Jarbury has done a comparative graph of the benefits of all the Roads of National Significance attached. This says it all.
Jarbury has done a comparative graph of the benefits of all the Roads of National Significance attached. This says it all.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 26th, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under Roads of National Significance, transport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great!
!
Says it all, really. I really look forward to seeing the day when Labour eviscerates Joyce for his dodgy employment of statistics (both misleading and outright wrong) to puff the Holiday Highway and rubbish the CBD link. Joyce’s anti-rail fictions have been going on, unchecked, for some time now; I’d argue now is the time for him to hold him to account or otherwise nothing will happen.
That’s good to hear David. If there’s an overwhelming case for the rail tunnel then using your own logic there’s an overwhelming case for the Western Ring route which has more than twice the conventional benefits of the CBD rail tunnel. Does this mean that you’ve finally come out to support the Waterview tunnel?
smh: one project at a time, CBD rail first
And by the way smh, does that mean that you’ve finally come out in support of the CBD rail tunnel?
The sad thing the about Puhoi-Wellsford link is that most the benefits would come from the relatively simple Wellsford bypass, and some safety upgrades on the existing highway. All for a small fraction of the cost.
I’m in awe of pretty much everything on ATB, it’s great…
Finally CV? I have never written anything about the CBD rail tunnel. Please don’t make up things that I have never said. David did oppose the government’s plan for Waterview and in fact in was a major plank of his election campaign last year. He is now using the benefits of the CBD rail tunnel as the rationale for supporting it when he ignored these benefits for the Western Ring route last year when he opposed that roading.
Happy Train!
!
Being against the governments plan doesn’t mean that he was against the tunnel or the ring route which, IIRC, Labour actually started anyway but were going to use a longer tunnel.
Now, personally, I would have been much happier if they’d dropped the ring route, historically more roads in Auckland had just made the congestion worse, and gone for a decent rail/public transport solution straight away.
I’m pushing the line that the RoNS are Joyce’s Think Big…
So many similiarities…
Look I haven’t yet read the business case helpfully posted here last night and I will, but in the meantime does anyone know whether and how it answers this. I lived in Auckland 1981-2005 and I’ve watched the traffic strangle the arteries for the last 20 years while no-one said or did anything except in the last five.
As everyone knows Auckland is not a hub and spoke daily-commute model as Wellington is. Spoke to Hub works in Wgtn because a huge % work in the compact CBD. Only 40% of Aucklanders who work, work in the CBD. Yes that sounds like a lot, but the reason the CBD gets clogged is because everyone but everyone lives in the burbs. The only way to deal with CBD congestion is to deal with the burb’s arteries, and a CBD rail loop does nothing for that. Yes there are increasing numbers of CBD apartment dwellers, but they either walk to work or drive to the burbs to work. So what’s a CBD rail loop going to do, to address the arterial congestion, for don’t forget, 60% of Aucklanders travel from one burb to another, and that’s why all the motorways are blocked, not because everyone wants to get to the CBD, although many do, 60% don’t.
I’ve said for years, what you need to do, is to identify the commute traffic patterns. The easiest way to do that, is to put a survey in with the rates demand, and give a small incentive, say 0.2% off the rates bill for filling it in each year. That way you know who goes to what suburb from which suburb and can plan accordingly.
Yawn. Keep the money and use it to cut taxes some more.
Only 12% of Aucklanders work in the CBD and therein lies the problem… It’s a chicken and egg situation, it used to be the opposite, we killed our PT system and built motorways and the CBD declined, this project would encouraged CBD development…
160,000 vehicles pass through Spaghetti Junction every day, many not even heading to the CBD, the rail loop does a number of things:
- It encourages job concentration in the CBD
- It takes vehicles off the road that would otherwise use the Spaghetti Junction
- It increases the railways capacity
The last point is the pertinent one, after electrification the railways will hit capacity at 16 million in 2016 (crush loads are already beginning to be a problem during peak on the Southern Line), the only way to increase this is to build the tunnel as Britomart will be the choke point… It doubles the existing system’s capacity and allows new lines to be built in future, that is how it will take traffic off suburban roads, as some of the cars heading to the CBD from South, West, Central and Onehunga that would have been on the road will be removed (each car removed by rail has a BCR of 17)…
Thanks for the correction Jeremy, so it’s even worse.
But how, for the first two?
For the capacity, a business case based on increasing railway capacity depends on actual and projected passenger loadings so what are those. Why improve capacity without those?
What I mean is:
“It encourages job concentration in the CBD”
Why would established businesses in the burbs be attracted to uproot their well-established selves from the burbs and migrate to the CBD merely because it had a rail loop? Why?
On the first point – mainly because of the capacity of railways, a railway can move 20,000 – 40,000 people per hour, while a motorway lane can move 2,400 vehicles… So the footprint is smaller, it’ll be underground, you don’t have to add to the 50,000 car spaces in the CBD and 300,000 – 400,000 Aucklanders will be within a 30 min train ride of the CBD… All reasons for demand for CBD office and retail space to increase…
About 55% of people who live outside the CBD and work inside it drive in, the loop will make the whole CBD accessable by rail and with integrated ticketing and a more “feeder” bus system a lot of new workers will be in the city and a higher percentage of them will use PT… I haven’t yet read the BCR report but I’m guessing the benefits to the bus and ferry system play a large part of the high WEB…
Rail users p.a. were 2,000,000 odd in the early 2000s, 8,500,000 today and with electrification and new rolling stock in 2013 the “sparks affect” will ensure we’ll hit capacity of 16,000,000 by ARTA’s 2016 prediction (even if we started building tomorrow we’d have 5 years of packed out trains, the screams for it by 2017 will be deafening), my guess is we’ll hit capacity in 2014 if Perth’s “sparks effect is anything to go by – it is, but we need it, it makes economic sense (compared to quangos like Puhoi) and if we’re going to continue to run a socialist transport system and ignore road pricing, we might as well build the projects that make economic sense rather than Joyce’s Think Big style monuments…
I’ve replied but it’s stuck in mod for some reason, maybe because I called our current transport system “s*cialist”…
Dicing with fire Jeremy, dicing with fire.
The underlying scandal needs to be highlighted here. About a decade ago, Auckland ratepayers parted with half a billion dollars to build the “cul de sac” called Britomart. It stands idle for most part of the day, but at peak times, capacity is being stretched. Yet only a tiny fraction of desired passenger volumes is being carried!
What we really need is some reconfiguration at Westfield to allow trains to LOOP around the Eastern and Southern lines, enabling someone in Orakei (say) to travel to Penrose without changing trains.
It is also important to get that PARNELL station handling University Students and staff – think of the potential to reduce traffic volumes there.
And now we are being asked to smash our way through the end of the gleaming Britomart station and I think that this is in vain. To increase service to the city, reopen a few platforms at the OLD railway station, and run a monorail service to selected stops from there. That should have been done in the first place but John Banks’ council was emotionally attached to this white elephant.
@ Jeremy
Rumour had it you can’t mention that Taito Phillip Feild is in prison and that Michael Cullen defended his actions or that Chris Carter had no faith in the leadership, here either.
Oops, I guess you can. My apologies. Red Alert does stand for freedom of speech, unlike Simon Power.
“…Joyce’s Think Big style monuments.”
The Holiday Highway is a disgrace. What is Joyce thinking, especially in these times? A job creator? No. A vote creator? No. To voters, it’s business as usual.
Duh.
A rare miscalculation, a big one.
Re: the loop, don’t conflate.
Seriously, still haven’t seen hard evidence that would cause myriad well-established Auckland burb businesses of all sizes to uproot and re-establish in the CBD which is what the rail-loop plan depends upon?
How precisely is this going to happen?
It doesn’t have to be a case of firms relocating necessarily, new businesses for instance would be inclined to move into redeveloped sites…
There have been numerous studies about the link between new major rapid transport stations and new private development and intensification… Ditto pedestrianisation and retail sale increases…
The reasons are complex and numerous but to give an example, parking… The rest of Auckland is subject to parking requirements for customers and to a lesser extent staff, a business must provide parking capacity to cater to 85% of it’s peak time customers – it’s a big cost in both land and money… The CBD has no such requirements, this is a huge saving (just think how much rates Westfield CBD is saving when you consider how much Westfield St Lukes’ parking garage costs must be), the obvious answer is to eliminate parking requirements but while the status quo remains it’s a CBD advantage if a good quality, rapid PT option exists… I’ve also touched on the retail advantage if more people and a higher percentage of walking people are in the CBD, the loop encourages this…
The list goes on but the link between new major PT infrastructure and development is, I believe, factual…
I would point out that in NZ it is considered taboo to be a small government advocate and be pro-PT but there is no need… Copenhagen which has less than 20% of work commutes by car spends 4% of it’s city’s wealth on transport, London, NY, Tokyo about 8%, cities like Auckland and car-centric US ones spend 16% – 17%… It just needs to be done right…
The old station failed because of it’s location, people don’t want to change to a new transport mode…
Britomart was planned under Mills, built under Fletcher and opened by Banks a couple of months after he became Mayor for the first time – he critised it long and loud from day one till he opened it…
Quite apart from being a white elephant it has performed better than anyone expected that’s why it is about to hit it’s capacity… If only the libraries was as full…
Jeremy fact is, people who have kids live in the burbs and that’s all of us. You will get growth in the city-dwellers from retirees and people under 35 who want the lifestyle, but after that, not much.
Those are the demographics.
Parking goes to the heart of what I’m saying. Given that Auckland is like a spider-web not a hub and spoke, just whereabouts do you organise massive ground area for lots of car parks for those who wish to use the loop? Bear in mind we’re talking about massive car-parks carved over lots and lots of the most expensive real estate in the country, (presumably?) replacing it with asphalt.
I would feel better about realigning our buses and train so that they work with each other, instead of competing against one another. I would have to catch three buses to get to my nearest train station, when the stations should really be local hubs served by buses run around suburbs like shuttle buses.
Cool idea Dan!
On second thought, I support this only if government grants resource consent like ‘that’, and lets some private company build it. Not a cent of public funds should be spent on something that we can live without.
Hope you’re planning to picket outside Rugby World Cup events then, also WETA Studios once they start work on The Hobbit lol
Unless of course Infinity, you can’t live without rugby union nor your dose of film hacked Tolkien, in which case I will excuse you!
“Hope you’re planning to picket outside Rugby World Cup events then, also WETA Studios once they start work on The Hobbit lol”
Ouch! Lol
Hi Al1ens
Morning, Spud.
Ummm… the point of the loop is that you can get people into the CBD without them having to use their cars – so you don’t need masses of parking.
You do know it’s a rail tunnel right?
Long jarbury awaits a CBD
Of fine calbire
Loop
I meant calibre
Lost the plot
Out of tiredness
Laughing though.
I think maybe some people dont realise its a tunnel.
EVERYONE I have spoken to who went to eden park for the League game LOVED that they could use buses and trains so easily. It was a new experience for some in Auckland who harked back to he days of their OE’s in London when talking about it
Lovely Tracey
Our lady of law
Lovely trains, let’s hope galore!
There once was a boy on a blog
With a bone he was more like a dog
He loved to put smilies
Live the life of Riley
And occassionally partake of the grog
Acutally, we didn’t give money to WB. We cut their taxes as a incentive to create 3000 jobs. We changed the law just like any government does, to appease a lobby group. Labour never did that? Oh, wait, unions, tree huggers, etc.
I don’t agree with public funding for the RWC. But you guys set that up, so, meh.
And I’ll never picket, conservatives don’t, except the Tea Party in the ‘States, I guess. They don’t in this country. Besides, most protesters just do it because there’s a National government, they have no real opinions other than “oh no! those poor, non working folk might have to try harder! how UNFAIR” and so forth.
I still find it highly amusing that the Labour party picketed the mining debate, despite claiming to be a party for the working man, and put tress ahead of jobs. Then again, you did abandon the Labour movement in favour of progressivism.
LOL
Tracey, that was beautiful 
A Limerik no less, how Irish of you!