The CBT is very concerned that the current structure of the Bill will transfer much of the power over transport in Auckland away from elected local and regional politicians, towards unelected transport officials and central government.

Our full submission is here, and the summary is below the fold…

1. To ensure that those making important transport decisions are accountable to the people of Auckland, the transport functions to be assumed by Auckland Transport should instead be exercised by the Auckland Council – with transport being a key department of that council. In the case that this submission is rejected by the Select Committee, the CBT makes the following suggestions to improve the functioning of Auckland Transport.

2. To create better integration between railways, state highways and local roads, Auckland Transport should jointly manage (with NZTA and KiwiRail) all state highways and railways within Auckland.

3. Auckland Transport should not be exempt from having to comply with sections 59, 60, 64 and 74 of the Local Government Act 2002. These exemptions, if retained, will undermine Auckland Transport having to be accountable to the people of Auckland.

4. When preparing the Regional Land Transport Programme, Auckland Transport should have to ‘give effect to’ rather than just ‘be consistent with’ the Regional Land Transport Strategy.

5. Stronger links between the Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are necessary to ensure political accountability.

6. The current Auckland councils, rather than the Minister of Transport, should appoint the initial members of the board of Auckland Transport. Auckland Council should be required to appoint a completely new board, should they wish to do so, with a year of that Council being formed.

7. We submit that the proposed draft structure of Auckland Transport lacks sufficient emphasis on Public Transport infrastructure planning.

The NZTA has been working on a draft farebox recovery policy for public transport services which sets out the NZTA’s proposed requirements relating to farebox recovery policy in the regions.  Once the policy is finalised it is to be implemented by regional councils and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.

The farebox recovery policies that regional councils include in their regional public transport plans set out the contribution public transport users are expected to make to the cost of providing public transport services in their region.

A farebox recovery ratio, the proportion of the total costs of the services recovered from the users, measures the contribution fares make to the cost of providing public transport services, and is typically expressed as a percentage.

The NZTA believes the farebox recovery ratio is one way to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of public transport networks.  The NZTA is keen for regional councils to set and achieve a farebox recovery ratio target for public transport services in their region which sets a fair distribution of the costs between the users, the regional authority and the NZTA.  Farebox recovery ratios have been in decline in New Zealand for quite some time, and the NZTA is keen to arrest this decline.

It should be noted that changing fare structures or raising fares is not the only way to improve farebox recovery ratios, other measures include improving service and information quality, integrating fares and simplifying ticketing systems to encourage increased patronage together with  reducing costs by optimising schedules, frequencies and service times, increasing priority measures and so on.

Further rationale on why we are doing this work and the rationale for the NZTA’s draft farebox recovery policy can be found in the consultation document and associated Questions and Answers attached.  This information is also available via the NZTA’s website http://www.nzta.govt.nz/consultation/farebox-recovery-policy/index.html

We welcome any submission you would like to make.  Details on how to make a submission can be found in the consultation document.  I have also attached a word file with all of the consultation questions raised in the consultation document, which can be used to make a submission.  The closing date for submissions/feedback is 5pm Monday 30 November 2009.

Introduction

The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) welcomes the opportunity to submit on the Draft 2009/10 RLTP and 11/12 Auckland Regional Land Transport Programme and the Auckland Transport Plan.  Consultation with groups such as ours and wider transport stakeholders is vital to achieving better transport outcomes for Auckland.

The Campaign for Better Transport is an incorporated society with the declared objective of being advocates of public transport, cycling, walking and other alternatives to the private car. Membership consists of 50 paid up members, with a mailing list of over 3,000 at present.

The Campaign for Better Transport is a voluntary group and is politically independent.

Download as PDF here

Submission Points

Support for the RLTP and ARTA

1. The CBT generally supports ARTA’s Draft RLTP and associated Auckland Transport Plan, and thanks ARTA for the work put into the  promotion, operation and expansion of Auckland’s public transport network.

Auckland’s Transport Challenges

2. Since the last review of the Regional Land Transport Programme, petrol prices broke the $2 a litre barrier for the first time. This was a significant contributor to the growth in public transport patronage over this period, and an associated fall in private vehicle use. It is therefore surprising that volatile petrol, diesel and oil prices are not mentioned as a transport challenge.

3. Nonetheless, the CBT supports the shorter-term challenges listed in this section, listed on page 12, in particular increasing choice and reducing reliance on private cars.

Statement of Priorities

4. The CBT supports the need for prioritisation of planned transport activities by Auckland’s territorial authorities, the ARC, ARTA and the New Zealand Transport Agency, given the limited funds available for transport projects and, in particular, public transport projects.

5. We would also support the inclusion of Ontrack railway developments in the prioritisation process.

6. Auckland’s vulnerability to oil price fluctuations is a risk to the economy that can be mitigated by prioritising transport projects that reduce our dependence on oil.

7. The CBT believes that the current measure of the economic efficiency of transport projects “benefit cost ratios” are deficient and overly emphasise travel time savings.  Overseas studies show that travel time savings in the long run do not eventuate. Instead travel patterns change. Widening roads, for instance, encourages commuters to live further from work, yet still spend the same amount of time travelling that they previously did. UK residents, for example, spend on average 1 -1.1 hours a day travelling to and from work and leisure. This has held more or less constant since 1970, when records began. The CBT could find no evidence to suggest that in Auckland, commuter travel times have changed over the years. In fact there appears to be no statistics gathered at all in relation to the amount of time the average person spends travelling to and from work or leisure activities. This is surprising given the assumption with roading projects is that travel time savings in minutes are a long lasting, key benefit to the economy.

Monitoring

8. The KPI’s that exist for monitoring the goal of economic development benefits and associated costs are narrow. The Transport Agency’s travel time surveys, for instance, merely measure the average time it takes to travel between various points on the roading network. While these may be a useful measure of congestion, measures such as these do not adequately monitor how much time people spend travelling to work and leisure destinations over time. Nor do they adequately monitor the volumes of people using transport networks.

9. Similarly, while savings in vehicle operating costs are a regular feature of roading benefits, there are no KPI’s indicating whether household spending on private vehicles is changing over time. Statistics New Zealand’s most recent Household Economic Survey was in 2007. It found that, on average, Auckland households spent 7.4% of all expenditure on private transport supplies and services, compared with a nationwide average of 7%. We do not have any information about whether this expenditure has increased or decreased in recent years.

10. The CBT strongly urges ARTA to champion the use of economic benefit cost indicators that are more reliable in the long term, such as the benefits of access to an increased number of employment options for employees, broader economic measures such transport expenditure as a percentage of GDP, or indicators that measure the absolute capacity of transport corridors.

Government Policy Statement Targets

11. The Campaign for Better Transport supports the currently active GPS, with its specific targets:
Reduce kilometres travelled by single occupancy vehicles, in major urban areas on weekdays, by 10 percent per capita by 2015.
Increase the mode share of transporting freight by coastal shipping and rail by 2015.
No overall deterioration in travel times and reliability on critical routes by 2015.
Reduce fatalities and hospitalisations from road crashes by 2015.
Increase patronage on public transport by three percent per year through to 2015.
Increase number of walking and cycling trips by one percent per year through to 2015.
Reduce reliance on petrol and diesel

12. The CBT is aware that the Government is in the process of changing the GPS. We do not support the proposed changes, which are based on extremely poor transport planning assumptions. In particular, the recommendation that transport be funded according to the fact that 84% of the journeys to work in urban areas are by car is quite frankly bizarre and out of touch with the realities of public transport usage and growth in the Auckland region. The CBT urges ARTA to totally oppose the proposed GPS changes.

13. The CBT would especially like to highlight the proposed cuts to public transport and local road funding. We have analysed the changes in funding by Activity Class. The results are shown in the following table.

GPS Changes

14. The CBT believes the proposed funding changes put unacceptable pressure on the funding of public transport and local roading maintenance projects. It is lamentable that given such a radical restructuring of transport funding, performance monitoring budgets will also be slashed by about 50%. We urge ARTA to enforce the Minister of Transport’s statutory obligation to have regard to the views of Local Government NZ.

Onehunga Rail Line

15. The Campaign For Better Transport was successful in raising local support and funding for the reintroduction of rail services to Onehunga, and so is very focussed on the objective of these services starting on time in December of this year.  We are concerned that the construction of new stations on the Onehunga Branch Line is not mentioned in any detail in the Auckland Transport Plan, given that the targeted opening date is eight months away. Local consultation on this was promised some months ago now, but has still to eventuate.  We urge ARTA to prioritise the construction of Onehunga railway stations as well as implement complementary feeder bus services to make the Onehunga line a success when it opens in December.