Auckland - City of Cars
A great new video has been produced by Michael Tritt about transport in Auckland. It points out how ridiculously and unnecessarily car dependent Auckland is compared to other cities. You can view Episode 1 and 2 at Youtube. I have pasted his synopsis below and he will be visiting FrogBlog tonite sometime to comment and answer questions.
“City of Cars: synopsis
This documentary series looks at Auckland’s transport problems, and exposes a number of “urban myths” about why it cannot be changed.
Episode 1 includes interviews with Professor Peter Newman, Dr. Paul Mees and Jan Gehl. It reveals that Auckland is one of the most car dependent cities in the world - the result of 50 years of prioritising motorway construction over sustainable alternatives.
Episode 2 looks at the claim that Auckland is “too spread out” for sustainable transportation to work. The myth that Auckland is more dispersed than comparable cities is debunked; world-renowned transport and sustainable city guru, Professor Peter Newman, explains how Perth - a less dense city than Auckland - has built a successful and popular rail system; and the extent to which Finance Minister Michael Cullen has been captured by anti-rail roading lobbyists is revealed.”
December 4th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Does the PM ever talk about a grand vision for public transport, or does she just leave the topic for other ministers? Perhaps she needs to inspire us all by taking up the topic as a personal area of interest and push her ministers to make it happen.
Putting in place a world-class public transport system in Auckland would be a great legacy for her to leave behind. It would be one of the shining achievements of her government.
-as
December 4th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
clark dosen’t ‘do’ visions..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
December 4th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
andrewudstraw:
Nice idea! However, Aucklanders are responsible for their own area.
Christchurch (and surrounding districts) is an example of what can be done. We have developed, and are futher developing, expanding and integrating, an excellent public transport system for the region. This through the City Council and Regional Council … etc.
All it takes is vision, cooperation, hard work and the wise use of available funding.
Does the Auckland region lack these things?
December 4th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
heh heh you gotta watch this other video that is suggested by youtube as related to Michael’s ones…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur1ko_bkSgE&NR
it is an Auckland motorway promo film from the 50’s - stirring stuff that’ll have you patriotically cheering the earth movers. “When a house is in the way it’ll have to go.”
meanwhile, I’d like to know Michael, how large an effect on Auckland public transport does the fact it is four cities not 1 have? I mean Auckland is not really comparable with the other >1 million cities it is compared with in your film, e.g. Perth because they are all unitary authorities right?
or is the four cities thing not related to the public transport woes?
December 4th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
All of the stats on transport usage and density are comparable between cities as they are measured across the urban area, irrespective of the governance arrangements within the urban area.
While we do have a number of councils, with transport there is certainly city-wide governance in the form of the ARC, and it’s transport arm, ARTA.
I can confidently say that if the ARC and ARTA had more power over transport policy in Auckland, the situation would be a lot better.
The main problem lies with Central Government (esp Cullen) who maintain a tight grip on the purse strings and the prioritisation of transport projects.
Cullen pretty much ignored the transport strategy produced by the regional authority (which, for instance, prioritised electrifying the rail network ahead of completing the Western Ring motorway), and just decided he would put all of the money into motorways instead.
December 5th, 2006 at 12:56 am
Unfortunately this tells little. It doesn’t state what the mode share in Perth is now per trip - it hasn’t changed for cars, but rail has gone up, bus has gone down as has walking and cycling.
Auckland has 12% of its employment located in the CBD, I believe it is higher in Perth as it is a state capital. How is a rail system that is about taking people into the CBD going to do anything? Auckland’s mode split entering the CBD is currently around 30% by public transport, of which most are on buses - that is a good figure which is unlikely to improve.
The detailed work done by Treasury indicated that there was never going to be substantial change in mode in Auckland without road pricing, and that rail could only carry a small part of the shift. The point is that most Aucklanders do not live near or work near railway stations. The main way public transport could work is additional bus routes that go where Aucklanders want to go.
People may like rail, but they are not prepared to pay for it neither as users or even as taxpayers - Aucklanders have had umpteen chances in half a century to elect local body politicians who wanted them to pay for grand rail schemes, and never did.
The idea that Cullen has been captured by “anti-rail roading lobbyists” is utterly absurd. Cullen after all:
- Bought back the Auckland rail network at 4-5x the market price;
- Bought back the rest of the NZ rail network, poured $200 million into it and now pouring hundreds of millions into upgrading Aucklands rail infrastructure;
- Fully funded refurbished trains for the Wairarapa line;
- Increased LTNZ funding for Wellington and Auckland rail to enable Wellington to get new rolling stock.
The questions you need to ask are. What has happened to congestion in Perth? What has happened to traffic growth? I don’t know the answers to that - I do know Perth has not seen a reduction in congestion and that there is no place in the world where traffic congestion is significantly impacted by large scale supply of public transport.
December 5th, 2006 at 6:33 am
I agree with libertyscott regarding where the traffic goes. The least crowded part of the motorway is the CBD area now that spagetti junction is nearly completed. Try getting from Drury to Manukau on any morning. Or use the Penrose/Eastern Arterial interchange any time of the day.
For rail development to work what is needed is an interchange at Puhinui where branches would go to the airport (extending the onehunga line is not an option as it would require a high bridge at Mangere Bridge) and to Manukau with another extension to Botany and the industrial area of East Tamaki. Auckland westies may have similar requests for local rail extensions.
I dont know if heavy rail is the answer. Having seen the Tram network in Melbourne maybe we need light rail / trams instead.
Will the western ring road have provision for train / tram lines included? If not this is a serious oversight for future development seeing the ring road is on land originally designated for rail use.
Bottom line is public transport needs to service not only the CBD but the industrial areas where the majority of people work.
December 5th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Where can I get a hard copy of this documentary? It is worth having to share with DVD dependent friends.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:12 am
I find it strange that libertarians, normally so concerned with private property rights and maintenance of market forces, support compulsory purchase and demolition of property in the way of motorways. To be consistent they should support the rights of property owners to sell their property for whatever they can get for it (which will be a lot higher than “market rates” if your property is the only thing standing in the way of a motorway), or not to sell at all, and make the motorway go round it.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Well said, kiore1 !
December 5th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
if Cullen has not been captured by the pro-road building lobby, then how come he uses the the same arguments and erroneous stats as the literature produced by the pro-road building lobby?
December 5th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Kiore1, libertarians do not support compulsory purchase of property for any purpose. I have never supported the Public Works Act, ever. Libertarianz consistently have a policy of supporting the repeal of the Public Works Act.
December 5th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
so how are you going to make room for the roads you seem to want to build if there will be no compulsary purchases? And aren’t libertarians in favour of competition in the road management industry? (big fat LOL!) So that you advocate building more than one road for each route? So that is double the amount of house purchases that are needed?
December 5th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
andrewudstraw -
I guess the “grand vision” for transport could be the NZ Transport Strategy. Its real meaning, and to what extent that will ever be implemented may be open questions. More meaningless nice words, perhaps?
December 5th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Liberty - I need to challenge your assertion that congestion is not affected by the creation of public transit…
there is no place in the world where traffic congestion is significantly impacted by large scale supply of public transport.
The places where there IS large scale public transit are definitely less congested than they would otherwise be, and if you’d ever seen a transit strike in NYC you’d understand the proof. The provision of additional transit is invariably accomplished only when every other possibility is exhausted. When it finally gets finished its capacity is all spoken for.
I just thought I might point that out. The major cities that have mass transit CANNOT function efficiently without it.
There are few things as dangerous as things you “know” that simply ain’t so, and this is one for you to watch out for.
As for making it work, you have to move people and remove people who have houses and businesses on the right-of-way. You have to pay a fair price, and that’s going to be a high one in Auckland, but you have to be able to do it or growth cannot occur.
Auckland has been growing “too fast” and as a result it has the problems of any city that has grown too fast. Planning for transit and the rest of the things we know a bigger city needs was not able to keep pace with the changes, most people do NOT have 10 and 20 year visions and of those that do, only a fraction act on them. The long term consequences of not laying out the transit corridors and reserving them mean that there will be dislocations and expenses.
I have no idea how a Libertarian would actually solve this problem given your answer.
BJ
December 5th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
With regard to the question about a DVD copy - I ‘m happy to send one out to anyone who wants one, free of charge.
Just drop me a line at (insert my Frogblog username here) @yahoo.com
cheers
Michael
December 5th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
People are prepared to pay for rail, and are in fact more than happy for the money to be taken away from roading projects for this (quantitative studies in cities around the world show that 60-90% of people support this).
Unfortunately, they are rarely given that choice.
In the States, where voters can often vote for specific proposals on the ballot, dozens of cities are voting in rail. In Denver, for instance, they voted to give themselves a tax increase to fund a multi-billion dollar rail project.
The vast majority of these US cities have lower population densities than Auckland.
You don’t have to live within walking distance of a rail station to use it. In dispersed “New World” cities, effective PT systems have a rail backbone that is linked , through integrated ticketing and timetabling to suburban bus services.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Stuey said “so how are you going to make room for the roads you seem to want to build if there will be no compulsary purchases? And aren’t libertarians in favour of competition in the road management industry? (big fat LOL!) So that you advocate building more than one road for each route? So that is double the amount of house purchases that are needed?”
Buy land, it seems to work for most other sectors. Melbourne Citylink was built entirely through voluntary purchase, with the private road developer offering to buy land for a corridor, and several options were available, it eventually got sufficient land and away it went. Competition isn’t compulsory, I am not a member of ACT. British and American roads centuries ago were entirely privately owned, built, maintained and financed. It might be harder to build roads if the private sector had to make it a profitable enterprise, but I should hope you don’t care about that.
“The places where there IS large scale public transit are definitely less congested than they would otherwise be, and if you’d ever seen a transit strike in NYC you’d understand the proof. The provision of additional transit is invariably accomplished only when every other possibility is exhausted.” That is different from building new public transit and it reducing congestion. I take your point about large cities with long established (and reasonably efficient) high density rail systems, but Auckland is not New York, not by a long shot. Transit systems in most US cities could shut down tomorrow and nobody would notice a change in traffic conditions, because they carry so few people compared to roads.
You’re quite right about buying corridors, Transit faces this for the Waterview extension of SH20, and shouldn’t do it unless it is efficient to do so. My response is that if the roads were run commercially then pricing them would make an enormous difference to how Aucklanders move. For starters it would encourage flexible working hours, not everyone would commute at the same time. It would also encourage people to live closer to work, and to shop closer to home. In other words it would do far more to encourage more intensive land use, on economically efficient grounds, than any regulatory measures. Imagine distance based charging for all vehicles, that varied by time and location - sprawl WOULD reduce because people would be far less inclined to travel long distances.
The counter is that off peak travel would increase, and at peak times buses would be truly competitive. The buses would be cheaper relative to driving because they take up far less road space per person than cars, and would operate on far less congested roads. I suspect you then get into less sexy, but more innovative forms of public transport like shuttle buses, which groups of people can use to travel to work outside the CBD.
It is often ignored that quite a few workers in south Auckland travel by van in reasonable groups (6-8) on an unofficial shuttle basis and get no subsidy at all for this, but the Greens and many politicians want enormous subsidies (as much as $10 per trip) for flash rail schemes so office workers at Queen St can get a great ride from Waitakere into work. Take the metro in Washington DC, fantastic for Washington bureaucrats on middle to high incomes, useless for your average worker who doesn’t have a job downtown.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
“People are prepared to pay for rail, and are in fact more than happy for the money to be taken away from roading projects for this (quantitative studies in cities around the world show that 60-90% of people support this).”
Really? That’s why Labour and National engaged in a road spending auction at the last election? That’s why every time grand proposals for Auckland public transport come up, Auckland local authorities almost always fail to be willing to raise the rates to pay for them? (with a few exceptions like Britomart) Labour has increased public transport spending sixfold, so it has hardly been neglected.
If people are prepared to pay for rail, raise the fares so they DO pay for it. Road projects in NZ are paid for by road users, why not rail by rail users?
Quoting “quantitative studies” is meaningless - it is not the case in NZ, and besides your votes are about convincing people to force everyone to pay. There is nothing willing about a tax, and it is perverse to want to force people to pay for transport they don’t use. People don’t do it for long distance trains, ferries or planes.
Show me the evidence that any of these US rail schemes has reduced marginal congestion costs on the parallel highway/roading network. Show me the cost per commuter, and whether it has dropped with rail, compared to bus or car. Honestly, if there is some I’d be very interested professionally to identify the characteristics of schemes that work.
I’m not anti-rail by the way, I bloody love trains, have caught them all over the world. I wish it were true that they could reduce Auckland traffic congestion, but nothing I have seen indicates this.
December 6th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Liberty
The larger cities got large in the main BECAUSE their transit systems grew first. The exception, LA, is building transit now because it can’t build more roads and can’t survive more cars. The fact that it is building rail transit isn’t an accident of nature, it is a necessity of survival.
Waiting until it becomes a necessity seems to be a feature of the “Libertarian” version of planning for the future. The problem with it is that the cost to the society is immense compared with using a little foresight. The problem with really rapid growth, as Auckland has experienced, is that it brings the necessities on much faster.
I think you’re mistaken with respect to any of the larger US or European cities. People DO notice. People who take the bus or train may not have cars to add to the congestion, but their absence from work leads to trouble over the long haul. I’ve been through those strikes. Heckfire, what happens to Wellington if Tranzmetro stops running?
How in the hell are you going to “price” the use of roads? You are “It would also encourage people to live closer to work, and to shop closer to home” trying to do something that Greens also have on their agenda. The only difference seems to be one of method. Greens don’t see any need to sell off the roads to the private sector, having been burned badly enough by the sale of the rail system to the private sector…. maybe it’d be different this time?
That’s just reality Liberty. The private sector doesn’t give pigs spit about what happens in the future. It is all about profits this quarter. That makes it a p!ss poor guarantor of long term viability of anything. We don’t buy the libertarian illusion of private sector omniscience…
The rail system in DC is not a proper model to use, as it was (very much as you observe) build more for political reasons than for real transit reasons. I’ve been on it, I was not real impressed. Moscow has a well designed rail transit system.
I think the principle characteristic of the schemes that have worked is that they were built before the city really needed them. They all seem to be well established even before 1950. In NYC construction continued in the bedrock under the city because it could do so without disturbing the city above, but most of the system was built before even I was born. They all were built by people who looked further into the future than any business can afford to look.
The wealthy will not pay for rail, because the wealthy do not use it. That is why mass transit has languished in the USA and why where it exists everywhere in the world that I am aware of, it is subsidized by the state.
You are creating, though not by intention I am sure, a problem that entails a massive burden on the poorest when you tell us that the rail must be paid for by rail users. If the burden will be more evenly spread in the future when rail is more commonly used because it works better and more effectively than cars, that has no impact on the poor sods who are currently using and who currently must pay.
This is again, IMHO, an impossible result due to the Libertarian refusal to use any sort of foresight or planning for future needs as a basis for current action.
You mix current conditions and future requirements and past performance in your arguments without apparent consideration of the unique environment of each. Not you specifically Liberty, I am observing Libertarians a long time now, used to BE one, and the blind spot seems to be inherent in the philosophy.
respectfullly
BJ
December 6th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Russ
The reality is that Kiwi’s will not voluntarily use public transport when they have their own motor car, I personally can not think of much worse than being crammed into a bus or train of a winters morning with hundreds of total strangers when the other option is the peace and comfort of my own vehicle.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I am all for public transport. But sometimes I wonder whether it can be a double-edged sword. Whether it can encourage more people to live farther away from their work, leading indirectly to pressure to build more roads, and so on. Also, having flicked through the surface transport costs study last year, I was horrified to see that the real cost of some passenger train travel is far more than the passengers are paying.
Now, here follows some speculation to amuse the group.
Perhaps one of the ultimate barriers to dealing with a lot of issues like transport is that fundamentally, many people don’t like being around other people, in a general kind of way. It is understandable; other people can be dirty, smelly, rude, infectious, or worse. One bad experience can be enough to put a person off for a long time.
If this is the case, it would mean that many people would tend to seek the peace and comfort of being away from other people. They will live in very small groups in big houses, and they will drive alone in their cars. (Goodness - this is really what a lot of people actually do!) They will probably change their houses and cars only when necessary, and consistent with their comfort; because any time they enter into a transaction that might involve large $, they fear the very real risk of being ripped off by … people.
I suppose that there are loads of analyses out there, that consider the fundamental psychology that underlies behaviour change, or lack thereof.
As a concrete example, I can’t help thinking that it would be nice if public transport was more inviting and comfortable. In particular, I am sick and tired of horribly ill people regularly coughing right on me on the train. I feel sorry for the ill people, but really! Seriously, perhaps a separate carriage for infectious people would be a good thing for public health, and for everyone concerned.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
BB, I reckon people will use public transport when it’s easy to use - on time, clean, regular, sheltered from the weather, cost comparable to car, takes you where you wanna go.
I use the bus to get to work and town most of the time because it leaves from just across the road and goes to my office, is reasonably regular, avoids the morning traffic jam, it’s clean and is cheap and makes me feel good about not using fossil fuels (well mostly, sometimes it’s a diesel rather than electric). I don’t like using it because it is often late and rarely follows the timetable posted, there is no bus shelter so when it’s rainy or windy (occasionally in Wellington) I am exposed to the elements.
On balance, it’s a great option most of the time.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
“The larger cities got large in the main BECAUSE their transit systems grew first. The exception, LA, is building transit now because it can’t build more roads and can’t survive more cars.”
Well there may be a chicken or egg argument here, and most of those systems grew with private investment in an age when road building and road transport technology was primitive. LA did grow with transit systems too, except they became uneconomic with largescale taxpayer funded road construction, which I would NOT agree with. The private sector will build public transport and roads, and did in the past.
You’re arguing if current rail services cease congestion increases, well in Wellington you would be right as there, but not in Auckland as the Auckland network still carries around what the Johnsonville and Melling lines in Wellington do combined. However, the argument is that expensive investment in new lines reduces congestion, and the evidence is that it does not - it may shift a small number from car to rail, it shifts a lot from bus to rail, and the shift to rail is more than made up for by natural growth in traffic.
“How in the hell are you going to “priceâ€? the use of roads” Look at Singapore and Stockholm for reasonably sophisticated examples which work now, look at truck tolling in Germany and Switzerland for another version. Britain is committed to national road pricing within 10 years, the technology is there, it simply requires political will.
“The private sector doesn’t give pigs spit about what happens in the future. It is all about profits this quarter.” Actually it generally does not want to see its assets decline in value. The public sector cares even less, all it wants is more money from taxpayers and to grow grow grow. US metropolitan bus services are the worst example of public sector public transport - they are expensive to run, highly subsidised, dirty, unreliable, with old cheaply built buses and highly unresponsive to anything other than politics and the unionised workforce. You are right that private and public sector and not necessarily good or bad, it is all about incentives. I think you could go a long way with commercialising roads if not privatising them, but politicians need to keep their braindead little hands off them.
“That is why mass transit has languished in the USA and why where it exists everywhere in the world that I am aware of, it is subsidized by the state. ”
It is not subsidised in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Much of the London underground operationally (not capital) is not far short of full cost recovery.
“You are creating, though not by intention I am sure, a problem that entails a massive burden on the poorest when you tell us that the rail must be paid for by rail users. ”
Well my point is that the poor generally don’t catch rail. In Wellington rail is primarily used by public servants and other office workers in downtown Wellington. Factory, service sector employees in Porirua and the Hutt with few exceptions don’t use it because it doesn’t go to their jobs - they drive or catch the bus (in that order). The Johnsonville line is a huge subsidy for well above average property owners in Ngaio, Khandallah and Johnsonville - it is nothing to do with the poor. In Auckland people on low incomes do not work near Britomart, they work in Penrose, Mt Wellington, Otahuhu, Henderson etc, and the trains are irrelevant to them (they hardly are going to run from Mangere Bridge to Penrose!). In London the tube is largely about people working within the area bounded by the circle line, the buses are the transport for the poor (80p compared to £2 makes that a no brainer). In LA the bus is the transport for the poor, the transit lines go to downtown LA, where 1% of all jobs are. In short, it is largely a myth to claim rail is for people on low incomes, the demographics of origin-destination show this to be wrong, you can ask ARC and GWRC about this in detail.
In general cities have, in this order:
1- Built lots of fixed route public transport, and grown around it. Then came the car and bus, and people moved elsewhere as well;
2- Neglected fixed public transport (trams and rail) and it ran down, became too expensive to replace compared with buses and shifted to buses;
3- Bus patronage dropped as car ownership took off, and cities underinvested in buses;
4- Built lots of new roads, relieving some congestion, providing temporary relief for other congestion, encouraging more growth;
5- Saw congestion get worse and thought public transport was the solution, spent up large on fixed public transport, replacing buses and congestion continued to get worse;
6- Invested in flash traffic management systems to get better use out of existing roads, including bus/High occupancy vehicle lanes, traffic light synchronisation, variable message signs on roads - modest gains, but congestion continued to grow;
7- road pricing - congestion dropped, public transport got a significant boost as did walking/cycling and there was money to invest in efficient improvements to roads and public transport.
New Zealand is doing 4,5 and 6 at the same time, except with far better buses, but you need 7 as well to really make a difference.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:37 am
You still haven’t explained how to do road pricing Liberty, even if I accepted, which I do not, any of your other arguments (your description of stages is pretty good though). Don’t point me at how someone else does truck pricing, there are a damned sight fewer trucks than cars, and they are relatively easy to regulate.
Explain to me how you will manage “road pricing” in New Zealand.
I’ve watched the public sector build and the private sector rape, too many things in my life, to imagine that the private sector has any magical power to do good. It makes money. That’s all it does. I have watched the private sector build and the public sector screw up too many good ideas in my life to imagine that IT has any magical power to do good. It takes both, and a balance (tension) between them, for civilization to work.
Actually, selling the road system to the private sector (assuming anyone would buy), might be a very Green thing to do. The resulting destruction of the roads or monopoly pricing excesses, prior to the existence of any alternative rail system, would drive the economy completely into the ground and I am sure this would get our carbon emissions WAY down.
Somehow I think there are better ways. You want the private sector to handle things. They did such a good job maintaining the rails that we now can’t get a train to travel between Wellington and Auckland as fast as when the line was sold to them. Great asset management skills there in the private sector.
Since I was raised in NYC, I know how the trains vs buses work when the trains are efficient and the price is subsidized and what happens when the “user pays” champions show up on the scene. I lived it, and I watched it happen. Now the fare is a couple of bucks instead of a quarter. I don’t believe a fare like that works, and I don’t believe that the Auckland “rail” system was designed by anyone particularly intent on solving Auckland’s problems.
Tell me how a new-age Cornelius Vanderbilt is going to put together a road system that works OR a rail system that works even if the government stood aside. Tell me WHY he’d do that instead of just buying something that has a better return at lower risk in a shorter period of time? Just what protections do you need dismantled for this project? Liberty, it’s a good dream to have, but it does not work in societies made up of human beings.
Actually, the LA transit works outwards from the city center, which is a bit of a laugh. They didn’t build the loop they needed, but the line down to Long Beach carries a hell of a lot of people in both directions. Not all middle class traffic either… but they need to get a loop over/through the Sepulveda pass and bring the train TO the airport to make it work.
You can claim that they don’t want their “asset” to deteriorate, but that’s not ever stopped them from looking at costs of maintenance, asset value and income generated and doing a set of sums that results in the destruction of the system. Why would that happen?
Because the value of a good transit system, a good road system a good water system, or electric system etc, is not solely to the individuals using it. There is a benefit to the society as a whole, even to people who do not directly use the system, or do not use it often. That benefit is not and cannot be, costed in by the private owner of the rail, the transmission lines, the roads or the pipes. The degree to which privatisation can be supported varies, but the government is a required partner to ensure that the benefit to the society is maintained. The society pays for this benefit of course.
Now maybe we can figure out a way to overcome this by letting the new owners price things however they want and letting the costs and prices ALL balance out through the economy. That might be possible if there are no additional changes required and growth is gradual enough, but if you create the demand for mass transit by pricing roads up before you build the mass transit you’ve broken somebodies business, and destroyed a working (albeit inefficient) system. Moreover, it goes against the natural tendency of people to actually demand that their government protect them. Including of course, the proud new owners. You can’t stop people from messing up that perfect world. It is unstable. That’s why you never EVER see it.
Gummint has to pay for the benefit the society as a whole receives and ensure that the system isn’t simply looted.
Never ceases to amaze me that Libertarians SO hate government that they fail to observe that in human societies, government ALWAYS emerges from the natural behaviour of the group as it gets bigger. Always.
Nor can “free markets” exist without government. Which makes the interaction all the more fraught with risk, particularly if you intentionally hamstring one side or the other.
I’ve seen how good a good rail based system can be. You will never persuade me that I didn’t see it. You will never persuade me that it doesn’t exist, and you will never persuade me that it isn’t a better answer for the long haul.
Your point is that the poor don’t catch rail (they do, but not in Auckland), so there should be no rail built anywhere? I am guessing that you expect private bus lines to emerge from this, but they have to use the roads too. Liberty, the future demands answers that have to be planned and started NOW… those answers can’t be planned by the private sector, nor built without government assistance. It is a nice dream, but it is not a realistic scenario for a human run society of humans.
respectfully
BJ
December 7th, 2006 at 1:41 am
Taipei built its Mass Rapid Transit system in the last ten years, and as I understand it, is making a pretty sizable operating profit..enough to subsidise future capital works.
After it was opened congestion did drop, partly because of a reduction in the number of buses and taxis on the road, and partly because it now entirely possible to survive there without ever buying a car. Of course, car prices are about twice as high as NZ too.
In addition, the MRT is highly efficient, very clean, and better travel experience than the buses or taxis, and generally faster.
80KPH on a subway line beats 50KPH or less in a car or bus.
Most growth in the city now is concentrated along the MRT corridors. Property prices near future lines are rising in value rapidly.
it isn’t necessarily so that public transport only serves the poor.
(Wellington has always been shining example..there was huge survey in 1989, which discovered that Wellington was one of the few places where people who has other menas of transport, CHOSE to use the buses or trains.)
There are ways and means to make public transport an attractive choice.
One question springs to my mind too…does anyone have any data on how effective the tram system was? Could some of the tram routes be resurrected as light rail?
In Wellington at least, it seems to me that most of the bus routes used to be tram routes.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Jingyang - You are right. If the road use is actually already impractical due to congestion it becomes easy to fill seats on rail transit, and possibly even make some money. Taking buses off the road is a likely initial result.
Being able to live there without owning a car is the other thing that isn’t counted properly. I’d be unsurprised if the NYC carless didn’t number close to a million. I should have remembered that.
To make it clearer, who built the MRT? City, State or Private Enterprise? I do wish they’d bring back trams or extend the electric trollybus lines. Short sighed to pull out track. Subsidizing the initial establishment of road and auto transport efficiencies without a corresponding investment in rail was a mistake, and while as Liberty points out doing neither was an option, it wasn’t a good option if you want to get something done.
respectfully
BJ
December 7th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Actually, while I am not a libertarian, as far as transport goes a libertarian approach does make a lot of sense, if applied consistently. Roads are more expensive than railways, and take up more land, so if there are no compulsory purchases and no government subsidy then rail will win out.
User pays should of course be adjusted so that transport users pay ALL the costs. So ACC premiums for drivers should reflect the real cost of smash ups, there should be a carbon charge on all emmissions, anyone affected by noise or smell should be adequately compensated for, roading companies will have to pay the costs of cleaning up from oil runnoff, and next time Bush invades a country for oil, there should be a charge on users of oil to cover the cost of it. Car users will pay a levy on each car and each set of tyres to cover environmental costs of manufacture and disposal, and road users will also need to pay for their own policing to ensure safety.
If anyone decides they are not going to sell their property in the middle of the motorway path, the motorway must be forced to go around it, at sufficient distance so that the property owner’s quality of life is not diminished through noise, dust etc.
The same would apply to rail of course but being more sustainable the costs would be a lot lower.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:13 am
BJ
Road pricing can be done a number of ways, but here is one approach:
- All vehicles are equipped with an onboard unit that measures distance travelled, using GPS correlating with an onboard map so the unit can calculate the charge based on vehicle classification x km x road type x time of day. The unit accumulates chargeable event data and either deducts the charge from an on board prepaid smartcard (and failure to have one means a bill is sent or enforcement notice sent to the owner), or an account is set up and bills are sent to the owner.
That is the briefest description of how a nationwide system would work. Urban systems can have cheaper tags with roadside beacons, as is used for tolling/urban demand management in dozens of countries and cities. However for network wide charging it needs to have an intelligent on board unit using enhanced GPS to tell it where it is, 3G mobile data to communicate for billing/enforcement purposes. I am quite happy to explain more. This can be managed centrally, as road user charging is done now, or by a handful of road companies operating the system in concert.
Why assume the roads would have monopoly pricing if privately owned? You assume a model of privatisation that means sale, I’d suggest all local roads are corporatised and adjacent property owners own them collectively, and will pay for them, and charge motorists accordingly. Highways can be sold, but then there is more likely to be competition, for freight with rail/coastal shipping, air for long distance travel and besides, there is no way that the roads would be priced so high that it would price off demand. 50% of road costs are unrelated to road use, and low use roads would be marginally priced. The main effect will be that regions would benefit, because they have underused roads that a highways company would want to encourage use of - big cities would face vastly increased prices because of congestion, high cost of road building. In other words, road pricing would encourage regional development and higher density urban land use (walking, cycling, public transport all would benefit, without subsidies).
You might note that the majority of the French motorway network is privately owned and tolled, as is Italy and Japan’s.
Auckland’s rail system once included a downtown railway station, but the Railways Department decided a big terminal at the edge of the central city was a better idea. This is possibly the biggest transport mistake in Auckland’s history. The rail network was built primarily to serve the Ports and freight to/from Northland and the main trunk. However Auckland passenger rail never had any real money put into it ever under government ownership, it nearly happened a few times, but rail, tram and bus all suffered until the 1990s.
The road networks of Britain and the US up until the late 19th century were largely privately built and funded, there is an extensive history about this in the book “Street Smart” by Gabriel Roth. Privately developed toll roads abound, so as long as they are not subsidised, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed.
Yes some transport infrastructure gets run down, NZ rail network is a good example, and the main reason is because it has a low market value. Railways in NZ are a fairly marginal activity, so if it doesn’t make a return on capital better than a bank deposit, why would you bother? Economic to do for external reasons? In Wellington city, yes in the absence of road pricing. Elsewhere? Probably not i believe.
“Because the value of a good transit system, a good road system a good water system, or electric system etc, is not solely to the individuals using it.” Well society are all the individuals who use it, but you can say that about farms, shops, private gardens, radio stations and just about any other human activity. We all experience positive and negative externalities from vast ranges of behaviour - but we wouldn’t pay in most cases, and when it comes down to it I find it philosophically objectionable that someone forces me to pay for something I don’t see any benefit it - after all, I could argue the same. Force is not an argument. Remember also your view of “society paying” is a nonsense, as a fair segment pay nothing at all (net tax recipients) and another fair segment pay a small fortune but hardly benefit equivalently (e.g. what does the average pensioner get from the Johnsonville rail line, unless she owns a house near it?).
I believe if road pricing is to be introduced, it will do wonders for bus services especially, as it frees up road capacity and makes buses more competitive with cars. Until recently 50% of Auckland bus services were fully commercial, no reason why that couldn’t be 100% with road pricing. In addition, people will change behaviour in ways other than mode shift, such as changing times of trips or simply not take them - working at home more, consolidating trips.
Now I don’t hate government, I believe government must exist to protect citizens from each other using force, fraud, breaking contracts and committing torts. However I don’t believe bureaucrats and politicians have answers, not at all - none of them were ever right about how Auckland would develop.
Jinyang - Wellington’s trams worked well, but were replaced by trolley buses because of the expense in replacing the track. GWRC has looked at trams but they would cost a small fortune to install (especially since replacement trolley buses are pretty much on the way).
Kiore- Rail shouldn’t have subsidies either
ACC premiums recover all the costs ACC pays for. I think that everyone who bought property adjacent to roads has that factored into their lower property costs (why is transport noise more important than noise from people, lawnmowers, musical instruments?). Smell is crazy, I’d want to tax people with BO too (especially using public transport). Road policing is fully funded from road taxes now as well. Cars are mostly recycled (valuable metal), and tyres typically are at once. You’ll also find that rail costs are not a lot lower, it’s very expensive to maintain stretches of comparatively rarely used infrastructure.
December 7th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I won’t have anyone monitoring my location with a GPS while I have a pair of wirecutters Liberty, nor rent from one of those mobs that uses the GPS to assess my driving speed. Hard enough to evade the radar and laser without having my own car telling tales, and the rest of the privacy issues… gawd…
I reckon something can be done, but I sure do not like this one
I assume monopoly pricing because there’s really only one straight line between any two points. There’s a shortest route and in a place like New Zealand with few practicable alternate routes, it may be the only possible route. Your model of corporatisation may work better than that but I doubt that there’d be much but avarice involved in the initial pricing when no other choice exists.
I am still trying to work out how to get there from here. If it wasn’t entirely impractical to get it through I might go along, as my expectation of the resulting destruction of the roads system and the economy still stands.
“there is no way that the roads would be priced so high that it would price off demand” - yeah right. Pricing will be invariably (*and automatically through the action of the invisible hand) set to maximize profit while incurring minimum wear on the road. As a result it will be high enough to take off the marginal travelers and users. That’s where it will wind up once things stabilize and unrealistic expectations have been damped.
Last time I was on the Autostrada it was free. I didn’t drive in France, but I am wondering where this information is coming from.
The French pay how much 1.22 euros or $3.50/liter ? How much do the Japanese pay? The density and utility of automobiles in those countries vastly differs from ours.
“Well society are all the individuals who use it” I think this is where we part company most seriously. Society as a whole is not the simple sum of its parts, and advantages that others have may still benefit me, even though they are in Christchurch and I am in Wellington. The welfare of the whole is the net of everyone’s benefit from the system. The pollution in winter in ChCh hurts us all, the efficiency of their transit system helps us all. The relative benefit of civilization has to be fairly evenly distributed, not reflecting the 2% of the population owning half the planet stat.
““society payingâ€? is a nonsense, as a fair segment pay nothing at all (net tax recipients) and another fair segment pay a small fortune but hardly benefit equivalently”
Yes, that would be the Libertarian philosophy at work. User pays. It doesn’t work so well for any society that actually tries it. What’s the benefit of a park or reserve? You never go there, it makes other people happy. Yet no civilized society anywhere exists, but that they find their parks precious and insist that they be freely available to all.
You cannot do what you dream of with real people. They form governments because it is more difficult to organize things without government than with it.
As I said, I am inclined to go along with you on the “road pricing” scheme.
We’ll do something other than the GPS system thanks, but I’ll assume that if we want to bad enough we can manage it. My expectation however, is that the near term result will be chaos, the mid term result will be some sort of economic collaps and the long term result will be something closer to a Green result, with fewer roads and cars. Hell of a way to get the result of fewer cars on the road though.
At which point they’ll start charging for pushbikes
Civilization isn’t run the way you want it run. People can’t cope with the model you’re promoting. Toll highways become tax gathering exercises where they are the only route between two points. Owners lobby and scheme to inhibit other routes and modes. Don’t trust ANYONE, not individuals, not government and not business.
respectfully
BJ
December 7th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Liberty Scott says “Road projects in NZ are paid for by road users, why not rail by rail users?”
This is untrue. A recent study into transport costs in NZ found that road users only pay 55% of the total cost associated with their activities. These subsidies have probably persisted at higher levels for the last 50 years. Such subsidies have allowed a relatively large road network to develop with associated economies of scale.
It is therefore only fair that similar investment be made in public transport. I have no doubt public transport systems will relatively efficient and able to compete on an unsubsidised basis with private transport within the next 50 years.
In an ideal world, transport would never be subsidied. However, given our current situation, proactive measures to promote public transport must be taken to rebalance NZ’s transport choices. Only once this has happened can a truly efficient and competitive transport market emerge.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:34 am
French motorways are planned and designed by the state, then put up for tender to mixed private/public companies which build and operate them, collecting tolls, for a thirty year concession, whereafter they revert to state ownership.
The motorways in Brittany are free. This is because of the terms of the treaty which attached it to the French crown several centuries ago, which stipulated that there would be no toll roads.
Italian motorways are also financed by tolls, but are of much poorer quality and always undergoing roadworks. All public works in Italy pay a heavy tribute to corruption, perhaps that’s what makes the difference.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:18 am
“I won’t have anyone monitoring my location with a GPS while I have a pair of wirecutters Liberty, nor rent from one of those mobs that uses the GPS to assess my driving speed”
Who would be monitoring? The unit is measuring distance and calculating a charge, spitting out the charge to bill you, or deducting it from a prepaid card. GPS monitors nothing, it is a transmitter.
“The pollution in winter in ChCh hurts us all, the efficiency of their transit system helps us all.” If you agree with this, then I suggest you pay for welfare benefits for everyone in the world in poverty - good luck, or does society end at the Tasman Sea? Why? There is no moral justification for nationalism, I guess it simply is because it is obvious it wouldn’t work.
“the benefit of a park or reserve? You never go there, it makes other people happy. ” Funnily enough in the past many were created and funded by private individuals, some still are in the UK (locked at night). A voluntary society need not be a mean one. See I trust people, as long as government is there to deal with thieves, fraudsters and the violent.
Stu- Please read the whole report, I have, many times, road maintenance and construction IS fully funded now. Things have moved on since 2001. The same study points out that rail users pay 20-30% of the cost of commuter passenger rail. Until recently, half of Auckland buses were unsubsidised. Rail in NZ has been bailed out three times in 20 years by taxpayers, I am afraid you’re quite wrong to think it has been treated unfairly. I wrote a post about this at: http://libertyscott.blogspot.com/2006/07/greens-talk-bollocks-on-trans port.html
December 11th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Very interesting, thanks for the link Russel.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Liberty - you should not make assumptions about someone you do not know. At best it makes you look arrogant, and at worst it makes you look stupid.
In 2001 road users paid 70% of their $3.8 billion (recoverable) costs. This equates to a $1.125 billion annual subsidy. By contrast, rail users paid 77% of their $489.6 (non-sunk) costs. This equates to a $112.6 million annual subsidy. Thus, the rail system performed better than the road system in 2001 (in both absolute and relative terms).
The absolute value of the subsidies given to passenger rail are small in transport terms, and are expected to decrease (or even be eliminated) in the medium to long term.
I strongly contest your suggestion that air pollution has improved. Air pollution is a non-linear function of congestion, and congestion is a non-linear function of traffic volumes. This means that an additional 5% in traffic volumes could cause a 25% increase in congestion, which could then cause a 50% increase in air pollution. These relationships become increasingly non-linear as the road network approaches capacity.
You should try building a micro-simulation traffic model of Auckland’s motorway network and increase traffic volumes in 5% increments. You will observe exponential increases in travel time, vehicle operating costs, accidents, and emissions. In addition, the cost of expanding capacity in accordance exceeds the additional revenue that would be derived from increased fuel consumption.
I cannot comment on the current funding situation because I have not seen recent LTNZ figures. However, the whispers out of LTNZ are that the reason the government allocated $1.5 billion of general funds to roads in the 2006 budget was because transport coffers suffered as revenues from petrol tax reduced in the face of higher average petrol prices, while construction costs increased.
So the take home message is that rail network as a whole is definitely competitive with the road network. Given it’s higher capacities and ability to run on electricity, it would also appear to offer the most efficient and strategic way of accomodating future transport needs.
December 11th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Who would be monitoring? The unit is measuring distance and calculating a charge, spitting out the charge to bill you, or deducting it from a prepaid card. GPS monitors nothing, it is a transmitter.
Geez.. and you claim not to trust the state? Let me point you at this little problem…
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-530115.html
Now I don’t know how you intend to do this, but GPS provides a clock that’s good down to about 35 nanoseconds if some extra care is taken and that’s part of the recorded data for most systems. If you think the cops who are maximizing their capture rates but not considering that people speed most where it’s safest, are going to neglect THIS sort of tool… I mean seriously…. this IS a problem… and it isn’t just a problem relating to velocity, but also records of where and when I happen to go places.
“There is no moral justification for nationalism” - really? Nations exist because the social structure that survives best is the one that provides the largest coshesive structure. The only reason nations aren’t larger is that people don’t know how to address their differences better (cohesion disappears). The survival of the nation contributes to my individual survival. Since survival of intelligent life is the one of the principles from which MY morality is based, and the competitive survival of intelligence is related to the odds of the species survival, I reckon this to be perfecly moral… (I’d bet you didn’t expect that argument
)
I don’t know much about English parks… but my experiences with privatisation and the “ownership” society have proven to me that while it doesn’t HAVE to be mean (no logical reason for it) it always becomes mean, because people are always and invariably human and the benevolence and success of Joe doesn’t make Joe junior benevolent or successful. A voluntary society will almost invariably devolve, and quickly too, into something rather different…. which explains the complete absence of such societal organizations among nations.
Trust no one.
Your idealism is admirable, but your trust in individuals is no more wisely placed than the trust of a communist in the state. It simply doesn’t work for the society as a whole.
Trust no one.
Once you absorb the lesson that people are neither noble nor evil, but always a bit of both, you will see that so too, government is neither noble nor evil but always a bit of both. As is every organization of humans on the planet. The balances may vary, but the idea that voluntarism is the “right” answer and we’re all too foolish to accept it doesn’t agree real well with my experience.
You’re smart enough to be able to kick the idealism habit if you ever decide to do so. A compliment if you will take it.
BJ
December 11th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
“The absolute value of the subsidies given to passenger rail are small in transport terms, and are expected to decrease (or even be eliminated) in the medium to long term.”
According to whom??? The subsidy per passenger is quite high, higher than bus.
Stu you may well be right about congestion, and that is why it would be valuable if MoT regularly updated the study. You are partly right about LTNZ funding, there is quite a bit of inflation in ther road construction sector, unfortunately fueled by Labour pump priming the sector too much, and the LTMA pushing up Transit’s gold/green plating of schemes. Don’t forget though that many of these monetised costs are not paid by anyone, or indeed suffered by anyone. I was specifically talking about the infrastructure costs though, but a robust debate can be had about externalities
Rail can do some things, and I wish it could do more efficiently - but most freight and people movement it can’t do because it is heavy expensive high-density infrastructure best suited to very large frequent volumes of freight and people.
BJ, thanks you give fuel for thought. I don’t want to kick idealism, because I simply think force is immoral - regardless of its justification. However, I respect the perspective you have, and understand it. The GPS problem your link mentions is actually deliberate by the owner of the vehicle for its security. Road pricing need not do this, in fact the Swiss have a basic pricing scheme with GPS and no location data is sent back. It can be done.
December 12th, 2006 at 7:54 am
When comparing different modes, one of the most important statistics is subsidy per passenger kilometre (or $/PKM).
In Auckland, rail passengers travel approximately twice as far as bus passengers, at about 13km per average trip. That results in a subsidy of approximately $0.56c per PKM (assumes 5.5 million annual passengers and OPEX of $40 million). For buses, the subsidy is approximately $0.30c per PKM.
So at current levels of patronage rail PT is indeed twice as expensive as buses. Rail, however, is starting from a very low base. And if ARTA’s patronage growth predictions are accurate, then this subsidy differential should be almost eliminated by 2016. At the same time, it is likely that the average trip length will have lengthened, as services are increased to satellite suburbs, such as Pukekohe, Helensville and Drury.
Move to electronic (and integrated) ticketing and suddenly a whole lot of OPEX disappears. Similarly for electrification. As a result, I believe that rail will require lower subsidies than buses within the next decade. By 2030, subsidies will be approaching zero.
I have to say Liberty - your head is in the right place and I have really enjoyed reading your blogs. I’m glad that people are thinking so much about transport and that they are so well informed. I completely agree that transport should not ultimately not be subsidised, but I do see some place for PT subsidies until about 2030.