Ben Ross : Auckland

Brittle Thinking

This post is a follow on from Stu’s, here, on the transport minister’s extraordinary answers to questions in parliament concerning the wisdom of his extremely unbalanced transport spending programme.

You will recall that Mr Brownlee thinks that petrol price is irrelevant to decisions about transport investment. Or at least I think that’s what he means by:

“it’s clearly evident then that the pump price is an extremely irrational input into the consideration of strategic transport policy.”

And that somehow supermarket discount vouchers are the proof of this… or something? The use of the word irrational here is apt as it is increasingly becoming the right word to describe almost every utterance by Mr B on transport matters. Regardless, let’s try to look at what he seems to be saying.

Basically the idea is that the only rational transport policy is one that builds roads whatever the price of the fuel needed to be able to use those roads. He is not saying that he thinks petrol is going to get cheaper, or even stop getting more expensive, but rather that it doesn’t matter how expensive it gets- we will still always need more roads than we have now. And why, because people will always drive more and more no matter what it costs; there can never be enough roads. And as this government always repeats, our exports need more and more roads to be able to get to port on trucks. So much so that these special new roads, despite duplicating existing ones and existing rail lines are certain to greatly add to our nation’s wealth; they are of National Significance. No matter like fuel cost can apparently have any bearing on this. It is all rather faith-based after that, because the mechanism for these great outcomes are hard to identify beyond a few incremental efficiencies; like slightly lower fuel costs, exactly the work that would be undone by higher fuel price.

You can see the rest of the article by hitting the link above.

But what I am hitting at is three points Patrick made:

So in summary:

1. people do seem to be trying to bend away from dependence on the increasing costs of driving where they can, but most have little option.

2. we may not have yet reached the breaking price point but it won’t be pretty if we do, and I’m sure it is already contributing to real hardship now.

3. having identified an inelasticity wouldn’t a wise government seek to increase options rather than be so determined to reinforce this vulnerability in our nation’s infrastructure and therefore the brittleness of society’s fabric?

Or to put it in terms that the government might understand, with its strange conflation of its work with that of running a business: The RoNS are a classic management mistake: a bold investment in last century’s successful line, which is now mature and certainly needs maintaining and some improving but is no longer growing, and missing the opportunity to invest in the new growth products ‘moving forward‘.

To which I have replied:

Okay being the social liberal Tory that I am, it is time to throw a different ball curve at this at look at this from a paradoxical angle.

Replying to Patrick’s four valid points:

1. people do seem to be trying to bend away from dependence on the increasing costs of driving where they can, but most have little option.

That is correct. As a Social Liberal and a true Tory I practice Individual Freedom, Individual Choice and Individual Responsibility. But with transport how on hell’s name can we practice Freedom, Choice and Responsibility when there is no freedom or choice in Auckland’s transport market. You often are coerced into your transport choice through lack of actual choice due to Government’s failure (along with Council too) to lay down a viable 50:50 split between roads and smart transport (including rail freight). I am lucky where I live; 2 mins to Papakura Station to take a train to town, and 10 minutes by car to Manukau for the shopping or movies. I have freedom and choice there as I can easily flip my options and drive to Britomart and catch a train (well two) or a bus to Manukau. But for most Aucklander’s they are often stuck with the car even though they would love to use other options. So I think we can all see the problem there. In my opinion (and don’t need to agree) you should be given the access to road or smart transport and be allowed to exercise your Freedom, Choice and Responsibility which includes consequences to your actions (negative and positive)…

2. we may not have yet reached the breaking price point but it won’t be pretty if we do, and I’m sure it is already contributing to real hardship now.

In short it is at breaking point – I see it down here in Papakura. However 91-gas sits anywhere between $2.099/litre to $2.22/litre depending which end of the Great South Road you are between Mahia Road – South Manurewa and South end of Papakura near the Papakura Interchange. Again point one applies here but does point three which I shall cover now.

3. having identified an inelasticity wouldn’t a wise government seek to increase options rather than be so determined to reinforce this vulnerability in our nation’s infrastructure and therefore the brittleness of society’s fabric?

If the Government has an ounce of a bloody brain between its ears and a transport minister that knew what the hell they were doing, they would suck the lemon on both sides of this coin and implement the following transition program:
From my submission to The Auckland Plan

This is how I see the progression through the energy sources (in this case transport) from traditional to new over the next 100 years.

Traditional (Oil based)
Hybrids (as a complement not as a replacement)
Electrics (as a complement not as a replacement)
Synthetic Fuels (coal based as New Zealand and Queensland have enough coal for at least 100 years)
Hydrogen fuel cells (as a total replacement for of traditional and synthetic fuel sources)

Synthetic fuel being: http://www.scribd.com/doc/87865499/Synthetic-Fuel

Using the process here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karrick_process

Now I do not need people to agree with me, but respect my opinion on this as I personally see the path New Zealand (providing we get a true progressive Government – this means future Minister of Transport in Waiting Julie-Ann Genter might very well bite the lemon in this transition path) going down as we head towards to 50:50 split in road:smart transport funding and a true low-carbon economy. I say this as we need to ease New Zealand through – not go shock and awe unless we want the economy to fail rather spectacularly fast and hard (remember people hate sudden change quickly).

This is my opinion on how to turn Brittle Thinking into something more solid.

Now unless we get Nuclear Fusion next year, and every car, truck, freight train and bus running on water/fuel cells I would love to see how we transition over without impinging on ones freedom’s, choices and responsibilities as citizens of NZ

My point? Irony is my point. That since 2007 I have been jumping up and down for someone in Government to transition us through to fuel cells using synthetic fuels so we do not suffer from petrol price spike shocks. That since 2010 I began advocating for a 50:50 split in transport funding between roads and what is now termed smart transport (rail, public and active) as well as the current 60:40 Brown:Greenfield urban development regime. And that since 2003 I roughly followed the above in a crude simulation called Sim City 4 (the mega city of 4 million called Solaria).

So you see I am constant here in what I believe and what needs to be done to take NZ forward. We just do not yet have the leadership or the politicians to take us forward…

I suppose the question I ask is:

DO I HAVE TO DO IT MYSELF?