By Matt Lowrie, NZ Herald opinion, 9 December 2014
Auckland shouldn't throw money at projects that are just about
providing a little bit of extra capacity at peak times but sit
under-used the other 20 hours of the day.
On Saturday (6 December),
a single crash near the Central Motorway Junction
in Auckland left much of the city's motorway network gridlocked for the
afternoon. Many Aucklanders are asking why the impact was so large and
what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
The
unfortunate reality is that crashes and gridlock are an inevitable part
of car-based transport systems. We can't fix that by building wider
motorways - all that will do is encourage more driving and thus increase
the number of people sitting frustratedly in traffic. What we can do is
build a transport system that minimises the number of people affected
by giving them the option to travel congestion-free by bus, train,
ferry, or bicycle.
Before I go into that, it's worth covering off
some of the reasons the incident on Saturday was so bad. The crash
happened on the Harbour Bridge, which is one of the busiest sections of
road in the country - only Auckland's Southern motorway between
Greenlane and Grafton carries more cars.
It also happens to be
one of the busiest times of the year, with events, Christmas shopping
and sunny weather all contributing towards a lot of people being out and
about.
Furthermore, the location of the crash was close to the
Central Motorway Junction. As traffic on this busy section of road
quickly backed up it flowed back through the CMJ and at that point it
started impacting not only those who were travelling to the North Shore
but to other destinations such as the city centre or to West Auckland
too.
As a result of the chaos we've quickly seen calls from a
number of people for an additional harbour crossing to be built. In
addition the New Zealand Transport Agency said the completion of
upgrades to North-Western motorway and the Waterview tunnels would help.
Yet observing of the effects of Saturday highlighted these projects are
likely to have a limited impact.
As people flooded to the North-Western motorway to take the
longer way over the harbour, that route too quickly filled up and it
too took many hours to clear. Some of that congestion may have been due
to drivers checking out the continuous 12km of roadworks being
undertaken however the real issue is the route isn't designed to carry
that many vehicles. The same fate would have befallen an additional
harbour crossing as too many drivers tried to funnel into a tunnel.
Auckland
needs smarter investment in infrastructure to help keep the city
moving. We know that we only have limited budgets and there's even the
possibility of tolls on the city's motorways. As such we need to be
mindful that we're not throwing money away on projects that are just
about providing a little bit of extra capacity at peak times but are
under-used the other 20 hours of the day. No city in the world has
managed to build its way out of congestion by building more roads.
With
fewer vehicles travelling across the Harbour Bridge every day than
there was a decade ago an additional harbour crossing would definitely
fall into this category. Moreover it comes with a hefty price tag with
some estimates putting it over $5 billion and that doesn't include new
or wider motorways on either side of the harbour to support it.
Unsurprisingly the last business case for a new harbour crossing was
appallingly bad, returning just 20c for every dollar invested.
A
resilient transport system should definitely be the aim of our transport
agencies, but duplicating Auckland's motorways at great expense will
not provide it. Fortunately, we have proven, albeit incomplete, examples
of what's needed to provide that resiliency and we can once again look
to the Harbour Bridge to see it in action.
The completion of the
Northern Busway in 2008 has already had a dramatic impact in how people
from the North Shore cross the harbour on weekdays. An NZTA report
highlighted that in 2004 before the busway existed around 18 per cent of
people who crossed the Harbour Bridge did so on a bus. By 2012 this
figure was up to 40 per cent, as the busway provides a frequent and
congestion free alternative to driving a car. According to NZTA's
traffic monitoring data, buses are often able to reach the city centre
from Albany in half the time of those still sitting in their cars. This
is in spite of the fact that there is still no dedicated busway over the
Harbour Bridge.
The busway and our rapidly improving rail network are the start of Auckland's future Rapid Transit Network (RTN).
If
we invest in a high-quality RTN with the City Rail Link at its heart,
Aucklanders will use it. Even with the current incomplete network,
Auckland Transport's patronage data shows that trips taken on the RTN in
the 12 months to October are up a staggering 17 per cent on the same
time last year. This isn't surprising as dedicated public transport
routes have been the key in making public transport more successful in
cities all around the world for well over a century. If services on
these rapid transit systems are fast, frequent and reliable then people
will flock to them.
Many cities are now rushing to install or
expand rapid transit systems as well as invest in dedicated walking and
cycling routes in a bid to tackle congestion. By themselves these high
quality alternatives to driving won't solve congestion but when
implemented properly what they will do is allow people to opt out of
congestion.
A network of busways and rail lines across the city -
like we've suggested in our Congestion Free Network - would do this and do so within the city's existing transport budget.
Matt Lowrie writes on transport issues at transportblog.co.nz
*FareFree NZ would of course add that if such an enhanced public transport network was also free at the point of use, this move would greatly increase it's popularity & efficiency. Editor
