Dialogue: Traffic crisis needs big-picture solution and leadership

It is unrealistic to imagine that Auckland's traffic congestion can be solved only by rail-based public transport, writes STEPHEN SELWOOD*.

Bob Harvey's Dialogue page article, "Stick your motorways - time to get real with rail" (October 4), created the impression that the Automobile Association proposes a motorway-only solution to Auckland's traffic crisis. He could not be more off-track.

Our widely publicised solution is to seek an integrated transport network for Auckland, and to capitalise on the synergies between roads and public transport development.

What Auckland needs is a strategic transport network that embraces and integrates all modes of travel - roads for private vehicles and bus, rail and ferry.

I agree with Mr Harvey on one key point - our motorway network is dysfunctional. Riddled with gaps, linear and disconnected, our motorway system is totally deficient for a region whose economy and lifestyle depend on private and commercial vehicles.

True, public transport is worse. But there is no point in backing only a rail-based public transport system. No one solution will work on its own. And, surely, if anyone should see the logic of this it should be the chairman of Auckland's Mayoral Forum.

It is fanciful of Mr Harvey to suggest that Auckland's endless traffic jams can be solved only by a rail system that works. At present rates of growth, transport demand will double in the next 20 years. Rail now serves 2 per cent of the market. Even if it achieved a tenfold increase to 20 per cent of the market, where does the other 80 per cent of transport demand go?

It is time for Auckland's leaders to get practical and brutally honest on the full scope of Auckland's traffic crisis and the solutions. The crisis is not just the result of a deficient regional motorway network, but also a deficient public transport network, a deficient traffic management system and a deficient regional transport implementation process.

The apparent impatience at the alleged delay in progressing the Tranz Rail access proposal pales against the decades of delay in providing the transport infrastructure that Auckland needs.

If Mr Harvey chose to look closer to home, he would realise that Auckland's key transport deficiencies have a single driving force - an outdated governance structure. A lack of leadership is at the core of Auckland's traffic crisis.

As Mr Harvey will acknowledge, the network picture has been on Auckland Regional Council plans for many years.

But for the past 30 years, the responsibility for providing and managing Auckland's land transport network has been shared among eight local territorials and Transit New Zealand.

In practice, they have often acted independently, with different approaches, jurisdictions and commitment. Each city in Auckland has its own transport agenda and the big regional picture - the network - has been mostly ignored.

The Automobile Association's vision embraces:

A strategic transport corridor network with dual carriageway options and alternative routes (for example, eastern and western corridors) to enable a logical motorway system to be provided for commercial, private and bus vehicles by 2010.

A comprehensive world-class passenger transport network - bus, rail, ferry - phased to keep pace with Auckland's Regional Growth Strategy projected population increase to 2050.

A modern, fully integrated traffic management network capable of coordinating traffic flows on the region's motorways, highways and local roads - and do it by mid-2002.

What is needed is a single Auckland traffic authority charged with the responsibility of finishing the job of providing a strategic regional land transport network and implementing a coordinated public transport system for the whole region.

More and more citizens and organisations - including the AA - are demanding action to provide Auckland with a properly designed and constructed infrastructure.

It must be an integrated transport policy which aims to provide a comprehensive, region-wide public transport development as well as completing the glaring gaps in Auckland's strategic corridor network.

The plans are there and the funding is available. Mr Harvey, like it or not, Aucklanders are telling you that what is needed is the leadership to get the job done.

* Stephen Selwood is the Automobile Association's northern regional manager.

Bob Harvey:

Dialogue: Talk to the mayors to solve Auckland's traffic snarl-ups

Herald Online feature: getting Auckland moving

Herald Online traffic reports