The reality is that significant roading projects such as the revised $1.8bn Waterview extension and the $2bn+ Puhoi to Wellsford motorway have not been subject to any economic benefit-cost analysis. Projects such as rail electrification have long been established as being more effective at reducing congestion in Auckland. The need for faster, quieter, low emission electric trains was established as far back as 2002 by Boston Consulting in an independent report.

The reality is that the prioritised list comes not from the ARC, but from the Regional Transport Committee which comprises representatives from the local councils, health and safety, the police, the AA, the freight industry and cycling and public transport representatives.

The Minister of Transport has been recently calling for “joined up thinking” in relation to transport planning, but the reality is that this thinking is already well represented in the Regional Growth Strategy, ARTA’s 10 year plan and now a transport plan designed to take Auckland 30 years into the future.

Auckland Regional Council’s transport committee has withheld support for the latest cut-down version of a motorway through Waterview involving a mix of surface and tunnelled sections.

The committee yesterday deemed it had received insufficient information to assess the $1.4 billion scheme before the Transport Agency board meets in a fortnight to consider submissions and decide whether to push ahead with the final link in Auckland’s western ring route.

It also restated its preference for a longer link through Rosebank Rd as “the superior strategic alignment” to connect the Southwestern and Northwestern Motorways, even though the Government ruled that out early this year as too expensive, while instructing the agency to review various Waterview options.

The regional councillors affirmed their support for completing the 48km ring route between Manukau and Albany, but questioned the strategic justification for running it through Waterview, where the latest proposal will require the demolition of up to 365 homes and loss of 5ha of public open space.

Their resolution expressed concern at an alleged lack of detailed assessment by the Transport Agency of social, heritage, open space, environmental and economic impacts of the proposal, and of funded plans for effective mitigation.

Although the council granted support last year for a more extensive set of tunnels beneath Waterview, an option promoted by the agency but quashed by the Government after the Treasury revised the estimated cost to $2.77 billion, chairman Mike Lee expressed annoyance that a Rosebank route had been consistently ruled out.

He accused the agency’s predecessors of ignoring a regional council investigation which assessed Rosebank as the best strategic option, and of trying to use his organisation as “a rubber stamp throughout this western ring route process”.

ARC parks and heritage chairwoman Sandra Coney said the original concept of the ring route was to allow traffic to avoid the harbour bridge, and it was only comparatively recently that part of the rationale of Government transport planners was to turn it into a faster route to the airport from central Auckland.

“The current route is more an inner isthmus ring route – it doesn’t take the most logical route,” she said.

Ms Coney said one advantage of a Rosebank link would be to reduce the need to widen the Northwestern Motorway causeway through the Motu Manawa-Pollen Island Marine Reserve, which she considered was already under considerable threat from pests and rubbish from vehicles despite being “one of the jewels in Auckland’s crown”.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce said he was “a little bit disappointed” with the regional stance and was confident the agency would provide adequate mitigation for the Waterview route.

“They are trying to balance the needs of the community [with] doing something reasonably cost-effective, even though it will still be the most expensive roading project New Zealand has ever built.”

Asked about the ARC’s preference for a Rosebank link, the minister said: “I don’t think Auckland road users would be happy to spend the amount of money being talked about and still not have a route to the airport.”

The Government insists that electric rail is still on, dare we say, track. But Auckland is borrowing to buy an ageing diesel fleet of British cast-offs.

 

 All abooooard the great traans-Auckland rail jooourneeey. Bear in mind, folks, there will be many stops before we reach your preferred destinations.

 

 Where do Aucklanders want to go? For more than 80 years Aucklanders have wanted modern, affordable and regular train services to drop them off near work and home.

 

 But plans have been derailed more times than Amy Winehouse has been booked into rehab and left many of us nose-to-tail, alone in our cars, listening to her croon about it.

Under the previous Government, trains were to be modernised, electrified and run underground from Britomart to Mt Eden. This would be paid for through a 9.5 cent regional fuel tax that the Auckland Regional Council championed.

But the new Government abolished regional levies in May, ostensibly to share the burden with the rest of the country through national taxes.

Now, the plan is for the Government to lend the regional council $33 million to help buy six diesel locomotives built in the 1970s, with carriages from British Rail.

To mind the gap until the money can be raised? It would seem so, but at what cost?

No matter how hard The Aucklander tried to find out, no one could tell us how much of our rates was going to subsidise our taxes for this.

The regional council has already stumped up $30 million-plus for the ageing locomotives that should be shunted into sidings when electrification is switched on in 2013.

Chairman Mike Lee says the Transport Agency loan is expected to be for a four-year term, with interest at the yet-to-be-determined government bond rate.

The council still has $257 million of projects to fund but only $55 million available over 10 years.

Mr Lee says balancing the budget is a challenge after the Government cancelled the fuel tax and redirected most funds to building roads.

“This action led to a funding shortfall of more than $200 million over 10 years, which jeopardised key public transport initiatives.

“As a result, the ARC has been forced to borrow $44 million this financial year to ensure necessary investment can continue.”

While the Government has said it will buy the electric fleet through KiwiRail, possibly with the private sector involved, Mr Lee is concerned about delays.

“How electrification will be funded remains an open question.”

It’s not just the rolling stock that is causing concern.

Despite the underground city rail loop from Britomart to Mt Eden being mooted for decades, the regional transport authority is only now seeking consultants to protect the route.

This is too late for easy passage through the 41-storey skyscraper that Westfield plans for its site over the road from Britomart. Its basement carpark would go exactly where the tunnel is proposed.

Fast track de-railed once again

Colin Priestly says the Government should upgrade Auckland’s rail before pouring any more asphalt around the region.

Mr Priestly, 64, is a fan of trains but fears that buying 30-something-year-old trains from Britain is a stop-gap that will prevent much-needed electrification of rail  and the loop track around the city. Only last week, Mr Priestly says, he had to prise open the doors of an old train on which he was travelling.

“The trains are starting to pack up now,” he says. “Are they going to waste more money on doing them up and buying old stock? How many years are you going to get out of these trains before they start going off the tracks?

“They need brand-new stuff. Your guess is as good as mine as to where they are going to get the money. They should go for the jugular and get the lot.”

Mr Priestly believes people would flock to rail if it were a better quality service. “It’s cheap to use. I like the comfort and you don’t have to sit at stop lights and you can set your watch to them now. The more improvements, the more people will use them.”

Lynda Rehm, of Blockhouse Bay, says the ring-route and electrification should be higher on Auckland’s agenda.

“We have to get people into the city. There’s a huge workforce. You go to Britomart and you still have to walk everywhere to get to work,” Ms Rehm says.

Mr Priestly remembers fondly Mayor Robbie’s proposed light-rail route over Waitemata Harbour and around the city.

Unfortunately for generations of Aucklanders, Sir Dove-Myer Robinson - mayor from 1959-65 and from 1968-80 - was ignored. He was overlooked again in 1976 when a National Government overturned Labour’s plans for electrification between Papakura and Auckland and a central underground system.

Sir Dove-Myer’s ideas, Mr Priestly reminds us, were scrapped for the lack of money.
He hopes that he is not going to hear that again.

Colin Priestly says we should have heeded Sir Dove-Myer Robinson. KELLIE BLIZARD

Money has been assured for new Auckland railway stations, but at extra cost to ratepayers, after the Government’s cancellation of a regional fuel tax for motorists.

An integrated public transport ticketing project will also be scaled back under Auckland Regional Council budget decisions made yesterday.

Although regional rates will be held to an average 3.93 per cent next year, as originally programmed, the council has approved a revised 10-year funding plan including annual rises of up to 6.73 per cent by 2014. Its new schedule would lift the average rates bill from $336.79 this year to $350.03 next year.

Chairman Mike Lee acknowledged a council-imposed rates rise ceiling of no more than 5 per cent honoured since 2005 would be breached in three of the next 10 years, from 2013 to 2015.

He acknowledged that the budget commitments would be inherited next year by the new Auckland Council, at which point he said their impact on overall rates would be “fairly minimal”, equating to annual rises of under 1 per cent.

Although the council made an assumption in March that it would have to hand control of most of the stations to the Government to overcome a $202 million funding hole left by the aborted fuel tax, chief executive Peter Winder yesterday disclosed compromises to avert that. These followed agreement by the Transport Agency to:

• Pay a 60 per cent subsidy for new railway stations including at Newmarket, New Lynn, Manukau, Onehunga, Grafton and Avondale.
• Make a $5 million grant towards costs already incurred by the council on Newmarket Station.
• Lend the council $32.8 million over four years to pay for six new six-car diesel trains already on order from KiwiRail until the Government buys electric rolling stock.

Mr Winder said those concessions would still close only 22 per cent of the funding gap… [more]