Feature

Patrick Reynolds Story & photographs

Essays on Auckland: 1

The City
Unbound
Theres an unseen revolution
taking place in Auckland right
now in, of all things, transport.

RAIL, ROAD AND PEDESTRIAN: PT RESOLUTION,

NEAR PARNELL BATHS

88 | METRO DECEMBER 2014

uckland is at last a city. No

longer just an overblown
provincial town, it has become
properly city-shaped, in its scale and
in the nature of its problems and its
possibilities. For some, this is an
unwanted prospect and for others,
a much-longed-for one, but either
way its happening as it usually does:
naturally and unevenly, and in our
case quite fast. Auckland the teenager
now finds itself becoming an adult.
When did we cross this line? We may
decide the moment coincided with the
reorganisation of local government, the
formation of the so-called Super City in
2010. Or not. It doesnt really matter; the
point is that our combination of size and
intensity means Auckland is now subject
to the logic of cities the world over: crazy
prices for tiny spaces, gridlock on the
streets at almost any time, hardship
right next to luxury.
There is also a new and thrilling
diversity: of people, of activity, of
possibility. City intensity means all
manner of niche businesses become
viable just look at the range of food
were now offered: not just the ethnicities,
but also paleo, raw, vegan, hipster...
While an insane range of complicated
and hitherto unimagined ways to brew
coffee is not the sole point of city life,
it may be a good proxy for its vitality.
The cafe trade thrives on diversity,
specialisation and excellence, all driven
by competition, and those things are
also observable through a much wider
range of human endeavour. Whether
its in the law, education, services, the
arts, whatever: only the agglomeration
of individuals in tight proximity to the
economic and social force that is a city
can generate such opportunities.
And, of course, there is urban velocity.
Everything, for better or worse, is subject
to the citys law of impatience. It has
always been thus: just as density creates
obstacles to movement, so the demand
for movement increases. Perhaps this is
the greatest of all the contradictions of
a city: more is more but also less. This
is also the source of much opposition to
the very idea of the city.
Nowhere do these contradictions
gather more intensely than around the

PATRICK REYNOLDS IS A MEMBER OF AUCKLAND

TRANSPORT BLOG.

DECEMBER 2014 METRO | 89

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: THE CITY RAIL LINK

WILL MAKE BUSY BRITOMART EVEN BUSIER

hotly disputed issue of congestion on

the roads: traffic.
For the past 60 years, we have only
attempted to address this problem from
one direction the supply side: we just
built more roads. And weve got really
good at it; too good, perhaps, given its
like an addiction for some parts of the
system. But clearly we cant make an
infinity of new tarmac; theres not the
space or the money. No city in the world
has road-built its way out of congestion,
and why would we want to try? Equally,
no city is considered glorious because of
the extent of its motorways.
The Waterview connection is the last
piece of the urban motorway jigsaw.
Auckland is now in the next phase of city
building. Spending on more and bigger
roads now wont cure Aucklands traffic
congestion, but add to it.
Now is the time to address the demand
side: traffic congestion is simply too
many people all trying to drive at
once. Successful cities offer people
more options to get around, enabling
more people to rationally choose other
90 | METRO DECEMBER 2014

movement modes; for more journeys,

more often. No city completely solves
congestion, except failing ones, but the
best cities provide people with more
good options to avoid taking part in
congestion at all.
In this, Auckland is like cities everywhere else in the world, yet is different
from both the rest of the country and its
own past, which is why this simple fact
may seem radical to some.
The way now to both improve our
connectivity and de-clog our streets is
to invest away from them. We are now
in a post-road-building phase.
Perhaps whats most striking is how
well this is already working.
AUCKLANDERS TOOK 12 million trips
on the rail network last year. Thats two
million more than the previous year: a
big jump, and profoundly good news.
G o o d news for the exp erts who
examined our public transport system
and said, frankly, its crap, but if you give
people attractive and frequent services
theyll choose to use them. Good news

No city in the world has

road-built its way out of
congestion, and why
would we want to try?
for the public, who have long pleaded
for better services.
G o o d news also for the tax- and
ratepayers of Auckland, who have
funded the upgrades, as well as for
the politicians, local and central, who
backed them.
Most of all, it is good for drivers.
Good for everyone who likes or needs
to drive on Aucklands roads, especially
for truckies and tradies, who have no
other option. And while Aucklanders
are rushing to ride the trains, we are
also piling onto buses at new rates too.
Overwhelmingly, all these new trips on
public transport (PT) are happening
instead of car journeys.

It isnt just new Aucklanders who are

taking part in this rush to PT. The citys
population is growing at 2.3 per cent a
year, while over the past year, PT use was
up 7.6 per cent: thats more than three
times the rate of population growth. Rail
use jumped 18 per cent.
In contrast, according to figures from
the New Zealand Transport Agency
(NZTA), driving in Auckland is flat on
a per capita basis, and still below the
2006 peak.
So even if you dont use the new
services yourself, those people who do
are out of their cars and out of your way.
It may not feel like the streets are any
clearer, but if all those travellers were
still driving, your trip would be much,
much worse.
The biggest winners of Aucklands
new-found and hard-fought transit
renaissance, therefore, are the users of
cars and trucks.
OVER THE PAST decade, multiple billions of dollars have been spent on new
and wider roads in Auckland, yet the

driving figures show that this spending

has been met with a great big shrug. The
public are just not rushing out and taking
advantage of this new amenity.
Yet conversely, every time we improve
our public transp ort systems, the
response is huge. Improvements to the
rapid transit network in particular (thats
rail plus the Northern Busway) have led
to great uptakes in patronage.
No one is suggesting that driving
wont remain the dominant means to
get around Auckland. But it is clear the
highest value to be gained now in transport investment is in the complementary
modes: trains and buses, ferries, and safe
routes for cycling and walking.
To fix gridlock on the roads, we need
to stop spending on roads and put that
money into the alternatives.
Note that the current population
growth rate is exactly 2.3 per cent. Driving
growth is dead flat, but everything else
is straining at the leash.
Nowhere is this more true than on
the rail network and our only properly
rapid bus route, the North Shores
Northern Busway.
The upgrade of the rail network
that was begun under the previous
government and continued under the
current one is being met with openarmed enthusiasm: last month, the two
lines that are now running the new trains
added 32 per cent and 50 per cent more
passengers. And the upgrade is still far
from complete.
The popularity of rail when a lan
guishing service is electrified and
modernised is known internationally as
the sparks effect. Theres no mystery
to it. Here, as in cities all over the world,
when they start to offer fast, frequent,
reliable and comfortable services, from
modern stations, running late into the
night and on weekends, people flock to
use them.
This is true rapid transit, and the key
to its success is that the service must
run on its own right of way. That allows
it to be faster, more frequent and more
reliable. This is a principal reason the
new trains are so desirable, but buses can
also be given this advantage as is the
case on the Northern Busway.
The busway is a train-like service
with stations, no other stops, high
turn-up-and-go frequencies and
direct, unencumbered routes. It attracts
riders well above the rate of other bus
services, simply because it is better, and
consistently so.
We are not yet delivering services to

true rapid-transit standards. As the rail

service introduces the new trains to all
its commuter lines, we can expect higher
frequencies and longer operating hours.
And as the city end of the busway
gains more dedicated lanes and proper
stations, its services will also improve
markedly. Currently, only 41 per cent of
its route is separated from other traffic.
ALL OF THIS makes it baffling that
the only thing the government cut
from the NZTAs plans to widen the
Northern Motorway in its recently
announced special accelerated funding
(not from fuel taxes) was the proposed
extension of the busway further north.
Similarly, the proposed North Western
Busway has been excluded from all
the work currently being done on the
Northwestern Motorway.
This is especially concerning as the
buses on the busway run at full cost
recovery, or very close to it: fares cover
their operation. Which is only possible
because buses on the busway are twice
as efficient as buses in the rest of the
city. For the same cost, a busway bus
covers twice the distance of other buses
because they are not stuck in traffic we
are not subsidising them to pump out
diesel fumes pointlessly as they battle
through clogged streets.
A similar logic is at play on the rail
network. The new trains glide silently
along on our own clean, largely renew
ably generated electricity, and those
electrons cost less than half the price of
the dirty old carcinogenic and imported
diesel. The new electric trains have more
than twice the capacity of the existing
trains and, as weve seen already,
they attract many more fare-paying
customers.
Those two million new passengers this
year, each paying anything from $1.60 to
more than $10 a ride, are adding upwards
of $5 million for services we were running
anyway, with more to come: just one
more reason the new trains are as pretty
to a cost accountant as they are to anyone
concerned about the planet.
For the price of building rapid transit
systems we get material improvement to
both fare income and cost of operation,
as well as relief for road users and place
quality improvement.
Its worth noting, also, that only a very
small part of the whole current system
even aspires to rapid-transit status. There
is no rapid transit in the northwest, the
southeast or around Mangere and the
airport. But the potential exists.
DECEMBER 2014 METRO | 91

THE NEW STATION AT NEW LYNN

WHILE THE CITY works its way

around to embracing that potential,
there is much else that can be done.
Many other bus priority measures can
deliver service upgrades and significant
operating savings.
Auckland Transport needs to, for
example, reduce the amount of street
parking on arterial bus routes. This
would enable the creation of fully
joined-up bus lanes on major bus routes
like Mt Eden Rd and Manukau Rd, and
could easily be done for at least the peak
and shoulder hours.
The major cost here lies in having to
endure the complaints of relatively small
numbers of people used to parking on
these public roads, and of car drivers who
fail to grasp that the more fully laden the
buses are, the easier their drive will be.
As international evidence shows, the
higher the priority given to other modes
(including cycling and walking), the better
the traffic will flow. This happens because
as the other modes improve, more people
choose them out of rational self-interest,
leaving their cars at home more often.
Auckland Transport needs to patiently
but forcefully explain to drivers that bus
and bike lanes are their best friends,
emptying their lane of other vehicles,
saving them in rates and taxes and
increasing the productivity of the whole
city. It is not clear the culture at AT is
ready for such sophistication.
Over the next year and a half, the
two big lines, the Southern and the
Western, will get their new trains and
higher frequencies. More rail ridership
growth is already baked into the pie
but even on the rail network there are
looming problems.
92 | METRO DECEMBER 2014

One issue is the boom in rail freight

going on right now, especially into and
out of Auckland and Tauranga. This is
great news: its far better to be moving
those heavy loads on trains and not on
dangerous, less-fuel-efficient, roaddamaging trucks.
But it also means the rail lines at
the core of the Auckland network
are getting a great deal of new traffic
carrying both passengers and freight.
The long-planned third track on the
main trunk route through the industrial
areas of South Auckland is desperately
needed to alleviate this pressure. It
wont be a huge expense certainly,
it will cost a great deal less than the
$140 million to be showered on one
intersection on the way to the airport
next year but because its rail, it gets
no love from the government.
WHICH BRINGS US to the City Rail
Link. Without the CRL, all growth on
the network has an absolute upper
limit. Continuing as we are, last years
number will double in just four years to
20 million by 2017.
And there it will stall. The dead end at
Britomart means it just wont be possible
to run enough trains to meet demand.
As it is, Auckland Transport predicts the
Britomart limit to hit in 2016.
The CRL, however, will turn Britomart
from an in-and-out station into a genuine
metro-style through station. New direct
services will more than double the
frequency and efficiency of our new
trains, which will attract even more
users. The potential for this to transform
not just our travel behaviour but much
else in the city is enormous.

And if the CRL is delayed to the mid2020s? Well be wasting half the capacity
of the existing rail network, and holding
back the citys potential. Auckland will
be stuck with its inefficient over-reliance
on car travel; we will lack the balance of
a city with great options for its citizens;
we will have less freedom of choice.
It is hard not to be deeply critical of the
way Auckland Council and Auckland
Transport have communicated the value
of this project. Even though surveys
repeatedly show the public is way ahead
of the government and its officials in
understanding the need to invest in
urban rail, the possibilities the project
will unlock have not been well presented.
It seems easier to discuss what it costs
than what its worth.
Perhaps thats because the outcomes
are so multifaceted and game-changing.
Perhaps its also that those responsible
for promoting the CRL struggle them
selves to imagine how different the city
will be once its here.
The new Aotea Station, at the heart
of the densest centre of employment
and learning in the entire nation, will
immediately be busier than Britomart.
But still thats not the most powerful
effect of this project; its real genius
lies in the way it joins up the disparate
ends of the existing network and
thereby transforms it from a commuter,
timetable-dependent, in-and-out system
to a high-frequency, turn-up-and-go,
through-routed, metro-style network.
And there will be no assumption that
your destination is always in the inner
city: you will be able to make any number
of intermediate, cross-town, and lesspredictable journeys.
One way to think of the CRL is to
compare it to the motorway junction it
will pass under. Imagine driving into
town on a motorway, and having to
stop short because there is no Spaghetti
Junction to join everything up. Thats
how it is for public transport users in
Auckland now. The CRL is the key
that will unlock the whole urban rail
network, just as Spaghetti Junction has
for motorway users.
And despite being just two little tunnels
seamlessly snaking their way beneath our
streets, it will be more like the motorway
network in capacity than you might
expect. The CRL will enable up to 24
trains each way per hour, each carrying
up to 750 people.
Thats like adding a new eight-lane
motorway that simultaneously comes
from three directions into and through

The City Rail Link will pick up every station on the

Western Line and shift them closer to the inner city.
If you live in Glen Eden, you will be as close to
midtown as Kingsland is now.

the city, without putting a single extra

vehicle on the streets.
This is the spatial efficiency of urban
rail. It delivers an enormous economic
force: people, without each one of them
coming with a space-eating tin box.
WE NOW HAVE around 90km of nearly
fully upgraded electrified rail line. Some
40 stations of varying quality. Yet the
potential of this high-capacity resource
is underutilised and largely hidden from
most Aucklanders.
Doubling patronage to 20 million trips
a year is not enough. Rail will remain
a bottled-up force until it climbs to 30,
40, 50 million trips, which is what the
CRL will deliver.
This is the great opportunity of the
CRL, and there is no other city in the
world in Aucklands position. Most
would leap at the chance to get a
widespread metro system just for the
cost of 3.4km of tunnels and three new
stations. This is the greatest deal we will
see for generations.
Thats how the CRL should be being
marketed. Not as an inner-city project
but as the means to deliver clean,
efficient, reliable rapid transit a true
metro system across most of the
city. And improving the utility of the
rest of the PT network especially
for Northern Busway users, the other
part of the Rapid Transit network by
improving onward connections and also
by replacing buses in the city, making
room for more from the Shore.
The post-CRL network will improve
our options in so many ways. Get to that
show at Vector Arena or the rugby at
Eden Park; shop at Sylvia Park, attend
the Manukau Institute of Technology
all at speed and no hassles trying to find
or pay for a carpark. And all with the
freedom to move on, instantly and in
more directions, on a whim.
This is especially so for those on
the Western Line because it will give
those trains a direct route into and
through the city instead of trundling
them on a roundabout journey south
via Newmarket.

This will lead to some startling time

savings. Travellers from New Lynn, for
example, catching a train to town and
then a bus up to the site of the new Aotea
station at midtown will cut their journey
from 51 minutes to 23.
The CRL will in effect pick up every
station on the Western Line from Mt
Eden out and shift them substantially
closer to the inner city. And proximity
equals value. If you live in Glen Eden you
will be as close to midtown as Kingsland
is now. Boom!
The harbour bridge, opened in
1959, was the last Auckland project to
achieve this kind of transformation, by
moving the North Shore closer to the
city. The value of the bridge was just as
misunderstood before it was built, hard
as that may be to believe now.
The CRL will do for the west what the
bridge did for the north. West Auckland
needs that, and all of Auckland needs it
for them. The west struggles with a lack
of local employment and underpowered
local business opportunities. With the

CRL, Westies will be able to commute

more easily to the huge job market of the
central city, and that will make Avondale,
New Lynn and centres further west more
attractive to live in, and therefore more
attractive to do business in.
WHY STOP THERE? I have an even
bolder claim for Auckland, once the CRL
is operating, and Im certain Im on the
money: I believe this new layer to our
world will profoundly alter Aucklands
very idea about itself.
The growth of a metro system out of
our inefficient little commuter network
will redefine the city. The beautiful
harbours and extraordinary volcanic
cones, and all the cultural strengths
of tangata whenua and the waves of
immigration that have followed those
are the things we treasure because they
make us not like anywhere else. But
well also have a thing thats taken for
granted among nearly all really good
cities. Well have decent rapid transit.
Well be a metro city.
With our new metro system and the
spatial improvements made possible
by its seamless capacity, Auckland
will genuinely be able to compete with
those bigger cities across the Tasman
for quality, economic effectiveness and
desirability, and it will better them.
Without needing to get that big.
The Jewel of the South Pacific.
Its right there, that possibility. Now. #

Are motorway tolls the answer?

ayor Len Browns independent

advisory group has proposed a
toll for all motorway users, as a way to
fund transport costs over the next 30
years. Its a bad proposal.
True, charging directly to use motor
ways, especially if varied by time of day,
can help manage the peakiness of that
part of our road network. Many people,
confronted with a charge, will either
drive at other times, find an alternative
form of transport or find another route.
But there are several reasons this
proposal is badly flawed:
Vehicles will shift off motorways and
onto local roads, which is the very
problem motorways are built to deal
with in the first place. Ready for the
nightmare on East Coast Rd? Great
North Rd and Great South Rd?
In cities like London, Stockholm and
Singapore, road pricing works quite

well because those cities have mature

public transport options. Auckland
doesnt have that yet.
Tolls at every motorway entrance
involve high set-up and operating costs,
especially compared to fuel taxes and
road-user charges.
Tolls will hit p o orer p eople dis
proportionately hard.
Motorway tolling may be a good
fundraiser and a good incentiviser for
public transport, cycling and walking,
once wider and more efficient rapid
transit is in place including the CRL,
a northwest busway and the AucklandManukau Eastern Transport Initiative.
The best solution to fix the funding
gap in transport?
S top sp ending money on megamotorway projects.
Roll out rapid transit as fast
as possible.
DECEMBER 2014 METRO | 93