This week, the Waikato Regional Passenger Transport Committee got the bad news from the New Zealand Transport Agency that the funding that had been destined for public transport has been “redirected” by the Government into building more roads.
I must admit that I felt sorry for the councillors as I watched their discomfort at hearing this news.
I imagine some of them felt a bit conflicted, because they had argued so vigorously for the Waikato Expressway to be the top transport priority for the region.
I could see the realisation of how that campaign has been used against them start to dawn on their faces.
However, they are not to blame. They chose that priority for the region when Labour was in Government and they were never going to have to sacrifice one for the other. Labour’s committment to progressively improving public transport had enabled Hamilton’s bus patronage to increase by 9% per annum in recent years.
With the change in Government, this has all changed. The Government funding for public transport for the region will only increase by 3% next year and then will be frozen for the next two years.
With 9% growth in the use of buses in Hamilton, this means that either services will have to be cut and/or passenger fares will have to increase significantly.
Both options will force people off buses and back into their cars. Smart eh?
It also makes it virtually impossible for the Hamilton to Auckland passenger train service to be established even if the proposed trial is successful.
What a great leap backwards.
I heard somewhere that something like 1% of transport money in the Waikato area is being spent on public transport. Hmmm… and I thought we had it bad here in Auckland.
Any progress on Hamilton-Auckland rail Sue?
Regardless of a 3% funding increase with a 9% increase in passengers I guess these people will be paying fares and much like an airline if you increase passengers on existing services that goes straight to the bottom line, the buses are fuller and more profitable.
I would have thought a 12% profit increase should allow extra services to be funded Sue ?
Is the 9% increase in bus patronage also linked to the rapid rise in fuel prices in recent years? In fact public transport patronage across the nation also increased not just Hamilton, strongly linked to increased pump price.
How I hate these useless posts that pick out tidbits of information to frame the debate. I you have all the numbers put them up Sue, so we can discuss what’s happening here, not just your interpretation of it.
How do you know that services will be cut or fares increased dramatically becaused there is only a 3% increase in funding.
Were the buses running to full capacity before ?.
I doubt it.
Dimmo – so the focus of this government is NOT on building more roads?
The issues are pretty simple here folks. When funding levels are frozen, but costs and demand for a Government/ ratepayer subsidised service continues to rise then somethings gotta give. The Waikato councillors understand this.
They’ve also worked out that the Government has put the boot into the plans they had to improve public transport in the region so that even more people would use it.
..And before the Crosby Textor lines come out about Government subsidies, what else do you call the taxpayer footing the $1b bill for an expressway that only reduces the drivetime between Hamilton and Auckland by 10 minutes in 10 years time?
Just don’t start me on how much longer cars will idle on Aucklands Southern Motorway becuase this Government is retrenching on public transport funding. More than 10 minutes I reckon.
@ Jarbury. Nothing to report on the rail proposal yet, but negotiations are continuing.
My concern is that even if the trial goes ahead, this effective funding cut for passenger transport for the region gives it little chance of being funded beyond the trial.
Please lets not get distracted by regional rail. It will do nothing for Hamiltons and Aucklands transport problems. In fact they will cause more problems for train scheduling in Auckland to run a regular train from Auckland to Hamilton and return. There are plenty of good value bus services for this.
@Tigger, that’s not the point of the issue here. I was asking Sue to put up the actual numbers if she has them. Her latest statement: “When funding levels are frozen, but costs and demand for a Government/ ratepayer subsidised service continues to rise then somethings gotta give” is another example of useless information.
As I understand, funding levels are to increase by 3% while demand is expected to grow by 9%. That’s a substantial increase in revenue. Logic dictates that the bus system must be utterly inefficient and uneconomical if it’s going to go bust on such numbers. That’s why I want more data, so I can understand what’s happening. The fact that Waikato Councillors ‘get that’ doesn’t give me any confidence at all in the accuracy of Sue’s statement.
“With 9% growth in the use of buses in Hamilton, this means that either services will have to be cut and/or passenger fares will have to increase significantly.”
I would have thought the outcome would be the opposite, my bus is so full now they have increased the service frequency and no doubt it is quite profitable too. What other transport company cuts services because of increased demand ?
Dimmocrazy , all bus services are ‘inefficient’ by your rigid economic reasoning, thats because there is a huge peak twice a day and with lower demand during the day and very little demand at night. Buses and staff have to be at levels for the peaks.
Normally public subsidies are for the schoolchildren and others who get reduced fares but essentially cost the same as other passengers. AS well some routes may not recover costs during the day or at night.
AS well the costs of fuel are not in line with other costs.
So while some routes may be making more money, it doesnt mean the unprofitable services or cut price passengers are doing so. As thses are often private companies they dont seem to want to move profits from some services to others.
So what you are saying GWW is that not only the passengers get subsidized, the drivers, who don’t work the rest of the day, as well? Or do they travel around town with empty buses? If that’s the case that can’t be good for the environment either.
Furthermore, I don’t think I suffer from ‘rigid economic’ reasoning, I was only asking for data to understand the issue, which I still find quite strange, namely an INCREASE in funding and an INCREASE in passenger numbers, still giving rise to a situation where something ‘will give’. It just doesn’t make sense, can’t you see that?
Now of course I have heard on the news that the bus drivers are seeking some increase in wages, and all of a sudden I start to appreciate what is really going on here, and why our good Labour friends are mum on providing some hard numbers. I think that the increase in funding has very little to do with services, and a lot with buttering up unionized bus drivers. But that’s just my rigid economic reasoning perhaps…
Hey Ghost, I going to take a calculated risk a place a bet that you haven’t been on the Hamilton to Auckland bus services in recent times.
The buses also get stuck in peak hour traffic and take about 2.75 hours on a good run. It’s just not practical for Hamiltonians to use this service for getting to and from work in Auckland each day.
@ Dimmo, even the NZTA didn’t have the hard figures on the impact of the Government’s funding freeze to offer the Waikato Councillors – they have effectively said it is their problem to sort out.
What I can tell you is how the councillors reacted …and they do have the figures. But maybe you know better than them – that is possible.
Sue , all Aucklanders are stuck in traffic for hours a day. Ditto Auckland bus passengers. Its unrealistic for there to be a fast train public transport for commuters live in Hamilton and work in Auckland.
With only 2 tracks scheduling an express service between existing stop at all stations trains doesn’t work either.
This is one of the problems on the very crowded melbourne train lines where there are only 2 tracks
One of the reasons the North Shore busway is going so well is the buses dont occupy an exclusive track
Poeple also need to consider the system as a whole instead of focussing on subsidies for individual services… A city that has huge share of active modes and PT over private car use can have a GDP expenditure on transport as low as 4% (Copenhagen as an example) while “user-pays” road based cities such as Auckland, Hamilton and most American cities are around 16%… In transport it is not as simple as “if everyone pays for their own movements all the time it is the best system”…
When you consider that the US has 40% of it’s freight carried by rail and a huge number of rail corridors sitting unused for passenger rail in all it’s large cities it becomes clear that NZ is the most car dependent country in the first world and in real trouble transport wise in the future…
This is very troubling when we consider the looming double whammy of peak oil and climate change… All other countries in the world are investing in PT, especially light/heavy rail in their big cities (even the US) like crazy except here, that is very, very worrying…
Peak oil is going to push the prices of oil up and a small market at the end of a long logistical train (that we are the definition of) will feel the effects of higher prices first (not to mention the nonsensical approach of paying $7 billion a year to import oil to run imported cars when we have such huge renewable electrical reserves and potential to expand our electric transport… Our yearly current account deficit is $7 billion in no small part due to our transport policy) the only question about peak oil is when it will happen, sadly for us formerly conservative scientists (the IEA IIRC) have stated it is has most likely started now rather than our previous best estimate that was 2020…
Looking at climate change it doesn’t really matter if you are a believer or not as foreign countries most definitely are and our carbon emissions are soon going to start costing us and as it seems global warming is following our worst estimates thus far, possibly costing us big if panic starts…
So what could we do to avoid this..? Well by simply building a more balanced road/rail/shipping network and more electrified PT in our main cities so we have an adaptable transport system… Even if peak oil isn’t as soon as we think or climate change isn’t happening we can get the beneifts of a better current account deficit and less of our GDP spent on transport…
The current road building binge is so poorly thought out as to be negligent, we are going in exactly the wrong direction at the wrong time and it will mean our decline into the bottom few countries in the OECD (if not last) and require a HUGE investment in a short period of time in a decade or two which will cripple our country and children with debt…
When we consider Australia is investing $40-50 billion in just rail (let alone total PT) in the decade compared to $900 million (Auckland electrification excluded) projected under National in the next decade it makes our hopes of catching Australia by 2025 a joke and will mean an exodus over the ditch… Not to mention the joke of even trying for a 15% emission reduction nationally when expending our roading network in a never before seen manner…
*rant ends*
sounds like any transport out of Hamilton would be well recieved
Sue, I really appreciate your pushing for rail between Hamilton and Auckland as always, thank you.
I’ve been (practically) living between Auckland and Hamilton for two years now, something’s got to change or State Highway One is going to continue to be a bottle-neck to productivity.
More directly to the issue at hand. Public transport in Hamilton is terrible, frankly. But it’s not necessarily Environment Waikato’s fault. There are two issues: suburban sprawl and all those petit-bourgeoisie and their damned car-fetishes, alongside low bus frequencies and the times being out of synch with workers.
I’d like to see greater frequency during peak times, an earlier start and later finish for workers, and adjusted during the school holidays to cope with the school children who go in and out of town around midday. That, of course, requires money.