Bus Network Now, CRL Next

The advertising and publicity surrounding the launch of the new electric trains on Auckland's rail network have been very satisfying for all involved. Just about everyone's happy to be inside that tent.

Behind the scenes now there is a ferocious amount of work going on to deliver the Mayor's vision of a 2016 start to the City Rail Link (CRL) tunnel project.

In his "6 Priorities to get Auckland moving in 2014" speech, the mayor says this:

"The clearest message from Aucklanders in the past three years is that we need to get our transport problems fixed once and for all. Auckland has suffered from decades of under-investment in public transport and a lack of joined-up planning. We are only now beginning to put in place the foundations of a world-class public transport system.

Last year the government agreed to back the City Rail Link project (CRL) – this will be the central plank of our work to improve Auckland’s transport network.

The CRL will double the capacity of Auckland’s rail network - offering twice as many train journeys and passengers across the entire rail network and trains at most stations every 5-10 minutes at peak. We welcome the government’s backing for the CRL, but the fact is their proposed start date of 2020 is too long for us to wait. Without the CRL, by 2021 Auckland’s bus network will have reached capacity, and speeds on city roads will have dropped to a creeping 7km during peak time.

My number one priority is to bring forward the start date for the CRL to 2016.

Working with my political colleagues and Auckland transport I have developed a proposal to deliver this earlier start, without a direct impact on ratepayers. I will be taking our proposal to Prime Minister John Key next month to kick start discussions with the government this year...."

It would help communications and public relations if there was a little more realism in these comments. Even with the CRL and everything else that's planned for Auckland's rail system, we are never going to have a "world-class public transport system". For a start we have a narrow gauge rail system, that is barely double-tracked, small tunnels, and many protected road crossings. We just might end up with a reliable and frequent rail-based part of our public transport system, but we are too little and poor as an OECD city to afford something that could be described as "world class".

Secondly, transport systems are never finished. So the idea that we can get our transport problems "fixed once and for all" is unhelpful because it can never be true. Auckland's transport system consists of a set of networks (roads, rail, bus, pedestrian, cycling) which interconnect and integrate. Transport technologies are always changing as technologies develop and change, presenting new challenges and problems to solve. This is a never ending job.

The trick is to do the best you can with what you have.

The CRL is a huge single project for one of Auckland's transport networks. It has huge impact on Auckland CBD during construction. Offers major opportunities for land development. Comes at enormous cost. So it needs to be right. The planning that is. It is more important that it's planned right, than that construction gets started in 2016.

The map here - (Thanks for correction from Matt at TransportBlog: The map is from Auckland Transport and is their proposed frequent bus network which would have services running at least every 15 minutes 7am to 7pm 7 days a week. It has been agreed to in the Regional Public Transport Plan and has started going through detailed consultation. It started in South Auckland last year and more areas will be done this year.) - depicts an Auckland "frequent network" plan. Now that Auckland Transport (AT) has agreed to a strategic re-organisation of Auckland bus routes, the foundation work has been done to establish frequent services right across Auckland.

Not just on rail and the Northern Busway.

The low hanging fruit public transport priority now should be to deliver the frequency and promise that can be obtained from the new frequent bus network, with a modest investment in key sections (bus priority lanes, other priority measures, some network interchange stations, extended lanes, corridor widening, and additional bus stops and shelters).

I understand that all of these bus network corridor improvements have been planned and await funding in a package of works that will cost about $200 million to complete.This is an Auckland-affordable PT must do.

The political problem that I see is that the pressure to "start CRL in 2016" (especially in a substantial way) threatens a tight public transport budget. And threatens to delay the rollout to wider Auckland region of frequent bus services that might not be "world class", but they will be a lot more reliable and attractive alternatives to car than the bus services available now.

Surely it's time South Auckland benefited from the promised frequent bus service.

I am advised that the new electric trains don't just look good. They carry more passengers. In fact they can carry on average about 50% more passengers per train set than the equivalent trains they replace. What this means is that the existing rail network (without the CRL, but with electrification and the new trains) can carry about 50% more passengers/hour now than before. That's a significant increase in capacity.

Bearing that in mind, and the opportunity begging for improvements to bus corridors, surely it is the right thing to do to protect the budgets for those improvements and prioritise them, get them done over the next couple of years, complete the planning for CRL, and maybe go ahead with foundational tunnel works which will permit the Downtown Precinct development to proceed without un-neccessary delays, and plan to build the CRL in stages.