Light at End of Tunnel for Auckland Rail?

The Herald ran an article this morning on the Auckland Rail Electrification Project coming into its final stretches:

From the NZH:

$1.1b electric rail upgrade on track

By Mathew Dearnaley

5:30 AM Thursday Jan 3, 2013

Last big summer shut-down puts finishing touches to network, and new trains are on target for April next year.

Auckland’s $1.14 billion rail electrification project is chugging into the home straight, ready for the arrival in September of the first of 57 zippier and quieter trains.

KiwiRail is using its last big summer shutdown of the region’s rail network to rearrange tracks at Britomart and two other locations before spinning the final segments of an electrical web which by August will cover about 85km of lines from central Auckland to Papakura in the south and Swanson in the northwest.

It is enlarging the “throat” between Britomart’s approach tunnel and the underground station’s five platforms for extra train crossover points to be installed in a four-week shutdown of the eastern and Newmarket lines, and has been laying new bypass tracks at Otahuhu and Papakura during a two-week region-wide closure to minimise conflicts between freight and increased passenger services on an electrified network.

The state-owned company has also been taking advantage of the shutdown since Christmas, during which buses have replaced trains, to string electric lines on masts already erected between Papakura and Otahuhu on the southern line.

You can read the rest of the article over at the Herald site.

However while the EMU’s are nearly here it is these two particular comments I want to focus on that caught my attention:

From the same article:

Mayor Len Brown says the arrival of the trains will be “a huge step on the path towards the kind of integrated transport system an international city like Auckland needs”.

He believes the electric units – which will have greater acceleration and braking power than the existing diesel fleet – will make rail patronage “rocket” and create even more pressure for a 3.5km underground rail extension from Britomart to Mt Eden.

Followed by this from Councillor Mike Lee:

But council transport chairman and veteran electrification campaigner Mike Lee believes the new trains will not be enough to boost flagging patronage unless they are supported by general service improvements, notably far better punctuality and extended weekend timetables, without prohibitive fare rises.

“I would not bank on electric trains in themselves fixing chronic underlying human management problems,” he said.

Although he was preparing to pop champagne corks last year in expectation of overtaking Wellington’s annual rail patronage of 11.3 million passenger trips, he is bitterly disappointed by a fall from a record 10.98 million trips in Auckland for the 12 months to April – a figure boosted by the 2011 Rugby World Cup – to little over 10 million by November.

That would be correct from the Councillor; looking at the 2012 rail patronage statistics from August you can see a levelling off of rail patronage growth before a noticeable drop start occurring in the last quarter  of 2012 – to the point one could say it is ‘back sliding.’ I can go into a thesis on the back-sliding of the rail patronage but that would be extremely counter-productive to the situation and rather not needed! However again, Councillor Lee has the point with rail patronage – especially the parts in bold.

And I agree with Councillor Mike Lee’s assessment on the EMU’s not being the magic bullet for our rail ills before us. Sure they might go a small distance for the rail system but not the patronage rocket as the mayor might expect.

There is still a lot more work to be done on the existing rail infrastructure (commentary being covered in the Rail Efficiency Program series) and on the operation side (timetables, service runs, integration with bus services, fares, etc.). These improvements need to be done before the CRL if we plan to reinstall any confidence back into the Auckland public with our rail network , otherwise the CRL will suffer the same confidence crisis as the existing infrastructure does now.

My previous post: TO BETTER (AUCKLAND’S) TRANSPORT had a brief recap on the Rail Efficiency Program and an embed from America on the value of investing in “current” infrastructure before going head first into new infrastructure. I recommend strongly reading the “The Virtues of Investing in Transportation” By LAURA D’ANDREA TYSON as it is a very good example on what we should be doing first before embarking on Mayoral Flights of Fancy… (the idea is not to make The Rail Fallacy come true)

While I have my Regional Public Transport Plan hearing in front of Auckland Transport next month, I might get a bit proactive now and restart lobbying the Rail Efficiency Program before the elections kick in in September/October.

Seems I will have my work cut out this year – that is for sure.

So light at the end of the tunnel? Yes but not quite a close as the mayor might think  – just yet

BEN ROSS : AUCKLAND