Gondolas over Mexico. Could this be part of the future for transit in Auckland? Photo / supplied
ARE WE ready to talk about monorails yet? Or, thanks to their reputation being destroyed 29 years ago in the most famous episode of The Simpsons ever, is it still too soon?
How about personalised pods that could take you from downtown to the airport in 25 minutes, travelling at 60km/h with no stops on the way? Or maybe you fancy getting about town in an urban version of a ski lift?
Is it wacky nonsense, or is it time to say hello to the 21st century? Before the Government spends toooo much money digging tunnels for City Centre to Māngere (CC2M) light rail, or the Opposition locks in the idea we can do it all with buses, are we really sure there aren't cheaper, faster, less disruptive, greener, more flexible alternatives for mass transit in Auckland?
Because we do have options.
1. A citywide network
Over time, the whole city should have a joined-up mass transit network. That doesn't mean using just one type of service. Light rail, for example, can connect at hubs and interchange stations with other services, just as rail, buses and ferries connect with each other now.
The network should include the best kind of service for each part of the city.
2. Major growth capacity
Within two or three decades, the city could have more than two million citizens. Transport is critical to deciding where to build more houses.
The Auckland Light Rail (ALR) Establishment Unit says whatever we build on the CC2M route should have capacity to cope with fast-growing demand from people living, working, going to school and so on, over the next 30-50 years.
The airport will be the end of the CC2M line but carrying airline passengers and airport workers is only one reason for it.
3. Emissions-free operation, now
Reducing the use of petrol and diesel engines in private vehicles, buses and trucks requires all new public transport options to be low-carbon or carbon-free. It's not just the operational impact: construction costs are part of it, too.
And this is urgent, as the IPCC has reminded us this week. If we're going to put all the money into projects that take 10 years to build, we also need quick-fix solutions that will make a difference now. Otherwise, all we're doing is delaying change.
4. Fit-for-purpose technology
As we know, the railway tracks we have now were too cheap to be reliable, so heavy rail has proved disruptive to maintain. It's also expensive to build and, when the CRL and planned expansion on the southern line are in action, it will be near capacity.
We need to complement the rail network with other services that are reliable, scalable and so efficient that they offer citizens a genuinely appealing alternative to driving.
5. Well-managed disruption
After the terrible experience of Albert St, everyone agrees we need much better ways to manage construction disruption. That might even involve paying retailers to close while the roads are repurposed or dug up. Or does it mean leaving the roads largely alone and favouring elevated lines or tunnels?
When it comes to the ongoing operation, there are two big, conflicting ideas. Some say off-road systems are better, because they cause less fuss. Cars and others can continue using the roads as they do now, so there's no big public stoush.
But others say that won't lower emissions or help with road safety, because it won't persuade people out of their cars. They say the roadways should be repurposed, with lanes for buses or light rail, wider footpaths, bike lanes, more street life and less capacity for cars.
And that requires a big shift in public opinion.
6. Value for money
Last, but definitely not least, the flow of public money is not infinite. The Government's choice of tunnelled light rail will cost $14.5 billion, or more. Is that the best way to spend the money?
There are lots of companies around the world promoting their solutions for urban mass transit. Some of these solutions, like Elon Musk's Hyperloop, are still pretty speculative. But two perhaps warrant a closer look.
Both have a New Zealand connection. Like light rail, both are electric and therefore run quietly. And unlike the Government's tunnelled project, they will reduce net emissions, because they don't require a massive amount of concrete to be poured.
Here are those two options, lined up against the bus and light rail alternatives we usually hear about.
Elevated pods
Heard the one about the Pole, the American, the Iraqi and the Englishman? Two engineers, a transport planner and a journalist who dreamed up a new transport system and spent years banging their heads against a wall of indifference.
They got some funding from the European Union, but it led nowhere and they came to New Zealand, land of opportunity and innovative thinking. They established their company here and three of them became citizens.
But the wall of indifference was even bigger, so now they're pursuing new options overseas.
Their company is Metrino-PRT, where PRT stands for "personal rapid transit". It's a pod system: think driverless Ubers or taxis, running on an elevated track. You simply turn up to a station, as you would a taxi rank, get in a pod and select your destination.
You travel there without stopping, at about 60km/h. Downtown to the airport will take about 25 minutes. Each pod can carry up to five people, with room for luggage, wheelchairs and bikes.
"The system is public but travel is personal and private," says Metrino managing director Ollie Mikosza. He says the fares will be "competitive with existing public transport".
Construction is fast and easy: the track is prefabricated and each pole has a footprint of less than 2sq m.
Mikosza says construction will take only a 10th of the time needed for surface rail, at only a fifth of the cost, or less. A CC2M Metrino line will cost less than $1 billion to build, he says. And solar panels will make it a "carbon negative operation".
The track can be extended at any time and hotels and visitor attractions could pay to have their own stations. Hospitals, universities, schools and other public institutions could also be connected. In rush hour, using a pod as an ambulance might become a pretty good option. It runs 24/7 in all weather and can also carry freight.
Metrino claims to have "the only land-based public transportation system capable of operating at a profit without government subsidy, while providing affordable service to passengers".
ALR chief executive Tommy Parker says monorail pods might have short-term value but they don't have the capacity for future growth.
Mikosza disagrees. He says a 300km network will have the capacity for 3 million people per day. CC2M is only a 10th that length, which suggests it could carry 300,000 per day.
So where can we see this wonderful invention? We can't.
For one thing, the system still needs about a year of software development. For another, Covid has got in the way.
In early 2020, Mikosza and his team were about to sign finance and construction deals in Istanbul, Turkey, when the pandemic struck. Everyone rushed home, the deal collapsed and it has not yet been resurrected. But there's a test track in Germany and Mikosza says he has three European cities close to signing new deals.
Completing the software awaits funding from one of those deals.
The Government and ALR have both said New Zealand should not be the testbed for new transport technology. Conversely, the just-released Koi Tū "provocation" Reimagining Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, led by Sir Peter Gluckman, suggested that's exactly what we should do. Mayoral candidate Craig Lord supports this scheme.
Metrino offers a radically cheaper, faster, less disruptive and greener option. Is it not worth even a trial?
Ropeway gondolas
"Transport on another level," they like to call it.
The Austrian company Doppelmayr wants to build "ropeway" transit in Auckland. You may know their work already: they made many of the ski lifts in the South Island.
It's an odd word, ropeway. Perhaps better to say gondolas, pulled on steel cables. Doppelmayr's general manager in New Zealand, Garreth Hayman, says a CC2M gondola line would cost only a third as much as surface light rail and a 10th as much as tunnelled light rail, and could be built inside two years.
Each car takes up to 10 people and you can take your bike or ride straight in on a mobility vehicle.
He's been talking to the Ministry of Transport, but that hasn't filtered through into any public policy as yet.
Gondolas are well proven in the mountains, but their use is not limited to ski fields and other tourist attractions. Haifa in Israel has a new Doppelmayr gondola line connecting a university and research centre on Mount Carmel to the city below. Several cities in Colombia, Bolivia and Mexico have gondola services connecting hillside suburbs to the city centres in the valleys.
And they can operate well on the flat. Doppelmayr has proposed a gondola ropeway to carry cyclists over the Waitematā Harbour and it's currently building a 4.5 km line in Paris. Hayman says there's no reason the system wouldn't work on the CC2M route.
The company makes another point that's easy to lose sight of when you look only at the numbers. In a gondola, as in any elevated system, the views are great. Riding through tunnels, on the other hand, you don't see anything.
Who wants to travel around this beautiful city and not see any of it?
The drawback with gondolas is capacity. Hayman puts the limit at 6000 people an hour and ALR's Parker says that won't provide the future-proofing we need.
Which means, in time, we'd need more than one. Again, this option has so many benefits, is it not worth even a trial?
More buses
Why build anything? Just having lots more buses provides an obvious quick fix.
But that's only true with dedicated bus lanes, which makes buses reliable and speedily efficient. Cheaper fares are also important.
And buses are problematic over time. They don't carry as many people as light rail and they clog up the city. Capacity is finite. So this is a temporary fix.
And if they're diesel they're big polluters, while if they're electric they cost $650,000 each.
Relying on more buses now without also building capacity for the future is the kind of short-term thinking the ALR project was set up to overcome.
Rapid buses, like the Northern Busway, also have many advantages, and new rapid busways are now being built from Panmure to Botany and, in a budget version, along the Northwest Motorway. But while they work well in motorway corridors, if you run them through suburbs they can be enormously disruptive.
Tunnelled light rail
This is the option chosen by the Government on the recommendation of ALR, with the support of Waka Kotahi.
CC2M will run in tunnels from the Wynyard Quarter to Mt Roskill, and then on the surface along the State Highway 20 motorway corridor, deviating to Māngere township before continuing beside the highway to the airport.
The line will connect downtown to the airport in 43 minutes and have the capacity to carry 17,400 people an hour.
That capacity, says Parker, is the main advantage. It'll be 50 years before it's full.
But the tunnelled option has drawbacks, which have become starkly clear since the initial announcement earlier this year.
Obviously, there's the $14.5 billion cost that could blow out to double that. Also, the lengthy construction time makes this option irrelevant to the urgent climate response the IPCC tells us we need now. And all the concrete required for the tunnels will, by 2050, produce 50,000 tonnes more carbon emissions. That's a net figure and includes the savings from people getting out of their cars.
If our response to transport woes in Auckland was truly climate-driven, those three factors - the cost, years of waiting and extra emissions - would all rule out the tunnels straight away.
To put the cost in context, for just 10 per cent of the money you buy half a million e-bikes and convert a whole lot of road lanes to cycle lanes. You could spend the rest on elevated pods or gondolas, creating a network of half a dozen lines all over the city. You'd still have a few billion left over.
Surface light rail
This is the main option rejected by the Government and ALR, but the arguments for it remain strong.
It has the capacity, at 8400 people per hour, to provide substantial future-proofing on the route, although probably for 30 years rather than 50. It will save 100,000 tonnes of emissions, net. And it will revitalise communities.
The Māngere factor is instructive. During consultation, the community there told ALR they didn't want tunnels. They could see the surface option would be easier to use, especially for anyone pushing a pram. It would also be safer and more pleasant.
And because it would connect directly to the mall and repurpose part of the roadway, it would actively encourage people to leave the car at home.
That thinking doesn't prevail on Dominion Rd, but is there really much difference?
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