It is appropriate that the Auckland region pays a fair value for track access. It has been doing so since 2003, paying an average $5m per annum.

But now Transport Minister Steven Joyce wants to unilaterally increase this fee to $16m annually. Included in this are loan repayments at commercial rates of interest for the purchase of $500m worth of new electric trains for Auckland. The new trains were originally to be funded through a regional fuel tax of 2c per litre until the Government decided against this in March 2009.

Instead now it is obvious that central Government has decided to stick ratepayers with the bill for the new electric trains. It is disingenuous of the Minister not to mention this and to present this as a fait accompli to the new Mayor.

The Minister also needs to explain to Auckland ratepayers why Wellington’s new electric trains are 90% funded from central Government, and what “track access fees” Wellington ratepayers are expected to pay.

UPDATE: A well placed source tells me that in fact Steven Joyce is still considering how Auckland trains should be funded and what the funding split should be between Auckland and central Government.  Funding of trains is not included in the higher track access fee. It makes the decision to increase the track access fee from $5m to $16m even more confusing.  We will have to wait and see.

According to the explanatory note to the third bill currently being deliberated by the select committee, the Super City was intended to “create one Auckland, which has strong regional governance, integrated decision making, greater community engagement and improved value for money”.

But what has become quite obvious is that Auckland isn’t getting this at all.

He bullet points the unacceptable features of Auckland Transport:

• The Auckland Council will be unable to appoint (or dismiss) the Auckland Transport chair and deputy chair.
• Auckland Transport is not required by legislation to act in accordance with the requirements of its shareholder (the Auckland Council).
• The Auckland Transport Board is not made accountable to the Auckland Council.
• The Auckland Council may be able to make changes to Auckland Transport’s statement of intent but, unlike the Crown Entities Act, this bill has no specific provision requiring Auckland Transport to act in accordance with this statement of intent.
• Auckland Transport is not required to give effect to the Regional Land Transport Strategy, or any other Auckland Council policy that relates to the transport agency.
• Auckland Transport could set up companies, sell assets and enter into major financial commitments without the approval of Auckland Council, even where the transactions may leave the council with significant liabilities or commitments.
• Auckland Transport won’t be required to have regard for the wider land use and development objectives of the Auckland Council.

As we pointed out in our own submission, you can also add the following to the list, because Auckland Transport does not have to comply with cetain provisions of the Local Government Act:

• Auckland Transport will not have to comply with its statement of intent
• In any case, Auckland Transport’s statement of intent requirements are fairly undefined
• Because it is exempt from Sec 75 of the Local Government Act, Auckland Transport will not have to comply with the Official Information Act.

When the new Government pulled the plug on the regional fuel tax six months ago, killing Auckland’s ability to buy itself a modern, electrified rapid-rail system, Transport Minister Steven Joyce told Aucklanders not to fret. He would come up with alternative funding arrangements.

Then in late May, after a trip to Australia, he returned full of the wonders of using a public-private partnership to buy the rolling stock.

He added that the PPP was not the only option being juggled by the Government and once more patted us on the head and said not to worry, electric rail was still on track for completion in 2013.

Reports now leaking out of Wellington paint a dispiriting picture of the alternatives being considered.

They suggest that far from being driven by a desire to create a first-world rapid-rail system such as any other city city of a similar size enjoys, the major driving force for this minister is a desire to meet the deadline as cheaply and Third Worldly as he can get away with.

Last December, after the passage of legislation supporting a regional fuel tax, the Auckland Regional Council called for expressions of interest internationally for the purchase of 140 electric rail cars.

A short list of seven suppliers had been selected at the time the Government’s action forced the process to be put on hold.

Industry sources suggest the Government now wants to almost halve the size of the new rail fleet to 75 and to make up the difference by collecting up all the second-hand electric locomotives that can be found around the country, giving them a lick of paint and an oil change, and pressing them into service dragging Auckland’s existing fleet of tarted-up old carriages.

Apparently a stockpile of retired electric locomotives in Palmerston North is being eyed up.

As well, some main trunk freight locomotives will become surplus to requirements, once the recently ordered fleet of 20 new freight locomotives arrives from China.

One report suggests more carriages may have to be bought.

Instead of the trains being short and swift and new, they will, because of the heavy freight locomotives pulling them, be long and slow to accelerate.

Another worry is the possibility that to save more money, the resurrected Onehunga branch line will not be electrified – a diesel shuttle will run back and forth instead – and the planned Parnell station will be shelved.

On Friday, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said Aucklanders were running out of patience.

“We need those electric trains and we need to move now,” he said.

“We’re fed up with second-best for Auckland. We’ve had it since the 1950s, and this is going to be the end of it. We’re not going to meekly bow down and accept it.”

He called on Prime Minister John Key to tell his minister “to give at least as much commitment to mass transit in Auckland as you are to the holiday highways to the north of Auckland”.

An industry insider says that if money is the problem, Mr Joyce should do what the manager of any business-car fleet does, and approach the seven preferred tenderers with a lease-and-maintain deal instead of the original outright purchase proposition.

That way Aucklanders would get a new train fleet, not the Heath Robinson arrangement the Government is flirting with, and a guarantee of it being maintained. After 10 years or whatever, they could be replaced or kept on at a suitably adjusted price.

Buying this way would be more expensive than cash up front, but cheaper than a PPP scheme.

The advantage of a lease-and-maintain deal to a cash-strapped Government is that payments would be drip-fed. Also, the costs would be kept off the Government’s balance sheet, out of sight of the beady-eyed accountants from the international credit agencies.

Early this month, Finance Minister Bill English was bemoaning that it would take at least five years to catch up with Australia in infrastructure.

He told the Herald his advisers point to the economic benefits of getting infrastructure built to the right standards on time and to cost.

What better project to put this message into practice than Auckland’s long delayed rapid-rail system.

Auckland has renewed its calls for Government action on funding for electric trains before fuel taxes rise on 1 October.

“When the Government cancelled regional fuel tax funding for electric trains six months ago, the Transport Minister promised to fill the gap,” said ARC Chairman Mike Lee.

“He was going to have a plan by July, when he was to report back to cabinet. We heard nothing then. We in Auckland are running out of patience.

“As of this week, Auckland has lost half a year in its electrification programme. People in Auckland will soon be paying higher fuel taxes and road user charges, and still there is no sign of electric trains.

“There has been a lot of talk about electric trains by the Transport Minister but no hard cash. If Auckland is to develop a world-class public transport system, we need those electric trains and we need to move now.

“The Transport Minister has been active about building new roads and state highways. We would like him to also focus on just how important rapid transit is to Auckland, for the city’s economic growth, productivity and urban development.

“We call on the Transport Minister to honour his commitment to make up the funding shortfall the Government created when it did away with the Auckland regional fuel tax in March.

“We are aware that public transport use in Auckland is increasing by significantly more than it is in either Wellington or Christchurch. That momentum cannot be sustained without electric trains.”

Aucklanders took 58.6 million trips on public transport in the year to 30 June, a 7.7 per cent increase on 2007/08.

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]