The Waterview Connection
You know, Parliament’s question time was interesting yesterday. Well, not so much all the Winston Peters stuff. The funniest bit of that exchange was Dail Jones trying to claim that Owen Glenn’s damning letter might be a forgery.
The stuff I found interesting though was the discussion on the Waterview Connection. Russel began by asking whether the government would be better able to achieve its goal of carbon-neutrality by spending $1.9 billion on the Waterview motorway project, or putting that same money towards completing and upgrading the Auckland passenger rail network. The Prime Minister gave the government’s usual response that it wants to build roads and trains too. Have cake and eat it too please. (But one cake will be a lot smaller than the other bitumen-flavoured one).
Then Keith revealed a letter he had from Transit:
Keith Locke: How can the Prime Minister’s Government go ahead with the Waterview Connection, when in a letter to me the Transit chairman said that the future price of oil does not feature at all in Transit’s assumptions that the project’s benefit-cost ratio is a miserable 1:0, and that, for some strange reason, the motorway is projected to be completely full in 2015, when it is projected to open?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I said in the House yesterday, part of the Government’s overall Energy Strategy sees this country being an early adapter of electric car technology. A lot of research is going into alternatives to the petroleum-powered car. Over time there will be, I am sure, technology solutions that come along, as oil becomes more and more expensive, and presumably, at some time beyond our lifetimes, perhaps not available at all. So I think the member is looking at the issue a little too narrowly, if he thinks the future of the private car on the road is dependent on oil-fuelling vehicles.
Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is it not a bit premature to build roads for electric cars, when the Government’s own Energy Strategy projected last year that electric cars will form only 5 percent of the fleet by 2020, and when this motorway is brand new, is being built at a time of declining traffic in Auckland, and is due to open in 2015?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I have consistently said, the Government supports the completion of the Auckland roading network, but I have consistently said the completion of that network is not, in itself, a solution to roading congestion in Auckland. The solution lies in a dual approach whereby we encourage not only the use of public transport-in which we are investing 15 times as much per annum as the level of investment we inherited after the 1999 election-but also other forms of demand management, like encouraging walking school buses, and encouraging people to walk, cycle, use ferries, and so on.
Multiplying not much by 15 is a clever trick but it doesn’t but give people that much more public transport choices - especially while you are funding the country’s biggest every road building binge.
Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is it not true that no matter how many emissions trading schemes we get started on, we will not make progress towards her goal of carbon neutrality, or reducing congestion, as long as the Government, as outlined in its National Land Transport Programme, spends $12 billion on new roads alone, while spending only a quarter of that amount on all the sustainable alternatives put together-public transport, walking, cycling, and the rest-with the result that motorists who want to reduce their carbon emissions have no choice but to take their cars?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The reason for investments in public transport being 15 times the level they were in 1999 is precisely to give as many people as possible that choice.
The Herald noted this morning of the Transit letter to Keith:
The letter, sent to Mr Locke last month, also included an indication by Mr Jackson that tolls would be charged to drive through the 3.2km set of bored tunnels within that link - even though the Government says it has yet to make a decision on that.
Mr Locke said the ratio figure stated in the letter meant there was insufficient financial gain expected from the project to outweigh the cost, other than the general longer-term benefit of completing a network.
And so we return to the topic of tolls…
August 28th, 2008 at 9:36 am
And the lost time Keith Locke used public transport to travel from his Mt Eden home to Auckland Airport to fly to Wellington was when ????
August 28th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Don’t know the answer to that one Bryan, but Keith lives near where I work, and I often see him cycling to appointments in Auckland.
I use public transport to get to Auckland airport. From home it takes 25min on the train, then a wait for a bus service that is supposed to run every 15min but gets delayed in inner city trafic so seldom does, and then a 30min bus trip. So to be safe I need to start the train leg leave home one and a half hours before my airport check-in time.
The train and bus legs of the journey are roughly the same distance for me. While the train leg costs $4.80, the bus leg costs a massive $15.00.
So I can see why many people think it’s simpler and cheaper to take their cars. I can also see why getting a rail service into the airport needs to be a priority.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Building roads for non-petrol cars before they’ve been developed is certainly forward-thinking.
I recall a fictional surrealist civilisation documented in a small Wellington ‘zine years ago that supposedly invented bus stops before the invention of buses. What with Helen Clark signing paintings she didn’t paint and the whole Winston Peters saga, perhaps the entire Labour government has been a surrealist art project?
August 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Myth : Public Transport saves energy.
Reality: Getting people to drive more fuel-efficient cars will
save far more energy than building rail transit.
Contrary to popular belief, neither public transit nor intercity
rail saves much energy. Buses consume about as much energy
per passenger mile as light trucks (pick ups, vans, and SUVs).
Light rail consumes about as much as the average passenger
car. Amtrak is only a little better than the average domestic
airline flight.
Heavy rail (subways and elevated) and commuter rail do
a little better than automobiles and airlines. But none are
as energy efficient as the most fuel-efficient cars, such as the
Toyota Prius.
Transit is not a great energy saver and many forms of transit
actually use more energy than cars.
All data are for 2006 except Amtrak which is for 2005 and 2035
Sources: National Transportation Statistics tables 4-18 and 4-21; National
Transit Database 2006 “Energy Consumption� spreadsheet;
Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 26(Oak Ridge, TN:
U.S. Department of Energy, 2007), table 2.13.
Unlike transit, which generally has been getting less energy
efficient over time, automobiles are getting more energy
efficient.20 Under the Energy Independence and Security Act
of 2007, this trend will continue so that, by 2035, the average
auto on the road will consume just 2,500 BTUs per passenger
mile—less than Amtrak or any urban transit mode today.
The energy efficiency of proposed new rail projects must be
compared not against today’s autos but against those of the
future, when those rail projects are actually in service.
These numbers do not count the exorbitant energy cost of
constructing rail lines. Since rail lines tend to move far fewer
people than highways, this cost is much higher per passenger
mile. For example, planners project that operating a new lightrail
line in Portland would save a little energy each year, but
it will take 172 years of that savings to pay for the energy
cost of construction.
Few proposed rail lines will operate so
efficiently that it will be worth the high energy cost to build
them.
These are based on US data and we don’t have useful data. But policy should not be based on assumption but on evidence and if you don’t agree with these findings you need to prove them wrong.
Also the Waterview connection should cost only about 250 million. It is only costing billions to keep the PMs electorate happy with a tunnel rather than the at grade connection which goes through Phil Goff’s electorate.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am
# Sam Buchanan Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am
> Building roads for non-petrol cars before they’ve been developed is certainly forward-thinking.
> I recall a fictional surrealist civilisation documented in a small Wellington ‘zine years ago that supposedly invented bus stops before the invention of buses. What with Helen Clark signing paintings she didn’t paint and the whole Winston Peters saga, perhaps the entire Labour government has been a surrealist art project?
Korean civilisation invented moveable type 500 years before it invented the alphabet.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:13 am
“While the train leg costs $4.80, the bus leg costs a massive $15.00.”
Sounds about right toad. I think the public transport subsidy is about 60% making the real cost of your train leg $12, so $15 for an unsubsidized bus trip from Britomart to the airport sounds about right.
If your $4.80 train journey is on the southern line that probably makes you close enough to the airport for a taxi to be cheaper (and unsubsidised) than the actual cost of your bus trip. Ignoring the lost hour on public transport.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:19 am
“achieve its goal of carbon-neutrality by spending $1.9 billion on the Waterview motorway project,”
shouldn’t that be achieving it’s goal of a fourth term by not upsetting Helen Clark’s electorate ? Surely the money saved by trenching could be invested in enhancements to public transport ? Perhaps an integrated ticketing system across the entire region ? How about paying for travel via cellphone ?
August 28th, 2008 at 11:10 am
My family has to buy, service and run cars, my local government has to buy land to build roads, roads have to be maintained, traffic has to be policed and then there’s the oft-missed opportunity cost of the land used up for roads. On top of this our family and my business has to buy petrol (Auckland uses ~1 billion litres a year) that is getting more and more expensive. I’d like to see more arguments from the right about total cost of ownership, future-protection and cost of operation rather than robotic “subsidy is bad” arguments which are entirely ideologically driven.
As for the comment that government spending on PT is 15 x the 1999 level — maybe a better discussion would be around comparisons of concrete deliverables compared to other cities we are competing with. For example, what average percentage of income is spent on transportation in Munich? What is the average trip-time in Hong Kong? What average percentage of time is spent in transit in Singapore?
August 28th, 2008 at 11:22 am
“my local government has to buy land to build roads, roads have to be maintained, traffic has to be policed an” - covered by road taxes
“hen there’s the oft-missed opportunity cost of the land used up for roads. ” - but only due to land values inflated by arbitrary restrictions on development by Green zoning policies.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:35 am
“my local government has to buy land to build roads, roads have to be maintained, traffic has to be policed an� - covered by road taxes
^ could it be that we have a possibly more inefficient and ineffective system that feeds itself through taxes forced on the residents because there are no other options?
“hen there’s the oft-missed opportunity cost of the land used up for roads. � - but only due to land values inflated by arbitrary restrictions on development by Green zoning policies.
^ So you would prescribe more sprawl and costly extensions / maintenance to existing infrastructure to fix the problem?
August 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am
apl: yes I would suggest that. Artificial restrictions on land for building have driven up the cost of housing and therefore led to a situation where it is unaffordable for the average wage earner to own their own home.
If houses, and therefore home loan repayments, were much lower that would more than compensate for any increase in rates/taxes to pay for the additional infrastructure. Greater adoption of debt funded toll recuperated private/public partnerships would see the cost born by those who use those services and allow cost savings by building infrastructure that saves time and money.
The problem in Auckland is that Mike Lee and his left wing cohorts dominate the issue: can’t wait till we get a super city and Banksie in charge as Lord Mayor.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Bryan; I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on almost every point there.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“while you are funding the country’s biggest every road building binge.” That should read while the coumtry is funding the Auckland’s biggest ever road building binge.
That’s a fact, and I can prove it:
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/XLS/Rev-Exp-08.xls
August 28th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I find it ludicrous and hypocritical that the Greens will use NZTA appraisal methodology outputs to condemn a new road for a low Benefit Cost ratio, but when the same methodology is used on rail projects it “doesn’t count”, you can’t have it both ways! The BCRs of Auckland rail projects are abysmal.
In addition, the “cost” of public transport isn’t what you pay in rail fares, it is what everyone else pays to subsidise your trip - something which does not happen for car trips. Usual wilful blindness and obfuscation here.
The Waterview extension is expensive because it has been greenplated, it shouldn’t be a tunnel, the costs would drop markedly if it wasn’t. As it currently stands it isn’t viable and should be delayed until it is.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
libertyscott said: The Waterview extension is expensive because it has been greenplated, it shouldn’t be a tunnel, the costs would drop markedly if it wasn’t. As it currently stands it isn’t viable and should be delayed until it is.
That is the first thing I can recall I have ever agreed with you on L-S. Waterview tunnel shouldn’t happen at all. But I think we agree for different reasons.
If an Avondale-Onehunga rail link were completed, with connect into Auckland Airport from Onehunga and Puhinui (cheaper) or Papatoetoe (more expensive, but closer to other public transport links) the Waterview roading project, tunneled or not, would be completely unnecessary.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
> Amtrak is only a little better than the average domestic airline flight.
From the DB site for a trip from (for example) Hamburg to Munich would be ~69% of the raw energy requirements compared to flying (including getting to the airport) and around ~40% the raw energy requirements of driving a car.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Complaints about building new roads only have substance if you believe our population should not continue to increase.
(I pretty much agree with that idea…our ‘green’ energy sources are stretched already, and our roads are full enough)
However, if you accept that our population is going to continue to increase then there is no choice but to aim for a better roading system, especially in volcanic/earthquake prone areas where enastomoses are required.
The romantic fixation with trains is a relic from a bygone era.
Nowadays we have hybrid cars and buses which emulate the ‘diesel-electric’ benefits of the previous generation of trains, but which add the benefits of flexible routing.
Trains still have some value, but should not be the focus as they were 100 years ago.
Aucklands North Shore busway is a good example of a working public transport model.
The next step is to focus on separating cycle traffic from cars, and also getting large private vehicles (eg 4WDs) off the roads completely.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
It seems to me that an integrated approach always works better than a black & white ’solution’. Some goods can be moved more efficiently by rail, people transport too, where there is sufficient density and flexibility to attract paying customers.
It always seems strange too that taxpayers are usually in favour of more & better roads even though they pay by various forms of taxation, but scream like stuck pigs when asked to pay for rail that is used indirectly by them to transport coal and bulk trade goods.
Admittedly Europe is not a comparable example because of longer distances between centres of population here and lower population densities, but rail is booming there. Also - follow the money - big investors are putting up cash for rail infrastructure investment, (by buying bonds issued by nationalized rail groups), and presumably expect good returns.
Horses for courses ?
August 28th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
“If an Avondale-Onehunga rail link were completed, with connect into Auckland Airport from Onehunga and Puhinui (cheaper) or Papatoetoe (more expensive, but closer to other public transport links) the Waterview roading project, tunneled or not, would be completely unnecessary.”
Toad, while I agree that we need more public transport, the Avondale to Southdown Line will not be worth it. Why? Because no-one would use it. Let me use two Australian examples:
The Cumberland Line in Sydney was opened to great fanfare in 1996; it was a non-CBD route (like Avondale/Southdown would be). Today, the numbers of passengers are so low that is justifies only a handful of services daily.
The Yeerongpilly to Corinda Line in Brisbane was once the main rail connection between the “Southside” and the “Northside” of Brisbane. However, the numbers of passengers (post 1978) were so low that it was the last diesel service in Brisbane with the 2000 class Railmotors (operated until April 2000); and today, there are only half a dozen trains each day - the route has mostly been replaced by buses.
Lesson: Don’t build rail lines that don’t go to the CBD - no-one will use them.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:37 am
greengeek; roads/private-transport does not scale with population –– there has been ample evidence that “you can’t build your way out of congestion”. Most large cities as they grow solve this problem using rail-based mass-transit systems. Why is it that the Auckland situation is any different?
August 29th, 2008 at 8:09 am
apl…I think what makes Auckland different is the relatively low population density who live within short distances from a rail station.
Rail works well on the Kapiti coast because all the population lives in a narrow strip along near the rail lines, but in Auckland the population is rather spread out and in fact the entire North Shore (maybe 20% of the population??) lacks any rail link at all. The rail network throughout the rest of the city probably services only about 15% of the total population.
As housing density around rail links increases (a current strategy of our councils) the usage will improve, but still 80% of the population will need other alternatives.
One of the other issues for Auckland is that it is an interesting, summery city where people love to get outdoors and get around. Our lifestyles (including transport) are individualistic and mobile. We need to go where we want, when we want, not go where rail goes, when it feels like going there.
A city like Auckland will always be strongly reliant on personal transport and I think the major issue for us is to ensure our choices of personal transport are as green as possible.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Over fifty percent of an Auckland family’s trips are unrelated to work.
And only a small percentage of those work trips go to the CBD.
Public transport (and especially rail) is not dependent on population density but on employment density.
This is why New York’s rail is viable. The population density of New York metropolitan area is lower than the population density of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Los Angeles rail system is a financial disaster.
The difference is that Manhattan has a massive employment density while Los Angeles is a modern multi nodal city – like Auckland.
I have crunched the numbers for a CBD link to the Auckland Airport and they don’t stack up unless you think a train leaving Britomart every 45 minutes is a good service and are happy with an investment which cannot even cover the cost of capital.
Only one fifth of the users of Sydney airport have the central city as their destination. The same would be true of Auckland. Just ask yourself - when you last went to or from the Auckland airport could you have used a Britomart Airport link or would you use a shuttle, a cab or drive? Be real.
And remember you will be carrying some luggage.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
apl, name one large city that solved this growth-congestion problem using rail-based mass-transit systems.
To get the ball rolling, I’ll name 5 that failed: London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Munich.
apl, the reason “you can’t build your way out of congestionâ€? is because everytime “you do build your way out of congestionâ€? builders respond by building more buildings resulting in even more people travelling between buildings. The only way to build your way out of congestion is to build buildings a long way from you have already built buildings, ie to solve Auckland’s congestion problems simply reverse the process started by Brierley in the 80s. Decentralise head offices back to the regional centres where congestion isn’t a “problem” that needs solving.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
August 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Kevyn, that would be a reasonably good argument in favour of constructing rail lines. While the route may not be viable now; once the line is built, then builders are more tempted to build along the route and of course, employment moves there as well. Certainly, there has been more focus on the Auckland CBD over the last few years; Westpac is building their national headquarters over Britomart; the University has started to bring some of the courses back to the City from Tamaki, and there are so many more examples that I would be here all night.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Kevyn; I find my experiences moving around Tokyo, London and Munich to be quite good so I’m not sure what you mean — you mean just from a cars/roads perspective? The problem of sprawl following transport solutions is an inherent issue of laissez-faire urban planning I guess.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
apl, Yes, I was referring solely to traffic congestion, or more precisely average speed of traffic. That actually hasn’t been improved by building London or New York’s subways. One of the complaints that arose during the construction of the original London metropolitan railways was that whenever new lines were opened the traffic on parallel roads increased dramaticly.
Comparison of travel in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch does reveal that railways can be a two edged sword. Wellingtonian’s do make fewer trips by car and use less petrol per capita than Aucklander’s, between a quarter and a third less. That is the positive effect of rail. However there is no difference in petrol use between Wellington and Christchurch because the railways allowed the city to build dormitory suburbs in remote valleys. The result is that while Wellingtonian’s make a third fewer car trips than Christchurch the trips are longer resulting in the same per capita petrol use.
It remains to be seen whether Auckland’s investment in rail will result in reversal of Auckland’s ribbon sprawl or a perpetuation of it. In fact john-ston’s argument is the same one used by motorway planners but that was predicated on land use following the motorways rather than the motorways following the land use. The earliest Auckland motorway plan had a single six-lane motorway, parallelling the railway from Drury to Massey with the north and south each having one airport, one shipping port, one Otara development and one Wiri development. The intention was to eliminate the need to move a lot of people or freight through the isthmus “hourglass”. When that land use plan was dumped because of local authority rivalries and marginal electorate issues the triple bypass appeared in the plans. I have my suspicions this was originally done to emphasise the costs of not sticking with the original land use planning. Obviously a tactic that backfired.
Yoy can only build your way out of congestion very breifly because builders respond to that building by building more buildings and, consequently, the number of people travelling from building to building increases and that’s what causes congestion. Thus the solution to congestion isn’t to build more roads and railways but to build more buildings in more places, ie deglomerate head offices back to the regional centers that they have agglomerated from over the last quarter century.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am
This is true of course. However, what worries me about some peoples attitudes to road building is this:
1) Really the final solution to congestion is to have a population regulation policy. Otherwise check out the way they physically stuff passengers into carriages in Tokyo if you want to confirm that railways do not solve congestion.
As long as population keeps growing, the congestion will increase.
2) Roads have to be seen as part of a ‘green’ policy. Without roads there is no choice but to go back to a localised ‘village’ lifestyle. Great if you choose to live that way, but only a small percentage prefer it. Roads can be used by Green vehicles, just as they can be used by dirty ones.
Build good roads, build good cycleways, build good busways, build good railways (but railways only where population density justifies it).
Let us not pretend that Auckland can ever be properly serviced by public transport. It is just one necessary part of an overall strategy.
The one thing we MUST do if we are ever to start developing a green transport policy, is to separate cycle roads from vehicle traffic.
My pet idea is that a network of local roads will be declared off-limits to thru-traffic and primarily allocated to cycles (and perhaps other green vehicles such as electric trikes etc that are coming onstream; maybe also scooters??).
Give super-lightweight personal transport the road priority on such roads and Aucklands central suburbs could be divested of much of their car traffic during peak time.
There are plenty of intersections approaching central Auckland where elevated cycleways (like the Waterview one) could be built to allow this lightweight traffic to flow past intersections that are currently choked.
We need much greater flexibility in our thinking.