Brian Rudman: Get this transport revolution on rails

COMMENT


The trouble with revolution is, you go to bed with high hopes then wake to find nothing has changed. That's the problem for the Government with its Auckland transport funding package.

Despite last Friday's promise of a $1.62 billion injection of extra funds into Auckland transport over the next 10 years, today the trains will continue to dawdle around the decrepit rail network, breaking down with depressing regularity. Spaghetti Junction will continue to clog.

With the money not beginning to flow until April 2005, nothing is likely to change in the near future. The best Prime Minister Helen Clark could offer was the hope of "incremental improvements over time."

Not that anyone is knocking the package. Local government leaders, road lobbyists and public transport supporters, in a unique display of unanimity, seem to agree that any sort of improvement is better than the existing decaying system.

The standout feature of the Government package is the establishment of an Auckland Regional Transport Authority, to be running by July 2004, responsible for developing and implementing a transport plan, contracting transport companies and other providers, and receiving Government and local money to implement the plan.

A professional, non-political body, it will be accountable to the ARC for delivering the agreed transport plan, but it will be governed by a board of expert directors from which local body politicians and bureaucrats are banned.

The Government wants a firewall in place to keep warring local politicians from interfering in ARTA's affairs. And who, but some of the aforementioned politicians, would disagree?

The authority's first task will be to review the existing land transport strategy to ensure it fulfils the Government's desire for a more balanced approach. One can only hope that ARTA gets itself going faster than it takes a Link bus to do a rush-hour circuit.

And in their review of existing strategy, is it too much to hope the long-neglected rail system rockets to the top of the must-do-in-a-hurry list? If ever there was a quick way to break through the traffic logjam, free of the resource consent problems facing any new road, it's surely to pour money into rail.

Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis and Auckland City's John Banks are wasting $14 million investigating the feasibility of an unwanted $3 billion highway through the eastern suburbs, linking their two bailiwicks. Much of the proposed route runs alongside a rail corridor.

For the money being talked of to pay for this crazy scheme you could be well on the way to providing a first class, electrified, commuter rail service throughout the region.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was also cash left over to revive the 130-year-old line to Onehunga township, and extend it across the Manukau Harbour to Mangere airport. You only have to look at Perth to appreciate how effective an efficient new train service is in relieving congestion from highways.

The land is available. All we'd have to do is lay the extra tracks and order some new rolling stock.

Finally, the rail option can be implemented at a revolutionary pace. Which is not something that can be said for the road-based solutions. Apart from all their other shortcomings, roads suffer from something called "buildability."

Buildability, according to the glossary of jargon kindly supplied by the Government spin doctors, "refers to the capacity of the civil construction industry to handle a higher level of activity in the Auckland region".

What this means is there's not a hope of the local construction industry being able to complete the fabled roading network within the often-promised 10-year period, even if the $9.4 billion needed was there to do it.

The officials advising the Government on this package say in their report that at best the roading industry in Auckland could double its work capacity over three years from a present level of $200 million to $400 million. But this increased demand would come at a high premium - contractors ramping their prices by 20 to 30 per cent.

In their introductory remarks, the officials note that since the 1960s Auckland's transport investment has focused "on the motorway network" and that "until recently there has been very little investment in public transport".

They note that "simply adding more infrastructure to the transport system is not sufficient to address Auckland's transport problems".

The message seems clear. Get the transport revolution rolling now by spending a year or two concentrating on public transport solutions.