keep doing so.
By Matt L, on April 11th, 2012 A few days ago a comment by Greg N hinted that Auckland Transport are starting to investigate changes to how they plan to build the City Rail Link (CRL) so it is probably worthwhile looking at what is going on. Greg’s comment was based on a presentation by Auckland Transport’s Elected Member Liaison Manager, Stephen Rainbow, at a recent Orakei Local Board meeting as well as discussion Greg had with Stephen after the meeting. Therefore it is almost third-hand information, but worth exploring further.
First though just a reminder of how this all came about.
In late 2010 the council released a business case for the project which looked at a number of different options for building the tunnel comparing different alignments and station locations (as well as other alternatives). In the end they settled on the option below as being the best with three stations chosen to provide good coverage of the central city, one between Victoria St and Wellesley St, one under K Rd and one under Symonds St.
The tunnel would solve quite a few problems that either exist now or will do so very soon and it also provides some other significant benefits, some of the key ones are:
- It would allow significantly more trains to operate on the existing rail network as we wouldn’t be constrained by every single train having to reverse out of Britomart again. Electrification will give us some longer trains but with the exception of a few other tweaks, rail capacity into the CBD during the peaks will simply not be able to increase further. Already train frequency can not improve because of the Britomart bottleneck.
- Travel times on the Western line to the CBD including Britomart will improve significantly. Travel times on all lines to areas around the new stations will also improve.
- The new stations would allow for and help drive significant development in the area’s surrounding them.
The government had its pet agencies perform a review of the business case which was released in May last year and came out with vastly different results. Part of the problem is though is that their review was extremely flawed, one of the biggest issues being an assumption there was unlimited capacity for growth in vehicle traffic (there were other errors in it as well). The only thing they both the council and the government did agree on was the cost which at $2.4b it isn’t as eye watering as the cost of another harbour crossing but it is still more expensive than any other single transport project so far. The government did allow for the council/Auckland Transport to proceed with designating the project and work for that is happening behind the scenes with a view to starting the designation process later this year.
With the government still fairly hostile towards the project it is understandable that AT is looking at where it can cut the costs of the project but what is being looked at, Greg’s comment gives us some good direction:
1. Stephen said that CRL case is being reviewed with idea being that they consider staging it to keep the costs down and (try to?) get Govt on side.
2. Staging may consist of not building 2 or the 3 planned stations immediately, i.e. just putting the tunnel/track to unlock Britomart to get those benefits sooner and lower the costs.
3. He said its going to cost $300 million per station – so staging 2 of the 3 will reduce the 2.4b price tag to 1.8b
and:
Anyway – as you can imagine all this stuff on CRL “staging” raised with me more questions than it answered.
So when he left the meeting I caught up with him and asked him some questions before he left the meeting on his comments.
I asked him the following.
1. Has any consideration been given by AT to just building the tunnel and track and southern end of the tunnel links to the Western lines as the very first stage, without stations to get the benefit of making Britomart a through station quicker?
2. If this was done, how long would it shorten the “build” time by and how much would it save/cost compared to full CRL with all stations?
3. At the Mt Eden end are they putting in links in both directions (from west to CRL, and from Newmarket to CRL) or only from West to CRL?
4. How long before the CRL build could start from today?
Answers from him were:
1. “No idea, (AT) haven’t thought about it, but might be worthwhile considering.”
2. Maybe 3+ years for the tunnelling build (as opposed to 5+ for the full CRL), costwise, not a lot less than 1.5b, maybe more.
3. West onto CRL only at this stage – I asked why – he said current modelling shows its more “efficient” with only 1 direction of link” rather than link to Western lines in two directions (West to CRL, and CRL to Lines going toward Newmarket). He said don’t need to tunnel there as they will be above ground.
4. If all goes well and building owners don’t challenge the notice of requirements (NORs), 2 maybe 3 years before the build starts. If they challenge the NORs, at least 4 years before building starts.
So take those as you will.
There are a few things in here so lets break it down with the help of the construction costs summary from the original business case.
Stations – The tunnel and it’s stations are actually proposed to be constructed differently for each part. The business case indicates that the section from Britomart to the Aotea station would be built using cut and cover methods, as would the Aotea station itself. From there the tunnel would be bored by a TBM and the other two stations, K Rd and Symonds St, would be too deep so would actually be mined out which I believe means that the station box will be dug out from the inside. Presumably if these stations are dropped there would be the intention to build them at a later stage when more money/a more receptive government is in place. I also assume there would need to be at least some preliminary work on the stations to allow this to happen in the future.
My big concern with this approach is that by cutting out the stations, we also cut out a huge amount of benefits from having more development around the stations. On the other hand we also have to be mindful that we can only focus development in a few places around the city at any one time, as an example much of the focus at the moment is on the Wynyard Quarter. Delaying the two southern most stations could allow more council resources to be dedicated to developing the surrounding areas which may give a better result. If the council/AT does pursue the idea of dropping stations I hope they do some pretty thorough analysis of it and the impacts it would have including how much extra it would cost to build the stations when there is a working line passing through the construction site.
The costs summary lists both of these stations at about $160m for the physical works but there would also be a fair chunk of money from other items like the design work, the costs from the construction company, contingency costs etc. All up AT are saying it would save about $300m per station so by not building the two southern ones would save about $600m.
If it does happen then perhaps trains should still stop at the station locations with a message saying something to the effect of “this is the location of XXXX station, it would have been build already but the government won’t support it”.
Construction Time – I’m not an expert on construction but if the tunnel could be delivered it would mean some of the benefits would also start to flow sooner particularly the travel time savings and unlocking the capacity of Britomart. Depending on the numbers it could help to boost the business case and offset some of the development benefits from dropping the stations.
Eastern Link – At some point south of Symonds St station as the TBM starts getting closer to the surface the remaining section of tunnel would be again be constructed via cut and cover to link in with the existing Western line in both directions. The link to the West is obviously where most people would be coming from so that would definitely be built but it is the link to the East that is in doubt. The costs summary puts that link at about $90m but when the other costs are added on it probably brings the total cost up to around $150m. The big problem with not building that link is it means all trains from East or South either have to terminate at Britomart or head out West. Depending on where the trains terminate this could be quite a good thing for people around the western line as they would benefit from not only much faster journey times thanks to the tunnel but might also get much higher frequencies as a result. However, this could lead to an unbalanced network, limit routing options and require significant infrastructure investment either at Britomart or at some point along the western line to turn all those extra trains around that we don’t want travelling all the way out to Swanson.
Overall I can understand the desire to cut costs out of the project to make it more palatable, $750m is a huge amount to potentially save but I am also concerned that we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot by killing off some of the benefits and/or substantially increasing the construction costs in the future to fix the situation. After all there are plenty of examples around the city where we have cut corners to save some money then paid the price for it later and I really hope that the CRL doesn’t get added to this list. There has also been a bit of noise from some politicians about this and it appears we will find out what is planned at the next meeting of the governing body on April 26.
By Matt L, on March 28th, 2012 Tomorrow could be quite an important day for the city. Up before the councils governing body is the final version of the 30 year Auckland plan and while it isn’t a done deal, we hopefully won’t see to many changes. You can read the final draft here and it starts about half way down in Chapter 13. If you haven’t been reading much about the plan here is a high level summary of what it is about:
The Auckland Plan is the strategy to make Auckland an even better place that it is now and create the world’s most liveable city. It is also the plan through which we prepare for the additional one million people and around 400,000 new homes we may have to accommodate by 2040. Population, housing and business growth over the next 30 years will provide Auckland with important opportunities and resources to be even more liveable.
We have covered the plan, along with the changes to it quite a bit over the last few months as councillors have debated and tweaked it following the various rounds of consultation. I and my fellow bloggers haven’t always agreed with every part of the plan or the changes being made to it but overall I think the council have done a fairly good job and it help to make the city a much better place. The plan is pretty big at almost 300 pages so with this post I am just going to look at some bits of the final transport section. This section seems to have been one that has swung around like a pendulum a bit, first it came out talking about a lot of PT improvements (although was really a bit of PT wash). The revised drafts that came out contained a lot more focus on road projects which led to a bit of publicity and now things seem to have swung a little back towards PT.
First up the strategic direction.
The first thing I noticed here is the the PT trip targets has increased even further that what it was only a few weeks ago with the aim now being 140m trips per year on PT by 2022. That means in the space of a few short weeks we have gone from not having a patronage target at all to having quite a decent and challenging one (based on population projections that would put our trips per person per year close to 80).
Here are some maps of the strategic transport network by 2040 and the key projects will take place to reach it. One thing you will notice is that a NW busway has now been added which excellent.
And here is the final list of major projects by the decade they happen in:
First Decade: 2011 to 2020
- Public transport service improvements, including bus services to the airport
- Integrated transport ticketing and fares
- Rail network electrification and increased train frequencies to 10 minutes
- Western Ring Route, Newmarket Viaduct and Victoria Park Tunnel completion
- Removal of pinch-points in the strategic road network to improve throughput (such as widening from Hill Road to Takinini on the Southern Motorway and others)
- City Rail Link completion
- City Centre transport improvements (as described in the Auckland City Centre Master Plan)
- Completion of the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative and the East-West Link between State Highway 20 Onehunga and State Highway 1
- Arterial road network improvements (with a focus on the movement of Walking and cycling infrastructure improvements (includes completing 70% of the regional cycle network)
- Ferry network extension to Hobsonville and Beach Haven
- Route protection:
- Dedicated rail corridor to the Auckland Airport
- Additional Waitematā Harbour Crossing (road and public transport) Rail to the North Shore
- Avondale-Southdown rail corridor
- Construct the Pūhoi-Wellsford Motorway Phase 1; Pūhoi to Warkworth
- Complete electrification of rail to Pukekohe
Second Decade: 2021 to 2030
- Construct rail to Auckland Airport
- Continue improvements to the arterial road network (with a focus on the movement of public transport and regional freight)
- Complete construction of an additional harbour crossing (road and PT)
- Construct improved rail and road access to the port
- Extend the Northern Busway from Constellation to Silverdale and from Onewa to the City Centre with bus lanes on the Auckland Harbour Bridge
- Triple-track the North Island Main Trunk rail line (the Port to Westfield to Papakura) for rail freight
- Construct the Warkworth-Wellsford motorway
- Improve airport road access – SH20A and 20B
- Complete the regional cycle network
- Continue removal of pinch-points in the strategic roading network to improve throughput
- Continue City Centre transport improvements (as described in the Auckland City Centre Master Plan)
- Route protection: o Constellation-Westgate-Extend the busway from Botany to Flat Bush to Manukau
- Investigate extending the ferry services along both the north- eastern coastline and the southern coastline especially for recreational and leisure opportunities
Third Decade: 2031 to 2040
- Renew optimisation initiatives to take advantage of technology developments
- Construct busway along SH16 between Lincoln interchange and Waterview interchange
- Construct the Avondale-Southdown rail connection
- Transport infrastructure and services in place in new greenfield areas to support their development.
Lastly there is also a bit of information on the top three projects, most of it isn’t new so I won’t paste it here but I think that one important bit of information is this line from the CRL part:
Eighty per cent of submitters on the Draft Auckland Plan who referred to the CRL supported its construction.
80% support for such a large and costly infrastructure project is pretty impressive. I wonder what level of support the various RoNS would get if subjected to the same process?
By Matt L, on March 22nd, 2012 Here are the key points from my submissions to Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP) and Auckland Transport’s Regional Land Transport Programme (RLTP). The LTP sets out everything that Auckland Council intends to spend its money on over the next decade – including what it will spend on transport matters. The RLTP is an Auckland Transport document, setting out general funding requirements over the next 10 years but with greatest specificity about the next three years. Remember that submissions close tomorrow at 4pm and you can do your own easy submission here
Long-Term Plan:
I support the proposed funding split in operational expenditure between public transport and roading of approximately 50/50 however I note the following:
That the proposed funding for PT subsidies doesn’t match the RLTP which predicts operational costs to stay largely the same over the same time period. It appears that the council have largely just carried forward the current operational costs based on predicted patronage numbers. This indicates that we aren’t expecting to see any increase in efficiency of our public transport network which is one of the aims of both Auckland transport, the NZTA and the central government
These costs also don’t match the wording on page 42 of volume one and page 87 of volume 2 of the LTP which says that the operational subsidy for public transport will increase by $73.5m over 10 years.
I think that these numbers need to be clarified and matched to what is in the RLTP. This is likely to cause the proposed operational expenditure on public transport to decrease significantly. It also means the split between spending on roads vs public transport will no longer be balanced. I would like to see the funding level and split to stay the same which would allow for Auckland transport to invest in additional services which would further help to increase patronage in the region.
- The LTP needs to take account of the patronage targets that have been agreed to by the council of reaching 121 million trips by 2022.
- The LTP will need to take into account the changes in the priorities of projects as a result of the various changes that have been made to the Auckland Plan, specifically:
- The bringing forward of the completion of the AMETI project
- There is no mention of how the East West link will be funded
- Potential investigation into a NW Busway
- I recognise that a number of projects that have been listed as roading projects will contain a significant public transport components in them. More work needs to be done to split these costs out so the public are accurately informed of the costs.
- I support that the LTP has provided funding for the City Rail Link however I am concerned by how it is being addressed in the LTP.
- It is noted that the funding for the CRL is dependent on the government contributing 50% of the costs and if that doesn’t eventuate then the project will be reassessed in the 2015-2025 LTP. I feel that as the council has confirmed the project as the top transport priority for the region that it needs to have more certainty around it. In the event of the government not contributing to the project then the council be looking to fund it solely and do so by delaying or cancelling or scaling back other, less important projects first.
- The council is giving the impression that much of the funding pressure that will be placed on ratepayers is a result of the CRL when there is a considerable amount more money being planned to be spent on roads. The language in the document needs to be clear to the public where the majority of the money is planned to be spent
- There are a number of projects that I feel the timing or scope of should be adjusted:
- The Auckland Plan proposes considerable greenfield development in the south, this will likely to make electrification to Pukekohe necessary before 2022.
- There is likely to be a requirement for further bus priority along Wellesley St which would require available funding.
- Integrated ticketing will likely mean a lot more transfers between public transport services. I feel that some money should be budgeted at key interchanges for infrastructure upgrades to make the process quick and easy for passengers.
- There is likely to be strong growth on the rail network to stations other than Britomart or Newmarket. To help avoid fare evasion funding should be made available to install fare gates at other key stations e.g. Henderson, New Lynn, Panmure, Manukau, Papakura.
- I also support funding being made available to progress the development of walking and cycling across the harbour bridge.
Alternate funding Options
I believe that the need for alternative funding has been driven largely by the council not being willing to prioritise and cut projects which has led to it having an ever increasing ‘wish list’. I feel that the council needs to do more to work within the existing and not inconsiderable level of funding that is planned to be spent on transport in the region over the next 30 years. I feel there is a problem with how these options have portrayed, particularly that the public impression is that the funding is to pay for a large amount public transport projects.
I note that the majority of the funding is actually destined to pay for roading projects and I feel that this should be made clear before any final decision is made. In saying this I do believe there is a place for some of the alternative funding options that the council has proposed which could both help to raise additional funds and change behaviours which could significantly change the use of alternative transport options. I believe that of the options presented the following are what should be developed further by the council:
- Tolling New Roads – This should be a requirement for any new road built in the region and analysis of the impact tolling should be required to take place as part of the development of the business case for these roads.
- Road pricing on existing roads – Serious consideration needs to be given as to how this would be properly implemented. I note it has the ability to provide a high level of income for the council by spreading the charges out over a large base of users.
- Additional Car parking charges – I support this but believe it would also need a change to the current policy around minimum parking requirements as it would be unfair to charge people a fee when they haven’t had the option to remove the number of car parks that they have.
- Visitor taxes – Visitor taxes could be useful but I feel it would have to be clear what the funds were being used for and should be ring fenced to pay for infrastructure that will improve the visitor experience e.g. rail to the airport
- Airport departure tax – As with visitor taxes it needs to clear what the funds are for and should be ring fenced to help pay for infrastructure that visitors will be highly likely to use like rail to the airport
RLTP
Summary:
Giving effect to the Auckland Plan:
- Implementing the patronage targets of the Auckland Plan’s transport chapter
- Achieving the ‘transformational change’ for transport envisaged by the Auckland Plan
- Prioritising projects in a way that implements the Auckland Plan (generally, not just its transport chapter)
Alignment with Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan:
- Resolving inconsistencies with the LTP over public transport services funding
- Resolving inconsistencies in the funding split between public transport and roads compared to the LTP
Project Specific: - Investigating a busway along SH16 between Waterview and Westgate
- Ensuring that infrastructure to support the reorganisation of Auckland’s bus network is funded
- Funding the full integration of public transport fares
- Removal of a number of projects from the RLTP that actively undermine the goals of the Auckland Plan and of the programme generally
2. Giving Effect to the Auckland Plan
Page 5 of the Draft RLTP notes that the Draft Auckland Plan was given consideration in the preparation of the document. Since the publication of the Draft Auckland Plan, a number of amendments have been made to it that are relevant to the RLTP. The wording of the Auckland Plan seeks a “transformational shift” in public transport most particularly, but also has a number of targets that relate to reducing Auckland’s automobile dependency. These include:
- Public Transport patronage of 121 million trips by 2022
- Public Transport patronage per capita of 100 by 2040
- 70% of vehicular trips to the city centre by public transport in 2040
- Increasing the proportion of people living within walking distance of frequent public transport from 14% to 32% by 2040
- Increasing proportion of non-car AM peak trips from 23% to 45% by 2040
While most of these targets have a 2040 implementation, I consider that some progress towards achieving them will need to occur over the period covered by the RLTP. Currently the RLTP does not clearly highlight how these targets will be achieved (understandable as many of the targets were not on the Draft Auckland Plan and therefore not able to be incorporated into the draft RLTP) or even worked towards.
The ‘transformational shift’ in transport the Auckland Plan seeks to create is also not carried through into the RLTP to the extent that is necessary. The wording of the Auckland Plan highlights that Auckland’s population growth over the next 30 years will mean that a fundamental shift in the way Aucklanders get around is required – quite simply, it is impossible (and increasingly undesirable and expensive) to continue to build additional road-space to cope with traffic growth. Therefore, a much greater use of public transport as well as the optimisation of the existing transport network, is necessary.
The RLTP, while focused on projects in the next three years in particular, should prioritise those projects based on which ones best contribute to achieving the ‘transformational shift’ envisaged by the Auckland Plan. The prioritisation of project must also complement other goals of the Auckland Plan (not just transport). In particular:
- Providing a transport network and making transport decisions that encourage intensification in places identified as suitable for such development
- Undertaking high-level investigation in proposed Greenfield suburban areas to ensure a different outcome to the ‘car dependent urban sprawl’ that has typically resulted from previous urban expansion
As well as the Auckland Plan, the RLTP must by law give effect to the Regional Land Transport Strategy. The 2010 RLTS proposed a 50/50 funding split between roads and other forms of transport – a funding split that should be given effect to by the RLTP.
3. Alignment with Auckland Council’s “Long Term Plan”
There are a number of areas where the Draft RLTP does not align with Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan. This misalignment causes confusion around “what will actually happen”, particularly in relation to the funding available for public transport services and the funding split between roads and public transport. The proposed public transport subsidies in the RLTP stay relatively flat over the decade while in the LTP funding almost doubles and it appears that the LTP has just increased current costs in line with patronage increases which is not likely to reflect what will really happen.
4. Project Specific Comments
I believe that a number of changes should be made to the RLTP’s project list, to better align with a more sensible strategic direction for transport, and to better give effect to high-level documents such as the Auckland Plan and the RLTS.
Projects to be added:
- Investigation and design of a busway along State Highway 16 between Westgate and Waterview, to support the significant urban development proposed for the northwest part of Auckland. This work needs to occur as soon as possible, so that it can inform NZTA’s proposed upgrade to the motorway.
- I understand (from AT Board Papers) that significant changes to the operational structure of Auckland’s public transport network are likely to occur over the next three years. There will be infrastructure requirements arising from these changes, such as bus priority measures, relocation of bus stops, road widening to eliminate bottlenecks for buses, key interchanges (both between bus and rail, and bus to bus). To ensure the success of the changes to the PT network, funding needs to be set aside for necessary infrastructure improvements.
- To properly take advantage of integrated ticketing, implementation of a zone-based fare system is necessary. This may require some funding in the short-term to cover any revenue loss while the system is being fine-tuned.
Projects to be removed:
- The Hayman Park carpark. This project undermines general policies in the Auckland Plan to encourage alternative transport options to metropolitan centres and also undermines investment in the Manukau Railway Station.
- Poorly located park and ride proposals. In inner areas (such as Sylvia Park and Avondale) extensive areas of parking can seriously undermine efforts to align land-use and transport outcomes, while adding relatively few passengers to the PT network.
5. Conclusions:
Some changes to the draft RLTP are necessary to ensure that it aligns more clearly with the ‘transformational shift’ for transport articulated in the Auckland Plan. In particular, targets in the Auckland Plan relating to reducing Auckland’s car dependency need to be embedded in the RLTP and form part of the project prioritisation process – projects contributing to achieving these targets should be ranked higher, projects undermining the targets should be ranked lower. Auckland has traditionally suffered from having a disconnect between the strategies, policies and goals of its transport documents, and where the money is actually spent. The draft RLTP continues this unfortunate trend, by ignoring the transformational targets it has been set and continuing to spend the bulk of its money on road-based projects.
This submission suggests changes to the RLTP that would ensure it better meets its requirements to give effect to strategic documents like the Auckland Plan and the 2010 Regional Land Transport Strategy. Overall, I note that factors influencing transport patterns are changing at a relatively rapid rate. Rising fuel prices, changing demographics, the need to reduce carbon emissions and the Council’s desire for a compact city mean that our future transport demands may be very different to what has happened historically. The Auckland Plan must be robust and resilient to these changes.
These are really important documents relating to the funding of transport activities in Auckland over the next three years in particular. So make sure your voice is heard.
By Matt L, on March 14th, 2012 A pretty strong criticism of the Auckland Plan’s transport chapter, even in its updated version post submissions, was that it’s not transformational. That critique was touched on in this previous post in particular – highlighting that when you compare the funding split between roads, public transport and walking and cycling, the Auckland Plan actually shifts the focus back towards road expenditure – when compared to the 2010 Regional Land Transport Strategy.
Hidden in the minutes to last Tuesday’s meeting of the Council’s Auckland Plan Committee, who are making final changes to the plan before it gets formally adopted later this month, are a few slides that give an update on further changes being made to the transport chapter. I get the feeling that it is responding to feedback that that transport section is not “transformational enough”. It seems like the Council didn’t quite get around to considering the changes, as transport issues are a matter up for discussion at Thursday’s meeting, but the slides give us a clue about what these further changes might be:
 I think that it is crucial that we have some meaningful targets for transport in the Auckland Plan and he council has come up with two key ones. A shorter term raw patronage number that can hopefully hammer home the point that this is one of the council’s main transport focus areas over the next decade, but also longer term target that give us a clue about what transport might be like in a truly “transformed” city – what achieving our vision of becoming the World’s Most Liveable City might be like. The 10 year target is also quite a bit more than what is forecast in the draft long term plan. A further slide gives us a clue about the level of patronage growth required to meet the patronage targets – and how that compares to historical trends:
 As you can see it is quite a change and I think it’s fair to say that if we were to reach the 2040 target, then public transport use in Auckland would have truly gone through a “transformation”. But how realistic is it to expect Auckland’s per capita use of public transport to increase so dramatically over the next 3o years? Well the next slide gives us a nice comparison similar cities throughout Australia and Canada in particular and it seems like at 100 trips per person we’d really be doing “pretty well”, rather than our current level which is pretty horrific: Of course it’s all nice and well for the Auckland Plan to be full of pretty words and nice sounding targets, but the real crunch comes down to how much money gets spent on what projects and so far the draft long term plan is far from ideal. It will be interesting to see whether any other last minute changes to the Auckland Plan have resolved the glaring hypocrisy between the pretty words and the increasingly optimistic targets on the one hand, and the huge amount of money that is being planned to be poured into roading projects on the other hand.
I guess that matter will be in the hands of the Council on Thursday but I will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
By Matt L, on March 12th, 2012 As these two recent posts discussed, the Auckland Spatial Plan has been going through a fairly major overhaul during the past few weeks – in response to submissions on the draft plan and also in response to further analysis that has taken place since the draft plan was released for consultation back in September last year. Perhaps the most critical part of the Plan is what’s known as the “Development Strategy” – this key map in the draft plan: There has been a lot of debate and discussion over the key question of how much of Auckland’s future growth should be inside the urban limits compared to outside, as well as discussion over which are the most appropriate (and realistic) parts of the existing urban area to focus further intensification within. The net result of that discussion, unfortunately, seems to be a shift from 75 per cent down to 60-70 per cent of growth being inside the current urban limits (not the current urban area, a key distinction as there’s space for around 30,000 more greenfield dwellings within the current urban limits in places like Flat Bush and Hobsonville). But there has also been quite a significant change in the proposed locations for urban intensification – which previously were predominantly the red areas in the map above.
The new development strategy map has been flashed up on screen many times at council meetings over the past month – so is visible in many of the videos located at the excellent Franklin Live website, which documents the council’s business (although I wish they’d put their videos on Youtube for better searching and archiving capabilities). However, it was not until last week’s Transport Committee meeting that a more easily accessible version of the updated development strategy map has been posted online – with the map visible on page 5 of this document. Here it is: Comparing the two is easiest if we put them side by side: The first obvious difference is that the greenfield investigation areas (the boxes with dotted red lines around them) are much bigger in the updated strategy. The boxes in the northwest and the north are, in particular, significantly more sizeable than in the draft strategy (which surely makes a NW busway even more important). There’s also a new box just south of Beachlands/Maraetai that didn’t appear in the draft strategy.
The next obvious change relates to the Metropolitan Centres – with Henderson and Botany upgraded from being ‘merely’ town centres in the draft plan to being full Metropolitan Centres in the updated version. This seems fairly sensible, especially with Henderson well served by existing services and infrastructure and with a huge amount of money going into building a busway from Botany to Panmure over the next decade. Specifically identifying local centres has dropped off the map, with the only other change I can spot (in relation to centres) being a removal of either Kingsland or Morningside from the list of town centres.
Aside from the above, the clear biggest change is what might be thought of as a “centralisation of intensification”. Aside from the Tamaki/Glen Innes area and a corridor along SH20, there weren’t really any “development areas” identified on the isthmus – which seemed strange as it’s the inner parts of Auckland where demand for apartments, terraced houses and other more intensified building typologies appears strongest. The new strategy seems to recognise this, with most parts of the isthmus not specifically identified as having heritage value being identified as suitable for “moderate change”. The extent of ‘moderate change’ on the North Shore has expanded quite significantly too – reflecting the likely market attractiveness of this part of Auckland. Once again, this seems to be a sensible move.
All things considered, aside from the wildly larger areas identified for urban sprawl, most of the proposed changes to the development strategy seem sensible. It’s particularly helpful that there now seems to be greater alignment between areas identified for moderate change and the likelihood of such change actually happening because there’s market demand. How successful the development strategy is will depend a lot on the timing of releasing various amounts of additional development capacity. If zoning regulations are changed in areas identified for change before we open up huge tracts of farmland for development, we might actually see more intensification than expected – particularly if the Council can do some “best practice” examples to show the market that it is possible. But if changing the zoning restrictions within the urban area doesn’t happen until after we open up huge greenfield areas for sprawl, then it seems likely that we’ll only repeat what’s happened in much of Auckland’s past: more sprawl than we’d thought, less intensification than we wanted, and poorer outcomes all round.
By Matt L, on March 9th, 2012 At the councils transport committee the other day there was a presentation about Integrated Ticketing. Much of the presentation was fairly standard with information that most people who have been following the progress of integrated ticketing will already have known i.e. what is Hop, what its advantages are, how it has been rolled out so far etc. (it doesn’t cover the Snapper issue raised a few weeks ago though).
The interesting, and concerning, part comes when it discusses the next steps.
The first three are nothing new but it is the last point that I am most concerned about. Effectively after rolling out the integrated ticketing system we will still maintain one of the key issues with the current set up, that you will still have to pay for another fare if you transfer services. Sure you will get a rebate of 50c off that next fare but you are still having to pay for it. Now in saying this I can accept this as a very short term interim step before rolling out a better fare system and this is what is said about the future stages for Hop.
Combined monthly passes are good but I just really hope it isn’t combined at the bus pass cost which I feel is already too excessive. Personally I use the all zones monthly train pass as I travel 5 stages to get to town however the same kind of pass for bus travel is an extra $20 and if I they matched the discovery pass which allows travel on almost all forms of public transport in the region it would cost a further $40. The most interesting thing from this slide though is the point about moving to a zonal based system. I had heard a while ago that one of the main reasons we hadn’t moved to one is that both the both ARTA/AT and the bus companies are afraid losing money from fares. The problem though is they seem to have modelled it based on what happens currently, not what would happen in the future if both the PT network and fares were designed to make transfers quick and easy.
The last section of the presentation also gives some information about some other activities coming up.
- Integrated ticketing facilitates more convenient payment of public transport fares for customers, removing a barrier to use – this will grow patronage.
- Integrated ticketing also removes a barrier for convenient service trip transfers between modes or operators.
- Integrated ticketing is therefore one of two strategic enablers to redesigning the PT network and bus network to form a time connected and integrated service network.
- This is currently being designed (target May/ June 2012) for local bus network redesigns & implementation over 2012-2014.
- Will provide connected & integrated services & timetables; permit removal of service duplication; create resource efficiencies & allowing more service for the same dollars.
- Other key enabler is a fully contracted bus network, rather than a hybrid commercial contracted model, PTOM from 2012.
May/June could be a very interesting time. Changing the bus network will be a big piece of work but one that is sorely needed and long overdue and as mentioned above, lets hope that we get free transfers sorted out before we start rolling out services that force customers to transfer.
Edit: and here is a video of the presentation
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