|
|
By admin, on May 22nd, 2010 Having finally got the 30 year Regional Land Transport Strategy completed, it’s important to look at the question “where to next?” This is particularly important to consider when you realise how the whole management of transport in Auckland is going to be revolutionised in the next few months, with the creation of the Auckland Transport CCO. This vast change in how transport will be run in Auckland is both a huge risk and a huge opportunity, as there will be the chance to start from scratch in some respects, but at the same time there is also the opportunity to build on gains made in the past few years.
With a potential vacuum during the changeover from ARTA and a pile of transport departments in each council roll into the new Auckland Transport agency, I think it’s important that there are some clear plans for what gets done in the next five years in particular. Obviously ARTA has its transport plans, and each individual council have their plans, NZTA have their plans and so forth, but for the first time in the near future we will see most of these plan come together (unfortunately Auckland Transport will still have no real power over the state highway or railway system) and we will have the opportunity to actually start giving effect to the very many plans and strategies that are sitting around.
Probably the best indicator of current thinking about what transport will be constructed, or have its planning advanced with a mind towards construction in the not too distant future, is laid out in ARTA’s 2009-2012 Regional Land Transport Programme. Keeping in mind that this only covers three years, and that we’re already one year into its timeframe, it’s a bit more shorter-term than what I think we need to be considering, but it’s still a useful starting point. Here are some of the major projects in the current programme:
Major local roading and State highway projects which are scheduled to be constructed in the 2009/10–2011/12 programme are:
- The Central Connector.
- SH1 Newmarket Viaduct.
- SH18 Hobsonville Deviation.
- New roading connections and improvements associated with the New Lynn rail trenching and transport interchange.
- Major roading projects in new development areas, especially Flat Bush, East Tamaki and Pukekohe.
- Bus priority programmes.
- Major pavement reconstruction.
In addition there will be significant funding in the following public transport areas in the three-year time period of the RLTP:
- Integrated fares and ticketing and the completion of the real time public information system.
- Trains
- Significant rail station upgrades will take place during the RLTP period, including major new transport interchanges at Newmarket, New Lynn and Manukau. KiwiRail will continue its programme of signalling upgrades and double tracking. The Western Line double tracking is expected to be completed by June 2010.
- Electrification will build on the momentum achieved in Auckland rail over the past five years in which patronage has grown from just over 2 million to over 7 million passenger trips per year. Seat capacity will be increased by at least 12.5 % over the three-year period as a result of additional and longer trains in service as more refurbished carriages are brought into operation. The Government has given its commitment to electrifying Auckland’s rail network and is working with the region on the mechanisms to deliver an electrified rail network.
- Buses
- Service improvements will be implemented on the Isthmus, Waitakere, North West Rodney, Manukau and Papakura including better connections to rail stations.
- Ferries
- Half Moon Bay ferry terminal upgrade.
- Hobsonville ferry terminal in conjunction with new housing development.
- Bayswater ferry terminal design.
- Birkenhead – installation of hydraulic ramp.
Major schemes proposed for study, investigation and design stage include:
- CBD Rail Tunnel.
- Crash reduction studies in Auckland City, Waitakere and Franklin.
- Freight Transhipment studies on the State highway network.
- Designation of Constellation to Albany busway extension.
- Albany Highway Corridor upgrade.
- CBD Waterfront access.
Extending this programme out by a couple more years would allow the new Transport Agency to be a bit more visionary, and also reflects that many of these projects (Hobsonville Deviation, Newmarket Viaduct, Central Connector, railway station upgrades etc.) are already under construction and are therefore not really relevant for considering what new projects should be prioritised over the next five years.
I think splitting the type of project up into roads, public transport and other (such as walking/cycling/other pedestrian improvements) is quite a useful start, and I also think that it’s useful to consider whether we would hope to be constructing this project within the next five years, or whether the main focus is on planning/design/consenting etc. Many of the bigger projects are obviously going to be mainly in the planning and design phase, and the important thing will be to ensure that everything is ready to go once we have the money available or once the need for the project becomes particularly clear.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the distinctions between projects can at times be fuzzy, particularly the question of whether a roading upgrade with bus lanes should be counted as a roading project or as a public transport project. I generally make the distinction based on the issue of “who benefits most?” By in large, new roads will benefit motorists the most, even if they have peak hour bus lanes, so therefore I would put that under roads. In contrast, turning part of an existing road into bus lanes primarily benefits public transport users, so therefore would be a public transport project.
OK well let’s start with roading projects, and as shown in the table below there is a particular focus on state highway projects already underway, or those that are likely to be underway in the not too distant future. The list looks fairly short, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that “other arterial road improvements” is quite broad, and there are likely to be a number of areas where arterial road upgrades are either constructed, or get close to being constructed, during this time period:
 I don’t think anything is particularly controversial there, apart from perhaps the priority I have given to PenLink. I’ll have a think about that one a bit more myself, but my general thinking behind it is based on the current route to Whangaparaoa being a huge dogleg detour, and therefore the gains from constructing PenLink do see to be long-lasting and real. Note that I do not include the widening of State Highway 16 in my list, as I think it’s stupid for us to waste $800 million widening a motorway just to watch it fill up again with induced demand. Also unsurprisingly I think that just a Warkworth bypass and a safety upgrade of SH1 between Puhoi and Wellsford is needed, rather than a multi-billion dollar holiday highway.
In terms of public transport projects, obviously my list is rather longer – perhaps because that’s an area where I have greater interest, or perhaps because we really are coming to the end of roading projects in Auckland that need to be undertaken, and most of the remaining list of transport projects are related to improving public transport. Looking at the projects I would want to see under construction (or implemented might be a more encompassing term) I think what should come across most obviously is that they’re mostly about buses. There are two big rail projects within the next five years: the completion of Project DART and rail electrification. That should keep us busy enough, along with some platform lengthening, perhaps the addition of a Parnell/University station and the very much needed third track between Wiri and Westfield.
The reason I have focused so much on bus projects in the next five years is because they are relatively quick and easy to implement: as Human Transit’s latest blog post notes, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper and faster to put some paint on a road (bus lane) than it is to build rail. So there are key bus-based projects, like getting an interim QTN (Quality Transit Network – read bus lanes) up and running between Panmure and Botany (and also between Botany and Manukau I should probably add), upgrading Dominion Road: hopefully to light-rail but potentially in the shorter term just to having better quality bus lanes, getting a QTN operational along the SH18 corridor as that develops, and perhaps most critically: getting bus lanes in operation along all the nominated QTN corridors. This shouldn’t be a particularly expensive project, it just needs some willpower. Other important projects for implementation include a complete redesign of the bus route system, so the it better reflects the integrated ticketing system we will have and so that it takes advantage of the “network effect” benefits I have described previously. There are probably some other ferry upgrades that will be required, hopefully taking advantage of integrated ticketing and a simplified bus route structure to encourage people to catch feeder buses to their ferries.
In terms of design/consenting, here’s where more of the “big ticket items” emerge, such as the CBD Rail Tunnel, rail to the airport, the extension of the busway to Albany and the southeast Auckland RTN (hopefully in the form of a Howick/Botany Line). The Regional Land Transport Strategy highlights many of these projects for construction in the 2020-2040 period, except for the CBD rail tunnel which is recognised as crucial for construction by 2021, but I think it’s essential that the routes for all these projects are protected and that they are pretty much “ready to go” as soon as the funding and political will is there to push the go button. Not future-proofing or protecting the routes of important transport projects can lead to disaster, if someone builds something really big in the way, so I think it’s essential there’s a really big push to sort them out as soon as possible. I also think that extensions of the little tram network we will have hopefully created between Wynyard Quarter and Britomart will become increasingly sensible in the future, so doing the background work to extend the system along Tamaki Drive and Dominion Road seems sensible to me. Finally, in terms of projects that would be at their initial investigation phase, I have put a North Shore railway line and the Avondale Southdown railway line into this group. These projects are likely to be some of the later “big ticket items”, but it’s still useful in my opinion to be analysing them and working out which routes/options we would want to proceed with.
Turning to walking, cycling and other projects, these are projects that are mainly about improving the lot for pedestrians and cyclists. There are a few “big ticket items”, like the Harbour Bridge Cycleway idea which seems to be proceeding quite well, but many others are just about changing around existing areas to make them more pedestrian friendly. Rolling out the shared streets idea more and more is an example of that.
 The great thing about walking and cycling improvements is that they generally aren’t particularly expensive. For just a few million you can get many kilometres of cycleway, whereas by comparison the Victoria Park Tunnel project costs nearly a million dollars a metre to build. Some of the other projects to implement, such as lowering the speed on non-arterial routes, wouldn’t cost anything (apart from signage) but would contribute significantly to making our city more friendly and livable I think. In the longer term, I really do hope that bigger and potentially more challenging projects such as pedestrianising parts of Queen Street and Quay Street can be possible. If we had a tram running up and down Queen Street, to connect our Wynyard Quarter tramway with a Dominion Road one, that could mix quite well with an otherwise pedestrianised street.
Well anyway, that’s my idea of a transport plan for Auckland over the next 5 years. It’s a lot of work, but then the new Auckland Transport agency will be sucking up a lot of money so it should be able to achieve a plan like this, at least the parts that it can control. There’s generally nothing much new in my plan, apart from the Howick/Botany railway line and my tramway ideas, but instead it’s all about implementing what’s in the RLTS and in ARTA’s 10 year “Auckland Transport Plan“. In terms of the focus on buses, this is because doing so is a “low hanging fruit” – potentially big benefits for relatively low cost. But at the same time, I think it’s critical the big ticket items are progressed, at lest in terms of getting all the design and consenting done so that once funding is available they are ready to go.
I am sure I’ve missed things, or that there are parts of this plan people disagree with. So it’d be great to get some feedback on it, so I can refine it and hopefully eventually turn these basic ideas into something that might really make a difference.
By admin, on May 21st, 2010 Manukau City Council seem to have finally come to the realisation that creating a massive area of auto-dependent sprawl out in a far corner of Auckland, miles from any railway lines, motorways or high-frequency bus routes, might not be the smartest idea. Particularly, there seems to be a realisation that the way Flat Bush has developed so far, as a confusing maze of cul-de-sacs, has helped create the beginnings of the most extraordinarily soulless and depressing suburb.
This “realisation” is made clear in the Stage Two Masterplan for Flat Bush. This new Master Plan (whole 72 page, 15 MB document here, summary here) picks up on many of the points I made about street patterns in a recent blog post, and perhaps its biggest suggestion is the move away from the pattern of curved arterials with local roads made up of highly complex and confusing little streets.
Here’s an example of the street network in an existing part of Flat Bush:
Someone living here is only ever going to use their car to get around and undertake most of their daily activities. What a mess.
Fortunately, the Masterplan does involve quite a significant shift away from this type of street network, as shown below:
The areas in grey are those which exist already, while the orange streets show the newly proposed, far more “gridded” street network. This is a huge step in the right direction.
The advantages of a grid-style street network (in a planning sense rather than a transport sense for now) are around the flexibility that is offered to the kind of building typology you end up creating. On the messy cul-de-sac system you have every lot ending up a different size and shape, and that is only really suitable for single-detached housing. With a gridded system, you can have apartments, townhouses, semi-detached and fully detached housing types all using the same type of street network. This offers long-term flexibility benefits, as over time areas that firstly develop at a lower density have the opportunity to increase their densities without having to bulldoze entire neighbourhoods and restructure street networks.
This flexibility is shown in the picture below:
So there are certainly some very good steps forward that this Master Plan encompasses. I now have a little bit of hope that Flat Bush won’t turn into yet another complete and utter sprawled mess, like most of the development that has occurred around the edges of Auckland in the past 30 years. However, there are still some huge problems with Flat Bush, and they are almost completely summed up by the question “but how about its connections with the rest of Auckland?”
Flat Bush is still on the very southeast corner of Auckland. It is still going to be around 40,000 people living nowhere near any motorways, railway lines, high frequency bus services or anything. It is still a hugely isolated place, and in the same way that AMETI ignores the “elephant in the room” of a Rapid Transit Network link between Panmure and the southeast suburbs, Flat Bush’s Master Plan does exactly the same – completely ignoring how the area is going to be provided with rapid transit connections to Auckland’s CBD to the north and Manukau City centre to the south. There are some brief mentions of “light rail down Te Irirangi Drive”, but the potential locations of a train station, how feeder buses to that station might work, how the issue could be addressed in the short-to-medium term and so forth are completely ignored.
This ignorance of “how are we going to link Flat Bush with rapid transit” has already had some seriously bad outcomes for the design of the place. It appears most logical that eventually our most likely rapid transit line will run down the middle of Te Irirangi Drive – in the form of some sort of rail, or a busway (I would just like to state again that simple bus lanes are NOT rapid transit), but the intersection of Ormiston Road and Te Irirangi Drive (the most likely place for a train station) has been cut off from the rest of Flat Bush by a huge new school and the developing Barry Curtis Park. So anyone living in Flat Bush and hoping to walk to the train station is in for a pretty long hike – at least 1 km from the town centre to where a station might go. Gee that was smart – not! I’m also a bit concerned that the Master Plan potentially calls for local streets to be made wider. I’m a massive fan of making local roads as narrow as practically possible (isn’t John Street in Ponsonby fantastic because of its narrowness?) to slow cars down and create more of a sense of intimacy. So wider streets would be a worry to me.
Overall, the Master Plan is a step in the right direction, with a shift to a gridded street network in particular being an utterly crucial change to at least give Flat Bush a chance of avoiding becoming another soulless area of sprawl. However, I am still frustrated that very little thought seems to have gone into how people might access other parts of Auckland from Flat Bush without having to use their cars. Specifically, it would seem that once again the Panmure-Botany-Manukau southeast RTN corridor is being completely an utterly ignored. If we don’t develop our urban areas around the existing and proposed rapid transit systems, then I struggle to think how we’re ever going to become less auto-dependent. At the very least an indicative station location, some mention of possible bus routes to that station, and some sort of “transit-oriented development” analysis would add tremendously to this Master Plan.
I guess this is what happens when you don’t integrate transport and land-use thinking. We can look forward to much more of transport and land-use planning ignoring each other in the upcoming Super City structure I imagine.
By admin, on May 20th, 2010 The Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative, generally known as “AMETI“, came out as something of a replacement of the failed “Eastern Motorway” idea. It’s a fairly complex series of projects designed to ease congestion and improve transport for a number of different modes in the Panmure/Mt Wellington/Pakuranga part of Auckland. As shown in the map below, there are a large number of projects which make up AMETI, and the timeline for completing them spreads over the next 20 or so years:
There has been a lot of talk about AMETI over the past few years, but really nothing much has happened at all in advancing this project. Well, at least until now. It seems as though the first section of AMETI, some upgrades around Panmure, is kicking into action – at least in its design stage. This seems to be the plan for Panmure:
Phase One: 2012-2014
Design for this phase will take place 2010-2012.
In Phase One of Panmure, a new street link will be created from Mt Wellington Highway to Fraser Road. This new street will remove around 25,000 vehicles (that are wanting to simply pass through) from the Panmure Roundabout each day.
The new road will extend along from William Harvey Place (where Big Save Furniture is currently), beside the railway line, under the Ellerslie Panmure Highway, and join back into a local road at Fraser Road.
In the short term, the new road will link through to William Harvey Place, however, in the longer-term, this will take a different route, passing near to Van Damme’s Lagoon and on towards Waipuna Road.
This new street development is an interim measure and comprises one lane in each direction. Capacity has been built into this project to widen this to two lanes in each direction at a later stage.
Phase Two: 2014-2016
Design for this phase will take place 2010-2014.
Once the new connection road between Mt Wellington Highway and Fraser Road is complete, taking traffic off the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Lagoon Drive, it will allow Rapid Transit Network (RTN) related capacity improvements to be made in the area. The Panmure RTN components form part of a region-wide high quality PT network connecting through to Pakuranga, Botany and eventually Manukau.
- On Lagoon Drive, one dedicated RTN bus and one traffic lane in either direction will be introduced (there are currently two general traffic lanes in either direction). Because traffic and buses will continue to travel across the Panmure Bridge, it is also expected that the “tidal flow” of traffic together with bus priority across the Panmure Bridge will be retained.
- On the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway, there will be one RTN dedicated bus lane connecting to a bus-rail RTN interchange above Panmure station, and two general traffic lanes in each direction (there are currently three general traffic lanes in each direction).
- The Panmure Bridge will have an extended structure. It is anticipated that between 2012 and 2015 a new cycle and pedestrian structure will be designed and built adjacent to the south side of the Panmure Bridge. On the Manukau side of the bridge, the new cycle/pedestrian bridge will be designed to tie in with the cycleway and footpath adjacent to the Tamaki River (the Rotary Walkway), as well as the existing footpath down the Pakuranga Highway. It will also link into improved cycle facilities that are planned in the area. On the Auckland city side of the Panmure Bridge, the new structure will be designed to tie in with the existing footpath flowing onto Lagoon Drive, as well as the cycleway and facilities around the Panmure lagoon.
In the medium to long term, a bus and cycle route is proposed on Ti Rakau Drive. It is anticipated that the cycle/pedestrian bridge will become an important link for this future cycle route.
The Panmure Roundabout will be reconfigured to take into account the new road from the Mt Wellington Highway towards Glen Innes, and the new configurations of Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Lagoon Drive. The design of the roundabout is not yet confirmed. Consultation will occur over the best solution closer to construction and once traffic flows are known. RTN bus priority through the reconfigured roundabout will be introduced.
There are a bunch of interesting artist impressions about what we might expect to see:
 
 
 
While I imagine there are certainly some advantages in eliminating (or altering) some of the nastier bottlenecks in this area, such as the Panmure roundabout, what I see in the pictures above just seems like a giant roadsfest, except for one image of an upgraded Panmure train station. The roads are generally proposed as high-speed multi-lane semi-highways, coming across as particularly unfriendly to pedestrians – not exactly what you would hope to see around Panmure, which is potentially a pretty major urban intensification node. Not really a place to be slamming through high-speed arterials I would have thought.
Sure, AMETI as a whole doesn’t ignore public transport completely – as we will see a number of new bus lanes and hopefully in the longer term something resembling a “Rapid Transit Network” (RTN) line linking through to southeast Auckland – although I would like to take this opportunity to remind the involved parties that basic bus lanes do not constitute an RTN. An RTN is either a railway line or a “Northern Busway” quality busway.
And ultimately, I think that’s my biggest problem with AMETI. It proposes spending a pretty massive amount of money ($1.3 billion I think) on upgrades to transport in this part of Auckland, but avoids/ignores the biggest cause of the problems faced by that area of the city at the moment – the complete and utter lack of anything resembling rapid transit to the east of Tamaki River. While certainly some aspects of AMETI make sense, completely avoiding/ignoring the main issue – how to provide that RTN from Panmure through to Pakuranga and beyond – is utterly stupid. It’s an excellent example of the good old saying “avoiding the elephant in the room”. What Auckland desperately needs is an RTN out to the southeast part of the city, and what we ideally need is for that RTN to be rail – so that it can link into the existing Eastern railway line and we don’t end up in the silly situation of either having to build a busway next to the existing railway line between Panmure and the CBD, or forcing thousands of bus commuters from the southeast to transfer onto a (probably already crowded) train at Panmure to make the last leg of their journey into the city. There really is no feasible alternative to the idea of a Howick/Botany railway line. The sooner we realise that, and get on with planning for this critical project, the sooner we’ll stop ignoring the elephant in the room and stop wasting money on road upgrades that will only tinker around the edges and not solve the real problem.
By admin, on May 7th, 2010 Another interesting part of the information I got from NZTA via my OIA request relates to the public transport upgrades being planned for Manukau City – in particular the steps being taken to implement a “Quality Transport Network” (QTN) between Manukau City and Botany Town Centre. This is the first stage in implementing what is going to eventually be a Rapid Transit Network between Panmure and Manukau City via Botany and Flat Bush (which I think should be constructed as a railway line, but anyway).
The map of the proposed upgrade is included below:
The figures in the boxes are the number of buses per hour at peak/off-peak times – meaning that along the core QTN there is to be a bus every 10 minutes during peak times and every 15 minutes off-peak. Hardly fantastic frequencies, but certainly getting close to respectable.
One of the things that I sometimes worry about when it comes to QTNs is that we will end up identifying all our current reasonable frequency bus routes as QTNs, when to me a quality transport network means something better than what we’re used to. To me it means bus lanes for extensive periods of the day, real-time information along the whole route, potentially distinctive buses, high frequencies and so forth – basically a fast and frequent service. Fortunately, it seems as though in this case we will be seeing a decent amount of physical infrastructure works to support this upgrade, as shown in the information below: So the plan is to spend over $20 million on upgrading the street network between Manukau and Flat Bush so that the QTN can be a “proper” quality transport network – I’m impressed.
However, in the longer term I must say I’m a little surprised that the NZTA board paper on this project doesn’t seem to make much mention of the fact that this route is meant to be part of the Rapid Transit Network in the longer term. That means the long term plan is to either have a full busway between Manukau and Panmure via Flat Bush and Botany, or to have a railway line. Obviously that project will be really expensive and will take many years to implement, whereas that part of Auckland desperately needs a QTN now, so I understand the smaller steps being taken. But surely you would want to be really careful to ensure that any QTN works being done now will assist in the construction of a future rapid transit network? Surely this $23 million would be the first little contribution towards a much bigger project in the future? I don’t hear much about that.
Nevertheless, it is very promising to see that a part of Auckland that desperately needs better public transport will be receiving it in the not too distant future. With the Manukau Railway Station becoming a giant transport interchange perhaps it won’t be quite so much the big flop I was worried it might be.
By admin, on April 13th, 2010 As the CBD Rail Tunnel project slowly inches towards potentially becoming a reality, as a good public transport dreamer I feel that it is my task to look beyond this project to see what longer-term future projects might be needed to ensure that Auckland’s central city has the ability to cope with possible future railway lines that may feed into it – including a North Shore Line, a “Far East Auckland” Line (that I generally refer to as the Howick/Botany Line), an airport line and so forth.
Assuming that the rail tunnel between Mt Eden and Britomart gets constructed, then I would guess that we would generally end up running the following two main service patterns:
 The Green Line effectively links together the Western Line and the Southern Line, via what could be called the inner city “loop”. This would enable someone to theoretically catch a one-seat ride from New Lynn to Papatoetoe via the loop. The Blue Line links together the Eastern Line with what would initially be the Onehunga Branch Line, but would hopefully eventually be extended to the Airport. Some diesel services from Pukekohe and Huapai would probably still terminate at Britomart and obviously avoid the tunnel – allowing direct access from the west to Newmarket and Grafton Stations on these services.
Now while this situation should very much suffice for our rail system in 2020-2025, when hopefully the tunnel and the airport line are newly built, what about in the longer term when we might want rail to the North Shore or rail out to Howick/Botany/Flat Bush? How would those additional lines fit into the mix? Could we really squeeze that much more out of a system that, even with the CBD tunnel, would still have some pretty significant bottlenecks at the east entrance to Britomart, at Newmarket, and the limits that a 2-track tunnel would bring (roughly 30 trains per hour in each direction I guess). Nick R did a guest post on the issue a while back, although I have a slightly different solution to his one.
My idea involves constructing the CBD rail tunnel as planned, and the first stage would end up with the situation shown in the map above. But for a second stage, the stage where we’re trying to provide a Howick/Botany Line and a North Shore Line within the constraints of the Britomart tunnel and the capacity of the CBD tunnel itself, I would look to solve that problem by completely bypassing the existing infrastructure with this later project – and creating a line that is completely independent of the current system – at least until it was well east of Britomart where it could end up sharing tracks with the eastern line (which would have hopefully been four-tracked by then). This additional line is shown in red in the map below: This additional line would link together the North Shore Line and the Howick/Botany Line completely independently of Britomart or the CBD tunnel. I envisage there possibly being three stations – Gaunt Street at Tank Farm, Midtown (where transfers to the CBD tunnel could be made) and a refurbishment of the old Strand station – which could allow easy access to the development occurring in that area while at the same time could also potentially be where inter-city trains terminated: to help ensure Britomart doesn’t get overloaded.
With this system I think it would be possible to run trains at 5 minute frequencies on all three lines in both directions without many problems. That would equate to 24 trains per hour each way through the CBD rail tunnel and through the Britomart bottleneck: effectively enabling both Britomart and other stations on the CBD tunnel to be served by 48 trains per hour. This is probably about the limit before we start having serious problems. Which is where having our Red Line separate has its advantages, as it can add another 24 trains per hour of capacity into the CBD (12 from the north and 12 from the southeast) without affecting Britomart or the tunnel at all.
Of course this red line may not be constructed for another 30 years, and would be very expensive. But it does seem to be one of the most effective ways to add new lines to the system at a “second stage” of rail development – after both the CBD Tunnel and rail to the airport have been completed as the first stage. Critically, under this plan we don’t have to change anything about the CBD Tunnel project as it is being currently proposed – and don’t end up potentially putting it at risk over debates about whether Britomart should be bypassed or whether the tunnel should have four-tracks instead of two.
By admin, on March 26th, 2010 There was an article in the NZ Herald today about where the different parts of the new Super City will be located. Here’s what the article says:
Details about the location of council services are contained in a memorandum from the agency designing the Super City, obtained by the Herald.It says the Auckland Council head office will be located in the central business district, with the Mayor and Auckland councillors.
No decision has been made about the location of the mega-transport council-controlled organisation (CCO). One option is the new Waitakere City Council headquarters in Henderson.
The water CCO, Watercare Services, will have its headquarters in Newmarket.
The full service centres, delivering all council services, will be located in Central Auckland, Takapuna, Henderson and Manukau.
Local service centres will be located at Orewa, Waiheke Island, Papakura and Pukekohe.
Neighbourhood service centres will be located at Warkworth, Huapai, Helensville, Great Barrier Island and Waiuku.
So it would certainly seem as though the Auckland Council itself will be based in the city centre. That probably means the existing buildings used by Auckland City Council and the Auckland Regional Council (who share a building with ARTA).
In terms of where Auckland Transport will end up, I guess the choice is either somewhere in the CBD, or in one of the three other city council buildings. I am guessing that perhaps Waitakere City Council’s building has been suggested in this article because it’s the newest and flashest out of it, Manukau and North Shore City. It also happens to be the only one of the three that’s currently located near a railway station – which is probably a fairly good look for a transport agency.
But I actually think there’s a third option here, which nobody has thought of yet. I think it could be a good idea to build a big new building out in the middle of Flat Bush for Auckland Transport! Now I know that sounds stupid, but if we did that and then didn’t provide much parking at all, everyone working for Auckland Transport would finally realise how utterly terrible public transport is for suburb-to-suburb travel. That would also give Auckland Transport huge motivation to construct the Howick/Botany Railway Line, who the ARC have written off as supposedly “not popular enough“. It would also be a classic lesson for those involved in planning transport and land-use in Auckland over the years that allowing so much development out in that part of Auckland, without providing anywhere near the necessary transport infrastructure, is probably the biggest planning mistake ever made in Auckland.
Of course I am joking…. or am I?
By Jeremy Harris, on March 23rd, 2010 How should we roll out Auckland’s rail expansion? How can we do it as cheaply as possible but ensure we get good quality and also maximum ridership?
Here is my proposal for expanding Auckland’s rail system, I’ve included diagrams of the lines that differ from the current plan, the expansion is in two phases, Phase 1:
- The CBD tunnel, it is absolutely crucial for any further expansion, the reasons for it have been covered extensively on this site as well as others.
Cost: $1.5 billion
Construction: 2013 – 2020
- Triple tracking of the Eastern Line and Southern Line (from Wiri to Onehunga).
Cost: $400 million
Construction: 2015 – 2020
- Airport rail, I propose double tracking and extending the Onehunga Branch to the Airport with a depot near the airport.
Cost: $900 million
Construction: 2015 – 2020
- South-Eastern Line, a new line from Glen Innes to Botany following the Te Irirangi Drive corridor toward Manukau (following the Saljen route) ending at a depot in Flat Bush, saving on an expensive tunnel under SH1 to Manukau.
Cost: $1.5 billion
Construction: 2020 – 2025
- The Avondale-Southdown Line, built on it’s current alignment to save on an expensive tunnel next to SH20.
Cost: $700 million
Construction: 2020 – 2025
All up the cost of Phase 1 is $5 billion dollars, this is roughly what we are spending on motorways till 2015. Costs do not include the expenditure on EMUs, maintenance or the ongoing running of the system.
Spread over 15 years, the rollout also protects the skills being developed by the staff currently working on Project DART by ensuring projects are paired and a consistent level of work is available. At some point some serious work is going to be needed at Quay Park Junction and Onehunga Junction.
The second phase after 2025 is very expensive and involves a second CBD tunnel and rail over the shore, I will cover this in a later post. By 2025 the system will look like this:
You may be thinking there are some silly things I’ve done here, such not connecting the Airport to Manukau and South-Eastern line to Manukau but when I explain how the system will operate it should make more sense.
Basically I propose we shamelessly copy how the RER system operates in Paris, which I believe is the most efficient commuter railway on the planet, using mainly an only double tracked system. The RER uses a few simple principals to maximise its effectiveness. Almost all services are through routed, the main station in Paris has 500,000 commuters disembark an hour in peak hour on 6 platforms, they can manage this as most services continue on through, as a contrast Penn Station in New York is a terminal station and uses 21 platforms for 300,000 passengers. Secondly the RER pairs tracks. Thirdly all lines pass through the CBD (although Paris doesn’t have a CBD per se the lines all pass through key employment areas). I propose we do the same and operate the tracks in the following sets:
- Airport Line with South Eastern
- Eastern Line with Western Line (Eastern Terminating at Manukau)
- Southern with Southern (around loop till future completion of North Shore Line)
- Circle Line
Each line should have it’s own branding and operate independently of the others (with the exception of signalling of course). The system will look like this:
It’s goal is to be thrifty while ensuring freight routes as passenger train use increases and as high ridership potential as possible with the motto, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.
By admin, on March 15th, 2010 The term “Greenwash” is quite well known, meaning situations where companies disingenuously promote their products as environmentally friendly when they aren’t, or over-sell what are really quite modest environmental benefits. Wikipedia defines the term as follows:
Greenwashing (green whitewash) is the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.
An interesting phenomenon that I have seen in transport circles, particularly in Auckland, is what could be called “public transport-wash”, or “PT-wash” for short. It is when road projects have tiny or pointless little supposed public transport improvements tacked onto them in order to help “sell” them to the general public. Road engineers and other people who generally promote big roading projects realise that what people really want is better public transport, so that’s why they add on these supposed public transport benefits that most of the time don’t really exist, or at best are extremely minor compared to the project as a whole.
A classic example of “PT-wash” is the proposed widening of State Highway 16. As noted in the NZ Herald last year, around $860 million is going to be spent on widening SH16 between St Lukes and Westgate over the next decade. In that original article you see the following paragraph:
Bus shoulder lanes would also be extended over the full distance, boosting an existing “patchwork” of peak-hour priority sections.
At the Waterview Connection Expo I attended on Saturday, there was a bit more information on the extent of these bus shoulder lanes. Somewhat unsurprisingly they will continue to abruptly end at each on-ramp, off-ramp or over-bridge, and in general seemed to be a continuation of the “patchwork” of priority lanes that exists at the moment. In reality, we’re probably going to merely end up with slightly wider shoulder lanes that are a bit smoother – and that’s it. Yet the project is being sold to the public as helping to improve public transport. AMETI is another classic example of “PT-wash” in my opinion. A whole pile of massive road upgrades that justifies itself on the basis of adding a few bus-lanes, when really what’s needed is a whole new rail corridor.
I may seem to be overly grumpy and exasperated here, but I really do think that we need to keep an eye out for “PT-washing”, to ensure that we’re not being taken for a ride here. If a project does nothing significant to help public transport then we shouldn’t be tricked into thinking that it does.
By admin, on November 15th, 2009 Well I have made a start on my submission on the 2010-2040 Regional Land Transport Strategy. Submissions are open on this very important transport strategy until December 18th. Making a submission is pretty easy, and you can either use the template and “hints” provided or come up with your own suggestions. The ARC has a pretty flash consultation system that enables you (once registered and logged in) to make various comments on different parts of the strategy, save them, log out, log back in and add more, and so forth until finalising your submission and sending it off. Or, of course, there’s always the old-fashioned way of just sending it in.
In the rest of this post I will outline parts of my eventual submission, and also areas where I think I might need to do a bit more work on. It would be good to get some feedback on a few of the points that I make, although I do really encourage people to make submissions of their own. If you like what I’m saying, then absolutely by all means copy part of or all of what I have written blatantly and send it in as your own submission.
Well, here we go….
Introduction:
Overall, I generally support the proposed Regional Land Transport Strategy 2010-2040 (RLTS). The RLTS proposes a balanced approach to transport spending, a rough 50/50 split between road investment and public transport investment, which I am generally supportive of. The main ‘strategic’ area where I am not in general agreement with the RLTS is that I consider the goals of the strategy will need to be met by “push” and “pull” factors, shifting Auckland away from automobile dependency, not just the strong focus on “pull” factors that the strategy proposes. Overall, I consider that Strategic Option 4 – Quantum Shift, should be the preferred option.
There are some specific aspects of the RLTS that I consider should be amended, and these form the bulk of this submission. Where I support part of the RLTS, this is generally not stated (with some exceptions though).
The alterations relate primarily to the following matters:
- Clarification about what the strategic option chosen is.
- Further consideration of “push” factors.
- Further analysis into what would be required to meet the New Zealand Transport Strategy 2008 targets.
- Timing of significant projects (such as Airport Rail and the “Panmure-Botany-Manukau City Centre RTN/QTN”).
- Whether the Panmure-Botany-Manukau City RTN/QTN should be rail or a busway.
- The inclusion of a Northwest Busway as an RTN.
- Consideration of trams/light-rail for some QTN routes.
Clarification of the Preferred Strategic Option:
Four strategic options are proposed in Chapter 4 of the RLTS: Demand management, Mixed investment, Public Transport led change and Quantum shift. Yet the final option appears to be none of these four strategic options, or closest to what could be described as a “watered down strategic option 3”. While I support the preferred strategic option that has been chosen (with some amendments), it is considered that for clarity’s sake the preferred option should be included in the initial list of options, rather than something that appears to ‘come out of nowhere’. Alternatively, an explanation of why none of the four initial options were chosen might be necessary.
It is submitted that the RLTS be altered to either include the Preferred Strategic Option as strategic option, or that further clarification of why it was chosen, when not actually part of the first four options, be included in the RLTS.
Further consideration of “push” factors
As noted above, the preferred strategic option appears to be a ‘watered down option 3′, with most of the focus being on providing levels of public transport service ‘ahead’ of the demand for them, and therefore attracting people to using public transport. While I certainly do not oppose a greater share of transport spending going to public transport, I think that there is a need to balance these ‘pull’ factors with some of the options mentions in ‘strategic option 1′, which seeks to remove many of the hidden subsidies enjoyed by road users (such as over-provision of parking) so that the true cost of driving becomes visible and people are ‘pushed’ towards public transport for trips where it makes more economic sense.
Over the past decade the ARC has seemed to focus mainly on ‘pull’ factors, to encourage people to use public transport by spending increasing amounts of money on providing more buses, trains and ferries. While this approach has certainly worked to some extent, with decades long trends of declining public transport use – both at an absolute level and at a per capita level – being reversed, in other respects the results have been disappointing. Per capita use of public transport has remained roughly the same (37 trips per capita per year in 1999/2000 rising to 41 trips per capita per year in 2008/2009) even though the amount of operating expenditure has increased by 250%. While much of this extra spending was certainly necessarily – particularly to ‘kick-start’ the rail system after decades of neglect – it appears as though simply “spending money” on transport services will not lead to the kind of ‘step-change’ that the RLTS is hoping to achieve. Therefore, in my opinion both push and pull measures will be required.
I recognise that road-pricing is an incredibly sensitive issue, and that Auckland is probably not ready for such schemes at the moment (until the public transport system has been significantly improved at the very least). However, there are other ways that the hidden subsidies enjoyed by road users could be reduced, thereby making public transport a more viable option. The most obvious is to eliminate minimum parking requirements from all District Plans, as these planning rules effectively force developers to spend a significant amount of money on off-street parking that only encourages people to drive to work or to shopping. The money spent by developers is recouped through higher prices at stores, lower wages for workers and in the residential sector through higher rents and house-prices – effectively it becomes a significant hidden subsidy paid for by everyone, but only enjoyed by those who drive. Other ways to “push” people to public transport could include not providing additional road capacity for peak hour flows (as improvements will generally be quickly lost to induced traffic anyway) or other matters that would relate more to central government policy (such as providing tax incentives for employers to give their staff public transport passes rather than a carpark, or making a greater proportion of registration fees being paid for through petrol taxes so those who drive more pay more).
A greater consideration and inclusion of push factors would shift the preferred strategic option more towards option 4 – Quantum Shift. I believe that this is appropriate, as it is clear Auckland does need to make a quantum shift in our transport planning.
What would be required to meet NZTS targets?:
While the preferred strategic option meets a number of targets set by the New Zealand Transport Strategy 2008 (NZTS), there are also many targets that it – along with all the other initial options analysed – fails to reach. This is outlined in Table 16 of the RLTS.
The targets that the preferred option will fail to meet are:
- Halving greenhouse gas emissions
- Reducing vehicle kilometres travelled by single-occupancy vehicles
- Increasing public transport trips to 144 million a year
- Increasing the active mode share to at least 17%
In my opinion, many of these targets are critical, and the RLTS should do better to meet them. It appears as though many of the targets would be met by Strategic Option 4 (Quantum Shift), although the greenhouse gas emissions and the improved number of public transport trips targets would have been met by none of the proposed options. I am highly surprised that no options were even presented that would have met these targets, particularly in relation to reducing greenhouse gas emissions which is a matter of global significance.
It is submitted that the Preferred Strategic Option be altered in such a way that it can meet more of the NZTS targets. If this is not possible, then the RLTS should at least include an explanation of what would be required to meet these targets.
Timing of Significant Projects:
While I understand that the RLTS has to be realistic in outlining the timeframes for important projects, I am of the opinion that it could be more ‘optimistic’ in terms of the timeframes for a number of projects. Most obviously, these include the Airport Rail link and the Panmure-Botany-Manukau City Centre RTN/QTN.
Pages 69-71 of the RLTS detail the timeframes for a number of substantial public transport projects. These include the following:
- CBD Rail Link (by 2021)
- Rail electrification (by 2013)
- Integrated ticketing and fares (within 10 years)
- Northern Busway extension (in two stages: first by 2031 and second by 2040)
- Airport Rail Loop (by 2040)
- Avondale-Southdown Rail Connection (by 2040)
- Panmure-Botany-Manukau City Centre QTN/RTN (QTN to be progressed ASAP, upgraded to RTN by 2031)
- Henderson-Westgate-Albany connection (QTN during period of strategy, possible upgrade to RTN in the future)
- North Shore Rail (busway likely to approach capacity by end of RLTS period, so investigation into rail should continue)
I support the prioritisation given to the construction of the CBD Rail Tunnel. It is hoped that completion before 2021 is possible, although it is central government, and not the ARC, that would have to fund the majority of this project.
It is submitted that the timeline of “within 10 years” for integrated ticketing is completely unacceptable. This project must be completed in time for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, and the RLTS should not provide any scope for it taking longer than that. Integrated ticketing has already taken far too long. Any references to “by 2020” or “within 10 years” must be removed from the RLTS and replaced by “by 2011” or “within the next two years”.
It is submitted that the RLTS give higher priority to the extension of the Northern Busway to Albany than the current plan of “by 2031”. It is my understanding that NZTA have committed to this first stage of busway extension to be constructed within the next 10 years, and the RLTS should reflect that. Further extension of the busway beyond Albany should be subject to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, as other busway projects (such as one on the Northwest Motorway) might be of greater benefit.
It is submitted that a higher priority be given to the construction of the Airport Rail Loop. Although practically the airport rail connection cannot be completed until the CBD Rail Tunnel is open, due to the capacity constraints of Britomart station, completion of this rail link should be a high priority once the CBD Rail Tunnel is completed. In other words, I submit that the Airport Rail Loop be constructed shortly after 2021, as opposed to within the 2031-2040 timeframe outlined in the RLTS.
With regard to the Avondale-Southdown rail connection, I understand that ARC modelling has shown that this link would be highly popular, especially if connected to an airport service. Furthermore, the Avondale-Southdown rail connection is likely to become a highly essential freight corridor as passenger service frequencies increase on the Avondale-Newmarket-Westfield parts of the rail network. I submit that this connection, if required, should be constructed at around the same time as the Airport Rail Link. Once constructed, the Avondale-Southdown connection would enable the operation of an “Isthmus Loop” line, using the inner part of the Western Line, the CBD Rail Tunnel and the Eastern Line to form a complete circuit of the Auckland isthmus.
I wholeheartedly support the RLTS’s ambition of providing a Quality Transit Network (QTN) along the Panmure-Botany-Manukau City Centre corridor as soon as possible. Statistically, this is the most car-dependent part of the whole Auckland region and suffers from a very slow bus service at the moment (buses take longer to travel from Howick to the CBD than from Orewa to the CBD for example). Measures such as bus lanes along Pakuranga Road, Ti Rakau Drive, Te Irirangi Drive and Botany Road must be explored as soon as possible, while other steps to improve the speed of bus services – potentially including wider bus stop spacing for some services and express running on the Southern Motorway – should also be explored. In the longer term, in my opinion rail is the most appropriate means of providing a Rapid Transit Network (RTN) to this area. This is explored further in later parts of this submission. Construction of a rail-based RTN should be a higher priority than what has been included in the RLTS, for the primary reason that this part of Auckland is growing quickly yet has extremely poor transport connections with the rest of the city. Ideally, a rail-based RTN should be completed by 2025 to serve this part of the city.
I support the identification of the Henderson-Westgate-Albany connection as a bus-based QTN corridor. It is submitted that further information be included in the RLTS that would indicate what kind of improvements might be seen to bus services along that corridor, such as a frequent dedicated “superior service” to truly provide what is expected from a QTN. A timeframe for those improvements should also be included in the RLTS.
While the timeline for the construction of a rail link to the North Shore does not fall within the 30 year period of the RLTS, in my opinion the RLTS should ensure that adequate route protection for this link occurs and also that no motorway tunnel underneath the Waitemata Harbour is built before the rail tunnel, as if billions of dollars get spent on a road tunnel it is unlikely there will ever be the funding available for the rail link.
The Panmure-Botany-Manukau City Centre RTN
The RLTS outlines that this corridor would be most suitably serviced by a bus-based RTN (assumedly a busway along similar lines to the Northern Busway), and that RTN should be constructed during the 2021-2031 time period.
I am of the strong opinion that further analysis into whether a busway is the most suitable way of providing an RTN along this corridor should be undertaken. My primary concern relates to the question of ‘what will happen at Panmure?’ There is currently no busway between Panmure and the central part of Auckland – where most trips originating along this corridor are likely to be headed towards (other than Manukau City Centre). This means that city-bound buses, once they reach Panmure, will either have to travel via congested city streets to the CBD, or all passengers will need to transfer onto trains at Panmure that may already be very full.
It is also submitted that a rail-based option would provide a significant speed advantage over any road-based option for this route. As mentioned above, at the moment it can often take well over an hour to complete the bus trip between Howick and the CBD, while at peak times it can take around an hour to drive that distance. If a railway line was built along my preferred alignment (see below), then it would be possible for a train to travel from Botany Town Centre to the CBD in under half an hour. This significant time advantage for rail would attract a large number of users, and would also make feeder buses very attractive, as a feeder bus ride to a train station plus the train ride may still be faster than driving. Such advantages are unlikely to be possible with a bus-based solution – unless there was to somehow be a busway constructed between Panmure and the CBD. As shown above, I favour a more northern alignment of this future railway line than is what ARTA generally indicates on their “proposed future RTN maps” for this route. Such an alignment would make it possible for large areas of development such as Highland Park, Bucklands Beach, Howick and Farm Cove within close proximity of the railway line. The currently proposed alignment – which follows Ti Rakau Drive to a greater extent – includes more ‘dead’ areas, and could not really include a particularly good station location between Pakuranga and Botany.
As outlined above, I consider that it is essential this link is given priority, with the goal of completing it by 2025.
Northwest Busway RTN:
I submit that the Northwest Motorway (SH16) be upgraded from a QTN to an RTN, with a busway along similar lines to the Northern Busway being constructed on the northern side of the motorway.
NZTA have plans within the next 10 years to widen SH16 between St Lukes and Westgate, at a very significant price of around $860 million. Due to the effects of induced traffic, I think that this will be a complete waste of money (except for the funds dedicated to raising the causeway to mitigate the effects of rising sea levels) and it is likely that only a few years after the motorway has been widened it will return to its current level of congestion. I also think that this money would be far better spent on constructing a “Northwest Busway” along the northern side of SH16, between Britomart and Westgate (via Albert Street, Cook Street and Hobson/Nelson streets in the CBD with a station behind Aotea Square). Busway stations could be located at Western Springs (next to the onramps where the Caltex Station is current located), Point Chevalier (in the carpark behind the shops), Te Atatu (in the large empty field to the north of the motorway), Lincoln Road (on the site currently occupied by the old boat), Massey (next to the Royal Road interchange) and Westgate.
See this post for further information.
This RTN would complement the Western Line railway, as both service very different parts of west Auckland. It would also facilitate the intensification of development at Westgate, in a similar manner to how the Northern Busway will facilitate intensification at Albany. Park and ride facilities could be offered at Westgate, Lincoln Road and Te Atatu Road, removing vehicles from the Northwest Motorway (rather than encouraging them as a motorway widening would). The busway could be serviced by a trunk route, similar to the Northern Express (perhaps called a Western Express) that ran at frequent intervals, and connected to feeder buses that served all the stations.
I am of the opinion that even if such a busway is not high on the list of priorities for the region, it is important that it is considered as soon as possible because of the works NZTA are proposing to SH16. At the very least, the SH16 widening should future-proof for the construction of a busway – which will not be possible unless it is on the plans.
Consideration of Trams/Light-Rail
It is submitted that the RLTS should give greater consideration to the use of trams/light-rail along a number of QTN routes. Trams can provide significant benefits over bus lanes in terms of route capacity, urban design effects, ride-quality and (based on international evidence) patronage.
A number of routes in Auckland may become suitable for trams over the next 30 years, including Dominion Road, Queen Street, Tamaki Drive, Wynyard Quarter/Tank Farm and Great North Road (between the city and Pt Chevalier) among others. The RLTS should be altered to reflect the possibility of operating trams along some important routes where it may have advantages over simple bus lanes.
Conclusions:
Overall, I am generally supportive of the 2010-2040 RLTS, although I consider that the preferred option should be closer to ‘strategic option 4‘ than ‘strategic option 3‘ to ensure that the money invested in the public transport network is not undermined by continued hidden subsidies for private vehicles users – particularly in the form of minimum parking requirements, which must be removed from all planning documents as soon as possible. There are a number of parts of the RLTS that I have suggested alterations to, which generally involve the “speeding up” of many of the significant public transport projects that are included in the strategy. Another important alteration is the need for the RLTS to further explore what changes to the strategy might be necessary for it to meet more of the targets outlined in the 2008 NZTS.
These issues aside, I support the ARC’s general objective to develop a more balanced transportation system in Auckland, and reduce Auckland’s car dependency.
In terms of what more I could add, it would be nice to have a few hard facts about the level of subsidies provided to private vehicle users through minimum parking requirements (which may involve quite a bit of research to find that out), a bit more on possible routes suitable for light-rail, and probably a bit more on walking & cycling matters – as they do seem to have been a bit ignored by the RLTS.
By admin, on October 29th, 2009 Tomorrow the 2010-2040 Regional Land Transport Strategy will be released for consultation. This is a key strategy that will guide Auckland’s transport development over the next thirty years, so I am very glad to see that it is a well balanced document, providing around $21.5 billion for public transport improvements and operating costs over the next thirty years, compared to $24 billion for road improvements and maintenance. While I am clearly a public transport advocate, I do recognise that investment in roading is also very important (after all, buses run along roads too!) Therefore, it is good to see a transport strategy that is, at last, well balanced in terms of its funding priorities.
Christine Rose, the chairperson of the hardworking Regional Transport Committee – who have spent much of the last year working on this strategy – has written the strategy’s forward, which is worthy of inclusion here:
The opening of Britomart in 2003 marked a turning point in the revival of public transport in Auckland. It set a new standard in quality public transport infrastructure which was followed by the opening of the North Shore Busway in 2008 and rail station refurbishment across the network.
The 2005 Regional Land Transport Strategy supported this vision of a modernized public transport system, led by investment in trains, buses and ferries. Significant progress has been made in the past five years to deliver an integrated, safe, affordable, responsive and sustainable land transport system that supports Auckland’s role in the national economy and aspiring to international best practice.
This 2010 strategy sets the direction for the region’s transport system for the next 30 years. It builds on the momentum already generated and continues to support renewed investment in public transport. Massive patronage growth vindicates the region’s investment in public transport, and leads to economic development, increased productivity, jobs created and urban form improvements. Constructing an underground rail link through the CBD will mean more than 200,000 people living and working within 30 minutes travel of the CBD. It will transform Britomart from a terminal into a through station, with benefits for the whole region, enabling a higher frequency of trains, faster journeys from the west, and a rail link to the airport.
There will inevitably be scepticism over perceptions that this is a ‘green’ transport strategy because it places increasing importance on developing public transport and anticipating and responding to sustainability challenges such as ‘peak oil’ and climate change, despite the Government’s priority of developing national roads. Roads have their place in any transport system as do trains, ferries and buses particularly in urban areas. A balanced investment is needed to ensure Auckland and Aucklanders are able to achieve their full economic and social potential with minimised environmental costs.
A balanced investment includes effective integration of transport, with the development of a more compact and high quality urban form, supporting people to move away from dependence on cars and reducing the impact the transport network has on the environment. Transport produces 18 per cent of national carbon dioxide emissions, of which Auckland contributes 85 per cent.
By 2051, around 2.3 million people will be living in the region, almost double the present population. Given that transport issues already impact on the movement and health of Auckland’s 1.3 million people it is imperative that this strategy not only identify what is needed to enable our land transport system to cope with this growth but also to endure, and support the changing economic environment for the greater good.
Road and public transport users benefit from bus, rail, ferry and walking and cycling improvements. The region’s roads become less congested, particularly important for moving freight. With the urban motorway system almost complete we can now focus on improving the operation of arterial roads, literally the arteries of local and international trade.
I thank all those involved in creating this strategy. Dedication, vision and the willingness to respond to what Auckland needs are defining qualities. The Regional Transport Committee continues to welcome comments and feedback from the public and stakeholders on the direction and priorities contained in this strategy, before it is formally published in April 2010.
In terms of the funding split, there’s an interesting graph on page 49 of the document that shows how the RLTS anticipates the region’s transport money will be divided over the next thirty years. It is comforting to see that, unlike most other transport documents, in the later years we are seeing a tailing off of spending on new motorways and a focus on building and operating an effective public transport network: In terms of public transport infrastructure investment – which my eyes always seem to focus on – the big spend items during the first 10 years (2010-2020) include completing electrification and building the CBD Rail Tunnel. I am exceptionally happy that someone has finally put a timeframe on the construction of the CBD Rail Tunnel – although of course it will need central government support before it can get the necessary funding. During the 2020-2030 period there’s not so much spending on public transport infrastructure – perhaps the proposed busways take precedent during that time – while in the last period we see the construction of the airport rail line, the Avondale-Southdown line and anything else that hasn’t already been done.
While nothing particularly new is proposed here, for the first time there is a real commitment to actually completing many of the projects that have been floating around for decades. By 2040 all the red dashed lines should actually be completed: It is of great credit to this strategy that there are only two real issues I have with it. The first is that I am still of the opinion that the Manukau-Botany-Panmure RTN line should be built as rail, rather than as a busway. This is because there are not existing bus links between Panmure and the CBD, whereas there is an existing railway line. For this RTN to work as a busway we would either need to build a busway between Panmure and the CBD – which would be enormously expensive and difficult – or force everyone to transfer onto a train at Panmure station. The second thing that I think should be changed is designating a future RTN line along the Northwest motorway, which would form a future Northwest Busway. As I have detailed previously, it would be pretty easy to construct a busway along SH16 – and I think it would be pretty successful too (as it serves a different part of west Auckland than the train line).
Perhaps the big issue that remains is how this will all be funded. The total cost over 30 years to implement this strategy is estimated to be around $40-45 billion. This sounds like an awfully large amount, but works out as “only” around $1.5 billion a year – fairly similar to what is spent on transport per year at the moment. So the total funding level may be relatively manageable, which leaves the main issue being how the available funding is divided. The current system of funding state highways 100% from petrol taxes, local roads 50% and rail from other sources altogether is unlikely to be suitable to implement this strategy – which brings us back to the necessity for one pool of transport funds with all projects having equal access to it.
All in all, it’s definitely a good strategy. I just want it to actually happen – and to ensure it does we will need to change the way the system works.
|
Recent Comments