Travel Demand Management is "Weird"

That's what New Zealand's Minister of Transport told Radio New Zealand yesterday as he answered questions about the Government's latest transport budget allocations. The Hon Mr Steven Joyce was explaining the re-allocation of transport budgets previously targetted at "Travel Demand Management", to Road Safety. There are also large allocations to motorway projects, and there is some allocation to public transport - notably rail in Auckland.

This is a throw-back to the bad-old days of car-centric transport and urban planning in Auckland. The Minister really needs to get to grips with the role that good travel demand management has in Auckland's economy...

I have tried to get to grips with what the differences are between what you see on the roads and the surrounding urban landscapes in the city-scapes of Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Japan. Kuala Lumpur would have to be the most car-centred city I have ever been in - and that includes great American disasters. You can see my blog about Kuala Lumpur transport planning....

This eyeful is probably symbolic of all that Kuala Lumpur wants to be. The Petronas Twin Towers. Petrol heaven. They are a pretty stunning sight, and I haven't been fair to them here, but couldn't quite fit them into one shot they are so tall (at 452 metres dwarfing Auckland's paltry 328 metre high Sky Tower)...

... and these towers will be closely followed by Kuala Lumpur's motorway infrastructure as a symbol of KL's prowess and "World Classness". But these are in a never ending state of construction. As soon as one section gets congested, another "alleviating" motorway gets built, higher and higher above each other, and they draw more and more traffic... Is this the type of "World Class" that Auckland aspires to?

...and drag huge amounts of traffic into local streets which struggle to cope. And so do people wanting to get from "A" to "B". KL does have a rudimentary public transport system. I struggled to get anywhere easily in it. The best option was the highly regulated taxis: "Don't Haggle" on the doors. Taking a taxi anywhere within + or - an hour or two of peak travel is hopeless. Better to walk. But again - the walking experience is very poor. Pedestrians are way down the pecking list.... So what has all this got to do with travel demand management....

This is a picture of a bit of the Sapporo, Japan cityscape. It was taken shortly after peak morning traffic. What you can see though - is that there are remarkably few cars on the streets. Also, you become aware that there are no - or very few - cars actually parked on the street. I was struck by how clear of parked cars the street network is throughout the parts of Japan I visited. I was also struck by the absence - as far as I could tell - of hotted up Celicas and their like. Why was this?

I have already run a posting about Narita, Tokyo transport planning. But let's get a bit local here. This is a residential dwelling on a Sapporo street. Strange about the windows, but notice that the cars are not on the street. I've been researching "travel demand management" in Japan. Here's what I have learned so far. Basically if you live in a big city, the costs can be very discouraging, in fact, they're meant to be. If you want a car in Japan let's look at what's involved in that car purchase and the cost of owning and operating it: The Parking Space You must have a registered parking space and submit certification of such (Shakoshomeishou) to the police. The rental of the space varies, from a couple of thousand yen/month in the sticks, up to maybe over 100,000 yen/month in the plush areas of Tokyo. To get a parking space, some are found through estate agents (fudosan), others are rented directly from the owners. If it's from the fudosan, except for the guarantor, most of the other terms for flat hunting apply. (ie you can't assume you can park it on the street! at 65 Y/$NZ, this equates to $1,500/month for a compulsory parking place in Tokyo! NB: small car = small parking space requirements = less cost.) Paying Taxes When you buy a car, you'll have three main taxes to pay. One is an Acquisition Tax, another is a Weight Tax, and the third is an Annual Tax every May. The first two you pay when you buy the car. Basically, the bigger the engine, the more you pay. The Acquisition Tax is around 5% of the price of the car. The weight tax for cars with engine sizes up to 2 litres are about 56,700 yen, greater than that is 75,600. Passenger cars with a 300 something or 33 in the upper right corner of the license plate (including nearly all US cars) are the highest. A 50-something on the license plate indicates a medium-size car, and the "Kei" cars with an engine of 660cc have a yellow plate and are lowest. The May annual tax for Kei cars is the lowest as well at about 5000-yen, but for larger cars the tax quickly escalates to 34,500-39,500 yen for medium cars to 45,000 yen for 2.5 litre cars and 56,000 yen for 3 litre cars. You also need to pay consumption tax when you buy fuel, and many petrol stations don't display their prices. Prices can vary and may be up to 15 yen/ltr. cheaper at some stations, a big difference. (Need to check if Acquisition and Weight taxes are payable on 2nd hand cars. In any case the Annual Tax is about $80NZ for 660cc cars, and about $550NZ for medium size cars. Message? buy a small car.) Car Insurance There are two insurance programs, one is the mandatory insurance (kyosei hoken) which just covers the car, and the optional insurance (jibaiseki hoken) covers injuries/damages you may get/cause. You can decide the extras, theft, vandalism, disaster damage, lost wages, etc. Getting it would be a good idea, if the person driving that Mercedes you just knocked decides to have a heart attack, you'd be in trouble. The costs vary according to your age, if your family also drives it, how many offences you may have had, if the car has an airbag, etc. (Insurance... mandatory 3rd party kyosei hoken) Shaken Many people come to Japan and are surprised that all the cars are clean, well maintained, and always running efficiently. The sensitive Japan "experts" will tell you that it's because Japanese take such pride in their work, have such dignity to drive cars that only look like new, etc. All of which are true. But the real reason is different, and you'll pay dearly for it. Cars that are 3 years old have to have a mandatory maintenance check (Shaken), which is repeated every other year. The costs again vary according to the size of the car, but basically you'll be paying 120,000-160,000 yen or so for a smaller car, and more for a larger. Also, when the car is very old, it has an official value of zero and you may actually have to pay someone to take it off your hands! After that it'll be either scrapped or sold to dealers in Asia. (Mandatory maintenance check "Shaken" on cars 3 years old every other year - 120,000 for smaller car - equivalent to $1,850NZ every 2 years. Don't even think about lowering a car, or putting on a noisy muffler - would fail its "Shaken").

Now that's what I call "travel demand management" that is serious. It also explains why so many second hand Japanese imports come to NZ - the land where you get to own and drive a car - especially a hotted up and lowered and noisy one - for almost nothing, and where Govt is prepared to subsidise where you park it and drive it to an almost unlimited extent. We are reaping what we are sowing. We are turning into the Kuala Lumpur of the South Pacific. Is that the "world Class" image we really want?

North Shore Busway Fails to Connect

My presentation to the Integrated Transport Planning Conference in Kuala Lumpur focussed on the mistakes that Auckland made in designing and building the North Shore Busway. These design failings will affect its success for some considerable time. This slide shows the alignment of the busway alongside State Highway One. The busway lies within the SH1 designation. This reflects the fact that Transit (as it then was) was keen to reduce congestion on the Harbour Bridge approaches. However North Shore City Council dozed quietly on each side of this corridor. I know because I was Chair of the Busway Corridor Steering Committee at the time, trying for better integration. Trying so hard in fact that Mayor George Wood thought I was "trying to kill the busway..."...

In this slide you can see the location of North Shore's main town centres, in relation to the busway corridor. These include: Devonport, Takapuna, Milford, Highbury, Glenfield, Mairangi Bay etc...

This map shows North Shore's main employment centres: Wairau valley, Takapuna, Rosedale Industrial Estate...

And here you can see North Shore's main sports recreation locations: Onewa Netball courts, North Shore Event Centre (go the Breakers), Rosedale Hockey, Glenfield Leisure Centre, Millenium Institute, Albany Tennis....

And here are the schools and universities. There are two that are slap bang on the Busway: Westlake Girls High School and the North Shore campus of Massey University. But just as two swallows don't make a summer - two integrated destinations don't make a Busway successful. You get the picture. The Busway does not CONNECT into the North Shore's main destinations. And so it cannot be expected to shape the development of those destinations and their future land uses - simply because the private motor vehicle remains the most convenient way to access those destinations.

I am indebted to my good friend and colleague Alan Hoffman (when he was with Mission Group) for this and the next slide, which show very well the link between public transport system design and land use development patterns. This one is the "weak strategy" which has bedevilled Auckland planning for decades - and which the current limited implementation of the busway threatens to perpetuate.

And this one illustrates a strong strategy - where a determined planning effort is made to ensure that public transport system design WILL shape future land use and travel patterns. The present Northshore Busway project can shift from being a Weak influence to being a Strong influence on land use, if and when it becomes well connected to North Shore's major destinations. Until then all it will be is an inter-regional passenger transport link which simply perpetuates Auckland's bad habits of living 20 km plus from your place of work, and hoping transport services will get you there and back reliably and quickly.

This image shows an artists conception of how the Akoranga Busway Station would look. Classic architect thinking. You can see from this image that the greatest interest was focussed on the building itself. Completely separate and not integrated with the building's relationship with surrounding land uses....

... so it is no surprise that the resulting station is so far from land uses that might attract patronage, and might make the busway a useful piece of transport infrastructure in providing access to those activities. The Akoranga station's location was justified by some as providing access to Massey University - by means of the walkway above State Highway One. But it is very rare to see anyone using that walkway. This station alone cost $15 million. Meanwhile Takapuna town centre struggles to provide a tenth of this commuter amenity. Those who think that North Shore's public transport problem will be magically resolved by building rail to the North Shore and along the busway corridor are deluded. Until the North Shore busway is properly interconnected - by reliable and frequent bus services - with North Shore's existing land uses, it will continue to be a marginally useful service operating well below its design capacity of 11,000 passengers/hour on the busway spine itself.

Auckland Unleashed - Part II

Auckland Unleashed generally got the panning it deserved from the media and those who have been immersed in Auckland Regional planning for a long time. (You can see my first take on it here). And while Auckland Unleashed generally respects the Mayor's election vision of rail (Britomart Loop, Airport Link and North Shore Rail), I am of the view that the new Council (Councillors plus Mayor) are only partly responsible for what is actually in the document - with its emphasis on growth and economy and its relative silence on affordable housing, transport energy and Auckland's traditional planning failure to accommodate growth. So who is to blame and where is this huge emphasis on economic growth coming from? I attended the IPANZ event last year where Roger Blakely (General Manager Planning) presented preliminary thoughts about the spatial plan. His use of a definition of spatial planning that was almost 30 years old (from previous failed European regimes) did not augur well. Nor did his use of a map drawn from Metropolitan London's recent planning exercise. I spoke with Ree Anderson (Manager - Regional Planning Strategy) at this event and expressed concern. I challenged the assumptions and approach, and its emphasis on economic growth. She told me the plan needed to be "aspirational". There needed to be things in there that were "exciting". Man oh man. You can see for yourself her views expressed in her presentation to the NZ Planning Institute late last year. These are all about geography and maps and economic growth. No mention of growing pains and other major issues facing the region. I had previously advised Ree Anderson of my work at university on strategic spatial planning. It drew together the strands of Auckland Regional planning, critical assessments of its failures, and embraced modern European approaches. Later I was contacted by Auckland Council Planning staff and asked to produce an Executive Summary of that work and its recommendations for circulation to Councillors. I prepared this. You can see it here. It is highly critical of adopting a regional plan emphasising economic growth driven by Government funded infrastructure priorities. The paper summary was not circulated to Auckland Council. I have tried to find out why. No answer. My thoughts on Auckland Planning are neither here nor there in the big scheme of things - but I know I am not alone in these thoughts. Many others with long memories and long experience share my views, and have their own views in a similar vein. It is hard to escape the conclusion that these alternative views and inconvenient experience are being kept from councillors by senior Auckland Council staff. Or at the very least marginalised. More than one planner has advised me that the mantra in the new Auckland Council planning hierarchy appears to be: "...if the ARC had anything to do with it we won't touch it....". So what we appear to have is a bunch of planning newbies foisting their own ideas on Auckland, without due regard for its planning history, and actively filtering from the political process views which conflict with their own. We might not like Auckland's planning history. But if we don't learn from it we will almost certainly repeat it....

I took this picture of the slide put up at the Auckland Unleashed get-together. It is a summary of the "Auckland Future" workshops. Even without the filtration that I know went into preparing this slide, the emphasis of the day was one of community led development and neighbourhoods. There was a lot of talk about "self-contained" and "complete" communities. There are always the cheerleaders that argue for Auckland to be the "Lead City in the Asia Pacific". You only have to visit Sydney and Singapore to know that Auckland will never be that lead city. I was part of the infrastructure workshop, and if my memory serves me right a tiny minority there argued for Auckland to "internationally lead and shape rather than follow...". That view was certainly not held by the majority of those at that workshop by a long shot. So even the workshop reports are being manipulated. If you think I'm sounding grumpy - then you've read me correctly. Auckland's local government reorganisation may have led to integration and amalgamation, but it is at the cost of severe institutional fragmentation and memory loss, and where aspirational hopes that Auckland can somehow be like London and better than Singapore and Sydney are blinding Councillors to the reality that is Auckland.

Japan's Fine Tolerances

Last week I chaired an Integrated Transport Planning conference in Kuala Lumpur - then took a side trip to visit eldest daughter in Sapporo Japan. The lext few blogs are from that trip. Cherry Blossom trees were out in Narita, Tokyo, when I stopped there. But not in Sapporo, 700 kilometres north on the island of Hokkaido. Japanese TV charts the Cherry Blossom wave as it moves North with spring. More interesting than the weather I suspect...

Flowers are everywhere. Even in winter. Would be totally out of place on a New Zealand shop front somehow. But in Japan - situation normal.

Attention to detail, fine detail, tight tolerances, was what struck me about Japan's built environment. Like how road corridor space is allocated. My father - who was a motor-mechanic selling Vanguards, Standards and Triumphs in Oamaru - described to me the difference between British engineering and the Datsuns and Hondas coming from Japan. "...finer tolerances...engines run like sewing machines..."

He would've liked the perfect fit of this drain cover in the road. When I first saw them I wondered if there were drain-cover picture collectors around the world....

...then I saw this one and wanted to join them...I loved this design...

In NZ polished pipework like this might be seen in a milk treatment factory, but in Japan it's the air-conditioning on the roof of a building only seen from above...

This apartment building, with its air ventilation and heating vents, precision engineered walls, windows and doors - was typical of most buildings. Built to last, and in Sapporo, built to keep out the cold in winter.

Tolerance extends to cultural diversity and difference too - as far as I could tell. A sense of peace and quiet. Major controls against noise.

The water ceremony, for cleaning your hands before visiting the shrine. Interesting.

This was a particularly beautiful establishment in old Narita. So available and on the street.

With little corners to remember and wonder about as it gets dark but light remains.

Maybe it's not tolerance that leads to such carefully marked intersections, but there is a precision there. Careful corners that emphasise pedestrian safety, broadly marked crossings that leave no room for doubt. And I hardly ever saw a policeman anywhere. My daughter told me, "you'll never see a Japanese person breaking the traffic rules...". Tolerance? Or planning?

To me this is a classic embodiment of tolerance in street design. Boldly implemented. No mistake about where cars go, and where pedestrians go. And the speeds. I regret not photographing the little Japanese kids walking to school next day on these roads in their oh so cute uniforms, holding hands, no parents in sight, no walking-school-bus bosses. Just kids. Safe in their street.

Gives the street a feel of safe energy, co-existence through tolerance and design. Interesting.

Which brings me to this little sequence of pictures. This one shows a walking trail in the trees, and shows where it crosses the road.

Someone on a bike crosses the road at the pedestrian crossing, but there's plenty of tolerance by motorists of cyclists (who never wear helmets).

But the pedestrian crossing is used by greater diversity than able-bodied pedestrians and cyclists. It's used by blind people as well. I was struck by the very careful provision of walking surfaces that enable blind people to know where they are and where they are going...

... and this crossing had a special crossing signal for blind people to use. That's attention to detail.

Father and Daughter in Sapporo

Scarlett took me up the Sapporo Tower. What a set of views from up there! Like this boulevard, and the mountains in the background.

The Sapporo TV Tower was modelled a little on the Eiffel Tower. Not so proud that everything has to be indigenous.

The Sushi Train restaurant was a new experience for me. Pick your plate off the track as it goes past your eyes. Pay according to the stack of plates.

Food is definitely big in Japan. So many places to eat. And boy - are they prepared to pay for what they want. Take these grapes. 1,980 yen is equivalent to around $30NZ - and that's with our high dollar!

...and water melon. Plain old water melon - and these were small ones - a little bigger than "D" cup I'd say. At 1,380 yen that's over $20NZ apiece...

Beautiful parks and shrines abound. These are very peaceful places. Scarlett ties her prayer along with hundreds of others. Drawn from a box of thousands. It contains a wish and advice - not a fortune cookie. Drawn from a box labelled: "divinity by lot". I like that. Very Buddhist it seemed to me. Buddha was not, nor did he claim to be, a god. He was a man who taught a path to enlightenment from his own experience. I found Japan to be a place of peace and quiet. So hard to reconcile with a nation that declared war on the USA and surprise bombed Pearl Harbour. Some reading to do....

Scarlett and Aravin hard at work on their shiney new Apple laptops. And boy - was broadband a powerful service in Japan - running at 5 to 10 mega bits per second.

Great subway services. Using a loadable card. Even prints on the back how much you have left...

And here it's my turn to pray. Checking out Buddhism later I find his main teachings for the Buddhist path can be summed up as: (1) to lead a moral life, (2) to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and (3) to develop wisdom and understanding.

...and before I get too serious, let's not forget karaoke and nightlife Japan style. Remembering that night where you pay 3,000 Yen for all you can eat and drink.

...or a little bit of shop till you drop. Scarlett likes a little retail therapy from time to time and so do the locals here in Sapporo.

... and so much on offer in the shops. Intricate detail and diversity. Choices you could not conceive of. Here Scarlett is caught Paparazzi style...

...my daughter did lead me astray in Sapporo. Scarlett blogged about these times much more amusingly than I ever could.They do like their fun the Japanese.