Improved economies of scale from the amalgamation of the eight local authorities have helped Auckland Council maintain services at reduced cost, says a council report on efficiency savings.
Average rates increases have reduced year on year from previously anticipated rises while capital works are nearly double that of the former councils.
Annual operating savings to June 2013 were $131million and are budgeted to be $188million by June 2018.
Savings have come from benefits including:
simpler and better information technology
better purchasing and tendering processes
bringing more work in-house to reduce reliance on external resources
reducing the number of office buildings occupied.
“The benefits of amalgamation become more evident with each year,” said Councillor Penny Webster, chair of the Finance and Performance Committee.
“We’re running a ruler over everything we do as we manage ratepayers money. That’s what is expected of us and we are delivering savings while pressing ahead with projects that will make the city a .better place for residents to live in, enjoy, and prosper,” she said.
—-Ends—
You can read both the Finance and Performance Committee Agenda, and Addendum Agenda (which contains the motions on disposing of the Civic Building mentioned here: Future Uncertain for Civic Building)
Hearings Begin on Warkworth Section of Holiday Highway
The Herald has noted that the Board of Enquiry gets under way today for the Puhoi-Warkworth section of the Puhoi-Welsford Roads of National Significance Program otherwise known as the Holiday Highway.
Fast-tracking of $760m extension to be considered over 14 days.
Plans for one of the country’s most expensive transport projects – a $760 million extension of Auckland’s motorway network to Warkworth – go under the microscope today.
A board of inquiry appointed for fast-tracking planning consideration of the 18.5km extension as the first half of a Road of National Significance will preside over 14 days of hearings.
The Government is promoting the extension over 12 viaducts and bridges from the Johnstones Hill traffic tunnels south of Puhoi to a new roundabout north of Warkworth, as a vital freight and tourism link with Northland.
Even so, many of the 14,000 vehicles a day expected to use the new road by 2026 will double back to Warkworth’s often bottlenecked Hill St turnoff to eastern beaches.
That keeps critics such as Auckland Council infrastructure chairman Mike Lee calling it “the holiday highway” to the intense annoyance of Northland leaders and former Rodney mayor Penny Webster.
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There will only be one traffic interchange between Orewa and Warkworth, to be confined to just south-facing ramps at Puhoi, after residents protested against an earlier plan which would have denied them access.
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So you will need to double back and still get held up at the notorious Hill Road intersection at Warkworth in order to get to the eastern beaches. That in itself is rather self-defeating.
In any case the Holiday Highway even if fully completed as the gold-plated 4-lane motorway would still fall well short of where it would need to be if it were to serve the population and industrial centres of Northland. You would need to take the motorway all the way to Whangarei itself to get the “benefits” you would be sort after – much like the 4-lane expressway Auckland to Hamilton and Cambridge.
Ironically there has been two more cheaper but more beneficial transport schemes to connect Auckland up to Northland than the Holiday Highway. One is Operation Lifesaver devised by Transport Blog, the other is to fully upgrade the North Auckland (rail) Line from Swanson to Whangarei with a branch line to Marsden Point (home of a deep water port and our oil refinery) to allow our more powerful DL’s to haul longer trains from the area south (like logs).
You can read about Operation Lifesaver as an alternative to the Holiday Highway HERE.
Operation Lifesaver I believe follows the same premise as the upgrades to State Highway 2 that have happened and are going to continue to happen again soon. You can read what NZTA has done and what it will be up to with State Highway 2 here: Safety Improvements for State Highway 2. Once the upgrades are complete that section of State Highway 2 (which carries more regular, holiday and freight traffic than the Holiday Highway ever would) will allow that traffic to travel efficiently and safely to their destinations. So if these kind of simple upgrades to a much busier State Highway 2 are effective why does State Highway 1 going north need to be a 4-lane Motorway that does not really go the distance it would need to? And these upgrades to State Highway 2 are very similar to what Operation Lifesaver proposes.
Lets hope this Board of Inquiry puts the Holiday Highway under the same intense microscope as it did to a Wellington Highway project last month. And cross fingers the Board of Inquiry might start shifting us away from this motorway to something more viable that will not break the bank…
“Official Electrification Launch” Updated with Auckland Transport video of the features of an EMU And so yesterday the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport officially launched “electrification” … Continue reading A Non Event Yesterday
I have noted a Herald article about Auckland metro rail passenger numbers at record levels while ferry numbers are dipping (it will be the fares) this morning. Check “Rail clips the ticket as ferry trips fall away” for more on that story.
Tauranga to Auckland by Rail?
Before the last Labour Government (1999-2008) ditched the service the Silver Fern rail car use to run a daily service between Tauranga and Auckland that would take around 3.5 hours each way. As a kid I use to catch it when holidaying with my grandparents who reside in Tauranga and the trip wasn’t that bad – even though it took an hour longer than going by car.
There have been numerous attempts since the service was scrapped to reinstate the service but the infrastructure investment alone would be costly to allow dual freight/passenger running again. None-the-less a new attempt via a study is being pushed to reinstate the inter-city rail service.
Posted at 7:01am Sunday 30 Mar, 2014 | By Luke Balvert luke@thesun.co.nz
The re-instatement of a passenger train between Tauranga and Auckland continues to gain strong interest from a group of city firms currently shelling out more than $100,000 a week on commuting costs.
A Priority One study investigated 37 targeted corporates and other businesses in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty to find what their inter-city travel requirements, practices and costs are and whether they would be interested in the concept of commuting by rail.
Corporates and businesses commuting the most include Zespri International, BECA, Comvita, Sharp Tudhope and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic.
Travelling by road means several hours of unproductive time, while flying can be costly and still requires a trip into the city from the airport – both expensive and time consuming.
Together the 37 firms currently spend $104,558 in travel costs and staff time on weekly commutes, including $71,550 in unproductive staff time, $23,408 in driving mileage and $9600 in air travel, including taxi fares.
Priority One project manager Annie Hill says in the last few years interest has been generated in reinstating the passenger train service, with firms supportive to align with business needs in Auckland.
Of those that travel at least once a week to Auckland, 88 per cent say they would consider using the service. But they note the service would need to be faster than driving, have wi-fi capabilities, not be too expensive, and have reasonable departure times to suit business needs.
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So we have a problem and that is the inter-city commute between Auckland and Tauranga. Passenger rail between Auckland and Tauranga could work but as it was noted in red: “the service would need to be faster than driving, have wi-fi capabilities, not be too expensive, and have reasonable departure times to suit business needs.“
So the infrastructure (tracks, signals, points and eventually rolling stock) will need to be brought up to scratch before even attempting to run passenger rail between the two cities again.
Annie says despite the survey, giving New Zealand Transport Agency via SmartGrowth an economic viewpoint on the cost, the chances of a commuter service are very slim in the next 20-30 years as the rail lines do not have the capacity.
With freight rail the current priority, the rail service would need a significant upgrade to accommodate a fast passenger service, says Annie.
Yep that is the case with the current set up of the lines at the moment. To get a viable passenger service between Auckland and Tauranga you would need to do the following upgrades first:
The third main between Westfield and Pukekohe
Double tracking between Pukekohe and Hamilton
More passing loops between Hamilton and Tauranga with possible full double tracking in 30-years
Reinstatement of Tauranga Station which would need to be on its own loop away from main line to allow freight trains to continue to move unimpeded
Rolling stock to support three services a day in each direction between Tauranga and Papakura (you would transfer to an EMU to continue the trip north)
All this would take time and considerable investment. But with increasing freight trains to Hamilton and Tauranga from Auckland you could tie the investment in double/triple tracking plus more passing loops with freight as well as wanting passenger services as well. This would make investment in the rail system more viable. And with plans afoot around growth (residential and industrial) in the Golden Triangle (Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga) that is to occur over the next 40-50 years, passenger rail between Auckland (Papakura) and Tauranga is certainly not dead.
Scrapping over funding bores me while the Unitary Plan sparks more interest (no I am not dissing the rescue helicopter service either but I don’t believe in over-cooking the story either) and is not being covered well.
So today I will be Tweeting Live from the Budget Committee at 1:30pm from Town Hall on the proceedings. My Twitter handle is @BenRoss_AKL and full report will be posted in the morning.
Talking Southern Auckland 