Shane Te Pou: Where has the ‘public’ gone from public transport?

Auckland Transport have cancelled one in three train services up until March.

OPINION

In the comedy of errors that is Auckland public transport, the jokes write themselves.

On Monday, one of the mildest days we’ve had in weeks, AT cancelled 89 trains as a result of “heat”, before throwing KiwiRail under the proverbial bus in a fiery press release.

The following morning, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown - sounding like a cross between Supernanny and Principal Skinner - decried the latest interruptions as “unacceptable” and demanded that the chief executives of the companies involved (or, “you three”, as he put it) meet with him on the issue.

Last week, our new Minister for Roads - sorry, Transport - described his vision for getting Auckland “back on track”, which mostly comprises a set of incentives to keep us off the tracks that we already have. All the while, this can of worms gets kicked further down the road.

These are jokes that we have heard before and they aren’t getting any funnier. Rather, they have serious consequences for everyday people who simply cannot rely on the trains to get them where they need to be, on time.

Exactly where the buck stops with regard to the indefensibly poor performance of Auckland’s rail network is conveniently unclear.

Aotearoa’s rail assets are owned by KiwiRail, a state-owned enterprise. They are responsible for providing access to, managing traffic on, and ultimately maintaining the lines.

Metropolitan rail services in Auckland are administered by Auckland Transport, which is classed as a council-controlled organisation and contracts the actual operation of the trains out to Auckland One Rail. They’re a private joint venture between two rail companies - Singaporean and Australian, respectively.

So what happened on Monday, exactly? Why were we, despite the assembled bureaucratic might and the accepted wisdom that it tends to get hot in the middle of summer, unprepared for the practically Saharan intensity of a 24C day?

AT director of public transport services Stacey van der Putten put forward that they were “having to cancel train services … because of speed restrictions put in place by KiwiRail”.

KiwiRail’s David Gordon rebutted that it wasn’t a “stop running trains” order and that it affected just 4km of track between Otahuhu and Papakura, seeming to suggest that AT’s cancellations were disproportionate to the size of the fault.

Auckland One Rail said nothing on the matter.

All we know is that there are a set of ill-defined ‘vulnerabilities’ to the city’s rail network, and, all else remaining equal, they are not projected to be addressed any time soon. These three organisations, individual threads of a gordian knot, are playing hacky sack with issues that compromise the public good.

The problem, I believe, is inherent to the architecture of the system.

Aotearoa’s rail network is a highly necessary and valuable asset that has been passed back and forth between the public and private sector with little regard for long-term viability. As it stands today, 13 per cent of freight in this country is moved by rail, producing 70 per cent less emissions per net-tonne/km than when it is moved by road.

A 2021 report commissioned by the Ministry of Transport found that the total value of passenger rail is around the $2 billion mark, offering savings or improvement in congestion, air quality, fuel use, maintenance costs, and safety. An earlier version of the report put the value of metropolitan passenger rail services at 77 per cent of the total value of rail in New Zealand.

Ready for the kicker? KiwiRail, as a state-owned enterprise, exists in a competitive market and with an operational profit motive. The income generated by passenger rail makes up only a small percentage of the company’s total revenue, whereas freight is a consistently lucrative revenue stream. Both rely on the same network of tracks.

As a result, freight is effectively prioritised over passenger rail and commuters face the knock-on effect of high prices for an unreliable service.

KiwiRail is operating under a self-contradictory mandate and we cannot expect market forces to push them in the direction of public good. Auckland Transport is asleep at the wheel, and Auckland One Rail is laughing all the way to an Australian bank.

Our current government’s approach to this thorny and systemic issue is to charge ahead with removing the Auckland Fuel Tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acknowledges that “Auckland is facing some huge infrastructure challenges … but this fuel tax is actually not being used to deliver them.

“Instead it’s delivered more cycle lanes, red light cameras and speed humps.”

Because of course it’s the ‘woke’ scourge of speed bumps and traffic cameras that is slowing Auckland down, right? This is the red tape and bureaucratic inefficiency that must be looked at, not the fact that three organisations with billions in combined resources are able to bring our biggest city’s rail network to an effective halt over 4km of track and a balmy afternoon?

If our PM has the roading vision of a boy racer and our transport agencies are going to act like guilty schoolchildren, then perhaps a trip to the principal’s office is what’s needed.

I have disagreed with Wayne before and I will surely do so again, but on this issue he has my full support.

Public transport is a public good and we deserve action and accountability - not the runaway train to nowhere that we have now.