Mind the Gaps in Auckland Transport Planning

It is tempting to attribute blame for the very public disagreement that has erupted between Central Government and Auckland Council about what the economic benefits of the proposed CBD rail loop project might be. However I think it more productive to examine Auckland’s crisis in transport and land use planning, and to consider how it might be fixed.

The most effective transport planning in Auckland has been for its motorway network which is still being built fifty years after being committed to paper. Auckland’s State Highway routes were protected by designations decades ago and ever since Transit New Zealand and its predecessors have employed buildings full of planners and consultants to transform these paper designations into motorways on the ground.

This dedication to planning and infrastructure delivery has never been applied to public transport systems in Auckland – with the possible exception of its much loved and lamented tram system. While there have been legislative initiatives and legacy projects aiming to improve Auckland’s public transport systems and their integration with land uses, these have been only partly successful.

Take the Northern Busway for example. The drive for this project came from Transit - Central Government’s State Highway provider – not from North Shore City Council. At the time Transit wanted consent to extend State Highway One north to Orewa. The Busway was proposed as a mitigation measure to compensate for the increase in congestion anticipated through North Shore City, over the bridge and into the city.

The Northern Busway is constructed within Transit’s State Highway corridor, entirely separate from North Shore City’s local road network. So it is no surprise that during the early years of planning North Shore City was a distant partner, only becoming committed when regional funder Infrastructure Auckland stepped up with $40 million toward the cost of stations which were to be North Shore City Council’s contribution.

North Shore City got a fantastic high capacity busway corridor plus stations at minimal cost to ratepayers. But - despite informal arrangements requiring North Shore City Council to work with Transit, Auckland City Council and Auckland Regional Council to deliver an integrated public transport system - NSCC failed to deliver its share of matching transport infrastructure at local level.

The pressure to build more park and ride facilities at busway stations is because local feeder bus services remain an unattractive option for commuters, while the absence of significant land development around busway stations is because their locations were designed to support the busway, rather than to stimulate investment. These are missed opportunities because of poor integrated planning.

My experience on this project led me – and others - to call for a regionally integrated approach to passenger transport planning and service delivery. In 2004 we got ARTA – Auckland Region Transport Authority – whose responsibilities were pretty much limited to bus and ferry services. ARTA’s involvement in rail and land use planning was only possible with the agreement of Ontrack and local councils respectively.

This poor institutional design did not prevent Waitakere City making a good fist of the New Lynn railway station which transformed New Lynn’s town centre into Auckland’s first public transport oriented development. The project was driven by a special purpose Development Agency set up by Waitakere Council after a research visit exploring success factors underlying similar rail and urban redevelopment projects in Perth.

Planners and managers there delivered a number of key messages: each project needs its own development agency with appropriate planning powers; land value uplift contributes to infrastructure funding; a high degree of community and private land owner engagement is essential; detailed and iterative planning takes time to get right and must be strongly led; it is critical to get rail freight off surburban railway networks to deliver three minute headway between trains.

We were advised that 40% of commuters using Perth’s rail services get to railway stations by bus, while 25% use park and ride facilities, and the rest either walked, biked or were dropped off. Perth’s CBD transformation involved redirecting CBD bus services to rail feeder stations – to maximise CBD commuter rail demand and to minimise the number of buses cluttering the CBD street network. A fleet of small buses are used to access destinations within the CBD.

Here in Auckland the institutions responsible for coming up with the preferred route for the CBD rail tunnel were ARTA and KiwiRail, and while Auckland City Council was consulted during this process, it did not drive it. It would be unfair to suggest that Auckland City Council went along for the ride – a bit like North Shore City Council did with the Northern Busway project – however it is my firm view that the planning for this very important project has really only just got started, if Perth’s experience and success is anything to go by..

For example, the rump of Auckland City Council now absorbed into the amalgamated Auckland Council, is preparing the Auckland CBD Master Plan. This is considering the look, feel and function of the CBD at a broad scale. (We need to think: “City Activity District” not: “Central Business District”. City planning is about much more than “Business”). Part of this City Master Plan work responds to the preferred tunnel route and will consider the economic development opportunities and potentials around proposed stations.

Like the proposed Spatial Plan, the Centre Plan is at an early stage, and both need to be integrated with the planning of the whole rail tunnel project. This task has not been made easy with transport being run out of a separate organisation whose funding is constrained by a Council struggling to cover the huge costs of becoming a Super City.

So far, I don’t think Auckland Council, or its predecessors, have done nearly enough at either the large-scale planning level or the building by building land use planning level, to have any right to demand that ratepayers or government funders should trust them to go ahead with the CBD Rail Tunnel project as it stands. A step change in rail requires a step change in integrated transport planning. Government funding support for this nationally significant planning effort is essential.

For good reason a Waterfront Development Agency was established with powers to get on with the development and planning of Auckland’s waterfront.

The CBD Rail Tunnel project is at least as important to Auckland as its waterfront, and needs integrated planning which considers land use and transport and economic development together, and an institutional framework to ensure coordinated implementation.

CBD Rail Designation: Government and Auckland Agree

It is hard to see the wood for the leaves and the pages of consultancy documents and media releases that flutter like confetti around Auckland's Rail Tunnel project.

But there is agreement between Ministry of Transport consultants and Auckland Council consultants over one crucial part of that project. Both consultancies agree that the notice of requirement for the designation that will protect the route should be lodged.

Specifically, the Ministry of Transport Auckland City Centre Rail Link Business Case Review states up front:

There is a strategic case for lodging a NoR and it would make sense for Auckland Council to proceed with this.

while the Auckland Council's CITY RAIL LINK Summary Report (prepared with the involvement of Price Waterhouse Cooper, Parsons Brinkerhoff, John Bolland Consulting, Market Economics, Beca, GHD, and Ascari) states:

Auckland Transport and Auckland Council and their advisors are strongly of the view that the overall evaluation results are sufficiently robust to justify the immediate commencement of the designation process, particularly as the CRL is economically justifiable in terms of its transport related benefits alone. This process needs to commence as soon as possible to minimise the potential for any development to increase costs, delay the project, or even prevent its implementation.

I read that as we agree that the designation process should be undertaken now.

No-one is saying that construction should start now.

The Auckland Council report also states:

Auckland Transport and Auckland Council acknowledge that, in line with all major project development programmes, more work needs to be done to further develop the case for funding of the City Rail Link.

That seems entirely sensible, and is also pretty much in alignment with what is stated in the conclusion of the MoT study. This states:

[46] The Review concludes that there is a range of actions that could be undertaken or facilitated by Auckland Council and Auckland Transport which will improve confidence in considering outcomes expected from the CCRL (Central City Rail Loop).

Finalisation and implementation of the Auckland spatial plan and City Centre Masterplan to establish achievable growth projections for the CBD and to quantify where the growth projected for the CBD will occur.

Demonstrating commitment to resolving current and emerging CBD access issues, for example by improving bus operations and addressing capacity issues.

Development of a robust and achievable multi-modal programme for transport in the CBD, which considers a thorough analysis of alternatives and identifies the optimal mix of modes to meet demand.

Beginning implementation of large scale residential developments along the rail corridors.

Implementation of additional park and ride sites, and changes to bus feeder services where appropriate in terms of overall public transport demand.

[47] The implementation of these measures, combined with rail patronage above forecasts and a robust economic case, would provide a strong signal that the conditions are in place to drive the necessary benefits from the project and therefore to reconsider the case for investment.

These points from MoT's consultants are appropriate. Moving Britomart Rail Tunnel project to the next stage after designation - ie getting government funding - will require attention to these areas.

In particular, Auckland Council needs to demonstrate it has the focus and mettle to plan and implement associated land use changes that will deliver the economic developments that justify this investment.