by frog
Yesterday’s Herald detailed further dramatic rises in growth of public transport patronage in Auckland. ARTA statistics show public transport patronage grew eight percent in 2008 to almost 58 million trips—a level not seen since 1984.
The figures at a glance:
>> 18% more rail journeys to 7.2 million passenger trips in 2008
>> 7% more bus trips (86% more using the Northern Express)
>> 2% decline in ferry trips
Rail patronage growth of these proportions demonstrates that ARTA are right on track to reach their growth target of 15.7 million passenger trips by 2016. Well done!
To put these numbers into some kind of bittersweet perspective, in 1954, when Auckland’s population was only 400,000 people, public transport carried 100 million trips. Three years later, this number had collapsed to 60 million trips after the removal of Auckland’s trams and the beginning of a complete focus on roads for all future transport development.
Frog gives ARC Chair Mike Lee and ARTA CEO Fergus Gammie one big lick each for steering Auckland’s future transport development in a more balanced, sustainable direction.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Wed, February 25th, 2009
Tags: Auckland, bus, fergus gammie, journies, mike lee, passenger transport, patronage, rail, sustainable transport
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I must get back up there soon, and skew the statistics some more by constantly using public transport to get everywhere for a week or so!
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“Rail patronage growth of these proportions demonstrates that ARTA are right on track to reach their growth target of 15.7 million passenger trips by 2016. Well done!”
I’ll be willing to bet that they will overshoot that level significantly. The sparks effect will almost certainly help that one along.
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Owen…. where are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu?
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Well! One can say it a hundred times and attract nothing but gloom – here, is the proof – and why would this not be true for other major cities in NZ?
I’m with john-ston – by 2016 they’ll be talking more trains, more track.
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Yes now we need to sort out the planning/design for a larger future network.
1) CBD loop must have its designation sorted out within the next year or two so that work on it can start in 2011-2012.
2) Airport Line must have its planning/design finished off so that construction can start within the next 5 years. It can’t operate before the CBD loop as you’d have too many trains feeding into Britomart without the loop.
3) Conversion of the Northern Busway into a rail line should be looked at as a project to be completed by 2020. A rail tunnel under the harbour with a station at Tank Farm should be planned for.
4) A Howick/Botany Line needs to have its designation sorted out, with construction completed by 2025-2030 at the latest. This line would run Manukau-Flat Bush-Botany-Highland Park-Glen Innes. Or alternatively via Pakuranga and Panmure. A 30 minute train ride from Botany to Britomart is totally realistic.
These may seem a bit “pie in the sky” at the moment, but with Peak Oil and Electrification Auckland has a huge rail future. We need to start planning for it now.
4)
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I thought it would be obvious that these figures demonstrate the superior performance of rubber on road over steel on rail.
The jump in passengers on the dedicated bus lane is huge and is especially huge given that it is only one stretch of lane not connected to any network.
The obvious conclusion is to tear up the passenger rail beds and turn them into an extension of the northern bus lane.
The New York Lincoln tunnel bus lanes carry 30,000 passenger an hour – more than any of their subway lines.
Sadly the bus lane is a huge underuse of a resource. Anywhere else it would be a HOT lane and a HOT lane is what we need to the Auckland Airport.
Then any driver needing to get to the airport on time can do so provided they pay the price to enter the lane which increases and the lane nears capacity.
A rail tunnel under the harbour is a bad joke. Auckland is developing into a multi nodal city and we must stop trying to dump all traffic into the CBD.
DO you really think long tunnels under a harbour (below sea level) are a good idea in a city prone to earthquake, volcanic events and snumami? Britomart is already below sea level.
Funny how people who are convinced sea levels are going to rise some metres are happy to buld so many transport facilities below sea level.
What Katrina taught us is the value of elevated highways as a means of escape.
Would you drive down into a tunnel in any real emergency?
The Puhoi tunnel is quite different – you drive UP to it and as soon as you enter you can see the exit.
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The 2 per cent drop in ferry passenger numbers reflects the massive price rises Fullers imposed in August, claiming diesel prices were eating into Infratil profits. I’m surprised it was only 2 per cent, and I suspect this was cushioned by the massive uptake of the free offpeak travel for Supergold cardies in the last quarter of 2008. You can’t move for oldies on the Waiheke ferries these days.
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Marine traffic will always be a minor player because we refuse to let people build piers and jetties now and also insist on keeping commercial development away from the waters edge. (cf Venice and Pier 29)
If there was a major hotel on a pier at Orewa it would provide the base load for a modern ferry service to the CBD and the tourist destinations of the East Coast Bays and elsewhere and give tourists a pleasant trip rather than a nightmare.
Ferry travel like rail can provide a great tourist experience especially on a harbour city.
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“I thought it would be obvious that these figures demonstrate the superior performance of rubber on road over steel on rail.”
Mr McShane, there you are wrong again. Let me tell you a lovely little story.
Our story begins in Perth in 1979. The rail system there is ageing rapidly, and is only one of two at the time that is still purely diesel (Brisbane has started to electrify at this time). Ageing DMUs are plying around the city, and one of their routes is the Fremantle run.
The government decides to close the Fremantle Line, and replace the services with articulated buses. Not long after that, the number of passengers using the services drops by 30%. The local residents, not particularly happy that their rail line has closed, and beset with rumours that some of the alignment will be used for a freeway, campaign for the line to be restored. The opposition promises to reopen the line if they win office, and in 1983, they do so. Shortly after the line was reopened, the patronage came flooding back.
Of course, that story has a successor. In 2002, the Kwinana Freeway in Perth saw a busway constructed from the Esplanade Busport to Canning Highway; a mere four years later, that busway was closed and has now been replaced by the Mandurah Railway Line. By all accounts, the railway line is far more popular than the busway was.
“DO you really think long tunnels under a harbour (below sea level) are a good idea in a city prone to earthquake, volcanic events and snumami?”
The Japanese don’t seem to have a problem building tunnels; the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (road, BTW) includes a 9.6 kilometre long tunnel. Let me also remind you that Tokyo has been through a number of earthquakes, has a huge volcano (Mt Fuji) nearby and the word tsunami is Japanese.
“What Katrina taught us is the value of elevated highways as a means of escape.”
That is why you build a decent intercity roading network; you don’t rely on roading for a normal commuter network, because it merely gets clogged up with traffic. So, I would suggest we get going with the Auckland to Whangarei Motorway and the Auckland to Hamilton Motorway.
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The Northern Busway is popular because it’s off a very low base. Do you honestly think it would be LESS popular as a railway line connected to Britomart via a tunnel Owen?
Japan is on a fault-line yet it has millions of tunnels. It’s an engineering complexity that can be easily solved.
How on earth do rising seal levels come into it? It’s not like they’ll happen overnight so you can adjust your transit network. I think you’re clutching at straws and banging your head against a table in frustration that people actually will catch public transport in Auckland as soon as you give them a half-decent option of doing so.
Tell me why we won’t need a hugely expanded rail network in a few years time given the effects of peak oil, the likely jump in patronage resulting from electrification and the current upward trend in rail usage?
Oh and I’m sure the Lexington Ave line’s 1.3 million DAILY users would easily be accommodated via an HOV lane.
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OWEN MCSHANE WROTE: “I thought it would be obvious that these figures demonstrate the superior performance of rubber on road over steel on rail.
The jump in passengers on the dedicated bus lane is huge…”
The busway is new and still gaining its initial passenger base, a process which was always likely to take 2-3 years.
People are not flocking to it because they love buses. They are flocking to it because its a dedicated PT corridor free of the motorway. The figures would be even higher had it been built as a heavy rail corridor. It even operates on a railway principle. You travel to the busway on a local bus or in your car, then use the station platforms to board the busway buses.
One of the most common questions posed by users of the busway is “why didn’t they build a railway?”
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I must also add that Brisbane’s South-Eastern Busway, a mere seven years after it was opened, no longer has space to accommodate all the buses; double articulated buses are now being seriously considered. Would it not have been much better to run it as a railway (although, I’ll grant, that might not have been possible due to the Merivale Bridge)?
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“why didn’t they build a railway?”
Time, money and practicality. In the 1950s. When the Austerity Harbour Bridge was built in response to public pressure instead of waiting till the nation and the region could afford to build the bridge the experts wanted.
Don’t make the same mistake again.
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Fascinating thread. I wouldn’t look at buses vs trains so much as an integrated system using both….as these are the systems that seem to work best.
One example being Melbourne where your ticket is good for tram train or bus(or ferry) – or a combination using all of these. Flexible and profitable – the State Govt. there were paying for the entire Fire Service from Transport profits.
Rail needs carefull, complex advance planning – in drawing up Melbourne’s Northern Corridor, we were purchasing enough land to extend the rail network to cater for that city’s next ten million residents – the foundation of a transprort system that would supply future needs up to the Year 2,500 was the Mission Statement.
Most tunnels seem to be able to lose phenomenal amounts of money – hugely expensive and something of a last resort.
However, our Immigration Policies have nothing of the rampant dynamism for population growth – that Australia is planning for.
Above all the tickets must be attractively priced to attract the right numbers. I haven’t studied NZ’s systems very closely but one outstanding feature for me was how comparitively expensive we are compared to successfull systems o/s.
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“Time, money and practicality. In the 1950s. When the Austerity Harbour Bridge was built in response to public pressure instead of waiting till the nation and the region could afford to build the bridge the experts wanted.
Don’t make the same mistake again.”
Indeed, had we built the Auckland Harbour Bridge with a railway, we might never have seen the near death of the Auckland rail system, as it would have likely ended up with a CBD station. In saying that, I don’t think it would have been possible to build it with a railway; to get high enough to clear the sea channel (remembering that the port was going to be at Te Atatu), you would have needed an approach of more than two kilometres at 1 in 50.
“One example being Melbourne where your ticket is good for tram train or bus(or ferry) – or a combination using all of these. Flexible and profitable – the State Govt. there were paying for the entire Fire Service from Transport profits.”
Mark, there is increasing evidence from Brisbane of an “integrated ticketing effect” – they have had a massive surge in public transport patronage since 2004, and QR Citytrain has seen a sustained increase in patronage for the first time since electrification in the 1980s, without any other explainable significant changes. It also helped the BCC Buses start having an increase in patronage, again after it bottomed out in the late 1980s (at one point, BCC Buses and QR Citytrain had the same number of passengers per annum, around forty million).
“Rail needs carefull, complex advance planning – in drawing up Melbourne’s Northern Corridor, we were purchasing enough land to extend the rail network to cater for that city’s next ten million residents – the foundation of a transprort system that would supply future needs up to the Year 2,500 was the Mission Statement.”
Again, I have to agree with you. The duplication of the Sunshine Coast Line in Queensland has involved a lot of planning, and the acquistion of a corridor that is wide enough for quadruplication. Unlike New South Wales, which failed to adequately plan for the future and now relies on freight curfews during peak to enable everything to fit in, Queensland will be able to expand for many decades yet.
“Above all the tickets must be attractively priced to attract the right numbers. I haven’t studied NZ’s systems very closely but one outstanding feature for me was how comparitively expensive we are compared to successfull systems o/s.”
The question is, what sort of passengers do we wish to attract. Australia might have cheaper tickets, however, their trains and public transport systems are filled with bogans, drunkards and other undesirables. We need to attract the sort of people who would use their car otherwise, and to do that, we need to set the ticket price at such a level that we drive the bogans, drunkards and so on away, but not at such a level where we force the poor off.
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john-ston; Took me a while to wind back to this thread . Thanks for your observations. Your first point, YES!. I also got to study the systems of 14 major US cities and until you see a vibrant profitable Public Transport system, it is very hard to explain, hard for people to visualize.
We want to attract ALL potential passengers (even us losers go home eventually) – but mostly the Commuter (&school)Market is No:1.
Using the greater Wellington area – if the city were accesible from Upper Hutt, to Wainui, to Otaki in the west, for a $5-$6 $8 daily ticket, my experience says that you would consolidate Real Estate value in these areas (a spin-off) and load every train full of Commuters twice a day – guess I’m talking about real attractive incentives to leave the car behind – people vote with their fiscal feet at the end of the day.
So the network needs to be clean , fast and on time.
As for bogons etc – well there are cctv camers’a at all Melbourne Stations and no one has got away with much mischief since they were introduced.
Also we employed Guards with Radios to troubleshoot those more troublesome lines. All carriages also had an alarm button.
I started out being a Tram Conductor there (just for a laugh) – but local knowledge for tourists et al, helping women with Prams, the Blind and Disabled…as well as monitoring the would-be drunken masters…the human touch makes for a public & tourist drawcard .(Women gotta feel safe too).
Good on Ya – cheers Mark
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I have been absent because I have been in Perth – presenting evidence in court trying to put a crim behind bars.
Anyhow, one has to be careful about international and intercity comparisons.
Perth is truly multi nodal.
ie Perth has major employment concentrations in Perth, Fremantle and other centres. This greatly assists a rail system because loads are more evenly distributed over the day. Unfortunately radial cities like Auckland tend to have radial networks and so the carriages run essentially empty for much of the day.
BRisbane benefits from the Gold Coast too. The airport line serves Brisbane and the Gold Goast so you get two groups of users.
Auckland CBD and the Airport are at the dead ends. Always a problem.
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Owen, weren’t you saying recently that multi-nodal cities weren’t suitable for rail transport because there needs to be a big concentration of employment in one area? I distinctly recall you mentioning New York city as an example.
The airport doesn’t have to be a dead end. I see trains going Onehunga-Airport-Manukau City-Papakura in the future. Inter-city trains from Hamilton/Tauranga could also travel via the airport in the future so that people using the airport from other cities could get direct access to it.
Similarly, the CBD doesn’t have to be a dead end. Once the CBD loop is built your Western Line trains could travel through the CBD to become Southern Line trains (and vice-versa), your Eastern Line trains could go around the loop and become airport line trains. Further into the future you could have North Shore Line trains passing through Britomart and becoming Botony/Howick line trains (which would link back to Manukau City and potentially become airport line trains again).
More detail and a possible rail map here: http://www.jarbury.net/index.blog/1357187/aucklands-rail-map-in-2030/
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“BRisbane benefits from the Gold Coast too. The airport line serves Brisbane and the Gold Goast so you get two groups of users.”
So, the Gold Coast and Airport Lines are only one of ten; you also have people coming in from Ipswich, Ferny Grove, Caboolture, Shorncliffe, Cleveland, Beenleigh, Nambour and Doomben. Also, I must add that Brisbane is still of the traditional radial model; somewhere I read that a majority of QR Citytrain’s passengers get off at the four CBD stations.
Perth is undoubtedly similar, although part of their success is their fifteen minute off-peak frequencies
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Well, Brisbane and Perth are NZ size cities – what works there will most like work here; though the last time I looked at Brisbane it did seem a little Bus-heavy.
Great Frog! You have a team of experts to set up PT once the Greens take power after the next elections…
Owen, was he a crim before trial then(guilty until proven innocent?)? Or did you wait for proof?
Off peak hours simply means running less vehichles.
Timetables are an art form in themselves.
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He and his associates escaped prosecution because the Company had its executives in Perth while it was listed in New Zealand. Our securities commission decided they had no jurisdiction.
The the Commonwealth Govt of Australia attempted to prosecute but the judge decided that because the company was listed in New Zealand he had no jurisdiction.
This is a civil case brought by two staff experts who were not paid after me and my fellow director were removed from the Board because we were trying to appoint an Administrator to protect the shareholders. We finally managed to get a Statutory Manager appointed in NZ.
It is a long story (over twelve years) but one day it will be told.
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Oh Good Story Owen. You are far too educated and innocent to be in Business – send something highly illegal to their computer -two hours after alerting the Federal Police (gives ‘em time to finish th donuts)
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The original company had developed technology to convert chicken shit into organic fertiliser and had built plants in France, Indonesia, and the US.
The takeover group appear to have used the network for laundering drug money and so this current civil trial is attracting much attention from the authorities.
Trying to do my duty as an independent director has cost me much money and stress. But time wounds all heels.
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THe perfect green business – organics and drugs!
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Can’t – the booze biz has hegemony
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