We tend to focus on issues related Auckland however a recently a video from the NZTA caught my attention. The main purpose of the video is to show some very pretty animations of what stage 2 of the Christchurch Southern motorway will look like. The project is part of the Chistchurch RoNS and is currently going through the Environmental Protection Authority process to get consent, it’s open for submissions. I guess the video was put together for to help show the impact.
I don’t know enough about the project to say if it is needed or not so won’t comment on that aspect. What struck me in the video is the amount of sprawl that is suggested will occur over the next 30 years. This is highlighted as occurring in Rollerston, Lincoln and Prebbleton. Showing each area separately helps to reduce the impact but when you look at the the areas shown, you see they all merge together forming one large continuous mass in an area that it appears would almost rival Christchurch for size. Here are the images I’m referring to:
Now perhaps the video is just trying to show the potential area where growth could occur but if that is the case then it just seems sloppy. If that much land is actually planned for growth then I am very very worried for Christchurch and it would be another case of them making many of the same mistakes Auckland has made.
The NZTA have also put this video out showing what the road may look like from the drivers seat. Do they really have that much money floating around for crap like this? Silly question, of course they do.
“What is the City but the people” Shakespeare, Coriolanus
Out of the tragedy of the earthquakes there are opportunities to improve what was, in truth, a struggling CBD in Christchurch. In one critical area it is not clear that this is being taken. Perhaps amidst the ruin and suffering there has been an understandable tendency to gloss over the city’s preexisting problems, a natural urge to idealise what has been lost. But as a reasonably regular visitor there before the quakes it was very clear to me that this was a city with a very big problem, a big and increasingly damaging hole in the heart of it; an emptying centre. The city was becoming a classic ‘Doughnut City’, our very own little Detroit: all sub and a declining urbs. A centre that was largely being treated as little more than an impediment to quick driving between identical big box retail malls in the suburbs that encircle it.
It is also likely that this problem will return unless it is addressed directly in any reconstruction. And as there is a clear desire to rebuild a centre to the city it is important that everything is done to make it succeed and prosper. How then to address this? Why has this been such a problem in Christchurch?
It’s pretty easy to see that spread is a risk for a city without the natural containment of say Wellington with its steep hills and roiling seas on all sides to help keep it compact, or the squeeze of our harbours in Auckland. Which means that even more attention needs to be given to keeping dispersal to a level that doesn’t damage the viability of the city. After a national transport policy over the last half century or so that consciously or not promoted spread [and continues today] and local additions like the place-ruining one way system through the old and charming centre and you get a city under threat of losing its locus.
But perhaps the biggest disaster to strike Christchurch last century, and one narrowly avoided in Auckland, was the removal of the University out to a greenfields site at Ilam. Tertiary education provides a vitality and a sheer number of economically engaged people year after year that no casino, convention centre, or sports ground ever will. Those amenities, while sometimes productive, are about occasional visitors and when poorly designed, especially when they are supplied with oceans of carparking, often do irreparable damage to a city centre. This model actively encourages the suburban or out of town visitor to enjoy the main act and then quickly retreat back to their source rather than engage more deeply with the host place.
While it isn’t practical to move the whole university back to the centre I certainly expected new plans for Christchurch to take the opportunity to tie the University back to the CBD with a new and direct transit link. The core of a new system of movement designed to liberate the condensed city centre from auto-dependency while adding the necessary human vitality. Not only to relieve the city of the burdens and costs of having to accommodate large numbers of cars that will be the result if driving remains the primary system of movement, but also so that it can truly meet the stated aims of the people as expressed here [page 21 of the plan], and claimed to be ‘reflected in the plan’:
From the community’s responses, five key changes formed the basis of the draft Central City Plan:
1. Green city 2. Stronger built identity 3. Compact CBD 4. Live, work, play, learn and visit 5. Accessible city
These changes are reflected in this Recovery Plan.
A key to making these five aims real would be to make damn sure that the first lines drawn on any page are direct and effective transit links between key sources of vitality and the centre that they are trying to revive. And then of course to continue to design the arrangement of new generators of activity around direct and appealing means of interconnection. That successful land use and good transport links go together is pretty elemental planning.
And with the devastation of the quakes there is the best opportunity the city will ever have to identify and protect efficient and integrated new transport routes for the rest of its future. Buses will clearly be the best immediate mode to use this new system as they can quickly and cheaply be reintroduced and levels of service ramped up as the rebuild continues. But to not plan for the possibility of upgrading to more appealing and permanent electric systems on key routes such as out to the university and the coast would be singularly short sighted. But the key is the network, the system, not the mode; and in the plan released yesterday there is no sign of any thought about the role that transport plays in in both forming place and the success or otherwise of it. Identifying and branding a direct university and city connector and making sure that its fast and frequent, and even free for student pass holders, should be there for starters. And it, like all transit routes should not terminate away from the new city’s attractions.
Here’s the plan. It looks like half a plan; no integration between land use and transit. A total reliance on the previous systems of movement that have so contributed to the city’s hollowing out. So the new building forms may well be 21st century but the city pattern will be from the 1950s. Even the destructive one way system may be back:
CHCH Central Recovery Plan
The one piece of transport infrastructure is a bus interchange station, with no indication of routing or integration with any other new amenity. Except it is, I note, handy to the courts. After a page on cycling separation including this sole mention of the university:
Christchurch City Council has expressed a desire to develop a cycle route between the University of Canterbury and central Christchurch. It would stretch across Hagley Park and Deans Avenue, west to the university campus.
There is this page on the Bus Interchange followed by a page on Car Parking which unfortunately looks like the real key to the authors’ thinking about transport; they want lots of convenient yet discrete parking and buses whose movements are kept to a minimum [!?]:
CHCH Bus Interchange
Of course all that convenient but expensively hidden parking will mean a great deal of driving, and therefore wide multilane roads, not narrower human scaled streets. This is addressed nowhere in the 120 pages. Is this want the people of Christchurch said they wanted? Where is the planning for light rail that was often mentioned? Surely here is a chance to spend on a new dynamic and inspiring piece of infrastructure instead of losing that money to vast quantities of carparking structures? While there is hope for a vastly improved commitment to new cycling infrastructure; surely a no-brainer for such a flat city, this is a plan to rebuild exactly what was a big contributor to Christchurch’s pre-quake problem, the opportunity offered by the devastation is being missed, this is auto-dependency by design; green building set in an anti-green city. A very big shame and a very big risk to the vitality and therefore the success of the new Christchurch.
When I first moved to Christchurch after leaving Auckland in 2004, I was amazed by what was then to me, the best execution of public transport I had ever seen. The biggest barriers to me in using public transport have always been ease of use, comfort and affordability.
No-one’s going to use a bus system which is complicated, illogical and difficult to find out which bus route to travel on or where to catch your bus. The core of the system in Christchurch was the Central Bus Exchange, a staging area through which almost all buses (excepting the Orbiter outer ring service) in the city were routed through. Having all the bus stops in (or beside) one building meant that transfers were easy, that you didn’t have to walk far to get between stops and the easy to understand maps helped visitors and new PT users find their bus stop. Compared with Auckland’s multitude of departure points from Downtown, Mid City, Civic Center, Albert St, it does make it a lot easier to the non native user to find their stop. Aiding ease of use were large electronic signage which clearly and accurately display arrival times of all buses using the Exchange and what platform they depart from. Each platform also had a smaller sign which displayed only departure times for that particular platform. While electronic signage is becoming increasingly common in Auckland over the last 10 years, because all of Christchurch’s CBD buses depart from the same place, every passenger has access to the signs, as opposed to many of the inner city stops in Auckland (i.e Albert St, Customs St) which don’t, and all to frequently have had their printed timetable vandalized.
After you’ve made public transport easy to use, you also have to make it comfortable. Your own weatherproof clean car with padded chairs is always going to be more attractive then a bench (if you’re lucky) on the street with possibly no rain cover and definitely minimal wind cover. Once you add in the dangers of being alone at a bus stop late at night in town, the litter, stench and graffiti that plagues our inner city stops, public transport can become a very unattractive option. With the Bus Exchange, Christchurch was able to provide a modern and comfortable venue for PT users. You could wait indoors for your bus, safe from rain or wind or excessive heat thanks to the interior air conditioning, relaxing on padded chairs in a security patrolled safe and well lit environment. We are seeing more and more people realize that these are the type of facilities that needs to be offered to PT customers. With the development of New Lynn, Britomart and Manukau, Auckland is getting there. Unfortunately these are all mainly beneficial to train users, there isn’t really anything which offers the same level of ease to bus users. Which the construction of Britomart I had hopes that they would better integrate the bus system with the train station, but that hasn’t happened. New Lynn is primarily a train station and while the bus station is integrated, it is designed for people to sit outside for their bus rather than in.
Here are some photos of the old bus exchange:
Christchurch also meets the third tenet of providing an attractive choice to private transport which is affordability. It’s not really relevant to the Bus Exchange but Christchurch does enjoy integrated ticketing based on a time scheme rather then zonal. Users may travel on any number of buses for 2hours and pay only $2.30. If they travel longer, they pay $4.60, the daily max charge.
With the events of 22/2/11, Christchurch lost much of its city center including the bus exchange. We had a temporary bus exchange for a few months which filled an emergency requirement.
Thankfully October 2010 bought an improvement with a purpose built Temporary Central Station. I haven’t had a chance to use this new exchange extensively as a passenger, but I believe it will certainly fill the gap until we get the promised brand new under-grounded (so that emerging buses do not impact pedestrian movement) bus exchange at some future point. Another major impact the earthquakes had was on traffic within the city. With the central city cordoned off for well over 8months, and the central part of the city still cordoned off, traffic every where else in Christchurch has been chaotic with all of that throughput which usually uses the city center’s 4 one way lanes redirected to roads which are not designed to handle that quantity of traffic. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that due to having to bypass around the giant rectangle of closed city center added more time to every journey. This understandably had a massive impact on the bus times and for the first few months after the quake our services were unreliable, always late and very inconvenient.
With the gradual reopening of the city center, timetable adjustments which reflect increased journey times and some central city through roads being opened, traffic is slowly getting back to normal. With a bus exchange located once again in the city it makes it easier to get cross town and transfer between routes. While most shops and businesses have relocated out of the city center, the bus exchange being back does mean that people can once again easily commute into town. This will play a crucial role in the rebuilding of our CBD. Here’s a comparison of diagrams of the old and new interchanges: And some photos of the new temporary interchange:
Trying to get my head around whether 2011 was a good year or not such a good year for advocates of a more balanced transport system like myself, is a bit of a challenge. There were a number of good things which happened, but at the same time there were also a number of steps backward. Here’s my brief summary of the year.
The early months of 2011 were a time when Auckland Council and Auckland Transport were still very much “settling in”. We saw some really interesting first glimpses of what the council’s vision for Auckland’s city centre was in January, we found out that Len Brown’s goal for public transport patronage was 150 million trips a year by 2021 (and we wondered how that would be achieved). We also saw construction of the now open Wynyard Quarter tram loop. Submissions on preferred options for the Puhoi-Warkworth section of the holiday highway were written.
The February 22 earthquake in Christchurch obviously stands out as the whole country’s biggest event of the year, but seemed to have a remarkably little impact on the transport discussion here in Auckland. The government passed over a golden opportunity to back down over Puhoi-Wellsford (or at least downgrade it to something more sensible at a time when the whole country would have understood such a move), while Auckland Council sensibly pointed out that it would be many more years before serious money for the City Rail Link project was required. Behind the scenes, it was becoming fairly clear that officials reviewing the business case for the CRL were unlikely to come to agreement on the project’s merits.
In March the Auckland Unleashed discussion document was released, outlining the Council’s vision – at a broad-bush level – for Auckland over the next 30 years. We saw a great video of Len Brown’s rail vision for Auckland, but once again this positivity was tempered by the government’s feedback on the document (weirdly released before the discussion document) that pushed for more sprawl and more roads. Following hot on the heels of all that spatial plan discussion, we finally saw some progress on the implementation of a smartcard ticketing system in Auckland, with the launch of HOP. Unfortunately the complexity of the deal done between Auckland Transport, Thales, Snapper, NZ Bus, NZTA and so forth meant that the launch was generally met more by confusion than celebration.
From the optimism of those early months (earthquakes aside), the middle months of the year were a little more depressing – although the superb patronage stats throughout the year tempered this disappointment. The 2012 Government Policy Statement for Land Transport Funding turned out to be even stupider and more roads-obsessed than its 2009 predecessor, proposing additional RoNS that were so crazy they didn’t even end up being adopted into National’s election transport policy. But perhaps the biggest disappointment of those middle months was the review of the City Rail Link project, with the narrow-minded thinking of Ministry of Transport officials ignoring matters as fundamental as the bus and car capacity of the CBD when assessing the merits of the project. It was not a great year for the MoT, who also managed to forget to record the spending of around $180 million.
On a brighter note, the actual implementation of the HOP card went smoother than most (including myself) had expected. Bus loading times declined dramatically thanks to the speed of tagging on (although I still get annoyed at the cash-paying idiots who block the whole entranceway – any chance of some signage NZ Bus?) On a personal note, June was a pretty epic month with baby Adele arriving five weeks earlier than anticipated, leading to a couple of weeks of very regular travel to the hospital.
August saw the introduction of the Outer Link bus, as well as significance reconfiguration of all Western Bays services. Although further tweaks have been necessary (and probably will continue to be necessary in the future), overall the changes were very positive and have led to an increase in patronage exceeding what was forecast. After that, all eyes turned to the Rugby World Cup, which began on that fateful day of September 9th.
The transport chaos of RWC opening night was very unfortunate, but told us some very insightful things. As suspected, the CCO model of delivering many of council’s services through separate agencies did mean that they became siloed and didn’t talk to each other over matters as simple as the number of people expected to attend opening night. The highly fractured structure of running public transport in Auckland meant that everyone could point the finger at everyone else, whilst avoiding responsibility for that happened. But more positively, we also saw (and hopefully didn’t put off forever) an unprecedented willingness of Aucklanders to use public transport. There were over 140,000 rail trips around Auckland on September 9th, there probably could have been over 200,000 if we had the system to cope with them. I don’t think we’ve seen too much long-term damage from that evening, but perhaps we might see some long-term benefit with the realisation that it very much is Auckland’s public transport system that lets us down in our quest to become a truly world-class city.
During, and just after, the RWC, we saw draft versions of a number of really important documents that will help guide Auckland’s future. These included, the Draft Auckland Plan, the City Centre Master Plan, the Waterfront Plan and an Economic Development Strategy. I put together a fairly detailed submission on the Auckland Plan, and overall many thousands of submissions were received by the Council. Final decisions on these plans will be made in the first few months of next year.
In September we also found out one of the best pieces of transport news for the year – that we would get 57 electric trains rather than the originally proposed 35. The excellent work by Auckland Transport to secure this deal probably hasn’t been given the praise it deserves, especially as many tens of millions of dollars were squeezed out of the government as their contribution to the additional trains. It was also very welcome to learn that the trains are going to look damn nice too.
After the RWC was finished, the election rolled around pretty quickly. While the overall result wasn’t particularly positive, as it seems we will see more of the same from central government, there were some interesting outcomes. We will have our first transport planner MP, in the Greens’ Julie-Anne Genter, Labour’s new leader David Shearer has been a long-time supporter of public transport in Auckland, while Phil Twyford becoming labour’s transport spokerperson should also lead to a greater focus on Auckland transport issues. In the interests of fairness, we should give new transport minister Gerry Brownlee a chance before passing final judgment on him.
So overall it has been a pretty damn busy year when it comes to Auckland transport issues. As I noted at the start of this post, there have been a number of steps forward but also a number of steps backwards. 2012 should hopefully see the resolution of a number of these issues: a finalisation of the spatial plan, hopefully some agreed way forward on the merits of the City Rail Link, the proper implementation of integrated ticketing and many more interesting things.
I’m just hoping for a slightly less crazy year than this one.
This is a Guest Post by regular commenter Patrick Reynolds. It was published as an Opinion Piece in a recent Sunday Star Times (though not online).
William Bambridge, flautist ‘of some competence’, future photographer Royal to Queen Victoria, and sire of no fewer than three all-England international footballers, made this observation in 1844: ‘I suppose as a whole Auckland is a gradually thriving place, tho’ as a town it is miserably laid out and built.’ Fair enough.
Auckland then was brand new, an encampment by a stream, Waihorotiu, the one that still flows under Queen St complete with its taniwha. The problem is that this description of Auckland is still pretty accurate. There are encouraging signs that things are at last improving, but in general, and particularly since the middle of last century, Auckland has done little but get further and further from gracing its natural setting. As if we have been determined to fulfil Bambridge’s description.
What does it matter, you might ask, so long as it is ‘a gradually thriving place’. Well this is the very point. I have a view on how this country can best compete with Australia, on how to ensure it thrives a little more than gradually. And it isn’t about which place can pay its people the least or has the lower taxes.
It’s about where is the better place to live, and this means having a high quality built environment as well as the more unmolested natural one. And spreading this growing city thinly over the surrounding countryside is about the surest way to achieve neither of things. As well as to bankrupt us through the sheer inefficiency of this 1960s model.
The attractions of city life are especially real for the more mobile younger population who can always opt for Sydney, Melbourne, or Shanghai, and certainly will keep doing so if we allow our urban centres to stay so substandard. And go they should, but it is essential that we do all we can to attract them back again before their pension age. Currently our cities bore young people to the airport.
It might seem obvious but it is worth pointing out that we live in cities in order to be closer to one another, not all of us of course, but ever increasing numbers of us desire the intensity of city life.
For New Zealand is undergoing the same demographic movements as China and most of the rest of the world, the quantities are somewhat different but the dynamic is the same. The urban centres of the upper North Island, and Auckland in particular, are growing at a far greater rate than the rest of the country. Auckland is projected to be home to three out of every four new New Zealanders, by birth or immigration, over the next couple of decades.
Even if various politicians and the makers of beer commercials know that at some level we don’t believe this and play to our fantasies of still being rugged country types, it is important to understand that we are not a rural population. Well over 75% of us live in the main centres, we have long been a nation of townies, and are urbanising fast.
A city is a not simply a big provincial town, it requires a different order of organisation, it offers a different set of pleasures and problems. For example the freedom the highway promises in the countryside becomes isolating and defiling in the city. So it is a relief that with the creation of the Super City at last this seems to be understood by local government. As can be seen by the determination to provide Auckland with a real urban transit system and attempts to constrain the cancer-like spread of low value suburbia over the beautiful and productive rural fringes.
Like the ungainly teenager it resembles, it is unclear if Auckland will be able to fulfil this potential, especially as at least for now, every step of the way it has to fight for the right to its own ideas with an uncomprehending and provincial-minded government. One that seems to be unwilling to let the city become the sophisticated adult it surely can.
Even so in some areas Auckland is beginning grow out of the dreary legacy of the postwar era. We are discovering, for example, that the city is actually by the sea and are building towards it in promising ways. But we have a very big struggle ahead to accommodate both population growth and deal with the very real twin taniwhas of our time, the end of cheap oil and the pressures of climate change. And in this most auto-dependent of cities.
A few years after the interesting and perceptive Mr Bambridge visited Auckland another Englishman stepped off a ship here, off one of the fabled First Four Ships in fact. And into a place that was to become very well ‘laid out and built’ indeed, Christchurch. He was also to try his hand at that great Victorian innovation, photography, but that is not what we remember him for.
Benjamin Mountfort was destined to become the great architect of the Gothic Revival in New Zealand, designing landmark buildings like the Canterbury Museum, the Provincial Chambers, and a whole collection of churches in this style of the Victorian medieval. A retiring and devout Anglican his works perfectly express the conscious aim of the Canterbury Association and others to create an imagined England in the South Pacific. The ruling ideology of that British century made visible. And at once giving Christchurch a defining character.
Much of this is now tragically in ruins. As a child of the more ramshackle north I always loved the texture and the richness of the Victorian and Edwardian streetscape in the central city, as I do still that of its Presbyterian neighbour to the south. But of course it is now clear that this stacking of brick and stone is a hopeless technology for our young and shaky land.
But still, the centre of Christchurch remains well ‘laid out’, street pattern being durable, and from the great loss there are some quick wins to be made. There is the chance to be rid some of the more miserable 20th century additions as well as the daft one way system. And to build a new modern Light Rail network to reconnect the heart to rest of the city. And of course what can be saved must be, but it will need more than this.
Mountfort first lost a church to an earthquake in Napier in 1931 and perhaps the contemporary rebuilding of that city is the model. It seems to this Aucklander that there is a fantastic opportunity for the building of a new central Christchurch by the best architects of the 21st century. To launch an ambitious programme of seismically secure, ecologically advanced and just plain beautiful contemporary building. Structures that offer answers to the challenges of this new century.
To seize this moment to add a stunning and ambitious contemporary layer to the centre seems to me to be the best way to get Christchurch back onto the world map, and to prevent the city from further fracturing into little more than a dissipated collection of bland and characterless shopping malls.
But also, in an authentic way, to honour the city’s great architectural past as well as the industry and determination of its founders.
As I noted in yesterday’s post, some big questions are starting to be asked about what infrastructure projects will, and will not, proceed over the next few years as a result of the Christchurch earthquake. In particular, with so much central government funding having to be dedicated to rebuilding infrastructure in and around Christchurch, the ability of the government to contribute to funding infrastructure projects over the next few years has obviously been reduced. This is picked up on in an article in today’s Herald – with specific reference to the Auckland CBD rail tunnel:
Some of New Zealand’s largest infrastructure projects – including Auckland’s downtown rail loop and the Puhoi “holiday highway” project – face delay or cancellation as money and resources are diverted to Christchurch….
…That could delay some projects on which work has started, and mean the axe for some projects such as Auckland’s downtown rail loop which the Government has not yet accepted.
Mr English also suggested the Government was looking at the partial sale of state-owned power companies to free cash for Christchurch’s recovery.
A Government source last night said Auckland’s $2 billion rail loop now had only a remote chance of being built.
“That was a situation where the Government said it didn’t have any money sitting around for that, and that’s probably even more so now,” the source said.
The Herald understands the quake will not affect the $1 billion electrification of Auckland’s rail network or other passenger rail projects in Auckland or Wellington.
I didn’t actually see the government chipping in much, if anything, out of its general fund for the CBD Rail Tunnel in any case – but it seems now the bar is even higher when it comes to central government involvement: notwithstanding Bill English’s comment yesterday that it might be the timing of various projects that requires greatest consideration of amending, rather than whether they go ahead at all.
As I noted in yesterday’s post, I think care does need to be taken in terms of ‘turning off the tap’ on Auckland too much. This is picked up by Mike Lee later in the article:
Transport committee chairman Mike Lee said a recovering Canterbury and the country would not be served by having “a weak stagnating Auckland”.
“Auckland must stay strong, Auckland must stay purposeful, Auckland must advance,” he said.
“I think there is a compelling need to help Canterbury within our means, but that doesn’t mean we down tools and stagnate.
“We have to keep marching on, but there has to be national leadership – I believe there has to be a national levy that every New Zealander, and not just Auckland, will pay.
Mr Lee said he was concerned that people might be using the Christchurch earthquake “to reinforce their own prejudices which we have seen on display for so many months” after the release of the business case and its compelling arguments for the rail link.
There will actually be increased pressure on Auckland over the next few years to ‘raise its game’ when it comes to economic performance. There is also likely to be some increased pressure on infrastructure if people shift away from Christchurch permanently (it seems reasonably likely a number would come to Auckland).
If we look at the CBD Tunnel specifically, the business case for the project suggested that a completion date of 2021 was reasonable, and probably necessary to avoid the CBD stagnating and/or the city’s route becoming completely choked with cars and buses. A completion date of 2021 is also laid out in the Regional Land Transport Strategy. Len Brown had wanted to complete the tunnel earlier than that, but those hopes may now need a reality check.
If we take 2021 as our ‘completion year’, and work back six years of construction, we find that 2015 is the year we need to start building the project. That’s four years from now. I’m not sure what the timeline for fixing up Christchurch’s infrastructure will be (and I can certainly appreciate that it will be measured in years), but one would hope that four years down the track the bulk of the infrastructure work (which is the stuff the government will need to pay for) will be completed.
Furthermore, if there’s some sort of agreement between Auckland Council and central government to split the cost of the CBD Tunnel “50/50”, theoretically Auckland Council could pay for the first three years of construction, with central government not having to contribute until 2018. The business case estimated the timing of expenditure required for the project – this is outlined below: I think what’s really important at the moment is that we continue with the steps that need to be taken to making the CBD Rail Tunnel a reality before we start spending big bucks. Things like getting the designation sorted out, undertaken the detailed design, undertaking any smallish enabling works that are necessary and so forth. All of this is critical to the project. The business case outlined a possible future timeframe for the project:
The planning workstream should still continue as planned, because that’s a cost to Auckland Council and not a cost to the government. Furthermore, compared to actually building the thing it’s a relatively low cost. We can do all of that, then see where we are in 2015 in terms of Christchurch’s recovery, what our other infrastructure priorities are, what the price of petrol is and so forth – and then make a final decision about funding construction at, or around, that point. The project would still not really be delayed from current timeframes.
The potential stumbling block in this approach is if the government is very determined to stuff things around. While Auckland Transport has led the work on this project so far, my understanding is that KiwiRail would be the likely agency to actually designate the rail route: because they own the rail corridors throughout NZ. If Steven Joyce really doesn’t want the project to shift ahead, I am guessing that he could ban KiwiRail from lodging the notice of requirement (the application to designate) – which would make things a bit more difficult. I suppose in that situation, perhaps Auckland Transport could step in to take KiwiRail’s place: completely excluding central government from the project at this point.
Overall, I think it’s important to keep in mind that we can still get on with advancing the CBD Rail Tunnel project, even if we haven’t quite yet figured out how to pay for it. There’s a lot of planning, design, consultation, land-purchase and other work that needs to take place before we can put our tunnelling machines in the ground. Most of that work is relatively inexpensive – so Auckland Council should make it happen, regardless of whether the government’s onside at this particular point in time.
After all, we may well have a different government by the time it comes around to finding money for the project.
Although it will (justifiably so) be quite some time before we get past the initial human tragedy of last week’s Christchurch earthquake to think about the financial cost of the disaster, clearly it will be an extremely expensive disaster to recover from. This is outlined below, from a Scoop Article on the quake’s financial cost:
Last Tuesday’s quake, which killed at least 154 people, will cost as much as $15 billion, adding to the September disaster’s $5 billion bill, and equating to about 7% of the nation’s gross domestic product. Reinsurer Validus Holdings estimates the cost of the quake to the insurance industry will be as much as $10 billion.
A lot of the money will come through insurance companies, and their ‘reinsurance’ through the wider industry. That will be to the tune of around $10 billion. EQC also has money available to spend, but above and beyond that it seems the government will need to spend at least a few billion on works that are not covered by insurance schemes: generally in the form of welfare assistance packages in the short term, plus infrastructure rebuilding in the longer term.
Now that’s a lot of money for a government currently borrowing around $300 million a week just to stay afloat. Let’s remember that the Waterview Connection project and the widening of State Highway 16 to complete the Western Ring Route comes to around $2 billion. So if the government spends a few billion on infrastructure fixes in Christchurch, that will need to come from somewhere.
The Scoop Article linked to above has a few quotes from Finance Minister Bill English on the matter:
Finance Minister Bill English says the government will reshuffle its priorities to make sure Christchurch is rebuilt, and will look at all options, including curbing interest free-student loans and Working for Family tax credits which it previously said wouldn’t be changed.
Prime Minister John Key had already signalled the government will cut its new spending by as much as $300 million as it deal with a high level of foreign indebtedness that’s raised the ire of ratings company Standard & Poor’s.
The government will keep its spending focus on front-line services, and income support for people on low incomes, and continue to spend on “infrastructure and productive investment.”
“The earthquake means (tighter spending) is now absolutely necessary and we need to produce definitive results from that process,” English told a media briefing in Wellington. “We won’t change that recipe significantly, but we are going to have to test the limits of it.”
Whether the extra money should be found through more borrowing, spending cuts or an additional disaster levy (like what Australia’s doing) is a matter for debate that’s probably outside the scope of this blog. However, what is relevant are the potential effects on infrastructure projects – notably transport projects. This is discussed further:
English said spending on major infrastructure projects, such as Auckland’s central business district rail loop, may get pushed out, though the government won’t change its general approach.
“With the infrastructure projects, you’ve got some choice about the timing, such as the CBD loop in Auckland, and a year or two can make, over a longer period of time, a significant enough difference for us,” he said. “We’ve got some fairly big commitments we’d like to maintain, such as the ultra-fast broadband.”
To be honest, that’s about the most positive thing I’ve ever heard Bill English say about the CBD rail tunnel – that he actually foresees it happening in the future, it’s just a question of “when”.
In my opinion, the earthquake does change things quite significantly. There is no doubt that Christchurch will require a lot of expenditure when it comes to fixing up the infrastructure – and that’s fine. What it means is that we need to be really careful about the money spent on transport infrastructure – in short, we need to ensure we get good ‘bang for our buck’. Time for Operation Lifesaver instead of the holiday highway, time to take a good long pause to think about how badly we really do need another harbour crossing, time to think about more cost-effective solutions than Penlink. And so forth.
However, I think we need to be careful about scaling back on infrastructure investment in Auckland too much. Over the next few years it seems very likely that Christchurch’s economic activity will be reduced as a result of the quake (although there should be a fairly good construction sector there for a while to come). In order for the country to pull itself out of the current economic downturn, I think there will be an increased reliance on Auckland to “pick up the slack”. While we may be able to do that without some of the previously proposed infrastructure investment, I think it would be short-sighted to stop or delay too many of Auckland’s projects.
I am in Christchurch for the NZ Planning Institute conference for the next couple of days, but there should continue to be a few posts trickling out over that time thanks to Jeremy.
I have been pretty impressed by Christchurch so far actually (I was last here when I was 12). The pedestrianised streets in the inner city are great, the tram system, while touristy more than anything else, works really well with the local streets. There also seems to be a tonne of cyclists.
Hopefully will meet Paul Mees tomorrow as he is giving a paper.
Here are a couple of good ideas that add to urban livability and sustainability that I saw during my recent travels that I haven’t seen in Auckland and cannot see why we don’t have them.
Firstly Bicycle Cops:
Come on, even the yanks have these. The downtown station in Auckland is a beat only station while Newmarket has some but only constables, get em on bikes!
Secondly, public recycling bins:
To Landfill or Recycling Centre - simple you'd think
These ones are in Christchurch at the International Antarctic Centre but everywhere I went in Wellington and Christchurch you could find these but they are nowhere to be seen in Auckland, they were great, my recycling went up hugely while I was there because I had a choice wherever I was rather than the choice not to recycle or carry my rubbish around with me all day.
The title I’m sure is not a suprise to regular readers but after my New Year travels I think we can make it official. Here are some images from around NZ showing how far behind Auckland is, we really should be ashamed.
Wellington is a fantastically walkable city and I could have uploaded a hundred photos showing what they do well, here is an idea that was all round the CBD and it is pedestrian covers near intersections for pedestrians to wait under after pushing the crossing signal. They also provide an advertising space which I’m guessing more than covers their cost. Guess what, when a covered walkway was needed between types of PT or stations and destinations, a group was put in a line, simple eh?
Here is the square in front of Te Papa, the whole Wellington waterfront is like this, it goes for kilometres!
Not pictured is Cuba Mall which is great too and hilariously came about due to some public works in the 1960s, the street was closed for these works and businesses found when cars were banished from the street business returns went up dramatically, I notice a trend, as the works neared an end the businesses pleaded with the city council to make it permanent. No such luck in Auckland, where our short sighted city businesses are protesting over even just shared streets.
My trip was my first time in Christchurch and I was pleasantly suprised about just how walkable the city was. Firstly Cathedral Square was a magical centre for the city but it was some of the some streets just off the central square that were the best. This is Worcester St:
And I believe from memory this is Cashel St which is a full pedestrian Mall:
I love to see any streets half as good as those for walkability, urban form and bicycling anywhere in Auckland’s CBD. Maybe the shared streets will get us part way there but doesn’t go far enough in my opinion, Queen Street should be pedestrian and bus only from Town Hall to Britomart and the number of proposed shared streets should be quadrupled.
Finally here is a photo from Porirua, this is one of the main streets of the city just off from the city’s centre:
It has been fully pedestrianised and covered in a canopy, it was quite fantastic to find.
Now I know Councillors and Council staff from the ACC, WCC, MCC and ARC read this blog, many do an excellent job but there is a perception in Auckland that our local body politicans are failed central government politicans or wannabe list MPs, I think maybe catching up to Porirua might help change that perception. Doing something about Queen Street, which is basically a four-lane highway in the heart of our city, might be a good start.
Recent Comments