The Campaign For Better Transport

We’ve got our hands on a copy of the BCR study funded by the NZTA and others. BCRs continue to be a contentious issue for the evaluation of transportation projects.  They are intended to be a tool to help evaluate similar projects, but invariably they are used by commentators on both sides to indicate the outright justification for a project (or not, as the case may be.)

I haven’t had a chance to read through all 156 pages of the document yet (full title “The Implications of Discount Rate Reductions on Transport Investments and Sustainable Transport Futures”) but will do so when I have time.

It will be interesting to see how independent the research is, given the funders are Roading New Zealand, Downer EDI Works and the NZTA.  Have a look for yourself, here:

BCR study by NZTA

The CBT submission on the RLTS will be presented today.  A copy of the submission can be found here

The National Business Review reports Ports of Auckland have begun their new rail service to the inland port at Wiri, taking numerous trucks off the motorway between the port and south Auckland. Some great statistics:

The rail link will reduce the number of trucks on Auckland’s busy roads, with forecasts that it will save up to 2.5 million truck kilometres per year – equal to 100,000 central city truck trips.

Taranaki Daily News reports:

Kiwirail is poised to announce that the Stratford to Okahukura line, which has been closed since being damaged by a derailment in November last year, will not be reopened.

The Manawatu Standard reports:

Here is Palmerston North’s bottom line: A rail service to Wellington that is inferior to the one we have now will not be acceptable.

A letter from the Sustainable Energy Forum to Minister of Transport Steven Joyce has drawn a predictable response.

Tim Jones from SEF wrote this letter, calling for the Government to rethink its transport policy in the light of the International Energy Agency’s recent predictions of a forthcoming oil supply crunch and steeply rising oil prices, and of the rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions from transport in New Zealand.

Steven Joyce belatedly responds with a letter, concluding:

The reality is that, given our population density and history of the development of our transport system, private vehicles will continue to be the method by which most people will travel within the foreseeable future, and our investments need to reflect that reality.

The Campaign for Better Transport met with the Minister last July and got a similar response to our concerns.  We pointed out the record growth in public transport patronage in Auckland.  Like I said, at least you know where he stands. Tim Jones optimistically sees an opportunity in all this:

This provides both a very clear statement of the Government’s view, and an opportunity to present evidence to the contrary. SEF intends to contact the Minister and ask for a meeting to discuss the claims made in his letter, the way in which he fails to deal with the concerns we raised, and the evidence that exists to show that, in fact, a substantial number of road users do switch transport modes when fuel prices rise steeply.

Personally I’ve come the conclusion that nothing short of petrol hitting $3 a litre will make the Minister change his mind on this.

It is just galling to read the comments of Transport Minister Steven Joyce on the Puhoi to Wellsford holiday highway in the Herald today:

A report from the Transport Agency released yesterday by Mr Joyce gives estimates of cost for the whole job. These vary from $1.3 billion to $2.04 billion depending on how long it takes.

Mr Joyce said a $10.7 billion commitment to state highways over 10 years meant that funding was not the big issue for the project.

Funding is “not the big issue” even though this dog of a project promises to return 80c for every dollar invested. But the usual refrain of ”economic growth” apparently magically applies to this and all other roading projects, absolving anyone of justifying the cost:

Mr Joyce said the argument was getting lead infrastructure to help stimulate growth.

Quite how a wider holiday highway equates to economic growth is anyone’s guess.  Paying the unemployed to dig a big hole and fill it in again could potentially stimulate more growth than this utter lemon of a project.

And as Josh points out over at  his blog , the bottle neck is really Warkworth, the solution for which is a bypass around it.

Geoff_184 has an excellent sequence of videos that clearly demonstrate the impact of the “missing link” at the new Newmarket station.

As Geoff explains, two western line SA sets, one arriving from Britomart into platform 1, followed by another departing platform 2/3 for Britomart. The latter train had a six minute wait at the station because although it had been ready to depart two or three minutes earlier, it had to wait for the inbound train to clear the single track.

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