Simon Wilson: The good and bad in Wayne Brown’s plan to fix Auckland congestion

OPINION

It was vintage WayneBrownery: Identify a problem, cut through the BS to find a solution, demand that it be done. It’s what we like about the guy.

The problem in this case is the congestion on Auckland’s roads. Brown’s solution is something he calls “time of use” charging. He wants tolls on two stretches of motorway that will apply when the traffic gets too dense for the roads to flow.

This is a version of “congestion charging”, where drivers are charged a fee to use certain roads at certain times. London, Singapore, Stockholm and several other cities have had congestion charging for some time. In New Zealand, the concept enjoys wide political support but no one has been prepared to make it happen.

So Brown has called the politicians out. He and his council know they can’t do it themselves. Motorways belong to the Crown and are operated by the state transport agency, Waka Kotahi. And councils cannot charge for using the roads they do control, without a specific law allowing it.

But they can ask. They can demand. They can make the case so compelling, no government wanting the support of Aucklanders could look away.

That’s what Brown and Auckland Council, working with their own agency, Auckland Transport, have resolved to do. Last week they voted 19-2 to produce a plan for quick, priority action, and to try to make the Government listen.

This will be a real test of Brown’s skills. Good on him for taking it on.

But though the mayor is right to demand action, his proposed solution is also vintage WayneBrownery. It’s half-baked.

First, the positives. He’s right that we can’t build our way out of the problem with more roads. More roads mean more traffic.

He’s also right that most of the objections to congestion charging are solvable and are often overstated (more on that below). And he’s right that the solution should involve variable “time of use” charging: when roads aren’t clogged they don’t need to be tolled.

Brown is also right about something else: we don’t need to wait for enormous, slow-to-build, super-expensive infrastructure. We need something done now, and something can be done now.

But, but, but. At last week’s meeting, Brown said Auckland’s road congestion affects “known hot spots at known times, every single workday”.

Clearly, he doesn’t do much driving in the city. Congestion is a seven-day problem and it’s widespread throughout the road network.

It starts with the morning peak traffic and on many roads it doesn’t let up until the end of the evening peak. In addition to the commute times, it’s especially bad over lunchtime, when schools get out, and on Saturdays.

Shoppers at Westfield Mall in Newmarket could tell Brown all about this. Last Saturday, reportedly, some of them were trapped for three hours just trying to get out of the car park building.

Nor will it help very much to put a toll on just a couple of sections of motorway. That’s more likely to transfer the problem to somewhere else.

Many motorists will try avoiding the charge by using local roads instead. There’ll be more rat-running through back streets and local arterials will become even more congested than they are now.

The AA was frank about this when it submitted to a parliamentary select committee looking at congestion charging in 2021. Congestion is the “top concern” of its Auckland members, said the lobby group. But despite that, when surveyed, 66 per cent of those members said they would “probably try to find free routes instead of paying a charge”.

As several councillors said in the council debate last week, Brown’s plan risks our local roads becoming both less efficient and more dangerous. This undermines one of the central functions of motorways: they’re supposed to take vehicles off local roads.

Traffic moves slowly through the spaghetti junction area in central Auckland during the evening peak period. Photo / Peter Meecham

Is there a better way? Yes, there is. It’s contained in a report called The Congestion Question, which was supported by that same select committee, but somehow never became law.

The Congestion Question proposed a cordon around central Auckland. There are only 17 roads into the city centre: if you cross the line on any one of them, you would pay.

It wouldn’t be hard and it shouldn’t cost much. Cameras, along with power and broadband fibre, already exist at every relevant intersection.

As transport consultant Brian Ritchie told the select committee during its Auckland hearings in 2021, you don’t want drivers planning sneaky routes into town. “You want to influence the first decision: ‘I know if I leave my house at a certain time, it will cost me’.”

A cordon would do that. In time, the same approach would be extended to other parts of the city.

Most of the concerns about congestion charging relate to equity. Whenever we increase the cost of a basic service or function, it hurts households with low incomes the most.

But the impact can be modified and it’s important not to overstate the problem.

Charges won’t apply outside busy times, for example, so won’t affect anyone working on night shifts. And everyone benefits from having less-congested roads, including people working three jobs who need to get quickly from one to the next.

One essential way to ensure equity is to have really good public transport (PT).

It’s a myth that Auckland’s bus and train services are all rubbish. In many parts of the city they’re very good. As it happens, that includes Newmarket on Saturday afternoons, where drivers get jammed up in carpark buildings.

And for many Aucklanders, PT will soon (or in some cases soonish) be significantly better. KiwiRail’s maintenance project will be finished, the CRL will increase services and double capacity, the Eastern Busway will be finished and the Northern Busway extended, the new Western Express buses will be working properly, there will be more bus services with priority use of the roads. School-age children already ride for free.

But we’ll still need more, including free or lower fares for more users, more frequency, more reliability and faster trips. All of this is doable, especially if it’s funded by a congestion charge.

Councillor Angela Dalton, who represents the city’s Manurewa-Papakura ward, made an excellent point last week. “I’m supporting this today,” she said, referring to the mayor’s congestion charging proposal, “but from this point on we have to make sure every other decision we make supports this one”.

Manurewa-Papakura councillor Angela Dalton, who supports congestion charging provided everything is done to make the alternative transport options viable. Photo / Jason Oxenham

She meant, among other things, that public transport has to keep getting better, with priority on the roads for buses and no funding cuts that undermine its value.

Do equity issues mean certain types of road user should be exempt from congestion charges? Mobility vehicle users have a case. In my view, if the buses and trains are good, that’s about it.

At the select committee hearings in 2021, though, the AA was joined by the business group Heart of the City, Federated Farmers and truck lobbyists, all claiming they should have special carve-outs.

When the truckies tried to make their case, a relatively new politician couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. That was the Botany MP, Christopher Luxon. Maybe, finally, this really will happen.

The simple fact, worldwide, is that when everyone owns a car and tries to drive it everywhere, cities cannot function. EVs will make it worse.

This isn’t an anti-car sentiment. What happened in the Westfield carpark on Saturday will keep happening, until we rethink the value of clogging up our cities with private vehicles.

Congestion charging works in London not just because they have great PT and bike superhighways, but because the charge is a very high £15 ($31) a day. In Singapore, it works because in the densely packed island nation, the benefits are obvious. Each city finds its own solution.

Or if it doesn’t, the citizens suffer. Bucharest, the capital of Romania, has about two million people, an excellent subway system, an extensive network of surface trams and lots of buses. And yet the roads are a terrible, congested mess.

Why? Because apart from the congestion itself, which the locals treat as inevitable, there are no disincentives to driving. Parking is cheap, buses don’t get priority and, most of all, there are no congestion charges.

Bucharest’s transport system is all carrot and no stick. And that doesn’t work.

Wayne Brown understands this. His solution is not perfect, but its failings are fixable. Perfection should not be the enemy of progress.

Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.