Category: Transport Planning

Looking at Transport Planning and Design

Southern Motorway Gridlock

·

Bring Back the Eastern Highway?

 

And so it happened, an accident on the southbound lanes of the Southern Motorway (State Highway One) on the Newmarket Viaduct causing absolute gridlock for hours on end – and it even delayed the start of the Breakers game to boot.

You can see (what is most likely to have been caused by hopeless driving Auckland is known for) the accident and its absolute chaos from the NZ Herald along with a bonus video

From the NZH:

How one crash caused gridlock chaos

By Amelia Wade

5:30 AM Friday Mar 8, 2013

Inner-city Auckland traffic was brought to a virtual standstill last night after a motorway crash – gridlock that the Automobile Association described as the worst it had seen.

A van crashed into the back of a truck in the southbound fast lane on the Southern Motorway at Newmarket at 3.50pm, seriously injuring a man.

More than two hours later, traffic on almost all of the city’s arterial routes was gridlocked, with buses backed up in city streets and motorists reporting speeds of less than 10km/h.

Journeys that normally took 15 minutes were taking more than an hour.

Automobile Association traffic spokesman Phil Allen said he had never seen traffic so bad in central Auckland.

Are you sick of Auckland’s traffic problems? Send us your commuting tales of woe and any ideas you have on how to fix Auckland’s traffic jams here.

The association launched traffic-mapping technology on its site 18 months ago. Routes marked in black show where traffic is moving at under 25 per cent of the speed limit.

…

You can read the rest and watch the video over at the NZH.

 

I was fortunate enough to have returned from the success at the Strategy and Finance Committee ahead of that traffic disaster yesterday however it is going to highlight a rather sore point?

 

Would of the much vaunted four lane Eastern Highway expressway coupled with cycle-ways and even the Botany (heavy rail) Line alleviate some (not all but some) of the chaos yesterday by giving a viable bypass for those heading south out of the CBD. Those coming from the north would have used the Western Ring Route (State Highways 16 and 20) if it had been completed by now as an extra backup.

 

The Eastern Highway and Botany Line basically followed this trajectory before its mothballing in 2004

Eastern Highway and Botany Line
Eastern Highway and Botany Line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click for full resolution

 

I have the original EASTDOR report into the four options available for the Eastern Highway and will get them uploaded when I return from Australia.

But for now just ponder to yourself; The Eastern Highway – that critical back up for the CBD we now miss.

 

Of course I am waiting for the fringe brigades from both the pro road, and pro public transport and nothing else to pipe up and basically kill the debate before it starts…

 

Just remember folks – the Eastern Highway provided an absolute full suite of actual integrated transport options such as: road, freight way, bus priorities, cycle ways and even heavy rail to a part of Auckland not served by rail as of current. I suppose I could have the last laugh after the project was mothballed in 2004 and how (as it would have been completed by now) it could have made a pure crap day just that slightly bit better for those stuck last night…

 

Mayor Supports South East Highway

·

Mayor Supports Redoubt Road – Mill Road Arterial

 

Last month in my “ROAD PLAN CONCERNS” post I had noted Auckland Transport‘s continued progress on moving towards the construction of the 4-lane “bypass” from the Manukau Motorway Interchange (with State Highway 1) along Redoubt Road, down Mill Road, around the back of eastern Papakura and reconnecting with State Highway One near Drury.

The respective post had a commentary piece from the NZ Herald as well as links to the Auckland Transport web portal on work thus far with this new four lane corridor plan. Also of mention was: the said corridor is both close to home (being in Papakura and five minutes away from the southern end of the soon-mentioned corridor) and I often use to skip-pass a section of the Southern Motorway when it backs up (usually in the afternoons) BR:AKL will take a look at the situation, then later on post an alternative proposal to the scheme.

 

Now I will resume working on that alternative proposal and will publish after my return from the Australian holiday starting next week. Work on the Manukau Rail North Link situation (which resulted in a compromise and win) as well as a pending mega project had taken much of my time recently however most of that is now finished (for now).

 

This morning however, I note Councillor George Wood picking up on comments from Mayor Len Brown (who lives 30 seconds from the said corridor) on his support for the corridor project.

From Stuff.co.nz

Manukau to Drury four-lane highway supported by mayor

SCOTT MORGAN

A four-lane highway that would connect Manukau with Drury has the backing of mayor Len Brown.

The Redoubt Rd-Mill Rd corridor needs land that is now occupied by homes and farms to progress.

Auckland Transport is finalising the route the $246 million first stage of the Redoubt corridor will take. It is an alternative arterial route to the southern motorway.

The road is expected to take more than 20 years to complete and has been subject to opposition from local residents’ groups.

Mr Brown has to declare a conflict of interest whenever decisions are made about how the project will move forward because he lives in the area.

“I’m in the way of it.”

But as leader of the city he supports the idea.

“It’s critical that we get this work done.”

There is a strategic need for the growing communities of Papakura, Alfriston and East Tamaki to be able to connect through the eastern side of the isthmus, he says.

Mr Brown says he is concerned about the effect plans for the 20-year project appear to be having on people’s lives.

But progress on new infrastructure needs to happen now, he says.

…

You can go see the rest of the article over at Stuff

 

But you can see the Mayor has thrown his support behind this large and long-winded project. With the corridor inching at a snail’s pace and seeming unable to be stopped in its entirety the next step (and I am aiming to try this through the alternative proposal) to mitigate against the worst of effects from the corridor and aim for a full integrated transport package.

More to come as it happens

 

Update on Manukau North Link

·

Progress Does Happen Folks

 

You will remember in posts that I will be at Strategy and Finance Committee tomorrow giving my presentation on some questions I would like the Committee to ask Auckland Transport tomorrow in regards to the Manukau North Link. For express mode I’ll provide the link to those questions HERE for your reading. And before someone mentions it again I do realise the language was strong on page three of the question list. I do apologse for the strong language used there that was unintended when the questions were sent – the issue around Manukau is an emotive one especially for those living in the Manurewa, Papakura and Franklin Local Board areas.

 

But I do not want to get caught up with semantics here as I had a conversation with Auckland Council Principle Transport Planner – Josh Arbury after the Transport Committee this morning. I won’t delve into the conversation much as I will basically allow the committee to happen and have everything recorded on the official Minutes before commenting again. However Auckland Transport have seen my questions and done their homework and I am satisfied that (unless someone bungled the physical delivery of the answers) the questions will be answered adequately tomorrow. By adequate I mean that unless someone has a change of heart in the next 18 hours a compromise has been sort (as I actually did want) and for me – that cursed mast that is in the way of the potential South Link should be moved out of the road in the duplication works saving time and hassle later. As for operations (timetables) which were also asked in my questions, we will come to that bridge when it happens but at least AT are aware of concerns especially around the triple transfer with Pukekohe passengers until the electrics are able to get to Pukekohe.

 

Again I will delve into this tomorrow but those who use to remember the Otahuhu to Britomart Shuttles via the Eastern Line will be interested to know operations wise (although we shall get full clarification as such) but those shuttles will be basically back but extended to Manukau. These shuttles are extremely useful when running ahead of a Papakura or Pukekohe to Britomart service to take the pressure off the inner stations for those longer “full” services as those trains are usually full half way into the trip. The shuttles also done properly allow for high frequency of services at the inner stations which is a boon to passengers 😀

 

So tomorrow is a formality where I ask the questions for the public record and AT or Mr Arbury reply to those questions also for public record before the Strategy and Finance Committee. I would ask the Committee to allow the reallocation as AT has asked for – so long as they move that mast out of the South Link’s way. I no longer object to the North Link Duplication.

 

Progress folks – it does happen

 

And a thank you to Mr Arbury for his time this morning 🙂

 

As for Transport Committee today, I saw councillors get their pitch forks out when asking Auckland Transport questions today o_O

Patronage Below Forecast

·

Rail Patronage Some Millions Below Forecast

 

No wonder why I was asked for the Auckland public transport patronage statistics in the weekend, an article has popped up on Radio New Zealand talking explicitly about how total public transport patronage (so across all modes) is going to be something like 3.6 million under forecast for the Financial Cycle with rail making up two million of that shortfall as of current. And no I was not talking to Radio NZ, someone else had asked.

You can listen to the article here from Radio NZ

 

I could go into a whole spiel from what was said in the article but that is wasting pixels while I am busy with a project at the moment regarding P/T.

However if one wants a quick recap on some grumbles that cause patronage to fall out through the floor then check these two recent articles from the blog:

 

One last thing when listening to the radio article, see if you can pick up on why the Fare Review I mentioned in my ‘Fare Rise on Auckland Rail’ post did not become public when it was meant to. Case of oops applies in that case 😉

LGOIMA Request Approved

·

Request into Rail Punctuality Etc  has been Approved

 

 

Good news folks. I had filed a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request to Auckland Transport on rail: punctuality, reliability, extensive patronage breakdown for the December-January period. This LGOIMA request was filed as the recent AT Statistics papers for the December 2012 – January 2013 were missing those particular figures that have been in previous statistics reports.

 

And go figure, guess what just got pointed to me by Auckland Transport Blog: those figures I asked for – stuck up on the AT website apparently yesterday after the meeting when not many of us would have being paying attention (The Board meeting was on Monday, today is Thursday).

 

Well thanks to pdfs and Scribd, here are those real figures for your inspection:

December 2012 – January 2013 Public Transport Figures – including: punctuality, reliability, and patronage by Line

 

 

Got no idea what AT are trying to hide as while punctuality still sucks, it is actually improving slowly but surely. Only problem is those rail patronage figures are still of major cause to be of concern.

Happy Reading

 

 

Fare Evasion

·

Fare Evasion in Melbourne

 

Lesson for Auckland?

 

As AT-HOP continues to be rolled out across the Auckland public transport network (albeit late, over budget and full of bugs) I would like to remind Aucklanders of the Melbourne situation in regards to fare evasion from a similar system to ours which includes “enforcement officers.”

From The Age:

 

Thousands escape fare evasion fines

Date: February 25, 2013 Adam Carey

More than 21,000 people avoided paying a fine after being booked for fare evasion on Victorian public transport system last financial year – meaning almost 11.5 per cent of fines issued were not enforced.

Figures released to the Victorian Greens and made public on Monday reveal that people who challenge an infringement notice have a better than 10 per cent chance of avoiding the fine, despite high-profile advertising campaigns warning “there is no excuse”.

“[Public Transport Minister] Terry Mulder’s whole ‘get tough, no excuses’ line on fare evasion is hollow,” Victoria Greens leader Greg Barber said.

“Ticket inspectors sometimes get it wrong. Special circumstances sometimes apply and the courts form their own view. That’s why 11.5 per cent of all tickets aren’t enforced – a pretty poor hit rate by any standards.”

Advertisement

The figures show that 188,566 infringement notices were issued in 2011-12 and 21,674 of those were withdrawn.

Most withdrawals, 17,152, came with an official warning, with just 591 notices being withdrawn completely after being reviewed. A further 2417 fines were waived after being challenged in court.

Mr Barber said the state’s system of using patrolling authorised officers to police fare evasion was inefficient. He called for a return of tram conductors and fully staffed railway stations, not seen since the 1990s.

“It’s a pretty inefficient way to try to reduce fare evasion,” Mr Barber said.

“You’ve got to make it normal to meet a human, buy a ticket, have your ticket checked, or you’re never going to get any progress.”

A Public Transport Victoria spokeswoman said everyone was expected to have a valid ticket, but that passengers had a legal right to appeal against their fine.

“By far the most common reason for fines being withdrawn is where a passenger travelling on a concession fare has forgotten to carry their proof of eligibility,” the spokeswoman said.

“Where they can later produce proof of their concession entitlement, the fine may be withdrawn. Clear cases of fare evasion, such as those travelling with no ticket at all, will get fined and no excuse will be tolerated.”

The fine for travelling without a ticket is $207.

Public Transport Users Association president Tony Morton said last month that much fare evasion was “opportunistic” because of the lack of customer service staff on the network.

“There needs to be a full staff presence at every station from first to last train … it is simply penny-pinching to not provide that staff presence now,” Dr Morton said.

“It is no doubt that some fare evasion on the train system is opportunistic evasion that might be avoided if there was a consistent staff presence on stations and people had an idea that they might get caught.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/thousands-escape-fare-evasion-fines-20130225-2f162.html#ixzz2M45Q7Lit

 

Rather disturbing from Melbourne.

 

Now reading the Business Report from the February Auckland Transport Board agenda it states on page 19 that 16% to 23% of passengers travelling by rail were checked by roving Ticket Inspectors with an unknown percentage not having a valid ticket or tagged on AT-HOP card. 16% – 23% means a maximum of 6.000 individual checks done (according to the Business Report) where there is an estimate of around 30,000 passengers travelling per (week)day on the network across some 326 approximate services (Monday to Thursday, with more on Friday, and less on Saturday and Sunday). It means in technical terms that upwards of 23% of total revenue from rail passengers is protected meaning currently some 77% if total revenue if everyone paid their fare (or had a Super Gold concession) per day is at potential risk. In saying that there is safeguards at Newmarket and Britomart where you need a ticket or AT-HOP card one way or the other to get through the gate system, but the idea is to not get that far without a ticket.

77% of your revenue at risk from fare evasion – due to only 23% of all passengers being individually checked by roving Ticket Inspectors – big case of OUCH! So it begs the question would you take the risk on skipping out of your fare providing you were not passing through Britomart and Newmarket ? With those figures I quoted it would be a case of “Why Not!”

 

Now before anyone points fingers, I am a good citizen and tag on and off with my AT-HOP card when travelling by train – so I pay my fare as it is only fair.

 

What I am pointing out is that Auckland with AT-HOP has the potential issues as Melbourne does with Fare Evasion – although Melbournites face a stiffer penalty at $207 (Australian) and a higher chance of getting caught. Our poultry “penalty” fare is $10.30 and moves to $20 next month – however this limitation is due to legislation issues currently being sorted to address.

 

We also have the two issues with AT-HOP of: lack of customer service, and the reliability of Rail Ticket Machines and Tagging Posts (I usually do a post every fortnight on the machines breaking down over the weekends). I will write separate posts on these in due course however, those issues do not really inspire confidence in the public transport ticketing system to the point they could act as a catalyst to fare evade.

 

So a warning from Melbourne and another LGOIMA request to go fill out.

 

I wonder if “we” are taking in the lessons learned from our cousins in Australia?

Wary on PPPs

·

Proceed With Caution On PPP’s

 

Based on Australian Experience

 

 

I love Brisbane and am going back there for a holiday in the middle of March. Brisbane is my second home and where I lived for two years as part of my err “gap-year.” Brisbane is also similar in some respects to Auckland in regards to its civic structure, urban fabric, transportation systems, and political stupidity in investing in the wrong project.

Now I did just say political stupidity – and why is that? Check these two pieces from NZ and Brisbane on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) not delivering as they were meant to:

 

First from the NZ Herald:

Stephen King: PPPs need better ways to handle risk

5:30 AM Tuesday Feb 26, 2013

As another toll road in Australia fails, what is the future for public-private partnerships?

 

Instead of taking traffic off congested suburban roads, high tolls may mean too few cars use the toll road. Photo / APN

Is there a future for privately funded toll roads? BrisConnections has been placed into administration only seven months after opening the Brisbane Airport Link toll road/tunnel. It has not had sufficient users to make the project viable. So what does this mean for future public-private partnerships (PPPs)?

In the short term, it will mean very little. The citizens of Brisbane have a great tunnel that (from my experience) cuts significant time off a trip to the airport. The investors have done their dough. And there may be various lawsuits about who misled whom.

However, this is the fourth in a series of PPP toll road failures, including Sydney’s Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels, and Brisbane’s Clem7. If PPPs are to have a future, we need better ways to handle the project risk.

The risk associated with large infrastructure projects can be significant. For toll roads, the viability of a project depends on projections of future traffic flows. But these flows may be highly variable, depending on a range of choices by the government and car users

…

 

You can read the rest over at the Herald website

 

Now what Mr King was referring to in regards to PPP failure and by virtual extension political stupidity in Brisbane is this Brisbane Times piece I Facebooked not so long ago:

From Brisbane Times:

Airport Link in administration

Date February 19, 2013 Bridie Jabour

Brisbane’s Airport Link tunnel has gone into voluntary administration. Photo: Harrison Saragossi

UPDATED

The $4.8 billion Airport Link tunnel has been placed into voluntary administration.

In an announcement to ASX, tunnel’s operator BrisConnections said the company had decided to place the tunnel into administration citing low traffic levels and debts worth more than the tunnel.

The board of BrisConnections entered negotiations in November to restructure the tunnel’s debt but on Monday night, the board was told lenders were not prepared to support any of the restructure proposals.

The latest traffic figures show an average of 47,802 vehicles using the 6.7 kilometre Airport Link each day, about half of the original forecasts which had daily traffic of 90,000 vehicles.

BrisConnection conceded in the ASX statement that an extensive marketing and phased-in toll regime had failed to attract enough traffic but Non-Executive Chairman Trevor Rowe was still positive about the future of the tunnel.

‘‘It’s disappointing that the board has to reach this decision,’’ he said.

‘‘The AiportlinkM7 is unquestionably a world class piece of transport infrastructure that will continue to support Brisbane’s growth into the decades ahead.’’

BrisConnections was placed into a trading halt in November and two board directors resigned after a dismal report to the ASX on Airport Link.

In the report, the company admitted for the first time the tunnel’s debt might be more than its value and a research analyst said at the time the most likely option for the Airport Link was to put it up for sale.

The tunnel had a toll free period which ended in October last year with traffic forecasts falling tens of thousands of vehicles short even when the ride was free.

The costs of building Airport Link blew out so much for construction company Leighton Holdings that it contributed to them posting a yearly loss of more than $200 million which has been turned around to a $450 million profit since it handed over the tunnel and its other high profile troubled project, the Victorian desalination plant.

Airport Link was opened in July 2012 and connects Brisbane’s northern suburbs with Brisbane’s CBD and the airport, the Clem7 and the Inner City Bypass.

The tunnel will remain open and available to users as normal.

Airport Link is the second Brisbane tunnel to financially collapse with the operator of Clem7, RiverCity Motorway Group, going into receivorship in November with $1.3 billion worth of debts.

News of Airport Link’s collapse forced Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk to defend Brisbane City Council‘s decision to push ahead with the city’s third toll tunnel, the $1.5 billion Legacy Way tunnel

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/airport-link-in-administration-20130219-2eope.html#ixzz2M2OKsOiE

 

 

The Brisbane saga should sound a warning to both Central Government who are ploughing on with the Wellington Transmission Gully Motorway – which is a PPP (the Herald article above mentions the risks of that as well) and our Auckland Council if we consider PPPs for some of our larger projects including the City Rail Link.

 

I have called for a PPP with the City Rail Link with our public authorities handing the tunnel construction and maintenance, while having private companies operate the stations for say 50 years providing they get the rights for urban development (including sky rights) in the immediate vicinity of stations as part of a wider investment program. Now I know in Tokyo’s railway has stations that are built and run by companies basically on behalf of the rail metro line and in the same token have developed often impressive complexes of residential, commercial office and commercial services (retail, malls, hotels) above and around the said station.

These impressive complexes allow the Tokyo authorities to share some of the costs of rail metro line station building with private companies in return for pretty much guaranteed patronage due to the urban complexes built above and around the stations.

So there are cases where PPPs for in this case with Tokyo – rail can work. This could be a very good example for Auckland to follow-up on when the CRL is being built. However the Brisbane and Transmission Gully Wellington Road PPP projects (go figure – I said roads) are also examples on what NOT to do with PPPs.

 

So Auckland (including AT and Council) still have a long and hard road ahead in plausible financial planning for some of our larger mega-projects like the much needed City Rail Link. On one side it could go extremely wrong and bankrupt the city, on the other we get an golden opportunity for a needed transit link and some actual world class urban renewal in our grey and drab CBD!

 

Food for thought