Auckland uses 2011 World Cup in battle for cash

Auckland intends using the 2011 Rugby World Cup as a lever for more Government money to plug gaps of up to $2.3 billion in the region's new $11 billion transport strategy.

Launching the blueprint yesterday, Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee chairman Joel Cayford warned that the full amount theoretically available for public transport could not under current Government funding rules be tapped without unacceptable rates rises.

But he expressed hope that the lure of the rugby tournament would help Auckland to coax the Government to make up for a funding regime by which highways were fully state-funded but regional ratepayers had to invest heavily in public transport.

"It's essential we put in place a transport system that will allow Aucklanders and visitors to move around with ease," he said. "The Rugby World Cup provides a focus for everybody involved to work towards."

Dr Cayford said six of the region's seven city and district councils had given unprecedented support to a strategic option allocating $6.81 billion for roads and $3.8 billion for public transport between now and 2016.

A further $420 million had been earmarked for "travel-demand management" incentives for getting people out of their cars, such as work and school travel plans, and walking and cycling tracks.

"It has never happened like this before," Dr Cayford said of the high level of regional accord, adding that the seventh council had been in partial agreement.

He also noted that the 10-year strategy was the first prepared under new laws requiring balanced transport investment to support compact and sustainable urban form and land use prescribed by Auckland's regional growth strategy.

But he said the Government's policy of fully funding state highways while expecting regions to share the costs of public transport and travel demand management had left a shortfall of $1.01 billion in the $4.2 billion required for those two categories.

On top of that, the new Auckland Regional Transport Authority estimated a further $400 million in capital investment and $900 million in operational spending would be needed for public transport patronage to double to 105 million passenger trips by 2016.

Dr Cayford said that was based on more recent figures than available a year ago in preparing the strategy, and included costs of electrifying and expanding railway lines, and buying new trains.

"These additional requirements haven't been funded nor particularly agreed, but Arta have simply said that if you want to achieve this degree of patronage by the end of 2016, instead of spending $3.8 billion, it is going to cost more because of the state of the network," he said.

"That is to be expected after decades of under-funding."

The transport authority, an Auckland Regional Council subsidiary set up as a condition of $1.6 billion of extra Government spending pledged to the region two years ago, is required to "give effect" to the strategy launched yesterday.

Its new deputy chairman, Rabin Rabindran, noted that the $4 million Kingsland railway station was opened under the authority's watch just in time to carry about 7000 passengers to each of the two matches played by the Lions in Auckland in July.

He said the Rugby World Cup would give Auckland a great focus to ensure it developed the transport system required of a "First World city".

But new Transport Minister David Parker tried in Parliament yesterday to dampen Opposition demands to accelerate spending on Auckland motorways in anticipation of the rugby bonanza.

He said that although the Government would improve roads and public transport in the run-up to the cup, "it would be wrong to say we would be markedly changing the state-highway spending plans in order to deal with an event of some weeks or one or two months".

The strategy

* Auckland's new 10-year regional land transport strategy aims by 2016 to:

* Allocate 62 per cent of $11 billion to roads, 34 per cent to public transport and 4 per cent to "travel-demand management" such as walking school buses, cycle tracks and car-pooling incentives.

* Boost public transport patronage to 105 million passenger trips a year, up from 51 million now.

* Increase public transport's share of motorised trips to Auckland's central business district to 49 per cent, up from 32 per cent now.

* Reduce transport-related air pollution by 20 per cent.