Subscribe to RSSGreens Announce Auck Transport Policy
Greens today released its transport policy including funding 60% of Auckland’s CBD Rail Link and stopping the Holiday highway.
Transport spokesperson Gareth Hughes released the policy in Auckland.
Under Greens, the CBD link would start construction in the next term.
Mr Hughes said that Auckland’s buses could be much better. “We’ll invest more than $500m in bus-related projects in Auckland to deliver a reliable, fast, and integrated bus system.
“We will make it safer to walk and cycle, with $30 million a year allocated for walking and cycling projects.”
The main points are in their words:
“Fast-tracking the CBD rail loop. Auckland rail needs investment for the future. We’ll commit $1.4 billion (60% of the cost) to fast-track the CBD rail link so it starts construction within 3 years. This will mean more reliable, frequent and rapid train services for all areas of Auckland.
“Improving bus and ferry services. We’ll invest $500 million to improve our bus network over the next decade, helping to fund the cost of constructing North-Western and South-East busways. We’ll also work with council to ensure buses become more reliable, convenient and affordable.
“Safer walking and cycling and liveable communities. We’ll work with council to develop a compact city with great urban design, more pedestrianised areas and liveable communities. We’ll provide $30 million a year for new projects in Auckland such as cycleways and footpaths, and will support walking and cycling across the Harbour Bridge.”
27 Comments
Go the Greens!…the only party who is serious about public transport in Auckland. You’ve got my party vote!
If National don’t get an out right majority and God knows they dont deserve even anywhere near that and they are then reliant on cross party support, at least some of this could work.
Ugh. Fortunately those living outside of Auckland won’t vote for them.
Thumbs up!
@Chrisk, “Ugh. Fortunately those living outside of Auckland won’t vote for them.”
Not all of us grown-ups in the provinces resent every bit of spending in Auckland as long as it is sane, which airport rail is, and the CBD rail loop is too.
Scrapping uneconomic motorway construction is seen as a good thing. Even scrapping economic motorway construction would be seen as a good thing by a whole lot of people.
We had our hopes raised when John Key had his whim about the National Cycleway, but the reality on the ground is a whole lot of not a lot. There certainly is no vision of building useful cycleways linking our urban nodes. There are no cycleway projects in the lower North Island south of Palmy. You can’t ride from Wellington to Porirua safely, and you can’t ride to the Hutt without great danger. You can’t cross the Manawatu River on a bicycle safely. There is no alternative to SH1 past Kapiti into the Horowhenua which is as dangerous as anything.
Under National nothing has happened for cycling or pedestrians in any meaningful way.
With the Greens our chances are better, and their transport policy is not just about Auckland, it is about the whole country. They’re the only party who get that life is not about driving everywhere at the expense of everything else.
Also, Chris, this is the Auckland Greens-led transport policy - of course supported by the national Green party - so you shouldn’t be surprised that it is somewhat Auckland centric.
We Aucklanders don’t complain about Christchurch getting billions of much-needed investment. So let’s not play the “my area against your area” card. This is about REALLOCATING John Key’s transport investment from Auckland motorway projects to Auckland PT and active mode projects. Not about stealing your local road
So your argument doesn’t even hold enough water to sustain a cactus. Go the Greens!
Chris, if Auckland doesn’t work well, the country is significantly the poorer as a result. We’ve had a roads-centric transport policy for Auckland for over 50 years, and it hasn’t got us anywhere good. Joyce wants to keep doing more and more of the same, seemingly in the belief that if we can just build more roads it’ll magically achieve a different result. Einstein reportedly said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result.
Cities similar to Auckland in geographic size, population density, and economic makeup have functional, effective public transport. We are different only because we have had the worst part of six decades of central governments insisting that the only thing for us is m0ar roads!!!!
We’ve been building your roads (I don’t know where you live, but we’ve contributed more to the transport fund than we’ve ever got back, so by definition we’ve paid for your roads) for decades. It’s about time we got something that works for us, not for provincial hick attitudes such as those demonstrated by your comment, and by Steven “Minister of Trucks” Joyce.
It seems as though their transport policy is only focused around Auckland. While this is understandable due to the size and need in Auckland. What about various light rail projects that are proposed around the country in different cities. I am also interested in walking and cycling projected for heartland cities around the country. I am a bit disappointed to be honest.
Brent C - it was their Auckland Transport Policy. You can read their whole transport policy on their website.
The right wing blogs are already trying to scare voters by saying the Greens will scrap Transmission Gully to pay for Auckland Rail http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/11/greens_say_scrap_tranmission_gully_to_fund_auckland_rail.html
The full Greens transport policy is here http://www.greens.org.nz/policysummary/transport-policy-summary-smart-moves
And the rightwing blogs are using a National Party talking points script on why we need the Holiday Highway
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/11/the_truth_behind_the_slogan.html
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2011/11/the-very-definition-of-short-sighted-stupidity/
I’ll be up front and honest,
I am a National voter and I will vote for our person in Mangere Bridge, but I really like the noises the Greens are making and they make sence.
I don’t like the Greens leadership but I like what they saying and doing. I think they deserve a party vote, and I think I will do that.
Good on the Greens, at last they are playing to win and not just making up the numbers.
In a development that I consider to be very significant, The Herald has used the term “rail link” in a headline and maintained it in the article body. Getting away from the “loop” term is a big deal, because it pushes the message to the public that this isn’t just a way to have trains running in circles.
“We’ve had a roads-centric transport policy for Auckland for over 50 years, and it hasn’t got us anywhere good.”
@Matt- A CBD rail loop is nice to have, but its not needed. The way Auckland is so spread out, Auckland’s PT is very limited. Cars are much more convenient, unless you live next to a train station and you work near a train station, which most Aucklanders don’t…and if you don’t mind sitting on a train for ages.
I am trawling through the those mentioned blogs now and case of need I bothered already knowing what they are going to say.
Any-case election wise - it is not over until the Chief Electoral Officer (the fat lady (bad analogy I know) sings and the Governor General has sworn in the new Government
In simple terms
VOTE PEOPLE VOTE
Chris, Britomart is two months away from its peak train movement capacity. At that point we won’t be able to run a single new train into Britomart during peak times. The network has massively more capacity than can be utilised without the link. No rail to the airport (which makes us not even a third-world city!), no rail to the North Shore, no new rail lines anywhere
As for “so spread out”, we’re not in the 100 biggest cities in the world for land area (yes, really, you can check), we’ve got a higher population density than Brisbane, and a bigger population that Perth. Our public transport is crap because it’s crap, not because Auckland has some particular characteristics that make it harder to serve than anywhere else.
The challenge is political will, and parochial attitudes by politicians from backwater electorates such as Dipton who are terrified by the thought of Auckland actually being really functional and achieving its full potential.
@Chris - sorry buddy I was waiting for you to walk right into that trap about the rail line.
How to improve the utilisation of the rail network and bus system - answer shuttle buses and park and rides.
Rule of thumb in planning is: anyone within an 800m radius (catchment) (10min walk average) will walk to that bus stop or train station. Add a park and ride or feeder bus and that radius will usually double to triple the effective catchment of the bus stop or rail station.
My point being, Auckland can get greater utilisation and efficiency out of our limited PT system if we gave it one massive overhaul and got it right (with the idea mentioned above). You will find the CRL will be quickly needed once the utilisation and efficiency of the existing network improves with some straight forward “modifications.”
Err Matt, ummm Britomart is at current capacity unless Train Control Wellington is extremely quick in using parallel and bi-directional running at Britomart.
Ben, not quite currently at maximum capacity. February will be the point where maximum safe movement capacity is reached, once the Western Line goes to 10 minute service frequencies.
Hehehehe, knew you were going to say that
I should ask yourself and Jon to join me on Britomart Platform during the afternoon peaks (15:25-18:00) and see how tight it can get when there is no hiccups along the way (although with university over some of the load has diminished and spread to the off peak now)
Ben, I used to catch trains during that peak. I know how tight it gets. That maximum capacity is entirely theoretical, given the “reliability” of our current rolling stock.
@Matt. Fair and true enough.
I did just notice this though http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5963284/Auckland-Council-rating-under-pressure
That is not going to be entirely helpful per-se and is really going to get the pro-roading group going with ammunition like that regardless on how one deals with it
That’s not the same Standard and Poors who gave ratings to junk bonds and derivatives based on how much their fees were is it?
Last year’s Oscar winning Doco called “The Inside Job” shows how little worth their “ratings” contain.
Ben, the retort of course is that the Council wouldn’t have to take on so much debt if it weren’t for the government being absolutely focussed on roads to the exclusion of everything else. After all, the government is also cutting funding for non-state highways, both construction and maintenance, in order to fund the RODS, and that has a big impact on Auckland if it has to build more roads in order to keep the population moving because there’s no way to build alternatives.
I agree, though, that it’s unhelpful of S&P to single out transport capital spending rather than the holistic draft Auckland Plan, and to also not say what would happen if the government were to come to the party on funding.
Well I just heard that a couple of the Greens Supporters been Vandalising 400 National Billboards.
What a very MATURE act!!!!!
-__________________________-
Anthony, about as mature as the presumably non-Green supporters who’ve been going about and painting moustaches onto the face on a Labour candidate on the North Shore.
At least the National billboard vandalism was about more than just being a dick.
Matt, let’s not feed the fake or real outrage by being defensive, or trying to argue how bad it was or wasn’t.
There’s idiots in every party’s wider membership. The Green’s response, in fact, was very mature.