The Next Step
Topic: Other

Last night I was writing a really interesting post and it got completely eaten by Angelfire. It somewhat felt like the last straw, and I've investigated shifting the transport aspects of this blog to a wordpress site. I will set up a proper domain name there soon - but for now the link is :

 http://jarbury.wordpress.com

Edit: the domain is now active: http://www.transportblog.co.nz

I would like to note that I will be keeping this blog active still. I hope to post some more here in the future, in a way that kind of links back to the more personal aspects of how I used to update this site. It would be a shame to end 8 years of blogging on this site, so I hope to continue it at some point in the nearish future.

Dooming the Onehunga Line to fail
Topic: Rail

Sometimes you do have to wonder whether there's a conspiracy out there to doom Auckland's rail system to fail. The decision to only have a two track tunnel into Britomart will create enormous heachaces over the next 10-20 years until the city gets its act together and build the CBD rail loop. Similarly, the trains to Helensville - brought in last year - have been a failure due to the super-early departure time, and the fact that the line is so terribly slow. The Manukau rail link is also likely to be a failure, because Manukau City Council haven't stumped up a few million to extend the link to somewhere actually meaningful (rather than a park that will probably seem fairly dangerous after dark).

So now we have the Onehunga Line. This line is due to open in around January next year, and will be the reinstatement of passenger services to Onehunga for the first time since 1973. Although this is a fairly small step towards creating a better rail system for Auckland, it's a good step and a very necessary step in offering Onehunga better public transport options. While a lot of buses go through Onehunga, the main link between there and the city (Manukau Road) does not have any bus lanes. Therefore the trip is pretty slow, for both bus users and car users. The estimated time for travel between Onehunga and Britomart was around half an hour - a pretty damn attractive proposition.

Well, that was until we hear this week the service won't actually be going from Britomart to Onehunga, but instead only between Newmarket and Onehunga. Mark my words, this WILL make it a failure. I first heard about this possibility in reading an "Ask Phoebe" column earlier in the week. Someone had asked a question about trains to the airport, and included in the response was this intersting bit: "The Auckland Regional Transport Authority is working with Ontrack to enable passenger services to resume. Initially they will run between Newmarket and Onehunga, and in the future services will be offered between Britomart and Onehunga as well. The hope is to have things up and running by January next year." So, only "in the future" is given as a possibility for trains running between Britomart and Onehunga. There's no reason for this change that is given, although one would have to assume it is because of congestion issues around the Britomart tunnel. Once again, this drives me absolutely nuts in that our rail system is getting clogged at a point when it's only really in its infancy. 

I did kind of wonder whether Phoebe had got it wrong, as she did make an error about the working of the new Newmarket station in her column last week. However, Cameron Pitches from the Campaign for Better Transport, confirmed the change:

 

No it isn't a mistake - Newmarket only. A CBT rep had it confirmed yesterday directly from ARTA. Also station likely to be on Galway street, delayed opening until January, and no word on feeder bus services from Mangere. Other stations unconfirmed. Preferred ex-ITM site is now for lease. The apparent delay with station construction is because resources are currently being used for Newmarket.

I'm concerned and we are escalating this.

I also can't see why the theoretical bottleneck is the problem at Britomart either. Not all train services need to go to Britomart anyhow (e.g. West - South direct), but I think Onehunga definitely does. When Kingdon St is closed down then we can look forward to transfers between different lines at Newmarket. Lets hope they have the wit to schedule services through Newmarket so that it is possible to transfer in a timely manner.

This is a really really bad step for Auckland's rail system. As nothing ever runs exactly to time, I don't think people will stand for having to transfer trains at Newmarket to get to Britomart. I had planned to use the line fairly frequently to get to Dressmart Onehunga, but now I face the prospect of having to walk 10 minutes to get to the Link Bus, catch a link bus across town to Newmarket and then catch a train to Onehunga. I think I'll pass. I can bus into town from just up the road, so a Britomart-Onehunga link would have worked well for me.

 

The Hated Pedestrian
Topic: Observations

Today Leila and I ventured out to Wairau Park, on Auckland's North Shore, to get a TV cabinet. We've been in our new place now for about five weeks, but up until now the TV has lived on a cardboard box and the DVD player has been on the kitchen bench! Not a particularly good state of affairs, so we set off to the home of big-box retail: Auckland's North Shore.

Wairau Park is a strange beast. There's not really a park anywhere to be seen, unless you count the stormwater pond that someone has tried really hard to turn into something resembling a natural lake. It sits alongside the Northern Motorway, squeezed between the motorway and Wairau Road. I remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s the area developing into the kind of place you only ever went when your parents were looking for some piece of new furniture - even if that somehow managed to happen fairly frequently. Looking at the place now, it seems to have not really had much of a plan in the way it developed, especially as the main access from the motorway is a one-way lane and was added years after most of the area was built. Anyway, there's an aerial photo of the area shown below:

Now the interesting thing here to note is that while there is definitely a mass of parking provided, there is no giant carpark. Everything is spread out around the place, with each big box store pretty much taking care of their own parking needs. The place is pretty much off the radar with regards to public transport (even though the Sunnynook busway station isn't very far away at all on the other side of the motorway) so it's built around the car.

I'm fairly used to such situations though. Go to any shopping mall and you realise the amount of floorspace in the mall is probably barely half the amount of floor space taken up by the parking areas surrounding the mall. So effectively when you buy something at a mall the rent-portion of the price you pay is as much paying for car-parking (whether or not you drove there) as it is for the shop itself. But leaving aside that for a minute, at least when you got to a mall you only have to park once. The insides of malls are actually pretty pedestrian friendly - obviously as there are no cars inside malls (for now). Compare this with a place like Wairau Park, which actually forces you to head back to your car after each shop, pull out of the parking space you were in, drive 50m up the road and parking again outside the next store. Leila and I tried to avoid such stupidity, by parking at the Harvey Norman (near bottom of picture) and wandering all the way up to Freedom Furniture and Forehomes (where we eventually found a very nice TV cabinet, FYI). With barely a footpath in many places, and definitely no assistance for pedestrians trying to fight their way across the busy roads and many entrances and exits from stores, the place most definitely had a "Cars Welcome, Pedestrians Fuck off" feel about it. Eventually I had to run back to the car and get it, so we could squeeze the TV cabinet in the back.

Looking at the way Wairau Park is layed out now, it's clear that it's too far gone and there's no way it could ever be fixed. Planners of big-box retail areas seem to have somewhat learned from their mistakes, and more recent retail areas that are somewhat similar, like the Albany Megacentre just up the road, have a main communal parking area and then at least make an attempt to provide for pedestrians to visit more than one store each time they get out of their cars. But unfortunately their pedestrian friendliness still leaves an awful lot to be desired. The roundabouts of the future Albany Town Centre do not feel pedestrian friendly in any way at all. The street layout is a bizarre mix of circles and semi-circles which does nothing but confuse people, and the one half-decent thing that has been done around Albany - the busway and its station - are located in the middle of nowhere. One almost has to beat a path cross-country to get from the bus station to the mall.

But, I guess at least it's not as bad as Wairau Park. What low standards we have.

Peak Oil, Transport, The Economy etc.
Topic: Observations

Somewhat continuing the theme of Friday's post, it can feel difficult to be a "peak oil believer" at the moment. The narrow-minded retorts of "oil was $147 a barrel in July 2008, now it's barely a third of that - pah!" seem to blind the average driver/politician/roading-lobbyist into believing that the $2.20 a litre prices of last year were a blip and that things have somewhat returned to normality - even if normality is now $1.60 a litre and not $1.10 a litre they feel it should be. Petrol probably would be $1.10 a litre if we had the same exchange rate we had when it was $2.20 a litre, but that's a completely different story. Perhaps some of the smarter folk figure that rising petrol prices are an inevitability in the long-run, but they ignore the potential effects of that by simply pointing to hybrids, bio-fuels, electric cars, hydrogen economies and other technological advances. All, seemingly, to avoid the conclusion that throwing all our eggs in the "build more roads for more cars" might be slightly reckless. Others say "but there's heaps more oil out there we just haven't found yet!"

First of all, let's start by disproving the last statement, and then work our way through the rest. My trusty guide this time around is a truly fantastic book called "The Last Oil Shock: a survival guide to the imminent extinction of petroleum man", by David Strahan. I feel compelled to repeat myself: this book is utterly brilliant in its analysis of peak oil, its causes and effects, and potentially what we can do about it. I absolutely recommend anyone interested in peak oil buy this book. So yeah, let's start with the whole "there might be masses more oil out there we just haven't found yet" myth. The easiest way to analyse that is to just have some idea about where we find oil and why - effectively the main point being that oil will only exist in certain favourable geological circumstances. The most important of these is a sufficient type of rock to "trap" the oil in place. Most oil throughout history has bubbled to the surface fairly quickly, or hasn't even formed in the first place from rotten ancient trees and creatures, because it wasn't trapped in place for long enough. To cut a fairly long story short, if you have some idea of the geological make-up of what's under the earth (which we do) you can pretty much rule out the 95% of places where oil will never be. It can't be in those places because it is simply unable to form and remain in those areas. The main issue now is exploring the remaining areas, to see whether those places where oil "could" have formed, actually has it or not. Most don't.

So over the past 100 odd years (particularly in recent decades) we have actually done a pretty thorough job of exploring those places. This is particularly true in the USA, where production peaked in 1970 and has been in decline ever since, even though production from Alaskan fields (with huge environmental consequences of course) has somewhat slowed the decline. The Last Oil Shock quotes Richard Hardman - former head of exploration and production of Amerada Heiss - as saying "The world has been surveyed to the extent that it's very unlikely that very large reserves exist in areas that we haven't looked." Discoveries of oil are now way below the levels of production and consumption, and well below the level of discoveries that we had 40 or 50 years ago. Clearly that has a flow-on effect, in that if you keep using stuff you discovered earlier, but don't discover new stuff - eventually you're going to run out. Or more to the point, you're really going to struggle to increase your level of production to match increasing demand, which is really what peak oil is all about. So, there is no magic fix that we're going to discover another Ghawar any time soon.

Of course there are other 'non-conventional' sources of oil - such as the Alberta Tar-Sands.  Now while there is clearly masses of potential oil in Alberta, actually getting it out is a mission and can't happen very quickly - current levels of extraction use around a quarter of Alberta's water. And that's for barely 1% of the world's daily oil use. So while Alberta's tar sands might mean we have a long-term supply of oil (although a very enviornmentally damaging one at that), they are not a source that can be "ramped up" when other areas of oil production inevitably fall.

Now I think of peak oil as the point where oil prices increase significantly because supply can no longer keep up with demand, due to half the world's oil having been extracted. This means that the point when oil runs out is actually pretty irrelevant, and what becomes relevant is the point when only half the world's oil has run out. As oil takes thousands or millions of years to create, we aren't replacing what we use any time soon, so of course we are depleting it each and every time we use it. Therefore, even if we have only used something like 46 per cent of all the recoverable oil in the world, it's not actually a point where we can be complacent and say "well more is left in the ground than what we've used so far... sweet", but rather a point where we need to say "yikes another four percent and we're halfway through it, roll on peak oil!" The fact that oil production wasn't able to increase significantly last year when prices went through the roof (in fact they went so high that even OPEC was worried about them as they realised people would start looking at alternatives to oil at those kinds of prices) says to me that perhaps we're either really close to hitting that 50% mark, or perhaps that we've already reached it. 

The importance of that 50% mark is down to the way oil from an individual field is extracted: with the first half extracted at an increasing rate (due to more wells being put in it), but after that first half has gone the pressure in the oil field decreases and more work is necessary to squeeze the rest of it out. Once you hit the 50% mark you can't usually increase the rate at which you extract the oil, no matter how hard you try. Aggregate that up for all the oil fields in the world and it explains why it will be really difficult to increase the rate of production after we hit that 50% mark. The USA already hit the 50% point in 1970, and has had declining production ever since. Many other non-OPEC countries have hit that point in recent years, including the entire North Sea oil field. We're all now effectively relying upon Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran to have not reached that magical point so they ARE able to increase production enough to off-set the 'post-peak' countries. One could say that they didn't manage that in mid 2008.

Of course, there is the question of "how come oil prices have come down so much in recent times then?" Page 177 of The Last Oil Shock has some sobering news on that front, linking the current recession with peak oil and some pretty nasty long-term consequences. Keep in mind this book was written in 2007.

 

Paradoxically the very worst short-term outcome might be not a sudden shock, but a milder recession. If this were to create some temporary spare oil production capacity by depressing demand, the economists would claim it was all back to business as usual, and the urgency of the need to prepare for the impending peak could easily be forced off the policy agenda - assuming it ever gets there - by apparently more pressing problems. The world might roll over and go back to sleep again, only to suffer a far more brutal awakening later on.

 

Now I don't think many people are calling the current recession "mild", but its effects are certainly similar to what is outlined in the quote above. The recession has knocked back the growth in demand for oil, which has also created some spare oil production capacity. Combined with an over-inflated price for oil in any case (largely the result of traders becoming aware of oil as something to make money off last year, and then everyone jumping on the bandwagon), the recession has depressed demand. Economists, seemingly those favoured by the New Zealand Government in particular, do appear to have the outlook of "business as usual", with a private-car based transport system being the way of the future.

In some ways, what's even more fascinating is how The Last Oil Shock links the spike in oil prices last year with the current recession. Remember, this book was written in 2007 so what is being proposed was just hypothetical at the time (from page 180-181):

 

The first major oil price spike is likely to send a series of violent quakes through the economy. Quite how violent will depend on the level of awareness of investors on the currency and stock markets. For as long as most continue to labour under the misapprehension that every short-term spasm in the oil supply is simply some disconnected local difficulty, the response of the financial markets may be relatively subdued - perhaps with the exception of Iran. But the moment the money men get it, the price of oil and other energy assets will soar, and almost everything else will go into meltdown.

Hmmmm... sounds a lot like June-September last year to me. Eventually the money-men started to realise that rising oil prices were not just one-off events linked to someone letting off a bomb in Iraq, but were linked to something longer-term. So they all rushed to throw their money at oil, its price soared - cue meltdown.

 

A major spike in the oil price is recessionary not only because of its direct effects on the global economy, but also because it is likely to cause stock markets around the world to crash, further reinforcing the recessionary pressures. This in turn will lead to second order effects, such as the deepening insolvency of many pension funds, which hold the bulk of their investments in stocks and shares... As the crisis deepens, pension payments may be slashed to derisory levels in both money purchase and the supposedly more secure final salary schemes. The value of endowment policies will collapse too, with devastating effect on the borrowers who were counting on them to repay their mortgage, and the housing market as a whole. The banking sector will also act as a multiplier: since so much lending is "secured" against future economic growth, as the outlook worsens lending will fall, leading to further contraction.

 

Far out. That sounds an awful lot like the last few months.

The worry here seems to be that peak oil causes recessions, which then themselves create a situation where oil prices are lower. Lower oil prices make people forget oncoming peak oil, which therefore means that necessary changes aren't made. Once the economy recovers, we see oil prices skyrocketing again (made even worse by low investment in oil exploration during times of recession). As we haven't adjusted ourselves to living without the need for cheap oil, we get slammed again by the high oil prices, get thrown back into recession, and the cycle continues. The only way to escape the cycle is to break our oil-dependency.

And how does this link back to transport? Well of course it is oil that drives just about all methods of transport in New Zealand. Private cars use the vast majority of New Zealand's oil, and because our transport system is extremely auto-oriented, and heading more that way thanks to our current government, this leaves us extremely vulnerable to the oil-spike, recession, oil-spike, recession cycle that is so worrying.  

Happy Birthday Amalia!
Topic: Observations

I'd like to say happy birthday to my daughter Amalia, who turned 5 today. Pretty big milestone really, although I definitely can't really say "the time has gone by so fast". It's hard to really remember life before her.

 

 

The REAL Cost of Cars
Topic: Policy

Now if I'm being honest here, I will admit that public transport advocates do get hammered a bit on the whole "economics of transport" debate. The roads lobby constantly states how through petrol taxes trucks and cars pay their way, yet at the same time rail and buses simply can't fund themselves and require massive subsidies. Now I've always thought this strange - that something which just seems so much more efficient (putting a whole lot of people inside a metal box and moving them) could actually be not as economically justifiable as something which just was so obviously less efficient (putting one person in a metal box and then shifting heaps of those metal boxes).

Thanks to a most excellent book that I own, called "Asphalt Nation: how the automobile took over America and how we can take it back", by Jane Holtz Kay, we can see the argument for cars over public transport start to unravel. Not only in terms of the environmental and social impact of cars - but in their economic inefficiency, striking at the very heart of those who promote roads-centric policies. It's a book that Steven Joyce, Minister of Transport, should definitely read. It is written from an American perspective, but pretty much everything can be applied to New Zealand as we're definitely one of the most auto-oriented countries in the world, particularly in the case of Auckland.  An interesting quote on page 128 looks at the overall cost to individuals of transportation:

While the Japanese walk, bike and pay three times our gas tax, we pull mere pennies from our pockets at the pump and then subsidise the car. The Japanese pay 9 percent of their gross national product for transport; the United States pays 15 to 19 percent. Europe does better too. By paying a truthful $5 a gallon, plus three to five times what the United States pays in visible car-based fees, the Japanese and Europeans have an awareness of costs. The consciousness makes them decrease their driving and curbs cars in cities. It encourages a more compact land use policy and hence promotes four to eight times as much public transport. The reserve obviously holds: Americans pay less for gas and little for tolls and user fees - and this freewheeling policy encourages them to use almost five times as much gas per capita as residents of European cities and ten times as much as those in typical Asian ones; to drive infinitely more, undercut mass transit, build more roads, buy more costly cars, pay more in personal and social fees, and spend more for maintenance.

Substitute America for Auckland and just about the exact same thing could be said. It is true that we pay higher petrol taxes in New Zealand than Americans do, so our cars do pay their own way much more. However, it's still fascinating to see that Americans spend twice as much of their GDP on transport as Europeans and Asians. Not particularly efficient if you ask me.

David Aschauer, an economist from Bates College, has some interesting facts when one looks as the economic productivity of public transport versus roads building. This is particularly significant at the moment, where investment in transport (read: roads) is being highlighted by the government as one of the ways in which they hope to minimise the recession through economic stimulus.

Spending on public transportation has twice the capacity to improve productivity as does highway spending. A nickel spent on mass transit carries at least twice the impact of a nickel spent on roads. A billion dollars invested in mass transit produces seven thousand more US jobs than does the same amount spent on road construction. A ten years $100 billion increase in such transit investment would enhance worker output five times as much as if made in roads.

Aschauer concludes that "public transportation spending carries more potential to stimulate long-run economic growth than does highway spending." The reasons for this are obvious, that public transport creates many long-term jobs for bus and train drivers, for those maintaining stations and so forth. Roads construction is very capital intensive, but not actually that labour intensive, so therefore not a particularly efficient way to provide jobs and real economic stimulus.

If one looks at the economic costs of private transportation at a more personal level, its inefficiency becomes even more super obvious. Page 130 of "Asphalt Nation" looks into that further:

In terms of personal use, as well as GDP, the American family spends around 20 percent of its annual income on transportation, plus hidden costs. The Japanese spend only 9 percent, despite having more expensive cars, while Europeans spend a scant 7 percent. While Americans take only 5 percent of their trips on foot, Europeans and Japanese take 20 to 50 percent of their trips on foot and garage their pricey cars. In land costs our highways often steal almost half the space in our cities, Japanese roads one-quarter. In the fifteen most congested US cities alone, our car-bound transportation system adds about $7.6 billion to the price of goods.

I think the main point to take here is that the true costs of an auto-dependent society remain somewhat hidden, or are accepted because we all pay for them individually (rather than paying taxes to subsidise public transport). Contrary to what Libertarians would love you to believe, just because something it paid for through taxation rather than user-pays does not make it more efficient or cheaper. Ironically, if you look at all the hidden subisides the car receives, it actually appears as though auto-dependent societies pay more individually for transport and also pay more through their taxes for transport, when compared with countries that have a more balanced transport infrastructure like Japan.

The provision of parking in a particularly interesting one, especially if we look at who really pays for "free" parking. I will devote a whole post in the future to parking, but Asphalt Nation has some interesting stats which are worth mentioning.

Parking, 95 percent seemingly free to the driver, is, in fact, a drain, adding more than $600 to a home and $1200 to an apartment. For the 85 million employees given apparently free parking spaces, worth $1000 apiece, it amounts to an $85 billion lure.

This is the kind of stuff the roads lobby just doesn't tell you. 

Herne Bay v Sandringham
Topic: Observations

It's just over a month since we moved house now, so I'm starting to get used to living in my nice Herne Bay half-villa. I still miss the old house though at times: it's spaciousness, the bedroom, the sizeable lounge, the laundry that wasn't hidden in a cold and dark shed at the bottom of the garden. I also miss Sandringham in many ways too. I really liked its cultural diversity, the way it was a kind of 'mini-India' with all the Indian restaurants and spice shops down the road. It certainly had great character. Of course that's not to say I don't like the new place, or that I think we made any mistake at all in shifting - as I really do like where we live now. I really like the house, even the fact that it is small in some ways (doesn't take as long to clean!), I like how beautiful the neighbourhood is, I like how it's so cose to the city and I like the really awesome cafe up the road. I very much like being close enough to the North Shore that I can have Amalia for dinners during the week.

Herne Bay doesn't quite feel like "home" yet. I guess that will take a bit of time. I mentioned to Leila this evening that I was only just starting to get to the point where I don't need to look out for road signs coming along Jervois Road, and just KNOW where my street is. It's also strange to live in such a "white" suburb. Coming from super-multi-cultural Sandringham it just feels odd to only see NZ European people on my buses, or walking around the neighbourhood. I think perhaps along with Devonport, the Herne Bay area must be one of the "whitest" parts of Auckland. In places like Remuera I think there's a pretty high Asian population. If anything this feels like a slight negative to me, as I quite like seeing a wide variety of cultures in and around Auckland. I guess wandering around the CBD still provides that to some extent.

I have to admit it's a little depressing seeing the seasons change towards winter at the moment. For the last couple of weekends we've been very lucky with the weather and I've spent Sunday afternoons lazing on the couch that sits on our porch, listening to the cricket. I will certainly miss that over the winter months.

A Super-City It is
Topic: Policy

Well it has now been somewhat confirmed: Auckland most definitely is becoming a super city. The government's response to the Royal Commission's findings doesn't change that fact, but does change a few other things quite interestingly. A brief summary of the changes are shown below:

The big changes from the original Royal Commission report is the 20-30 local boards rather than the 6 local councils, and the fact that Maori seats won't be specifically allocated in what's now proposed. I'm kind of mixed on the Maori seats issue - as I can see both sides of the story - but I think that going from 6 local councils to 20-30 local boards is going to have some pretty significant benefits in terms of "keeping the local in local government." I had kind of worried that the 6 local councils would have spent most of their time fighting tooth and nail to retain control over things they do at the moment, rather than acting as the local branch of the main council - which is kind of how I envisaged them to work. With more local councils that are smaller, I can more easily see how the local aspect of local government is being retained. I do hope that the local boards get a reasonable amount of control over what they can do, and their power to ask for targeted rates for local projects actually happens.

Regarding transport, well it is fairly early on in the piece to see what's actually going to happen here. The government is even putting a scary asterisk next to the Regional Transport Agency, in that it's agreed to in principle but the details still have to be worked out. There also seems to be a change in funding, away from the "outcomes based funding" that was (seemingly, I never really came across it) proposed in the Royal Commission's Report and back to what happens at the moment. That could potentially be a significant loss, but I think clearly overall the outcomes are good for transport. The other main change for transport is that the RTA would have responsibility for local roads, rather than local councils. I actually think this is a good idea - one agency for transport please. Simple is good.

Below is the summary of transport related decisions:

The other loss is that the RTA won't seem to have as much power over state highways and railway developments - with those remaining largely under the control of the government. In my opinion that is a pity, especially when you consider the current government is obsessed with pursuing a highly imbalanced roads-centric transport agenda, but it's not necessarily that surprising. Overall I still think we're much better off under the changes.

 

Victoria Park Tunnel 'Fast-tracked'
Topic: Roads

Auckland's most expensive roading project (to date) will begin construction in January next year, rather than in November next year, according to the Ministry of Transport. Just to show I'm not completely single-minded in my "roads sucks (except for buses), rail's great" ideology, I do actually generally support the Victoria Park Tunnel project. A little bit of that support comes from a "woah cool, a tunnel" perspective, but it's mainly recognition that previous upgrades to the Central Motorway Junction in Auckland have fed more and more traffic into the one significant remaining bottleneck - the 4 lane Victoria Park flyover. The results of this bottleneck aren't just felt during peak hours (like many of the problems facing the Northern Motorway, Northwest Motorway and southern parts of the Southern Motorway), but rather can be felt at 3pm on Sunday afternoons.

It's also good that the project is being built as a tunnel and not just a super-widened viaduct, which was what Transit originally proposed. A new three lane tunnel will be built for northbound traffic, while the existing 4 lane viaduct will be redesigned so that all lanes are for southbound traffic. Victoria Park is a very important inner-city park (we don't actually have many of them) which has already been rather compromised by the existing viaduct. To double the width of that viaduct would have had significant adverse effects on the park, and would have totally removed the possibility of fully undergrounding the tunnel at some point in the future. Local residents groups did fight to have the whole thing tunnelled, but I think that option was both hugely expensive and practically difficult, as it would have required a very steep uphill section between where the tunnel passes underneath Victoria Street to where it would connect to the existing motorway. Even as it stands now the tunnel will have a very steep drop, but I guess it's much easier for a road to drop steeply than to climb steeply. Perhaps some day in the future we'll end up with the motorway fully undergrounded, and Victoria Park will be returned to its original glory, but that probably won't happen until another harbour crossing happens (and don't even get me started on that!)

I guess that the one thing which seems to frustrate me is how quickly and easily close to half a billion dollars is being allocated to a roading project, while important public transport projects like integrated ticketing, the ordering of electric trains, the finishing off of important railway stations (and so on, and so forth) continues to be up in the air. Not unexpected, but certainly frustrating.

Waterview Connection Reconsidered
Topic: Roads

A couple of months ago the Waterview Connectio tunnel was somehow re-costed at around a billion dollars more than what it was expected to cost previously. So just under $2 billion went up to just under $3 billion, due to financing costs being included for the first time (why weren't they included before I wonder?), upgrades to state highway 16 being included in the cost (though I don't really know why considering that's a completely separate project) and the concept of 3 lane tunnels rather than 2 lane tunnels being revisited (which would push the cost close to $4 billion probably). All this extra cost made the project pretty damn hard for the Ministry of Transport to continue to justify. A few interesting points on the cost/benefit ratio are included below:

The benefit/cost ratio for the Waterview Connection in 2015 is 1.15, including financing costs for construction. The benefits overwhelmingly arise from travel time savings and congestion cost savings. The Waterview Connection also has some benefits from reducing volumes of some air pollutants in the vicinity of the project. On the negative side, accident costs marginally increase as a result of constructing the Waterview Connection. Other benefits and costs such as vehicle operating cost savings, CO2 emission reductions and impact on noise have also been assessed but these are minor. Finally, an estimate has also been made of agglomeration benefits and the economic costs of financing this project from taxation. While both are substantial, they largely offset each other.

The calculation of time-saving benefits are incredibly dodgy, but let's leave that aside for a minute. The fairly low cost-benefit ratio leads to the following points being made:

A ratio of $1.15 for every dollar invested means that total social and economic benefits are only a little in excess of the total costs. This is because the high cost of tunnelling relative to surface roads largely offsets the significant benefits of building the Waterview Connection. To put it into context, we note that the Waterview Connection is six to nine times as expensive as a comparable length of motorway at the Mt Roskill State Highway 20 extension and the recently awarded Hobsonville SH18 project. If the project were delayed by ten years, the benefit/cost ratio is estimated to increase significantly to 1.7.

One starts to get an idea about how supremely expensive this link is. So the conclusion of the Ministry of Transport's study, to look at other options, seems to have some sense. Well, that is until we look at the various costings of these other options (which NZTA have already done, considering they've been looking at options for this project over the past decade). Before I share those figures, it is very interesting to see what the report has to say about the prospect of tolling.

Toll modelling suggests that a toll of $2 would support around $410 million of debt. However, it would cause significant traffic diversion. We estimate that a toll of this size would reduce economic benefits by $395 million. It would reduce the benefits of the project to just $1 for every dollar invested. This compares with a cost of general taxation of around 20c for each dollar of revenue. Consequently, tolling may not prove a viable funding option for the Waterview Connection.

I guess I have kind of always figured this route would end up tolled. Its cost is about the same as all the rest of the Western Ring Route combined, so it would certainly make sense for the users of that route to share in the extremely high cost of the project. Yet, it seems that even with a very low toll of around $2 per trip, enough people would be put off from using the road to make its "economic benefits" (largely time savings) small enough for the project to be completely unviable from an economic perspective.

OK, well anyway let's look at what the alternatives to the super-expensive tunnel might be. These costs come from the last page of the previously linked to document:

Well my reading of all this is that there is no cheap option. Even a rubbish open cut option, which would have horrible environmental effects, is $1.5 billion in 2015 dollars. That's only $500 million less than the full tunnel option... All other options come somewhere in betwee, except for an alternative alignment going via the Rosebank Peninsula instead of through Waterview. This option comes in at the huge cost of around $2.9 billion.

But there have been rumours of some magical quick-fix. The Auckland Business Forum proposed some partial cover option they magically think will only cost around $1.2 billion (I guess they haven't looked at the image I posted above). A well connected person I know says that the plan is to build a 700m cut and cover tunnel underneath Great North Road - to save some money but not destroy the Oakley Stream too much. This would certainly be an interesting possibility, but would have traffic management nightmares and once again probably wouldn't end up that much cheaper than the full tunnel option.

Just so it's completely clear, I am not necessarily a huge fan of the Waterview Connection proposal. I think that it's pretty crazy to sink such a huge amount of money into one 5km stretch of road. The billions we're talking about here could achieve amazing results for other aspects of Auckland's transport system (CBD rail loop, rail to the airport, etc.). Coupled with peak oil, and the need to actually reduce our auto-dependence (not increase it) to help cut our CO2 emissions, it seems totally insane to spend that much on the Waterview Connection. However, if it is to be built then - in my opinion - it simply has to be the tunnel. Any surface option, part-surface option or whatever would simply be a disaster for the area. The loss of open space would be huge, the noise and air quality effects would be tremendous and the motorway would create a huge gash through the suburbs of Owairaka, Avondale and Waterview.

I would love to say that a surface option would never make it through the resource consenting process, but as National are in the process of trying to gut the Resource Management Act for the very purpose of assisting projects like this to get through "without the annoying interference of the public", I can't be too hopeful.

 

My Thoughts on the Royal Commission's Report
Topic: Policy

I'm slowly getting through reading the entire report by the Royal Commission on Auckland's local government, and I have also read quite a few articles giving differing opinions (and a few nice summaries of the important bits) on the Report as well. So I'm starting to get a reasonably well-informed opinion on what it means for Auckland's local government future, and whether or not it's a step in the right direction.

As I said the other day, I think overall the changes are good. Auckland needs to be unified and that is what's largely proposed. The functions of the existing District Councils will be legally shifted to the new Auckland Council, along with the functions of the ARC. There will be six local councils, but their functions will only be what the Auckland Council decides they can do. This is most likely to be focusing on local roads, parks, rubbish collection, footpath upgrades and the like. Planning will be centralised, most major decision will be centralised - with the local councils being basically more powerful community boards. I'm a bit mixed on this, as I think we'd be better off with a few more local councils or with community boards being retained in some form or another. The effectiveness of community boards seems to vary throughout Auckland, and in many cases they have so little power that they are fairly meaningless - but they are the most local form of local government. It would seem that the proposal does "take the local out of local government" to some extent. Maybe that will be something the government messes around with - perhaps deciding on more councils (11 was another proposal) or perhaps insisting that community boards are retained to some extent. I wouldn't put too much faith in the government sorting it out though - as they generally do the opposite to anything I would think is a good idea.

So what's good here? The best outcome of the Report is that it has recommended significant change. We could have had a really half-arsed outcome which said "things should stay the same, but everyone should work together more". This would have been a tragedy, and I'm glad that hasn't happened. Instead, we are going to (hopefully, if the government agrees) end up with significant change to Auckland and the biggest outcome of it is that we are going to have a Super City. There will be only one REAL Auckland Council, and that's a good thing. There will be one District Plan, one rates bill, one transport organisation (more on that soon) and one voice for Auckland's issues. That is the biggest gain, and will do a lot of good things for Auckland in the long-run I believe. The Report also gives special status to the central city and waterfront area - which will hopefully allow for significantly better regional planning for Auckland's CBD. We might even have a bit more power to kick Ports of Auckland off the precious waterfront wharfs that are used as used-car storage at the moment. Another thing that's good is that the local council boundaries are split between urban councils and rural councils. This creates a much more fixed division between urban and rural areas, and will be a significant step in minimising future urban sprawl. While the Metropolitan Urban Limits (MUL) have achieved this outcome fairly well over the past decade, they have been under pretty much constant attack from developers and from many councils - so it'll be good for that rural/urban divide to be set in concrete by a little more than one map in the Regional Policy Statement.

Now, for transport. I have plucked out the transport chapter of the Report so that it's a bit easier for people to find if they want to read it. I do need to probably read over it a little more, but effectively the big change here is that we get a new Regional Transport Agency (known as the RTA I guess). This agency takes over the roles of ARTA - but also has many more jobs than before, having equal status with NZTA about state highway development in Auckland and also having many responsbilities that are currently undertaken by city and district councils - like maintenance and improvements to arterial roads, the provision of bus lanes and bus stops, setting policies regarding levels of off-street parking provision and so on. In short, this is fantastic news. One of the biggest reasons Auckland's transport is so problematic is because there are just too many agencies involved, often with incompatible agendas and differing priorities. All this kind of stuff leads to stupid situations where Manukau City looks after its rail corridors well but Auckland City ignores their; or how you have bus lanes in Auckland City, transit lanes in North Shore City but basically nothing in Manukau City. Having all of this stuff under the control of one agency, and as a bonus having that agency somewhat separated from the day-to-day politics of councils, will be brilliant.

Of course, nothing is set in concrete yet about what's going to happen. As a few people have mentioned, the government doesn't seem particularly happy about what's in the Report and may not decide to implement all of its recommendations (or indeed any of them if it so pleases). It's likely that Central Government might also be rather worried about Auckland having such a strong council - potentially undermining Wellington's authority. Well apparently we will have a "government's response" within the next week or two so that will be interesting to look out for.

RMA Amendment Submission
Topic: Policy

Here's my submission on the RMA Amendment Bill. Might be a chance to speak at a select committee too!

I make this submission in general opposition to the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. There are some aspects of the bill that I support, but in general I oppose it on the grounds that it will lead to significant adverse effects on the environment and reduce the opportunity for the public to be involved in protecting the environment. It is my opinion that many of the changes to the RMA proposed in this bill will contradict the purpose of the Act, to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.

I make this submission as a concerned individual who has a working knowledge of how the RMA operates. It is my opinion that the RMA is an excellent piece of legislation, and already has (with a few minor tweaks) the flexibility to meet the improved efficiency outcomes the Bill hopes to achieve. I consider many of the ‘problems’ associated with the RMA actually occur because the Act is poorly understood and because the quality of District Plans varies so greatly across the country. In short, it is my opinion that this amendment bill uses a sledgehammer to fix problems when far more delicate changes would suffice.

Parts of the Amendment Bill I support:

As I stated in the introduction, there are aspects of the amendment bill that I support.

1.       I support the proposed amendments to reduce the incidence of appeals backed or motivated by trade competition. The long saga involving the opening of the Pak N Save supermarket in Wairau Road has clearly highlighted that change is necessary to avoid such situations happening in the future. Therefore, I support clause 77 of the amendment bill.

2.       I support the increasing of penalties for offences proposed in clause 141. There may be some cases where more is to be gained financially by not following the conditions of a resource consent than would be lost through the financial penalty. This is an unacceptable situation, and I support any measures taken to ensure such situations do not occur.

3.       I support the establishment of an Environmental Protection Agency. Some standardisation of planning issues across the country is likely to be beneficial, and it is my hope that this agency results in greater environmental protection for the country, rather than allowing less protection.

Parts of the Amendment Bill I oppose:

There are a number of parts of the Amendment Bill that I oppose. In particular, I most strongly oppose clause 151, which would remove the ability for councils to have general tree protection rules.

The specific parts of the Amendment Bill I oppose, the reasons for my opposition and any suggested modifications I have, are detailed below:

1.       Requirement for Security for Costs – clause 133

Clause 133 repeals Section 284A of the RMA. This has the effect of allowing the Environment Court to require a party to give security for costs.

I oppose this change on the basis that it will lead to appellants being forced to provide many thousands of dollars in security “up front” if they are to appeal a decision to the Environment Court. This will inevitably lead to situations where only the rich can afford to appeal a decision to the Environment Court – therefore creating a high level of inequity with regards to the ability of less well off people and/or community groups to have their say in the resource management process.

The justification for this amendment is that it will lead to fewer frivolous and/or vexatious appeals to the Environment Court. In my opinion, the amendments proposed are unnecessary, as the Court already has the power (under Section 279(4)) to strike out frivolous and vexatious appeals. 33 cases were struck out between 2006 and 2008 on these grounds, which indicate that the current provisions are working adequately.

I consider the current law, as well as an increase to the filing fee of an Environment Court appeal will suffice in minimising frivolous and vexatious appeals. The proposed change will create a situation where the ability to appeal a decision is highly inequitable, and based on the appellant’s ability to raise a significant amount of money for security, rather than on the strength of their case.

I submit that Clause 133 of the Amendment Bill be deleted.

2.       Restrictions on Appealing Plans – clauses 132 & 136

Clauses 132 and 136 restrict the right to appeal a Council Plan to only points of law. Appeals on broader grounds can only be taken with the leave of the Environment Court.

I oppose this change on the basis that it will unfairly restrict the ability of people to appeal Council Plans. Plans form the foundation of the resource consenting process, and therefore it is critical for them to be of the highest possible quality. Plans also have a long shelf-life, of ten years at the moment and potentially longer in the future due to the changes proposed by Clause 56 of the Amendment Bill. Because of this long shelf-life it is critical that a Plan adequately responds to the needs of its community, and that the community has a significant role to play in the creation of that Plan. By restricting public participation in the formation of a Plan, the inevitable outcome in my opinion will be a reduction in the quality of Plans.

Furthermore, requiring appellants to seek leave of the Environment Court may clog the court system and slow down the Council planning process. Therefore, the proposed amendments may in fact be counter-productive by both decreasing the quality of Plans and also slowing down the planning process.

I submit that Clauses 132 and 136 be deleted to the extent that appeals against Council Plans on broader grounds than points of law can be made without the leave of the Environment Court.

3.       Removal of Non-Complying Category –  clauses 147 & 152

Clauses 147 and 152 will lead to the removing on the ‘non-complying’ activity status in the RMA. After three years all non-complying activities will revert to being discretionary.

I agree that many activities that are currently classified as non-complying, such as the provision of offices within the residential zones of Auckland City, should undoubtedly be classified as something else (either restricted discretionary or discretionary). However, the isolated cases of such wrongly attributed activity statuses should not lead to the complete removal of the non-complying status altogether.

Through section 104D, known as the ‘gateway test’, non-complying activities are subjected to an additional level of scrutiny – ensuring that they are either not inconsistent with the objectives and policies of the District Plan or that they have no more than minor adverse environmental effects. This gateway test provides an appropriate extra level of assessment, which ensures that an activity with significant adverse effect and which is contrary to the objectives and policies of the District Plan cannot be granted consent. Arguably, the gateway test allows the processing of an unacceptable application to be curtailed, thereby increasing the efficiency of the planning process.

Without the non-complying activity status, it is arguable that the relevance and importance of objectives and policies is severely reduced. Activities that are clearly envisaged as “probably unacceptable” will also be lumped together with existing discretionary activities that are “probably acceptable” – creating confusion for the general public and for applicants about what council expects and does not expect.

I submit that clauses 147 and 152 be deleted from the amendment bill, so that non-complying activities are retained.

4.       Removal of the ability for a Public Interest Group to join an appeal – clause 131

Clause 131 amends Section 274 of the RMA so that community or interest groups can no longer join the appeals process.

In my opinion this amendment would result in the loss of important input into the decision making process of the Environment Court. Community/interest groups often do not have the resources to submit on every proposal, or may only hear of a proposal once it has reached the environment court. In many cases, such groups have valuable knowledge that could be added, and it would be a loss for this to not be possible.

I understand that the Environment Court is not an appropriate location for an entire resource consent process to ‘begin again’ if a large number of interest groups join an appeal. However, I consider that existing rules and procedures ensure that the scope of an appeal is not unnecessarily broadened through the inclusion of such additional parties.

The status of an organisation such as the New Zealand Historic Places Trust is uncertain under the proposed amendment. The NZHPT is the primary national advocate for the protection and preservation of historic heritage – so therefore should certainly be allowed to join Environment Court appeals through section 274 of the RMA. If this clause is to be retained, then it should be modified to ensure that the NZHPT is able to join an appeal.

I submit that clause 131 be deleted from the amendment bill. If the clause is not deleted, then I submit that it be modified to ensure that the New Zealand Historic Places Trust is able to join appeals through section 274 of the RMA.

5.       Removal of General Tree Protection Rules – clause 151

Clause 151 revokes all existing general tree protection rules in District Plans, and bans councils from proposing such rules in the future.

Of all the changes proposed in the Amendment Bill, I oppose clause 151 the strongest. This opposition is based on my opinion that the clause will result in widespread environmental destruction, that it strongly infringes upon the rights of council to protect the environment, that it will result in councils having to undertake an enormous amount of work to individually schedule each tree they wish to protect and that it is clearly in contradiction with the purpose and principles of the RMA.

General tree protection rules are generally applied in urban areas to ensure that the environmental, amenity and community benefits of large and mature trees can be retained without having to undertake an enormous amount of work to individually schedule each tree under a council’s jurisdiction to protect it. Blanket protection is also applied to historic housing, most notably in Auckland City’s Residential 1 zone – where each house within that zone that was constructed before 1940 requires a resource consent if it is to be demolished or significantly modified. Clearly, there is an acceptance in the community of blanket controls.

The number of tree consents applied for across the cities and districts of New Zealand clearly indicate that there is a significant tension between allowing the removal of trees for a variety of reasons, and retaining them for their environmental, amenity and community benefits. All urban councils within the Auckland area have general tree protection rules, indicating that it is widely accepted that protecting trees through this mechanism is effective and efficient. The tension between removing and retaining large and mature trees is a fundamental planning issue – comparing the private benefits of removal with the public benefit of retention, and therefore the resource consent process is an appropriate way in which the tension can be resolved. If councils are unable to create general tree protection rules, then the balance between private benefit and public good will be completely lost – with the clear outcome of many large and mature trees being lost throughout the country’s urban areas. This result would be a disastrous environmental outcome, the exact outcome the RMA is designed to prevent, or at least require a resource consenting process to be undertaken before such a situation can happen.

Councils are required, by the Local Government Act, to promote the social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing of the area they have jurisdiction over. Clearly, many councils have decided – through the District Plan process with significant public input – that general tree protection rules are a significant way in which they can achieve their environmental objectives. To my knowledge, there are very few situations where the RMA specifically forbids council from enacting a particular rule in their Plans and to do so over an issue as fundamental as tree protection seems completely nonsensical and at odds with the purpose of the RMA.

If councils are to continue to protect mature trees within their jurisdiction, then the proposed amendment will mean that they will have to schedule such trees. Whilst a significant number of trees are already scheduled in District Plans, the vast majority of generally protected trees are not. The additional work required by councils to schedule important trees will be immense, and certainly contradicts the overall goal of the amendment bill to streamline and simplify the planning process.

The purpose and principles of the RMA are outlined in Part 2 of the Act. Section 5 of the Act outlines the purpose of the Act, to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. Clearly, large and mature trees are a natural resource – so therefore the Act is required to provide for their sustainable management. In my opinion, it is blatantly clear that clause 151 completely contradicts this requirement, as without general protection, large and mature trees are very unlikely to be ‘sustainably managed’. Section 6 of the Act outlines matters of national importance – which District Plans are required to give effect to. Section 6(b) and 6(c) are both related to the protection of trees, and are undermined by the proposed amendment. Section 7 details other matters of importance that should be taken into account: and of particular note are: (c) – the maintenance and enhancement of amenity values; (d) – the intrinsic values of ecosystems; (f) – maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the environment; and (g) – any finite characteristics of natural and physical resources. All these “other matters” will be significantly compromised by the proposed amendments.

I understand that there are some problems relating to existing general tree protection rules. For a start, they can discourage landowners from planting large trees in the first place – as they do not want to restrict future redevelopment options. Situations where landowners decide to remove a tree just before it reaches the required height for protection are also potentially common, creating another unforeseen consequence where fairly large trees are removed due to the very rules that are meant to protect them. Finally, there are valid concerns that some councils have overly restricted assessment criteria that decide whether a tree should be retained or removed. This issue was highlighted in the recent Woolley Trust v Auckland City Council case, with the conclusion that council’s tree protection rules were inadequately drafted. However, these problems are not sufficient for such rules to be completely revoked by the RMA.

Clearly, there must be a better way for the above issues to be resolved that does not result in the widespread destruction of large and mature trees in New Zealand’s towns and cities. A possible alternative may involve a sped-up consenting process for tree consents with standard assessment criteria across the country that takes into account not only the health of the tree in question, but also the wider requirements of Section 5 of the RMA. Allowing general tree protection rules to be revoked will result in environmental destruction on a widespread scale, and would completely contradict the purpose of the RMA.

 

Conclusions:

In my opinion there are a number of aspects to the proposed Amendment Bill that need to be removed or modified. I have attempted to be as balanced as possible in my opinion towards this bill, and have supported aspects of it that I believe will be of benefit. However, there are certain parts of the bill that I consider will have significantly adverse effects – both on the environment and on the ability of the public to participate in the resource management process.

 It is easy to criticise the RMA as being a ‘handbrake’ on development, yet at the same time it is easy to notice the environmental damage that is happening throughout the country – seemingly unchecked by the very piece of legislation that is supposed to stop this from happening. Resource management planning is about balancing the private benefit of development with the public good, in particular the environment. It is my opinion that the proposed changes to the RMA go too far in advancing private benefits and will result in a significant loss of public good, through damage to the environment. This is particularly the case with regard to the proposed changes to general tree protection rules.

 

A Good Day!
Topic: Policy

Today is a very good day for Auckland. Firstly, it's Leila's birthday - happy birthday!

Secondly, the Royal Commission has recommended a single city for Auckland's local government future. It has also recommended some excellent stuff for public transport. Everything is available to read here.

I'm yet to read through everything, but from what I have read it looks like very good news for public transport. ARTA is to be replaced by a Regional Transport Agency, that will be much more powerful and take on all the responsibilities for transport in the region. The kind of integration I've been begging for over the past few years. The Royal Commission also clearly values public transport a lot more than the Government, so it will be interesting how Steven Joyce and his bunch of roads-crazy supporters respond to this.

I'm pretty happy about it all. I will post more details in the next few days. I just hope the government doesn't mess with their recommendations too much.

The Importance of Integrated Ticketing

If one thing annoys me more than anything else in all the transport announcements we've seen over the past week or two - removal of the regional petrol tax, creation of a national petrol tax, news the government will pay for Auckland's new electric trains, unsurprising news that the government is investing billions in state highways at the cost of everything else - it has been what has happened to Auckland's integrated ticketing project. Regional petrol tax dollars were critical for funding this project and - unlike electrification - there has still been no word as to how the $100 million or so needed for implementing integrated ticketing will be provided. Furthermore, today we learn that awarding the contract for the development of an integrated, smart-card, ticketing system has been delayed. Well, on the positive side, at least it hasn't been cancelled. It's still damn frustrating though.

So, what's up with this whole "integrated ticketing" thing that everyone seems to talk about? Why is it deemed to be so critical? Why is it so expensive? Why has it taken so long? These are all pretty good questions that do deserve and answer and some further discussion.

For a start, integrated ticketing is necessary because a variety of operators run our bus, train and ferry systems across Auckland. Veolia run the trains; NZ Bus (MetroLink, North Star, GoWest and Waka Pacific), Ritches, Birkenhead Transport, Howick and Eastern and Urban Express run the buses; and Fullers, along with a variety of other small operators, run the ferries. Apart from the NZ Bus family, each operator runs their own independent ticketing systems that are not interchangeable with each other. There are a couple of minor exceptions, in that you can get a daily Discovery Pass that can be used on any transport operator and a monthly Discovery Pass. But they're so expensive and so poorly promoted that barely anyone seems to end up using them. So, effectively you're left in a situation where you either need a different pass for each company (to get the small discounts they offer for multi-ride tickets) or you need to constantly carry change around with you.

From personal experience, this is REALLY annoying. Before I moved house recently the 008 bus route was the only way I could easily get from my home to my work and back. This route was run by Urban Express. However, all other buses that I ever needed to catch (home into town, work into town and so forth) were operated by NZ Bus - through either MetroLink or GoWest. After having the annoyance of always needing to dig around for change to catch the 008 bus, I finally gave in and spent $10 on an Urban Express pass - even though I already had another bus pass for my NZ Bus journeys. Needless to say, now that I've moved house the chances of me ever catching an Urban Express bus again are minimal - so it's just a worthless piece of junk now.

Now while situations like this are annoying, the main issue that a lack of integrated ticketing creates is that it discourages trips where an interchange is required - from one bus to another or from a train to a bus. We all understand that it is very difficult for public transport to compete against the convenience of the car at the best of times, and also that it's near impossible to bring high-quality public transport to near the doorstep of everyone in the city. The best way to get around this issue is to make it easy for people to transfer between services: so they'll walk from their house a couple of minutes down the road to a bus stop, catch a bus from there to a transport interchange before jumping on a train whisking them into town. Feeder bus services bring a far greater proportion of the city within the reach of the train system. However they clearly won't work when people need a different ticket for their bus trip and their train trip, or situations where someone has a monthly unlimited travel pass for their train trip - but that doesn't cover the feeder bus to actually get them to the station.  The lack of integrated ticketing is a huge disincentive for people wanting to use public transport.

I have previously detailed how I would reform the ticketing of Auckland's public transport system, which I hope to refine and post on here at some stage in the future. Needless to say, it's a pretty major overhaul of how ticketing works in the city and would work much more around "time-based" ticketing rather than "trip-based ticketing". At a basic level, a single ticket would be valid for as many different trips necessary within the space of 2 hours to get where you need to go. You would pay a varying rate, depending on how far your total trip would be. Daily, weekly and monthly passes would also be available at each varying rate to encourage the use of such "unlimited travel" tickets.

So why has it been so difficult to get integrated ticketing? And why is it so expensive? To answer the first question I really have to point the finger at all the transport operators throughout Auckland and say it's completely their fault. Personally, I cannot comprehend why they would all want to doing something that will clearly have benefits for themselves (through increased patronage), but it has seemed over the past 10-15 years that the transport operators throughout Auckland are only interested in keeping their "slice of the pie", rather than trying to "grow the pie" - as the saying goes.  It took the passing legislation last year, which gave ARTA a heck of a lot more power than before, to really kick start moves towards integrated ticketing - but only because the operators now had little choice but to accept it. So it is happening, as long as the money can be found for it.

Which brings us to the last question - why is it so expensive? To answer this question you have to distinguish between "integrated ticketing" and "smart-card ticketing". Integrated ticketing is pretty simple process of coming up with some form of ticketing that can be used on each transport operator, working out a way to record who should get what percentage share of the fare, and making sure there is standardised equipment necessary. The last bit could be a reasonably significant cost, particularly so as all the operators are so stubborn about the whole integrated ticketing process and will probably force ARTA to pay for something they themselves arguable should be funding. But in the end, the process of integrated ticketing probably isn't THAT expensive. If you completely change the way in which tickets and fares are structured, that would obviously be an additional cost, but once again probably not that great. Most of the cost in this process comes about from "smart-card ticketing". Smart-cards are clever things like London's Oyster Card and Hong Kong's Octopus card, that you wave in front of a machine, the machine reads the card and lets you on the bus or the train. Then at the end of your journey you wave the card again, the machine interprets how far you've travelled and charges you accordingly. In London there are clever things like you can hook your Oyster Card up to your bank account so that it automatically tops it up when your funds start to get low. You can also often use these Smart-Cards for small purchases at dairies and other stores. Wellington has the beginnings of a Smart-Card system - with their Snapper Card. Ironically, the Snapper Card isn't an integrated ticket though - and can only be used on some of Wellington's buses and none of its trains. Smart-cards are expensive to roll out - as you need the back-office computer power to run the system, you need the special card-readers to be placed on every bus and at every trains station. This is where the serious costs start to occur, leading to the figures of $100-150 million for Auckland's system.

Which gets us back to the current situation, where it seems like Integrated Ticketing for Auckland will be further delayed. After rail electrification, it is my belief that a Smart-Card integrated ticketing system is the most important next step for Auckland's public transport. We've been waiting decades for it...

Government Roading Policy... oops I mean transport policy 2009-2019
Topic: Policy

So the government has decided to review its transport policy, and fairly unsurprisingly the result is masses of money for roads and bugger all for everything else. 

Thanks to g.blog I have tracked down the 2009-2019 Amended Government Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding. At the moment it's just a draft, and you can give your feedback on it up until 2 April.

Written feedback is preferred and can be provided: by e-mail to GPS@transport.govt.nz by writing to GPS Development Team, Ministry of Transport, Novell House, 89 The Terrace, PO Box 3175, Wellington
For contact by phone: Ian Stuart (04 439 9369) or Aidan Smith (04 439 9251) will be available between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

The full GPS can be viewed here: http://greenvoices.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/draft_gps_20091.pdf

For some reason it doesn't seem to be publicly accessible on the Ministry of Transport website - perhaps they're trying to limit who can provide feedback, I don't really know.

The GPS seems to be the "political spin" that governments can apply to transport funding and initiatives, so no real surprises that the amendments are "rrrrrrrrrrrrrroads, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroads and more rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroads!" There has been some hooplah about the loss of funding for coastal shipping, although I think there are some bigger issues with the GPS than this.

Let's have a look through it in some more detail, starting with the overall objectives.

The Minister of Transport is amending the GPS 2009/10 – 2018/19 to align investment in the land transport sector more closely with the new government’s priorities of national economic growth and productivity. The Minister’s main reasons for changing the GPS are:
1) to reflect the government’s priority of investment in transport infrastructure for economic growth
2) to reflect the modal choices that are realistically available to New Zealanders.

Gotta love how there's no mention of the environment, future oil scarcity, any attempts to change the current roads-centric nature of transport or anything of the like  :(

So what is the GPS? What effect does it have?

The GPS outlines the government’s objectives and funding priorities for the land transport sector for a 10–year period with detail for the first 3 to 6 years. The GPS outlines what the government expects to achieve in the land transport sector over this period, how it will achieve this by funding certain activity levels, and how this funding will be raised. The Minister of Transport issues a GPS every 3 years.
The GPS signals to both the NZ Transport Agency and regional transport committees what type of activities or combinations of activities should be included in regional land transport programmes and the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP).
The NLTP is a statutory document prepared by the NZ Transport Agency that describes transport activities or packages of activities expected to be considered for funding for the 3 years from 2009/10. The GPS outlines the funding central government will make available through the NLTP.
The GPS sets the funding ranges that the NZ Transport Agency can allocate to particular activity classes, such as maintenance of local roads and State highways, construction of local roads and State highways, passenger transport services and infrastructure, and road policing. The GPS provides a national picture. The allocation of funding is the responsibility of the NZ Transport Agency, which must give effect to the GPS and which will also take regional land transport strategies and programmes into account.

I am still kind of trying to get my head around all the different transport policy documents, but this one does seem particularly important. It outlines the funding priorities of government, and as they're the ones with the cash - if it's not a government priority it's unlikely to happen. It also outlines the "objectives" that government seems to want from transport. I assume that this will guide Regional Land Transport Strategies to some extent as well.

The summary of key changes are outlined below:

The government’s priority is to achieve economic growth and productivity in New Zealand. The GPS will ensure that the use of land transport funding supports this goal. This will mean investing in high quality infrastructure projects that support efficient movement of freight and people. There will be a particular focus on the State highway network, which is critical to the efficient movement of freight and people. There will also be a strong emphasis on value for money, and the economic efficiency of projects.

So a particular focus on State Highways, nothing new there I suppose.

The Minister of Transport proposes that the amended GPS replaces the outcome targets in the current GPS with a list of impacts that the government wishes to achieve. This list would include specific impacts the government expects to contribute to economic growth and productivity. For example:
1) Improvements in journey time reliability.
2) Easing of severe congestion.
3) Improving transport connections to areas that have economic growth potential.
4) Increasing access to markets.
5) Improving transport efficiency.
6) Improvements in road safety.

Wow, so nothing about reducing reliance on oil, nothing about reducing greenhouse emissions from the transport sector, nothing about creating a more balanced transport system, nothing at all about public transport.

Now let's look at funding:

The total level of expenditure through the National Land Transport Fund is expected to be approximately $2.75 billion in 2009/10 rising to $3.75 billion in 2018/19.
The amended GPS will need to reflect that $258 million of capital commitments for Wellington rail infrastructure will be funded from the Crown account and not from the National Land Transport Fund, freeing up more revenue generated from road users for road–related activity.
In addition, approximately $660 million additional funding will be provided over 6 years to compensate for the removal of regional fuel tax schemes as announced by the Prime Minister and Minister of Transport on 16 March 2009.

Kind of weird that Wellington's rail infrastructure gets removed out of transport funding, but Auckland's doesn't. It's also amusing that particular move is justified on the grounds of "let's get those annoying rail improvements out of the way so we can focus on building rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroads!"

So now let's look at state highway funding - the big beneficiary here:

The current GPS signals a reduction in investment in State highway construction over the term of the GPS. This reduction equated to a nine percent decline in investment in State highway construction over the first 3 years of the GPS relative to the last 3 years of actual expenditure.
The Minister of Transport proposes a significant increase in State highway construction. Increasing funding for State highway construction will bring benefits for national economic growth and productivity, particularly given that State highways carry most inter-regional freight and link major ports, airports and urban areas. In particular, it will help address strategic ‘bottlenecks’, and may allow new economic growth areas to be better connected into the national network.
The State highway network represents only 11.6 percent of the total road network yet accounts for almost half of all the kilometres driven each year by New Zealanders. The heavy use of the State highway network highlights its importance for moving people and freight, which is essential for economic growth.

Just another example of the government living with its head in the sand. NZTA studies last year showed declining traffic volumes are likely over the next 10-20 years. So it's no surprise that funding for state highways was to decline. Furthermore, much of the funding of state highways in recent years has been a huge "catch up" by the previous Labour government for transport projects that were neglected throughout the 1990s. I don't think anyone really expected that "catch up" level of funding to continue forever.... well clearly except for National.

On page three we finally see that public transport gets a mention:

It is important to rebalance current investment to better reflect the modal options realistically available to New Zealanders now, given that 84 percent of journeys to work in urban areas are by car and 70 percent of freight tonne-kilometres are by road. Our major cities of Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch will need to continue to increase the use of other transport modes. This is why the government continues to place emphasis on ongoing investment in public transport, both within and outside the National Land Transport Fund.

Ummmm.... so the "rebalancing" means that the government is taking money away from public transport to spend on roads. Doesn't really sound like much of a balance to me. But it's good to know that government is not going to completely stop funding public transport - which seems to be what the final sentence is saying we should be grateful for.

The real result of this becomes obvious in the table below:

So out of $8.559 billion of total transport funding, we see that public transport services and infrastructure only gets $767 million - that’s around 9% - utterly pathetic! When it comes to “new infrastructure”, which is what we’re really talking about as necessary you end up comparing $134 million for new public transport with $3.496 billion for new roads. Wow, twenty-six times the funding for new roads than new public transport. How is that balanced? The interesting thing also is that the national petrol tax is clearly NOT funding Auckland's rail electrification. In fact I don't see where funding for Auckland's electrification or electric trains is within the GPS. I guess its funding must come separately - which means that the national petrol tax is JUST going into more roads. One must hope that funding for rail infrastructure will be funded separately than from this mechanism - as clearly there's absolutely nothing in here for rail.

The main features of the proposed reallocations are:

The revised GPS would increase the level of funding for the New and Improved Infrastructure for State Highways activity class by almost $1 billion over the next three years by: reallocating approximately $420 million over 3 years from non-State highway activity classes freeing up $258 million over 2 years for road–related activity by moving capital investment in Wellington rail infrastructure outside of the National Land Transport Fund providing approximately $660 million over 6 years from Petrol Excise Duty and Road User Charges as an alternative to proceeding with the Regional Fuel Tax Scheme.
Forecast State highway expenditure is lifted to remain at around 34 percent of total NLTP expenditure.
Forecast expenditure on local road construction is maintained at the same level as that in the current GPS. Road maintenance expenditure will still increase relative to the 2008/09 level.
Forecast expenditure on Public Transport Infrastructure differs considerably from the 2008/09 forecast, primarily because other capital commitments for Wellington rail infrastructure funding will be funded outside of the National Land Transport Fund.
Demand Management and Community Programmes and Walking and Cycling will receive funding allocations near their 2008/09 expenditure levels.
Changes in forecast expenditure for Rail & Sea Freight and Domestic Sea Freight Development reflect that the Minister wants to focus on other non-monetary interventions that will help increase the market competitiveness of rail and sea freight transport.

This really is roads, roads and more roads. I don't even know whether Maurice Williamson would have been this bad.

This is why I say our government is stuck in the 1960s with its thinking on transport.

A Day in the Life of an Auckland Public Transport User
Topic: Observations

Occasionally I do ask myself whether Auckland's public transport is that bad after all. Perhaps it's because I've had a few buses turn up on time, not take forever, I've caught a train that provided me with a pleasant trip, or something along those lines. I get lulled into this false sense of security that maybe we're OK, maybe things don't really need to change THAT much. Then I end up with days like yesterday, where a combination of patheticness and just plain bad luck on my behalf, made it seem like I spent half the day battling with Auckland's public transport.

To start things off, yesterday morning I readied myself to catch the 004/005 into town. On Monday morning Leila and I generally have a coffee together up the road, and then I wander across the road to catch the 8.25am bus into town. So 8.25 rolls around, no bus.... not in fact until around 8.40am. Now I know that in the scheme of things having a bus turn up 15 minutes late isn't the worst thing that can happen, but the strange thing was that the 8.40am bus that turned up wasn't a late 8.25 - it was just the normal 8.40am bus. So for some reason the 8.25 just didn't exist - rather frustrating (especially at that time of the morning).

I spent all morning in town, sorting out stuff there - and then in the afternoon needed to head back to Avondale. I could have caught the bus back home and then driven to Avondale - but that seemed a bit silly considering there is a direct bus between the two. I was also quite curious to see how the roadworks along Symonds Street are progressing - as the university section should be fairly close to completion. The bus turned up on time, a good start, and the university section of Symonds Street has had some really good progress made along it, hopefully leading to the bus lanes becoming operational in the fairly near future. In the meanwhile though, the bus trips along Symonds Street - and just in general - are pretty painfully slow. The bus driver on my 224 route seemed like the bus equivalent of the "Nana drivers" who cruise along streets at 30 kph. Added to that, just about everyone who got on the bus seemed to have to dig through their bags for their wallets and then dig through their wallets for a $20 note, make the bus driver dig around for the required change, all while asking for detailed directions about where to get off for whatever place they were hoping to go. It's certainly enormously frustrating to be sitting there thinking how utterly slowly the whole process is going. From the city to my work in Avondale is around 9.6km, via the route of the 224 bus. Now, the bus took about 40-45 minutes to complete that trip - creating an average speed of around 13 kph. Wow you could certainly cycle the trip faster than that, and could almost jog it quicker. Do Auckland's buses need to be quite that slow?

After finishing off my work for the afternoon, I came to the conclusion that I certainly couldn't face another bus trip of that length any time soon - so I'd catch the train. The Avondale train station is about a 10 minute walk from my work, so I set off early enough to get there - and to zip in to a dairy and get some cash out for the train trip. It would have been nice to use my bus pass for the train trip, but of course Auckland still lives in the 1960s when it comes to ticketing and our train tickets are not interchangeable with bus passes. After walking for yonks in the wrong direction to find a dairy, I came back to notice that my 5.05pm train was departing the Avondale train station - at 5.01pm! As the saying goes "the only thing worse than a late bus or train, is an early bus or train". So I missed that one. The next train did arrive a bit early too (or were they in fact both 10 minutes late?) and the train zipped me into town in under 20 minutes - twice the speed of my geriatric 224 bus route!

As I rushed out of Britomart train station to catch my 005 bus back to Herne Bay I saw it pull away from the stop before I could get there. It was leaving on time, but I kinda felt like it was no real surprise I would miss it - considering my general poor luck with public transport.

A lot of emphasis does get put on improving Auckland's railway system - perhaps to the neglect (at least among public transport advocates) of essential steps that need to be taken to improve the bus networks too. The huge majority of public transport users in Auckland catch the bus, and that's likely to remain the case in the foreseeable future. Buses clearly need to work out ways to board much faster (smart-card ticketing is essential for this as it doesn't require driver interaction) and to also travel faster (bus lanes are essential for this). A good argument could be made that getting faster boarding times and more bus lanes is perhaps one way in which the greatest number of public transport users would benefit. Not that I'm saying we should ignore rail improvements of course though!

Jim Hopkins - the 1950s man
Topic: Rail

I just about choked on my coffee this morning while reading Jim Hopkins' opinion piece: Supporters of rail are on the wrong road. With such proclamations as "...the fact there's more voters in one Auckland electorate than there are in the entire South Island" I was certain this was just a joke, some funny sarcasm perhaps in there to just show what dinosaurs the supporters of roads-centric transportation policies are. But no, in fact he seems quite serious about the whole issue. According to Jim "Expecting trains to solve Auckland's transport woes makes as much sense as lassoing rogue elephants with spaghetti or telling Phil Goff he can win our hearts and minds by being himself." Well, I guess there's possibly some sort of argument going there, as for a large city "solving" congestion completely is a rather impossible task - as you create supply people use it, which means that generally the roads of a big city are somewhat congested no matter how good the transportation system is. Of course, one would not want to think what the roads of a place like London or Tokyo would be like WITHOUT their vast rail networks, but let's just leave aside that obvious issue for a minute.

So what is Jim's solution here? Teleportation perhaps? No.... in fact it seems like he's Steven Joyce and his roading pals' biggest fan. Once again, according to Jim: "Build a motorway and get over it." One wonders from where should one build a motorway to where? He suggests Devonport to Sylvia Park, which I'm sure the residents of Devonport and the Eastern Suburbs will be just superbly happy to hear about. Seemingly, because Auckland has grown a lot in the last 50 years, it is an AA city (after automobiles) and therefore a train system will never work for it. Trains only work for BA (before automobile) cities. Never mind the fact that Tokyo is largely an AA city yet has the biggest train system in the world, Singapore is another fairly recently built city with a fantastic rail system. The list goes on... Furthermore, it's actually pretty debatable whether Auckland is an AA city in any case: as a lot of its development was pre-WWII and was based around trams routes. Devonport is definitely a BA suburb, and grew because it was a short ferry ride from downtown and a short tram ride along Lake Road from Takapuna.

I shall be calm in the face of this stupidity. I shall be calm. Here is a well-reasoned reply to Mr Hopkins:

In response to the opinion piece by Jim Hopkins, entitled "Supporters of rail are on the wrong road" I feel compelled to disagree on almost every point Mr Hopkins makes. For a start, his assumption that there are more voters in one Auckland electorate than in the whole of the South Island is completely wrong: the population of the South Island is around 1 million while the population of an Auckland electorate is well below 100,000. But while that "fact" proclaimed by Mr Hopkins is amusing in its complete absurdity, it is more important to dispute the many claims that he makes about trains not being suitable for Auckland, and not being a step forward for transport, but rather a step back to the 19th century akin to returning to using wakas for coastal shipping.

It appears as though Mr Hopkins' assumption that further investment in motorways and cars of the future fueled by hydrogen and the like can only be based on a myopic view of the world that clearly avoids looking at what every overseas country is doing. If trains don't make sense for "after automobile" cities, then why is almost every country in Europe, Asia and even North America investing in rail infrastructure at a greater rate than they have done so in decades? Shanghai and Beijing are building vast metro systems as they grow extraordinarily quickly, California is investing in a high-speed rail link between its major cities and even Los Angeles (surely the ultimate after automobile city) has realised its folly and has stopped the construction of further freeways. Los Angeles residents voted for billions to be spent on public transport improvements last year, perhaps the ultimate sign that in fact it is the roads centric policies of the last 50 years which are starting to look out of date and "waka" like.

Rail is clearly the future as well as the present and the past. A magnetic levitation railway line now links Shanghai airport with its downtown - zipping tourists between the two at over 400 kph. And this is current technology, unlike the "self-steering car" and "hydrogen powered vehicle" whose proponents even admit are decades away from widespread use. By putting all its eggs in the roading basket, people such as Mr Hopkins are living in the 1950s and committing New Zealand to an unsustainable, congested and incredibly ugly (thanks to all the motorways) future.

Ah, great to get that off my chest.

National's nationally important rrrroads!
Topic: Roads

Steven Joyce, Minister of Transport, is certainly having a busier week. After the myriad of media releases surrounding a new national petrol tax, the end of a regional fuel tax, confirmation that electric trains for Auckland are going ahead, more money for State Highways, less for local roads, walking cycling and public transport.... today we find out about the "seven roads of national importance". I guess we should have a look at what they are:

1. State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Wellsford. This one is certainly interesting as previously it hadn't really been considered much of a priority. When ALPURT B2 opened back in late January there was a lot of media criticising how the two lanes of motorway heading northwards shouldn't decrease down to one before the tunnel. Nobody's really sure what this work actually would entail, considering building a 4 lane motorway between Warkworth and Wellsford would be nigh on impossible. Perhaps some safety improvements are on the cards along with a Warkworth bypass and the extension of 4-laning somewhat northwards towards Warkworth.
2. Completion of the Auckland Western Ring Route. This effectively means the Waterview Connection as everything else has been either built or is currently under construction. This is interesting as the only thing the government has done so far about the Waterview Connection is delay it by probably about a year by forcing NZTA to look at cheaper alternatives than the multi-billion dollar tunnel that was ready to have its designation notified.
3. Victoria Park bottleneck. As I've said before, this is one project that I'm OK with. The sooner the better I think.
4. Waikato Expressway. If I'm cheeky I'd say anything that bypasses Hamilton and Huntly is a good thing! This project is largely justified on the basis of safety improvements (and also avoiding Hamilton), and it was going to happen anyway. I'm generally more supportive of inter-city roading projects as there are no viable public transport alternatives at the moment.
5. Tauranga Eastern Corridor. I don't know too much about this, except that it looks to turn the road between Tauranga and Te Puke into something like a motorway. Although it's a fairly congested route at the moment, it does seem like this route is only really needed to allow Tauranga to sprawl even more to the west. Interestingly, Tauranga has grown in a way that would make a commuter rail system quite viable in the future (growth has been along the rail corridors and there's potential for a rail station close to the CBD) - perhaps some funding should go to that instead?
6. Wellington Northern Corridor. Well at least it's not the Transmission Gully Motorway!
7. Christchurch motorway projects. I don't really know that much about these projects, but Christchurch is already a fairly auto dependent city (almost as bad as Auckland), with further motorway projects likely to only make that even more the case. That said, Christchurch has had virtually no transport spending in the past decade so they're probably due something.

I'm certainly not opposed to all of these projects, as some are probably quite justified. However, this press release just reinforces the fact that the government sees State Highways as pretty much all that matters when it comes to transportation projects in the country. Where are the rail projects of national importance? I could certainly come up with a few! This type of approach to transport is hugely unbalanced towards roading projects, reinforcing the country's automobile dependency. I may sound like a broken record, but with peak oil either just around the corner or having already occurred this imbalanced transportation agenda is playing Russian roulette with our future. How wise it is for us to put all our eggs in the roads basket?

It is also interesting to note that tolling has been considered as one way of advancing the Puhoi to Wellsford route (as well as the Eastern Tauranga bypass). Existing legislation on toll roads says that there has to be an easily accessible alternative to the toll road (like how the old State Highway 1 is a viable free alternative to the new ALPURT B2 toll road). Now this means either one of two things: firstly, it could mean that the government is considering the full realignment of the Puhoi-Wellsford section of State Highway 1, a project that would probably cost an absolutely massive amount of money, as the topography of the area means that a lot of tunnels would probably be necessary for a motorway grade road. Alternatively, the government could look at doing away with the legislation that requires a free alternative to be available. That would quite probably go against a lot of what National were saying before the election (where Maurice Williamson got squashed by John Key every time he even mentioned the word "toll") and could lead to a huge number of toll roads around the country. Now I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to this, as road-pricing can be a fair way to pay for new projects, but it certainly would be an interesting change of tack.

Coldplay
Topic: Other

My long wait for Coldplay to come to New Zealand for a tour is finally over, and I will be heading to Vector Arena this evening to see them live. Yes, I am excited about the prospect. Coldplay have been my favourite band over the past seven years, and seem to have just got better and better. Leila has seen them live once before, back when they came to New Zealand in 2002 or 2003 I think, and she says that they were unbelievably fantastic.

It also gives me my first chance to see inside Vector Arena. It is amazing to see the number of great bands coming to Auckland these days because of the Arena, who just skipped us before. It's good for us to have such a facility.

I shall look forward to writing about my experiences in tomorrow's post.

More Petrol Tax Shennanigans
Topic: Policy

The wild swings in transport policy on a daily basis continue to happen, with a national fuel tax of 6c a litre (introduced over the next two years) taking the place of the 9.5c a litre regional fuel tax that was to be imposed in Auckland. Furthermore, it appears as though the national fuel tax won't actually even be paying for the new electric trains, but rather that KiwiRail will be dumped with the train debt, while all the new fuel tax money will go to where National reckons transport money should always go - rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroads of course!

The various press releases on the issue make somewhat disturbing reading, when looked at in detail. It is clear that the National government does not particularly value public transport, and considers that because most people currently use roads, the vast majority of funding should go to new roads - regardless of whether that's a sustainable transport strategy moving into the future. In a way, it's a shame that oil prices have decreased so much in the last few months, and that petrol is no longer at record levels, as I suspect in such an environment anyone proposing the continued long-term domination of transport by the private vehicle would be simply laughed at (that is, unless they were coming up with some serious electric car proposals). Unfortunately, our politicians are too short-sighted to realise that the huge decrease in oil prices is most likely to only be temporary (and strongly linked to the recession). Once the global world economy recovers (whenever that may be), oil prices will skyrocket once again, and possibly even more severely than last time - due to a suspension in investment over the past few months. On the bright side, I guess we'll have a lot of empty roads to drive along (while paying $5 a litre for petrol).

Leaving aside the broad political/ideological stupidity of the National government's transport policies, there are clearly some gains and some losses out of what has happened in the past few days. Let's look at the gains first:

1. Auckland will be getting electric trains. Although this isn't really a "gain" from the previous situation, there was a worry that we'd end up with nothing at all.
2. The national funding of Auckland's trains will mean that we are not disadvantaged in comparison to Wellington. Wellington currently is getting a pile of new electric trains manufactured, which the government fully funded.
3. With KiwiRail owning all the trains on Auckland's suburban network, there is potential in the future for a smaller number of players to be involved in the train network. This should help things.
4. It looks like the Victoria Park Tunnel might be built sooner. This is perhaps the ONE Auckland motorway project that I wholeheartedly support.

And now for the losses:

1. The big one is integrated ticketing. Although a "cheap" paper-based ticketing system is likely to still go ahead at the end of this year, the smart-card contract (which was about to be let) is likely to be delayed as the ARC scrabbles together its begging hat and goes to the government for general funds to help out with the $100 million price tag.
2. Station upgrades. We might end up with a half-built Newmarket station unless money is found immediately to complete it.
3. Wharf upgrades. Once again this was meant to be funded by the regional petrol tax - likely to be delayed until general transport funds can be found.
4. Electrification is likely to be delayed. KiwiRail and ARTA/ARC don't really seem to agree with each other on much, so it's unlikely that KiwiRail will want exactly the same trains that ARTA/ARC had tendered for. This will delay the trains by at least 6 months I would imagine, meaning that we definitely won't have new electric trains by the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
5. The ARC is severely weakened in terms of the power it has over transportation in Auckland. As I trust the ARC a lot more than central government (one actually wants to improve the train network, the other loves roads and has only continued with electrification because it had to) this is a big negative.
6. Money will be redirected away from sustainable transportation (walking, cycling & public transport) and towards building more State Highways. This will just further entrench Auckland (and New Zealand's) auto dependency and make us even more susceptible to the effects of peak oil.

So, while the outcome could be worse, public transport in Auckland is definitely left the poorer as a result of what's happened in the last few days. If the smart-card issue can be sorted out, I will feel a lot better about things, but overall it is highly depressing to have the government being so obsessed with roading projects in the future.