Rudman’s City: Public transit derailed for token $1

By Brian Rudman

It's a long time since I felt the need to blame Ruth Richardson for anything. But if you are looking for someone to demonise as your car overheats in the rush-hour jams on Auckland's highways, she is a top candidate.

In 1993, when she sold New Zealand Rail to Wisconsin Central Transportation and others, she also effectively removed from public control the Auckland rail corridors long earmarked as vital arteries for any future mass transit system.

Seven years on, the region's politicians and planners carry on the struggle to try to repair Ms Richardson's handiwork and gain some control over these under-used corridors. With little success.

That the then Minister of Finance sold an 80-year lease on these tracks - and every other rail line in New Zealand - for a token $1 only rubs salt in the wound.

Particularly when we Aucklanders have now been forced to offer present owner Tranz Rail between $21 million and $33 million to buy out the lease.

The exact figure being offered is a mystery. This is because Tranz Rail has demanded that its suitors keep the actual size of their dowry confidential.

There's no guarantee Tranz Rail will accept this or any offer, although a source close to the action says everything has a price. The question is: How willing are Aucklanders to be held to ransom? And if we are, for how much and for how long?

The rail corridors have long been the traffic planners' answer to our transportation woes. Ten years ago, Tranz Rail's predecessor, the Railways Corporation, joined with the Auckland Regional Council to announce plans for a light-rail transit system linking New Lynn with central Auckland.

That was to be the first part of the four-stage project which by 1998 would reach to Papakura. The system would run on existing rail corridors and have priority over freight and long-distance passenger services. Like many other such schemes, this one died.

Apart from the problem of access to the corridors, the latest incarnation of Auckland's mass transport scheme seems more likely of success than any so far. If only because for once there is funding available for it in Infrastructure Auckland's coffers.

The other thing going for it is the mass support from civic leaders. Once in a blue moon the planets put on a rare display of unity, lining up one after the other across the night sky. So it is on this occasion with our leaders.

After some years of fruitless sparring with Tranz Rail, trying to persuade it of the merits of shared corridor use, the region has now made a comprehensive offer.

It is in three parts. On the main trunk line from Papakura to Southdown, and then through the eastern suburbs, a modern version of existing passenger units is proposed.

On the main isthmus and the western lines, the proposal is to turn them into routes for a rapid-transit system, either for buses or light rail. As part of the proposal to Tranz Rail, the region would permit it to run freight trains after midnight on the same corridors when passenger transport was not operating.

The deal was supposed to have been completed by March 31. Tranz Rail has now ask that the deadline be extended to June 30. The region is expected to respond to this next week.

Tranz Rail claims to be just as keen to solve Auckland's transport woes as anyone. It just wants to do it its way - with big heavy trains. It also wants the capital expenditure involved funded from regional coffers.

You can't really blame Tranz Rail for being reluctant to hand over control of what is potentially the most lucrative slice of its empire other than the Cook Strait ferries.

But heavy rail is not the answer, and everybody but Tranz Rail seems to accept this.

The Government got us into this mess. If the impasse continues much longer, it's up to the Government to get us out of it. Fast.