A long and winding trail
The October report from the Auckland Light Rail team promoting tunneled
light rail from the City Centre to Mangere continues a history of reports built
on aspiration rather than evidence. Like its predecessors, it is long past its
use-by date.
A proposal for underground rapid rail proposed
by American consultants failed to get traction in 1965, a classic case of a
landmark project that could not be justified.
That has not changed. Regular rejigging of
the dream since 2009 is a case of a solution looking for a problem. In an earlier
post I looked for a consistent rationale for light rail. All I found was:
considerable variation in the policy trail regarding what LRT
services might be required, and in what order: long-term cross-regional
commuting? linking the inner Isthmus suburbs and the CBD? lifting capacity
between the outer Isthmus suburbs and the CBD? or linking other employment
centres (Westgate, the airport) with the CBD?
It seems a decision has now been made. It is not a sound one.
Who will use it?
CBD commuters? Not many. Jobs in the CBD declined by 7% last year. Over half were
in the business sectors that accounted for well over 50% of CBD growth in the
previous 20 years. Expect further falls: this is the sector in which the largest
share of jobs
can be done remotely.
As it is, the CBD accounts for just 14% of
Auckland’s jobs. Its where fewer than half the commuters rely on cars. Most arrive
from the northern or the eastern suburbs. Very few will be using light rail from
the south, and most have bus options.
Inbound travellers? Forget it. Mass tourism has tanked and there is no saying whether or
when numbers will recover. Anyway, it
relies on coaches. Independent travellers hire vehicles at the airport, or head
directly to their accommodation by taxi or shuttle. Some outbound travellers may use rail if they
live nearby and are not encumbered by cases, while inbound locals will usually head
directly home with their meeters and greeters.
Mangere workers? A few, perhaps. The area employs 34,000 people, 80% on and around
Auckland Airport. The majority come from across South Auckland, though, and a
few from the west. Light rail running north doesn’t meet their needs.
Non-work trips? There may be demand for Isthmus-based trips for purposes other than
commuting. But given the many origins and destinations for personal, social,
retail, and education trips, flexible modern buses provide a far more cost-effective
option.
So, it is hard to see market support for the
optimistic projections underpinning the report (p32).
Does it stack up economically?
Even assuming
the projection of boardings is reasonable, a total benefit of $11.6bn for
Tunnelled Light Rail is no more than “broadly commensurate with costs”
(at $10.3bn). Costs and benefits are summed
over 60 years and discounted at 4%. These are geared to justifying projects with
high upfront costs and a long payback period; in other words, high risk, low
productivity projects.
It gets worse. It is not clear that the
costs of business and household disruption during construction have been
factored in. The cost of “enabling infrastructure for ... urban
development” (touted as a benefit, pp. 34-35) has not been included. No provision appears to have been made for the
erosion of bus patronage. And the stated
accuracy of the capital cost estimates still lies between -50% and +60%!
Quite simply, the project lacks economic
justification. The consequences will be a huge cost to taxpayers and ratepayers:
see here
for an instructive (if more modest) example in Queensland.
Tail wagging the dog
The latest report is founded on the notion
that light rail will work if accompanied by intensive corridor development to sustain Auckland’s projected growth. So, we will be shaping urban land use to
support an ill-conceived project. Unfortunately, the unspecified and uncosted “integrated
urban interventions” required to make light rail work will add a lot more
to project costs than benefits, compounding the risk of under-specifying and
under-costing that have driven the cost blow-out, ongoing disruption, and
delays on the totally uneconomic Central
Rail Link.
Let’s get real
The report appears to be a self-serving document
assembled by a range of agencies (“central and local government working
together”) driven by a ”need to develop new living patterns.” There
is scant regard for the public purse, or for how residents might like to live, a
severe case of groupthink.
Here are some contrary arguments:
· People have diverse mobility
and access needs – fixed route public commuter options only address a
small share of them. For many households and life stages automobility remains a
high priority.
· Bus transport in Auckland is working
well , despite competition with revitalised heavy passenger rail. Buses offer flexible operations, fiscally
responsible investment, and continuous technical improvement.
· Road-based transit will adapt with shared travel options in vehicles that are becoming safer, more
automated, and less prone to failure (increasing the capacity of the existing road
network).
· With rising carbon prices, the
uptake of electric light vehicles and hydrogen fueled heavy vehicles well within
the 60-year framework makes any argument around transport emissions
redundant. (A fraction of the cost of light rail could go a long way towards accelerating
that transition).
· The decentralisation of services,
retailing and employment is a land use trend that promises to reduce trip
intensity and length, by meeting more household needs locally. It should be encouraged.
An elephant in the room: the growth fixation
A fixation on endless growth codified in
Auckland’s Unitary Plan may be misleading policymakers. Whether or not a city
of around 2.5m
by 2050 is what people want or sustainable may no longer be moot. Even before Covid struck, the driver of the exceptional
post-GFC growth mesmerising super city planners – international migration – was
turning down, while the net outflow of people to other parts of New Zealand was
growing.
The halt to Auckland’s growth in 2021 is
not a blip, it is response to the cyclical nature of international migration, a
falling rate of natural increase, the decanting of an ageing population to
provincial New Zealand, slowing employment growth, and the diminishing
attraction of a city of over-priced housing and increasing congestion – which light
rail will do little to alleviate.
If productivity is driven down by ill-conceived
mega-projects, expect emigration to prevail over the next decade undermining
the growth assumptions on which Auckland’s planning and investment is based.
The city needs a Plan B.
Rapid Rail to Mangere – A Wet Feat?
And there’s a second elephant: climate
change. With heavy consumption of concrete and steel in tunneling, track
laying, and station development, the proposal runs headlong into New Zealand’s
commitment to halving net CO2 emissions by 2030. Light rail’s
embodied emissions will exceed any gains from shifting people from cars and
buses for decades.
Worse - if temperatures rise by even 1.5oC
above the Climate Change datum (a prospect based on more realistic assumptions than
those used to support light rail) both Auckland Airport and much of the Wynyard
Quarter could be beneath the tideline.
Its time halt the expensive business of surveying,
consulting, and concocting cases, pack up the train set, and concentrate on
developing resilience in the existing transport system. Auckland is at a crossroad. It may be that it is time to take the path of
conserving resources, not squandering them
