At Least Five More Reasons not to build the Central City Rail Link

Second Thoughts

So some Auckland councillors think that the Inner City Rail Link is unaffordable without central funding.  Perhaps they will do away with the latter qualification once they have heard  the budget later this week – at this time and place, it’s just unaffordable regardless of whether we throw ratepayer or taxpayer funds at it. 

Not only that – it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Here are some reasons. (There are others - I have dealt with demand issues elsewhere).

1.       Its inflexible

Rail corridors are fixed, inflexible, and vulnerable.  Even with an Inner City Link Auckland rail will have minimal redundancy built into it.  Any service disruption will have widespread impacts – even when the cause lies elsewhere.  

Rail is vulnerable to severe weather, floods, or geotechnical disruption – washouts, landslides, earthquakes, events that usually occur when transport corridors become most critical.  How useful would rail have been in the Christchurch earthquake? That’s hypothetical, of course.  But think of Wellington’s rail system and the potentially devastating impact of an earthquake on that.  And think of the impact of extreme weather on rail in downtown Auckland or on the eastern corridor.

2.       Stations have limited accessibility and will generate congestion

Rail is difficult to access for the majority of the city’s residents who live or work more than a kilometre from a station.  Park and ride, integrated PT ticketing, and dedicated cycleways serving the stations might improve accessibility. But there comes a point when the additional time and costs discourage commuters.

And nodes will be further compromised by congestion associated with creating high density development around stations to try to boost patronage.  Even for those living close to a station, the majority of trips –shopping, entertainment, socialising, personal business, education, and recreation - are taken by a mode other than rail.  So travel demand by many more local residents combined with park and ride or feeder bus systems will require major investment in roads and around stations to maintain their accessibility.  Is this budgeted into the rapid rail dream?

3.    An irrational option in the face of peak oil?

If (who knows when?) peak oil really bites by pushing fuel prices to prohibitive levels or through an outright shortage travel behaviour will change.  Two responses seem plausible. 

First, many more people will come to rely on public transport.  But the majority will not be able to access a rail-based system without personal transport.  And if that problem can be solved, and quite apart from issues of inflexibility and vulnerability, rail is inevitably capacity-capped. It just won't be up to the job.

Second, people will travel less.  Part of that may be more ride sharing and more multi-purpose trips, more patronage of local services, more  local employment, more localised village life.  How will a fixed line, long-haul passenger system help with that?

In any case there is a solution to the threat of peak oil in place already: a road network on which public transport can operate to every corner of the region.  When people start leaving their cars at home, it will have plenty of capacity for efficient, fast, and  flexible public transport.

And the mode – who knows?  Probably buses of various configurations capable of moving people quickly throughout the region.  Quite possibly light rail will play a part, perhaps even automated personal transport networks.

4.     It’s the geography, stupid

Auckland is on an isthmus – within which sits another densely occupied isthmus. The result is a stretched out city with a big heart – all confined by hill and water. 

This distinctive physical geography shapes a city already lauded as one of the most liveable in the world.  We have a network of corridors by way of state highways and motorways which reflect this geography, and a regional and local road system tuned to it. 

Auckland - city on an isthmus

And we have inherited a heavy railway that responds to our geography with links to cities to the north and south.  What our rail system might be able to do is make dispersal a greater reality, supporting satellites north (and north west) and south of the city.  Transforming it into a version of the London Tube, the Paris Metro, or the Singapore MRT, though, is a stretch too far.

London - City on a plain

5.    Keeping Auckland Liveable

Rhetoric about transforming Auckland into the world’s most liveable city has its place.  Given that it’s already considered highly liveable, it’s interesting that this is not stopping the outflow of New Zealanders to Sydney, Brisbane, and beyond, though.

So let’s try something different.  How about being a smart city?  Or at least a city that makes smart decisions.  We could start by addressing the risks to our current liveability.

The failure to provide sufficient greenfield capacity for growth is an obvious one. Desperate intensification threatening the green and blue spaces that give character to the city is another.  The ageing of existing infrastructure highlighted by the increasing vulnerability of our underground services is yet another,one which Think Big rail plans threaten to deprive of funding .   

Oh, yes, a sixth reason

Right now the gathering fiscal clouds are perhaps the greatest threat to a liveable Auckland.  It is no doubt this that is unsettling councillors.  It will unsettle residents, too, if foolhardy spending is translated into ongoing increases in property rates and charges for services – like public transport - that fail to address the needs of the majority of resident or business ratepayers in the city (or taxpayers outside it) compromise liveablity, and limit choices in the future.