Q&A: The $7b plan for 50 yrs of Western Bay and Tauranga growth: What does it all mean?

Urban Form and Transport Initiative project director Robert Brodnax. Photo / George Novak

The Urban Form and Transport Initiative (UFTI) has just produced its final report: a high-level plan detailing how growth in the Western Bay should be managed over the next 50 years, in terms of transport and housing.

Civic issues reporter Samantha Motion spoke to the man behind the plan, UFTI project director Robert Brodnax, about some of the most interesting bits in his team's 140-page report.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Give me the elevator pitch for this plan.

Basically we allocate population at higher densities particularly along public transport corridors and nodes so that you've got your places where people live connected by high-frequency public transport services. That's every 10 to 15 minutes or so.

The way that we're going to be able to manage the impacts of growth on the transport network in Tauranga is to make greater use of our public transport system.

You're not going to be able to build your way out of congestion. So you need to find ways of making it easier for people to move around the city using other modes. The density piece is important because the beauty of public transport is it works best where you get higher densities.

We don't have enough good land to grow on to not start growing up, getting greater densities. We can't continue to sprawl as a city, we don't have the land on which to sprawl and to build and we don't have the capacity to build a transport system that could accommodate 400,000 people.

Turret Rd traffic. Photo / File

What will happen to congestion?

We're not going to be able to solve congestion.

You can't continue to grow and somehow have some sort of panacea that says you won't have congestion in a centre that's growing and that people want to move around.

But you can manage congestion much better if you've got a better public transport service.

You're making capacity improvements on the network that are about helping move as many people as possible through intersections and helping freight move around. Not about moving lots and lots of cars with one person in them.

The Matapihi Rail Bridge is due for replacement in about 15 years, says the report. Photo / File

The plan says we might have more lanes crossing the harbour. What does that mean?

The modelling tells us that if we're serious about moving more people through the network, we need this public transport network that moves us from east to west and east to north.

That means there will come a point in the future where we're going to need additional lane capacity so that the buses aren't caught up in the traffic on Hewletts Road or on the Harbour Bridge or wherever.

Sometime in the next 30 years, we're going to have to add additional lane capacity either on the Harbour Bridge or at Turret road, or somewhere in between.

What UFTI says is that in around about 15 years, the Matapihi Rail Bridge is due for replacement so why don't you look at the whole issue of how and where we put buses and trains and stuff across the harbour and have a think and make sure we get the optimal solution.

Given the sensitivities of crossing the harbour under any circumstances, I think it's sensible to take a long run-up at that.

Why didn't passenger rail make the cut?

We don't think you'll be ready to pivot to passenger rail until you get your population densities at your key stations quite a lot higher than 30 per hectare in the CBD, and potentially at four or five other points along the rail line.

So we think there's a bit of time to play out before your it'll become viable to run a rail service.

So we're saying beyond 30 years, and all likelihood, particularly when that new eastern centre that we've envisioned comes on.

Rail needs longer distances and high population and job densities around the station. So I think there's a journey to go on before you're ready for rail.

Rail scored highly - did it come down to money?

Effectively yeah, it comes down to economic viability, costs and benefits, and hitting that sweet spot.

Rail scored highly when we evaluated it. And it would still score highly in terms of emissions and in terms of the potential for mode shift. But it will only achieve the mode shift if you have the people in the places that rail serves.

Providing it when you haven't got people out east that would catch the train. It just makes no sense. That's why it's not a first 10 years, 20 years intervention.

But a ferry could happen sooner?

We hope so, there is still more business casing to be done, but the early indications are looking like it should be viable to run a ferry from the Mount to the CBD.

For Omokoroa, there's a bit more work to be done but that idea is still alive.

The plan talks about average densities of 30 dwellings per hectare in greenfield areas and more along major public transport routes. What does that look like?

A lot more three-storey buildings, a lot more terraced housing kind of developments. It's not full-blown apartment blocks.

In our vision of the future, there's a lot more green space as well accessible to those buildings. So it's not cheek-by-jowl, necessarily.

It's a well planned urban environment that has green space, has a lot more people living in those three-storey buildings multiplexes, duplexes, townhouse developments, all that kind of thing.

Is it the end of the 500sq m section with a white picket fence?

No, it's not. The key thing is to give people a choice that they can afford. We're still saying there is going to be greenfield development, we're quite careful to say an average of 30 dwellings per hectare across those greenfield areas.

That means you will still have some areas with your picket fence and your 400-500sq m section that used to be a quarter-acre section. It also means that's not the only choice available.

We'll be able to choose a house that meets our needs.

The cost of this programme is estimated at $7 billion - what does that number mean?

For that 50-year vision, the 2070 vision - which is your 400,000 population - we're saying the costs will be in that $6-8 billion range, with that implementation phased out over time.

That's a really high-level estimate. We haven't done any site investigation. There will be overs and unders on every project that we've identified.

Growing a city is going to be expensive whatever way you choose to grow up. The capital projects to create lots and lots of capacity aren't the answer - modelling shows us that really clearly, as well as the expense of building them.

But there isn't a free lunch. Public transport operational expenditure still costs money, the public is still going to have to continue to subsidise transport via public transport or road building.

Realistically, we aren't going to be able to rely solely on rates and the National Land Transport Fund to fund the kind of infrastructure the city needs if it is going to accommodate the growth.

We've got to look at other tools.