Brian Rudman: Figures to choke city roadaholics

COMMENT

In Aucklanders' love affair with the car, about the only cost we worry about is whether we can afford the steel and asphalt for another bridge over the Waitemata Harbour or a tunnel under Hobson Bay.

Add-on costs such as traffic congestion, accidents and air pollution disappear into the too-hard basket. So hard, we don't even bother with the basic research.

Auckland University geography masters student Astrid Jakob has changed this with a trail-blazing study into the "total costs of private and public transport in Auckland".

It's an eye-opening study suggesting that what we pay through various petrol taxes, rates and other Government charges covers less than half the true cost of our transport system. That's when the effects on the environment and society are factored in.

The biggest free-riders are private car users, who cost (or in her terms, are subsidised by) society at an average of 6.2c a kilometre. This compares with the 2.7c/km a public transport user costs.

"Once motorists bear their share of the costs ... ," she says, "transport problems such as congestion and air pollution could be reduced."

Ms Jakob concludes: "The solution to the current transport problems in Auckland is neither subsidised public transport nor an extension of the current motorway system but an efficient public transport system combined with a private transport system that pays for more of its external costs."

She says that adding in these external costs as part of the true cost of transport "would lead to transport decisions that are more efficient in economic, environmental, administrative and dynamic aspects". Imposing "appropriate user fees would encourage innovations in the transport sector, decrease vehicle use and enhance the demand for alternative modes of transport. The result would a better transport system - less pollution, less congestion, less aggravation."



Ms Jakob calculated that in 2001, Aucklanders paid $687,281,940 to local and central Government for transport-related activities. However, "external [or user unpaid]" costs totalled another $736.3 million, only $25.2 million of which was linked to public transport."

That means public transport requires about $700 million less in subsidies paid for by society compared to private transport.

"Public transport users literally subsidise private transport users and not the other way around, as often claimed."

Of all transport-related external costs evaluated in worldwide studies, external accident, air pollution and climate change account for 77 per cent of overall costs.

In 2001, vehicle-related accidents in Auckland cost $344 million, or $573 per registered vehicle. The biggest single item in the category was "humanitarian costs" of $130.6 million, including pain and suffering of relatives, loss of quality of life and psychological impacts among others.

With air pollution, of the $554 million in additional health costs due to fine particle pollution from vehicle exhausts, 38.2 per cent ($211.6 million) came from the private car, 3.1 per cent ($17.2 million) from public transport and $325.2 million from truck and freight transport.

As for climate change, $57.76 million worth was attributable to private transport and $670,000 to public transport.

Ms Jakob concludes that "if motor vehicle users were to pay the full amount of the costs they impose on the general public", the petrol and diesel prices would both need to be increased by 68c a litre. She doesn't advocate such a move, but raises it to illustrate "the extent of the problem".

I can imagine the roadaholics spluttering into their teacups, claiming that global warming and pollution are not real costs. Not ones that they have to fork out for anyway. To them, the big issue is congestion and getting rid of it.

But the Employers and Manufacturers Association's risible attempts to quantify congestion last week underline how lacking in fact and analysis the great transport debate has become. Or, to be honest, ever was.

The Government, to humour the Greens, is reviewing major roading projects. But under the aegis of Crown road-builders Transit New Zealand, it's hard to imagine any surprises forthcoming.

If you believe the Jakob thesis, it's time for an end to such ostrich behaviour.

If only road lobbyists like mayors John Banks and Barry Curtis would risk a peek at this subversive document. Or at least let their advisers. They'd even find parts to agree with. Ms Jakob is an advocate of user pays, too.

But she wants users to be made to pay the full cost of their solitary car experience, not the less than half price they currently get away with.