Joel Cayford: Roads eat up funds better spent on rail

Joel Cayford

War stories over the past weeks confirm the chronic state of Auckland's public transport systems, especially rail.

It is one reason the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee supported the "aggressive investment in public transport" option when it put the finishing touches to the Regional Land Transport Strategy, now out for public consultation.

The new strategy was required by Government when it set up the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.

The deal was that new transport funding from petrol tax revenue would flow, provided the region changed its land use planning and land transport strategy to deliver a compact city form.

Central to this is high capacity public transport corridors which public and private interests are ready to develop intensively, something that doesn't happen next to 100km/h state highways.

Auckland's new transport strategy was also required to be consistent with the Land Transport Management Act. This requires transport planning to deliver objectives like public health, environmental sustainability, and provide for multi-modal access - bikes, pedestrians, buses as well as cars and freight traffic.

These objectives have equal significance alongside the old benefit/cost approach to the prioritisation of new road projects.

Benefit/cost analysis by itself is questioned increasingly because of the economic threat posed by our enormous private car population. In 2001, New Zealand achieved the highest car ownership per capita of any country in the Western world. Auckland now has more cars per household than Los Angeles. This is not a sign of affluence.

In fact, it has never been cheaper to own and run a car in Auckland. Ironically, this is at a time when it has never been more expensive to build new roads.

There are 700,000 cars registered in Auckland. During the morning peak just 350,000 cars are on the road. Other cars are used outside the peak. Expert advice indicates that new roads could fill almost overnight because people will make use of the new capacity, and travel at peak times. Peak time congestion would be just as bad.

The Avondale section of State Highway 20 alone is now projected to cost around $1.2 billion. This will provide two general traffic lanes in each direction, each lane capable of carrying about 2000 cars an hour.

The whole of SH20 is needed as part of the completion of Auckland's strategic roading network, and will cost more than $2 billion. Government is bending over backwards to provide funding certainty for that project, though Transit advises the Avondale section may need to be a toll road.

In underwriting that commitment Government has taken money that could otherwise be used for passenger transport projects. In doing so it is making passenger transport funding much less certain.

At last Friday's big announcement of Transit's 10-year plan, a raft of major roading projects were announced with committed funding and completion dates.

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority's concurrent presentation was vague by comparison. No commitment to specific public transport projects, no budgets and no certainty.

This is not surprising. Auckland Regional Council took ARTA's 05/06 capital programme out for public consultation on the understanding Government funding for it would be $88 million. A few weeks later, embarrassed officials from Land Transport New Zealand indicated their commitment was likely to be around $60 million, because more money was needed for state highway projects. More recently, LTNZ has indicated ARTA's five-year rail upgrade programme should be spread over eight years.

There is no question cars will remain the dominant form of transport in Auckland for the foreseeable future, though escalating fuel costs will have an effect. And diesel-fuelled buses and ferries will continue to play important roles.

However, Auckland's rail project offers the region huge transport and decongestion returns for every dollar invested.

For less than the cost of completing SH20, the rail lines from Papakura through Newmarket to Britomart, and from Britomart through Avondale to Henderson and beyond, can be double-tracked, have their signalling replaced, and be electrified. Britomart can be developed as a through station with a rail tunnel under Albert St forming a loop through to Mt Eden Station. And a dedicated Britomart to Mangere Airport service can be established.

Most of these rail corridors exist now and are under-utilised. Their carrying capacity can be increased from the present paltry 2500 people an hour in each direction, to more than 12,000. That is equivalent to the capacity of a new eight-lane state highway from the South of Auckland, through the CBD, and out to the West.

Auckland's city councils recognise the need to change transport investment priorities across the region to tackle the pattern of sprawl that has shaped Auckland's recent urban development. Waitakere City and Auckland City are in the midst of major town centre planning changes and attractive public transport station developments, for example at New Lynn, Henderson and Avondale. These developments will be pointless if built around an unreliable, low-capacity, rail system.

The region's local government transport representatives have determined that the region's transport strategy must change from an emphasis on motorways to a more balanced plan that allocates greater investment to public transport systems than has been the case for the past three decades.

Even so, the strategy recommends most of the $10.7 billion available to the region over the next 10 years should continue to be allocated to roading projects.

When the draft strategy was finished earlier this year, officers advised the committee that because it required a shift in some funding to public transport, Government policy settings would need adjustment to ensure that Auckland's preferred transport strategy can be funded.

That is now the challenge for Government. Until that adjustment, the goal of modern and reliable passenger transport systems across Auckland, integrated with efficient land development, will remain a vision on the pages of a strategy document.

* Joel Cayford is chair of the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee