CBT Submission on the Sustainable Transport Plan
Read our submission on ARTA's Sustainable Transport Plan
Download a PDF version of our submission here
General
The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) would like to congratulate ARTA on the practical outcomes that it has achieved to date. ARTA has the support of the CBT and we believe that ARTA is the correct organisational structure to coordinate and implement much needed further improvements to passenger transport throughout the Auckland region.
The CBT looks forward to the establishment of new transport initiatives from ARTA, as well as the continuation of established projects.
Plan Context
The CBT supports the concepts embodied in the Sustainable Transport plan, but offers two recommendations in regard to the plan context.
Sustainable?
The title of this planning document is cause for confusion. The contents of the document relate to certain points of Travel Demand Management (from Chapter 8 of the RLTS), so why isn’t this document called the Travel Demand Management Transport plan if that is what it is? If it really is a Sustainable Transport Plan, then the term “Sustainable” needs to be defined somewhere in the document, which it isn’t.
If a definition of “Sustainable Transport” is required, then the Canadian Centre for Sustainable Transportation offers:
“A sustainable transportation system is one that:
• allows the basic access needs of individuals and societies to be met safely and in a manner consistent with human and ecosystem health, and with equity within and between generations.
• is affordable, operates efficiently, offers choice of transport mode, and supports a vibrant economy.
• limits emissions and waste within the planet’s ability to absorb them, minimizes consumption of non-renewable resources, limits consumption of renewable resources to the sustainable yield level, reuses and recycles its components, and minimizes the use of land and the production of noise.”
The name of the plan is also confusing in that implies that this plan is a sustainable one, while other plans are not. Clearly the concept of sustainability should be an inherent part of all transport plans.
Recommendation: Rename the document or offer a definition of “sustainable transport”. Clarify why only selected Travel Demand strategies have been chosen in table 1.1.
Plans, Plans and more Plans
The CBT is concerned at the plethora of inter-related plans, as depicted on p.6, figure 1.1. ARTA is at risk of producing more planning documentation than practical outcomes, while Transit circumvents the whole plan process. The CBT has not seen any evidence that Transit NZ’s State Highway Forecast will feed into the Regional Arterial Road Plan and the Auckland Transport Plan. At the announcement of the 10 Year State Highway Forecast, it was clear that Transit is proceeding with a number of key initiatives with little regard for an overarching Auckland Transport Plan.
Example:
Transit has announced its intention to increase roading capacity between Onehunga and Penrose, while the community has clearly indicated its preference for reopening the Onehunga branch railway line, which runs in parallel. (Did Transit consult with ARTA before making this announcement?)
Recommendation: Reduce the number plans that ARTA produces and focus efforts on producing more practical outcomes. Actively ensure that Transit are meeting public transport obligations as part of their current highway construction efforts. Waiting until Transit’s plans are assimilated under an Auckland Transport plan may be too late to provide outcomes that Aucklanders actually want.
Example
The construction of the SH20 extension through Mt Roskill requires Transit does not preclude the use of rail along this corridor. The CBT has serious concerns that Transit has not done enough to ensure that the construction of a future rail link can be done in a cost-effective manner.
Walking School bus
The CBT supports the walking school bus initiative, which was initiated through funding from Infrastructure Auckland. Speaking from personal experience this programme is hugely successful at encouraging kids to walk to school in a safe environment.
Workplace Travel Plans
The CBT supports ARTA in setting up Workplace travel plans. The CBT would hope that Workplace Travel planning would highlight deficiencies in the current passenger transport network, and provide the opportunity to improve the network.
Example
Vodafone is located in the Viaduct, which has relatively poor public transport access, especially from Britomart. For instance the Link bus service completely misses the Viaduct, preferring to stick to the bus route that was established prior to the creation of the Viaduct precinct. The outcomes of the Vodafone workplace study should have highlighted this and resulted in improved PT access to the Viaduct.
The CBT also encourages ARTA to think laterally. Specifically ARTA should consider technology based solutions that may obviate the need for a trip at peak time.
Example
As highlighted, 45,000 staff and students regularly travel to the University of Auckland and the Auckland University of Technology. From personal experience a number of these trips will be for attending lectures, which are typically a one way communication from a lecturer to hundreds of students in a lecture hall. Instead of continuing with this antiquated “chalk and talk” paradigm from last century, ARTA should encourage learning institutions to broadcast “unilateral” lectures such as these on television or the internet.
With the establishment of a huge number of digital channels in the near future, transmitting lectures on television (“AUT TV”) could well be a cost effective solution to building more lecture halls and associated transportation infrastructure. It would also make learning more accessible for those that have difficulty travelling.
Recommendation: ARTA improve PT and alternative transport services resulting from feedback from the Workplace travel programme. Think laterally outside traditional paradigms and include technology based solutions as part of travel plans.
Marketing
The CBT encourages ARTA to market alternative transport modes, and questions whether mass marketing campaigns really are difficult to measure, as suggested on p. 13. In the commercial world, private enterprises have many ways of measuring the effectiveness of campaigns (surveys, monitoring key performance indicators etc) and this should be no different for the services that ARTA.
Considering there is no mass advertising at all provided by the operators such as Stagecoach or Veolia, it should be very easy to measure the effectiveness of advertising.
ARTA could also benefit through increased ticket revenue that such a campaign could generate.
Example
There is a low level of awareness in Auckland of the public transport services on offer and how much they cost. A campaign along the lines of the classic 80’s campaign “buses are gonna work for you” could raise levels of awareness and result in increased patronage. Campaigns which are based around the rising cost of petrol and advertising transport alternatives would raise awareness of transport options.
Cars with One Person
The CBT congratulates ARTA for identifying the primary cause of congestion in Auckland as cars with just one person in them. This is in contrast to Transit’s current 10 year State Highway forecast which merely identifies “congestion” as the key issue. Transits solutions therefore ignore the problem of people driving themselves to work and, in fact, actively encourage this by building additional roading capacity to accommodate these commuters.
The CBT supports the concepts of ridesharing and HOV lanes. The CBT also recommends:
- ARTA work with Transit to use the existing road network more intelligently by establishing HOV lanes on arterial roads such as the motorway. ARTA encourage Auckland City and other car parking providers to provide car parking space exclusively for cars with two or more people in them.
- ARTA work with taxi and shuttle operators to encourage them to apply the “Airport shuttle” concept to regular commuter trips. The practice of splitting a taxi fare is popular for airport trips and is likely to be equally popular for trips to places of work.
Walking and Cycling
The CBT supports initiatives that result in increased walking and cycling. Due to time constraints the CBT cannot go into detail on these aspects, but refers ARTA to submissions made from Cycle Action and Walk Auckland. The CBT endorses these submissions.
Assessment of Benefits
In comparison to Transit, ARTA is being too conservative in its assessments of the benefits of achieving its targets.
Example
For the Central Motorway Junction project, Transit claims the following benefits resulting from the expenditure of $200m:
- $520m in travel time savings
- $361m in vehicle operating cost savings
- $19m in CO2 savings
The resulting BCR is therefore 4.5
All of these figures are highly questionable in the context of the number of registered vehicles increasing by over 100,000 in the space of two years in Auckland (LTSA figures) and the claimed CO2 savings are quite clearly ridiculous.
If Transit can claim a monetised CO2 benefit of $19m through expanding the road network and encouraging more vehicle use, then ARTA should be able to claim considerably more benefit than $4.4m that it is currently claiming through eliminating 46,000 private vehicle trips altogether.
In addition, how can Transit claim vehicle operating cost savings (presumably through faster travel times) when these have been negated by the price of petrol increasing by 20% in the space of a year?
If successfully implemented, a reduction in the number of vehicle trips should also means that less cars are required per capita, but this does not appear to have a monetised value in the benefit calculations.
Recommendation: ARTA should be consistent with Transit / LTNZ methodologies and more aggressive and creative in calculating the benefits of the plan. ARTA should proved a monetised benefit for CO2 emission savings considerably greater than the value provided by Transit for the CMJ project. Vehicle operating cost savings should also be included.
Strategic Reliance on Fossil Fuels
Once again ARTA has failed to clearly identify the key issue of Auckland’s near total reliance on fossil fuels.
A number of independent commentators, geologists and analysts around the world have pointed out that the production levels of fossil fuels are now declining. This is also borne out by publicly available production reports for 2005 from companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell. Neither of these companies managed to increase production at all from 2004, despite record high prices providing a strong incentive to do so. The effect of this coupled with relatively inelastic demand is that fuel prices will increase for the foreseeable future.
This is backed up by the Ministry of Economic Development which considers a price of $120 per barrel of oil as being feasible in a “high” scenario in 2010. Until recently the Ministry of Economic Development still maintained that $35 per barrel was the long term outlook.
A sustainable transport plan can only be called sustainable if it has reduction of fossil fuel use as its central core.
Recommendation: ARTA should explicitly state that reduction of fossil fuels is a key objective of the Sustainable Transport Plan.