by frog
For those who don’t know, I used to live in Auckland and still visit regularly.
Anyone remember that crazy film Field of Dreams? Well I’m no Kevin Costner fan and didn’t even see the movie, but I believe strongly in that film’s catch cry:
“If you build it – they will come.”
I used to drive to work along a route that encompassed urban streets, motorway and rural roads.
It was a journey of fear.
Almost every day there was a dangerous road-rage type event. Other drivers tailgating so close you couldn’t even see their headlights, people coming straight from the motorway on ramp on to the fast lane, so I had to brake heavily to avoid a collision. Other drivers changing lanes without indicating.
I nearly had a heart attack when taking the bus in Wellington. Passengers giving up their seats to the elderly and parents with infants, and almost uniformly saying “thanks driver” when disembarking. The cynical Aucklander in me wondered, why? They already paid!
But – apart from that weird politeness thing – what really stands out between the two cities is that Wellington has a functioning public transport system that works and is extremely well utilised.
Sure, Auckland has shining examples, such as the success of the Link bus inner-city loop route, the dramatic leap in rail patronage after the Britomart Station opened, and the huge uptake of previous car commuters to the Northern Busway. But it still has a way to go.
Frog has already commented on the leap in Auckland public transport patronage.
We really need to stay on track, and on task and ensure public transport becomes easier, faster, cheaper and more efficient for commuters. Hard to do without concrete commitments from the top.
While the Government has pledged its support for Auckland’s billion dollar-plus electric trains, it only has half a plan as a huge question mark hangs over much needed improvements such as Auckland’s $145 million integrated ticketing to link train, bus and ferry travel. The project faces delays as a key deadline has been missed.
Electric trains are only half the equation. We need supporting infrastructure such as upgraded stations and signalling otherwise we’re only doing part of what is desperately needed. Regular weekend services are also vital if rail is to be a viable option to get Aucklanders out of their cars.
Life is all about making connections. It’s vital we increase our capability to make those connections. Jeanette’s public transport journey from Onehunga to Auckland airport was anything but straightforward.
It’s a strange world indeed when your plane ticket is cheaper than the taxi ride to the airport. A fast, cheap and well-connected public transport ride would remove unnecessary barriers.
Don’t you just hate it when simple things become unduly complicated. It ain’t rocket science, we just need commitment to make those connections work.
This is not the place to go into nightmare stories that will scare people off public transport, but to celebrate the successes, while acknowledging the challenges.
Smart people already know the economic and environmental benefits of public transport, but there’s also an emotional pay-off. Instead of driving to work seething with righteous anger at the stupidity of one’s fellow motorists, one can let someone else do the driving, relax with a book or newspaper and feel part of the community, rather than shut off from others.
I would love to hear from people who can point out unduly complicated (and probably expensive) Auckland public transport journeys where integrated tickets would provide a solution.
And I would love to hear from those who have successfully made the transition from frazzled, defensive car commuter to relaxed, conscientious citizen commuter…
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Thu, March 26th, 2009
Tags: Auckland, Field of Dreams, integrated ticketing, public transport
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I lived in london for six years. When I came back to auckland 4 years ago, I was carless for about 2 years so I caught buses and trains where I could to get anywhere. what I found neat was aucklanders, yes my aucklanders thanking the bus driver when they left the bus. You must have been catching the wrong buses Frog.
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And frog, you must have been driving on an imaginary motorway. Do 80 km on the Auckland motorway everyday and have yet to experience any of the so called bad habits you talk about. Comment based on fact or just a figment of the imigination?
Mind you as a left foot braker, any tailgater gets the flashing brakelights from me while maintaining a steady driving speed.
Try it sometimes, they back off very quickly when the brake lights come on. And get totally confused when the speed does not change. The gap opens magically.
Anyway, three things you can do in the privacy of the car and not in a public bus. Sing along to The Pogues badly but really really loadly. Learn spanish by listening and talking to a tutoring CD. Have a very private conversation with a passenger without another 20 people listening in on your deepest and most meaninful discussions.
I’m sure there are hundreds of things one can do better in a car (park up when the moods takes you!) then a public transport system.
To me I wont take a bus or train as it inhibits my freedom to take a different or longer way home depending on the mood. Or to pick up raw materials and drop of finished goods to my customers.
Maybe we should have input into all those little things that private transport can do for each individual?. Rather then a smelly, stuffy bus full of BO and bad breath, where on a rainy day you will get wetter then a snapper just getting from home to bus and from bus to fianl destination.
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Strange rant, Frog. No numbers to back it up?
Leather seats. Singing up a storm. Timetable is my own. Plenty of space.
vs
Smelly, stuffy bus full of BO and bad breath, where on a rainy day you will get wetter then a snapper
Each to their own, Frog.
PS: I’m in Wellington.
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“Have a very private conversation with a passenger without another 20 people listening in on your deepest and most meaninful discussions.”
That is pretty easy to do on a nice noisy non-air con train. For your neighbour to listen to you, you need to shout anyway
“the dramatic leap in rail patronage after the Britomart Station opened,”
Frog, let me correct that sentence – it should read
the dramatic leap in rail patronage after the SA carriages (which were originally thought up by Tranz Rail, but rejected by the ARC who at the time were determined to put up any sort of barrier to rail) entered service.
If you look at the facts, it was the introduction of the ex Perth DMUs that first saw a spike in rail patronage from one million in 1992 to two million by 1997 – at that point, the system hit capacity and thus growth ground to a halt. When additional rolling stock finally arrived in 2004, patronage growth started again and has continued unabated ever since, although it is possible that we might hit a barrier once again if we don’t get additional rolling stock soon.
“While the Government has pledged its support for Auckland’s billion dollar-plus electric trains, it only has half a plan as a huge question mark hangs over much needed improvements such as Auckland’s $145 million integrated ticketing to link train, bus and ferry travel. The project faces delays as a key deadline has been missed.”
You don’t need to spend $145 million on integrated ticketing; that is for the Smart Card side of integrated ticketing. You should be able to get a paper based system in action with a much lower cost, and much sooner – that would still provide you with the much needed boost in public transport patronage. From that, you can then get the funds for integrated ticketing.
“Electric trains are only half the equation. We need supporting infrastructure such as upgraded stations and signalling otherwise we’re only doing part of what is desperately needed. Regular weekend services are also vital if rail is to be a viable option to get Aucklanders out of their cars.”
Um, you don’t need the upgraded stations for electrification to work. The provision of the electric trains is usually enough to drag the punters along, hence the “sparks effect” – if you look at Brisbane, their stations were still mediocre in the 1980s, yet patronage went through the roof. Even today, a number of their stations still have gaps between the carriages and the platform (i.e. these are the old “SX” era platforms).
I must also add that while improved weekend services are good, and they do result in further improved patronage, they are not competely necessary to pump up the numbers. Brisbane didn’t see much of a change in patronage after they introduced more regular weekend services in the 1990s, and neither has Wellington.
“Smart people already know the economic and environmental benefits of public transport, but there’s also an emotional pay-off. Instead of driving to work seething with righteous anger at the stupidity of one’s fellow motorists, one can let someone else do the driving, relax with a book or newspaper and feel part of the community, rather than shut off from others.”
Try reading a newspaper or book when you are crammed into a train carriage; indeed, try relaxing when you are crammed into a non air-conditioned train carriage which is on the verge of hitting its design load. It was once possible to do read and relax on the train in Auckland, that was back in 2007 – it isn’t possible anymore, at least on the Eastern and Southern Lines.
“And I would love to hear from those who have successfully made the transition from frazzled, defensive car commuter to relaxed, conscientious citizen commuter…”
Well, you will not hear those stories from me. I can give you any number of horror stories where the incompetence of the powers that be in Auckland has made situations worse, and I can tell you about the lines of Auckland rail network that have been neglected and have seen service and capacity cuts, while other lines have not been neglected and not seen a service or capacity cut in years.
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“Texas plans to spend $181 million of its federal stimulus money on building a 15-mile, four-lane toll road — from Interstate 10 to Highway 290 and right through the prairie — that will eventually form part of an outer beltway around greater Houston called the Grand Parkway.
The road exemplifies an unintended effect of the stimulus law: an administration that opposes suburban sprawl is giving money to states for projects that are almost certain to exacerbate it. ”
“But some environmentalists here worry that the law will destroy part of the last 150,000 undeveloped acres of a prairie that was once 1,000 square miles — a treasured expanse of open land in the shadow of Houston that attracts bird watchers, hunters, hikers and prairie flower enthusiasts. The Sierra Club, which sometimes leads groups through the prairie to see its bald eagles, ducks, geese, herons and egrets, filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the project so another environmental review can be conducted.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/us/23sprawl.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1237814292-xmxfGz3lxE3gjDZG72v8rg
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“…such as the success of the Link bus inner-city loop route…”
The link bus is popular because it is the _only_ PT option to get from one side of the inner city belt to the other without time-costly changes which are hard to make with a bus-centric system on car-clogged roads. It’s arrival times are unpreditable and peak travel times are really long.
“…ng “thanks driver” when disembarking. The cynical Aucklander in me wondered, why? They already paid!”
I generally find manners on the bus in Auckland are quite good and often the bus driver is thanked?
“I would love to hear from people who can point out unduly complicated (and probably expensive) Auckland public transport journeys where integrated tickets would provide a solution.”
I have three (from next week four) sorts of bus/train tickets in my wallet. I contemplated getting two of each for personal and commercial use, but I’d have to get some sort of flip-card system for them all –- it’s just absurd.
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PAPER TICKETING surely john-ston you jest.
1st, this is the 21st century, electronic systems abound and simple access to electronic ticketing is available cheaply
2nd, I would postulate that $100 million of the $145 million to effect electronic ticketing has more to do with bureaucracy costs than those that actually deliver the services – cut those out and things will be easy
3rd, how many trees do you think it would take to support an Auckland-wide system based on paper tickets! Are you really proposing that??
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We Wellingtonians are known throuout the lilypond as a fair and generous folk – bent on returning wallets intact, helping young ladies cross the road etc etc…
Just as I was complaining about the fishing….they all there – yellowjacket, roughies, blue and red groper, snapper,blowfish,flatfish,butterfish,octopussies – man, I don’t know where to start.
“What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” : Adolf HitlerGerman Nazi dictator,
orator, & politician (1889 – 1945)
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I have blogged about the importance of integrated ticketing on the Campaign for Better Transport’s new blog: http://www.getmoving.org.nz/blog/
Personally, I much prefer catching public transport to driving – as long as the service is on time, not horribly slow and reliable. I like being able to half-doze off while listening to my iPod, I like the personal interaction with the driver and feeling like I’m “part of the city” with my fellow passengers. I generally prefer catching trains, because the ride is smoother and quicker – while I also see different parts of the city to what I’m used to seeing. A pity that those parts are often covered in graffiti though – which seems to show how little we value our rail corridors.
I strongly believe that better public transport creates better cities. From my experience the more “car friendly” a city is, the less “people friendly” it is. The inner parts of London and Paris are immensely people friendly – probably largely due to them being fairly car unfriendly. If you look at Auckland, certainly the ugliest parts of the city – I think specifically of the Ti Rakau Drive/Te Irirangi Drive intersection – are the parts of the city designed most around the car. And therefore least around everything else.
In the end, do we want to be Houston or do we want to be Vancouver?
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Jarbury
Have you ever LIVED in Vancouver?
Mind you, the rain there would make an Aucklander feel at home. Like Manchester and Vancouver, Auckland is a city where all three year old cars are classed as Two-Tone in their colour description – meaning original and rust!
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A genius is always the source of any great ‘evil’, but it is the idiotic masses whom perpetuate it.
And thus why our jury system is so inferior to the continental system. Here not only do we have a jury with an average IQ (so guarantied to be idiots in the whole) but a system where the smart (e.g. any student) are accually able to escape such duty meaning that a jury is always on average bellow the average IQ.
Some Justice that is.
I prefer having professional juriors called up for a month at a time and trained to the level of atleast a JP in addition to their other education. May not be as representitive, but atleast they can understand the case.
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How is the weather relevant Strings? Maybe Vancouver isn’t the best example, as they certainly don’t have one of the most developed public transport systems in the world. I was going to use Paris – as it’s public transport is fantastic – but I thought that would be a little unfair as Paris is amazing for other reasons.
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I’ve driven in Paris and London. I’ve also walked, bused and trained.
It very much depends where you are and where you’re going as to what mode suits best. Public transport is best where it makes sense, not where it is arbitrarily imposed.
Heading out of London or Paris? Take a car.
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Weather is of particular importance when considering Public Transport jarbury.
In a city with high precipitation, such as Vancouver, there is a high need for access to public transport that itself (the access of course) provides some shelter from the rain. This is why the Vancouver system is so underutilised.
A system that doesn’t take into account the prevailing weather conditions (as was done exceptionally well in Toronto for instance) is likely to be an under-utilised drain on ratepayers funds.
Paris is a totally different kettle of fishiness, and should be considered in the same document and New York and London
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BP – of course a variety of transport options should be available. That’s why I argue against the government putting all the eggs in the roads basket. It is stupid to have such a lop-sided transport system for a city like Auckland in particular.
Strings – Moscow’s a pretty damn cold city yet has one of the busiest Metro systems in the world. Vancouver screwed up by building its Skytrains above ground rather than underground – I’ll give you that. As I said, perhaps Vancouver isn’t the best example.
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This guy wouldn’t make a bad Lord Mayor: http://joelcayford.blogspot.com/2009/03/joyces-transport-thinking-no-joke.html
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Haha…. the Royal Commissions finding totally crap on everything Steven Joyce has screwed over in the past couple of weeks.
Transport issues from page 29 of the link onwards: http://portal.jarbury.net/auck/Vol1Part5.pdf
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Like everybodyelse involved in the grape harvest I carpool to work. But for some reason I can’t get a public transport subsidy from the transport agency. Why not, after all smart people already know the economic and environmental benefits of car pooling are vastly superior to those of public transport.
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….assuming you know any smart people ~
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check out this electric car..!
whoar..!
stand in the shade..tesla..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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ahem..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/worlds-fastest-electric-car-72-datsun-video/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Mark, The smart people at Ecan state that the average fuel economy of their buses is 40 litres per 100km and their buses carry an average of 32 passengers per round trip, ie 16 people into town and 16 people outbound. Not every passenger will travel the entire length of the route but the smart people at Ecan don’t know what the proportion is, but somewhere between half and two-thirds seems reasonable for Christchurch bus routes. Thus the fuel economy of an average Christchurch bus is close to 4 l/100 passenger km.
The smart people at EECA have worked out that the fuel efficiency of the average NZ car in urban driving is 9.9 l/km. You can work out for yourself how many people need to car pool to achieve superior fuel economy to a bus.
Of course really smart people know that the economic benefits of anything are dependent solely on finding an economist or two who will provide a lengthy dissertation confirming our prejudices.
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Touche Kevyn! Thank you.
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Mark, In my days as a systems analyst I converted a Sydney based outfit from telex to a state of the art computer system – 286 workstations, 1200bps modems, JAR compression and DOS batch files. Fax machines came along shortly after that. In 20 years cellphone technology has already gone through the voice-text-graphics evolution that took 80 years for the ordinary phone.
I suspect you and I and most researchers and experts are way too old to have any hope of guessing what the cellphone/internet generation are likely to do in response to peak oil. Virtual visiting, Twitter car-pooling. All sorts of things that we might consider no substitute for personal contact may be second nature for today’s younger generation.
Perhaps the smartest thing we can do to prepare for peak oil is to survey Silicon Valley residents. Or pay attention to the “kuruma banare,” or “demotorization” phenomena amongst young Japanese over the last couple of decades since cell phones became popular and the Japanese economic recession started.
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