Lesson for planners - divided we stall

By GEOFF CUMMING

Only part of the blame lies with Government beancounters for the lack of investment in Auckland public transport.

Auckland's political divisions and fragmented transport management, coupled with Government policy changes, have produced years of prevarication.

The city has been locked in continuous debate over the merits of schemes from O-Bahn to light rail since 1976, when the Muldoon Government cancelled rapid rail.

Auckland's inability to make progress partly reflects the divided aims and responsibilities of city councils, the regional council and state agencies, including Transit New Zealand, the Land Transport Safety Authority and the police.

Back in the 1970s it was even more muddled - up to 32 local bodies made up the region. And as long as traffic snarls were an inner-city problem, they were of little concern to the numerous suburban borough politicians (even though their residents may have found them aggravating).

While the local body amalgamations of the 1980s reduced the number of players, the split roles and rivalries have continued to spawn communication gaps and lack of coordination.

Look no further than the failure to restore rail to the foot of Queen St. While the Auckland City Council owns the decrepit downtown bus terminal site, its canned Britomart terminal was a regional transport facility.

Not that Manukau, Waitakere and North Shore offered to help.

As the city council dug itself into a deep hole in the 1990s, the Auckland Regional Council, stripped of its powers by Government changes, could only wring its hands and watch.

Can it really only be 14 years since the then Auckland Regional Authority passenger services board was discussing the need for a Britomart transport centre to integrate bus and rail transport?

The authority's worry in 1986 was whether Auckland City and Auckland Harbour Board development proposals for the area might interfere with a possible light-rail extension into the city from the Auckland Railway Station.

On at least two occasions, public transport initiatives have been undermined by local bodies unable to agree on their share of operational costs.

Mike Lancaster, Ministry of Works project engineer on rapid rail in the early 1970s, recalls that the argument held up progress, although it did not ultimately scuttle rapid rail.

Works and Development Minister Hugh Watt had offered to pay the capital costs if Auckland councils picked up the running costs.

"But it was very difficult to get the local bodies to agree on anything," Mr Lancaster says. "It gave the Government a very good excuse to turn it down."

There were other reasons, he adds. As design work continued, construction costs soared during a period of double-figure inflation.

In 1983, a decade after Mr Watt's offer, the National Government was also ready to help.

Jim Holdaway, who chaired the Auckland Transport Board, says $11 million was available for capital works if the region would put up the same amount.

"The point at which the region failed to agree was how that $11 million cost would be split between councils," he says. "It was petty, it was stupid, it was destructive."

But he says local bickering was a secondary contributor to the paralysis.

"The fault lies with the unavailability of funds from a national source for public passenger transport."

In the late 1980s and after a further study, planners concluded that O-Bahn - high-speed buses with guidewheels to run on railway lines as well as roads - were the most economic answer.

But, as former regional council transport planning manager Derek Pringle recalls, politicians decided that rail was best and O-Bahn was consigned to the archives.

Another decade down the tracks, fragmentation continues to hinder progress on the $130 million North Shore busway. The project involves the North Shore City Council, the ARC, the Auckland City Council and Transit.

Argument over how different elements are funded brings in Infrastructure Auckland and Transfund.

"There's no one agency with overall responsibility for the project," says Mr Pringle.

Although North Shore City carries the torch for the scheme today, it was recommended by an ARC study as far back as 1988.

"I remember struggling to sell the busway to them in those days - now they're calling it their project."

Local government reforms in the late 1980s may have helped by reducing the number of councils.

But the Labour Government's changes to regional authority responsibilities, and National's subsequent introduction of competitive tendering for public transport subsidies, added more potholes.

The regional council did not help its cause. Scandals, including overspending on its lavish $74 million Pitt St headquarters, created a climate for changes ushered in by the Local Government Minister in the Bolger Government, Warren Cooper.

From October 1992, the ARC could no longer own and operate buses. Its role became one of planning routes and services and negotiating with operators.

The Yellow Bus fleet was transferred to the Auckland Regional Services Trust, and its pending sale limited progress for much of the decade.

Mr Pringle says deregulation and competitive tendering were designed to bring cost reductions. But they hindered service coordination and integration.

"We just had no powers. We couldn't buy land for a busway system or rail, for park-and-ride stations or anything. We have had to rely on the local authority or Tranz Rail to do that."

Within this straitjacket bus, train and ferry patronage sunk to a 1994 low of about 5 per cent of commuters. It has risen slightly since then.

With traffic congestion increasing, the regional council investigated light rail transit (LRT) to the point where it was fully costed in 1995.

The money, once again, was nowhere in sight. And as the political clamour for action increased, Finance Minister Ruth Richardson's 1993 decision to hand control of the rail corridors to Tranz Rail emerged as a growing obstacle.

The company's understandable reluctance to share its tracks with rival operators is a constant sticking point. Its grip on the rail corridors has also dogged efforts to boost suburban services by upgrading stations, improving rolling stock and double-tracking the western line.

Last November, the latest Regional Land Transport Plan rolled off the presses. It called for high-frequency mass transit, either light rail or buses, along the Northern Motorway and the western and southern railway lines - the same routes as suggested in the 1965 De Leuw Cather report.

The costs of this network have risen from $440 million in 1987 to between $715 million and $1540 million, depending on the option.

The plan also advocates spending up to $2.7 billion on new roads and motorway links - the same balanced approach as De Leuw Cather.

The plan has the support of Auckland councils and politicians, and a source of funds in Infrastructure Auckland, which has earmarked a "notional" $410 million over the next five years for a "convenient, efficient, integrated, regular and cost-efficient public transport system."

With Transport Minister Mark Gosche signalling that public transport's time has arrived, there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

But Auckland's answer to congestion is running very, very late.