Kevyn Says: Thus the solution to congestion isn’t to build more roads and railways but to build more buildings in more places

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.