Billion-dollar dream to beat the cars

BY JASON COLLIE

The North Shore busway, allowing buses to travel faster than cars, will be the acid test for Auckland's grand public transport schemes.

Planners are pinning their hopes on around $1 billion of rapid transit services running every five minutes along dedicated corridors as one answer to congestion.

The $130 million busway, a carriageway alongside the Northern Motorway, is likely to be first out of the blocks. It is being eyed to see how it fares for funding in about three months - and how many people it will coax out of their cars when it starts picking up passengers in three to five years.

Even sceptics who say that estimates of the effect better public transport will have are too optimistic want the busway operating as soon as possible to see how many passengers it picks up.

The North Shore City Council's city services director, Clive Fuhr, likens the busway to an explorer at the head of a safari, hacking at the jungle with a machete to lead the way.

Six stations alongside the motorway between Albany and Onewa Rd will link the rapid transit system to North Shore suburban services and will also allow park-and-ride facilities.

Southbound buses will travel along the present Shelley Beach Rd lane (extreme left going south) on the bridge, and a realignment will link with the widened motorway at St Marys Bay. Northbound buses will travel with the general traffic over the bridge until the new Onewa station.

Trooping behind the busway project are the plans to open up Auckland's southern and eastern rail corridors, and the western one as well, for either conventional rail, light rail or buses.

These plans rest on negotiations with rail-line leaseholder Tranz Rail.

But with the right result, these rail corridor strands will be stitched into a central business district rapid transit loop system.

Future fast transport corridors - from Panmure through Pakuranga and East Tamaki to Manukau City, links with the airport, another through Onehunga and off to Mt Eden and Avondale, as well as through Auckland's northwest - are also envisaged.

Key to the plan, released in last year's regional growth and land transport strategies, is building up business and residential development around the transport stations: putting people where the buses and trains are.

The region's Passenger Transport Action Plan set targets of doubling and tripling public transport numbers in several key areas by 2011.

Yet the Automobile Association's northern regional manager, Stephen Selwood, is not convinced they will be reached.

"The key test will be the busway, because that is the one where we know there's congestion and thousands of people go over the bridge. If we can't make that one work, nothing will.

"It's the precursor to the long-term strategy."

The busway got a thumbs-up this week when three-quarters of 144 people who responded to a Herald Online opinion poll supported spending $130 million on it.

Setting up the corridors is likely to cost around $1 billion, according to the latest estimates from Auckland Regional Council transport director Barry Mein. But it is money he says Auckland has to spend.

"You could spin the question around and ask, 'What is the risk in not doing it?' That risk to Auckland's competitiveness in the future is pretty high.

"The region does see the busway as an example project to make sure how Transfund and Infrastructure Auckland funding can be used to contribute towards projects, and everyone will be interested to see how it goes."

But it will take time. Mr Mein does not foresee a stream of people hopping on to the first buses and trains. He believes numbers will build steadily, but only as people change where they live or work and then look at how they travel across the city.

"We should not pretend it will be an overnight success. People will have to realise it is there."

Its success ultimately boils down to people choosing between their cars and queues or public transport, he says, but the region must make sure the options are there.

Both critics and promoters agree public transport must offer an advantage over cars for reliability, cost and speed.

The Passenger Transport Action Plan's market-share goals for the number of commuters headed towards the central business district range from 15 to 45 per cent, and Mr Selwood claims this shows an improved public transport system would cater only for a minority.

Auckland, with its traffic growing at 5 per cent a year, cannot ignore the motoring majority and a need for more roads, he says.

"Absolutely, public transport is a key part of this strategy, but we need a substantial investment in our roading network, otherwise we won't be able to cope with the growth."

Moving people in and out of the central business district is a focus of the schemes, but the area is the workplace for a little over 13 per cent of Auckland employees.

Ten other centres, such as Penrose, Newmarket, Takapuna, Onehunga and East Tamaki, account for a further 22.2 per cent, but the vast majority are spread across the rest of Auckland.

Mr Selwood says this is another indication that public transport will cover only a small number of commuters.

Mr Mein says that because the CBD is still the largest single destination, improving public transport there will have the biggest effect.

The corridors also run through some of the other key sub-regional centres, he says.

"The CBD is the obvious place to start. It is the main attractor, but also it is located in the very worst-congested area."

This improved public transport system will come at a continued cost on top of the initial outlay, however.

Ratepayers, through the Auckland Regional Council, now give transport operators about $32 million a year in subsidies, with $21 million more coming from Transfund.

By 2011, the operators will be getting $80 to $130 million, which will probably mean $30 to $50 extra on rates bills.

Councillor Les Paterson, chairman of the ARC transport committee, believes Aucklanders are prepared to pay for a better public transport system.

Pressure has been coming from the Auckland Business Forum to put completing the road network ahead of public transport, but Mr Paterson says a large amount of roading is also planned.

He believes Auckland can finally make a push towards many of its long-standing transport plans because funding is more accessible now.

"We have got a balanced approach, looking at roads and, on top of that, public transport. If we don't do these things, what will be the answer? It will be worse than it is now."

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