Transit chief has private car in sights

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Rick van Barneveld shrugs off any suggestion that he won the top job at Transit New Zealand through some latter-day conversion to "sustainable" transport.

For he is no newcomer to the notion of sustainability, a mantra underpinning the new Land Transport Management Act, by which economic and mobility needs must be balanced against social and environment responsibilities before state transport projects can be approved.

"I started my working life with irrigation - water and soil," he told the Herald.

More specifically, his rookie engineering assignment on graduating from Canterbury University in 1976 was to find ways for fish to avoid being sucked into the water intake of the Waiau Plains irrigation scheme.

Working his way up through the old Ministry of Works, and via its evolution into Transit NZ, Mr van Barneveld left his mark in Auckland in the late 1980s as the agency's regional manager before becoming its national highway manager.

His Auckland stint involved putting more median barriers along motorways, and developing the moveable barrier across the harbour bridge, a tough engineering challenge in which an overseas idea was adapted to local conditions with special hinges and tracks.

He was made Transit's acting chief executive after Dr Robin Dunlop left in February, but was kept dangling while his board spent months on a global talent hunt from which to confirm the choice.

Mr van Barneveld says there was nothing pre-ordained about his eventual appointment, under new board chairman David Stubbs, committed to making Transit meet its expanded legislative requirements.

Now aged 50, he has no doubt the board would have picked a new captain had he not shown enough willingness to steer the organisation into what are uncharted waters.

Transit must transform itself from a single-minded road-building agency to a multi-faceted transport provider working with communities to find alternatives to the private car and its incessant appetite for new infrastructure and space.

He acknowledges the challenge facing Transit in influencing community attitudes, but is so eager to champion the new edict of sustainability demanded by the Government that one business newspaper has already labelled him "excruciatingly PC".

He insists Transit is not losing sight of its goal of completing infrastructure development, to the extent that its monthly investment in new or improved roads and motorways in Auckland will treble to $30 million this summer in an $800 million regional construction programme.

This will be a huge task for Transit and its contracting partners.

"But the stand-out challenge for us today is that roads alone are not the transport solution," he says.

"We can't afford them economically, socially or environmentally."

Does it stick in the throat of a self-respecting roading engineer to admit this?

"No, honestly, I'm very comfortable with taking an holistic view in terms of what I want to do."

This means pushing aggressively and unashamedly a buzz notion called travel demand management, or TDM to the initiated.

TDM is apparently a handmaiden of sustainability through which the masses will be shown how to live within our transport means through a combination of "soft" and "hard" - or more coercive - measures.

"Travel demand management must involve reducing the rate of growth of traffic in those places where roads are going to be difficult to build in the future," Mr van Barneveld says.

High among "soft" measures are better public transport, and the development of safe routes for cyclists and walkers.

Although they may not in themselves make much of a dent in congestion, he indicates a pragmatic reason for promoting such options.

He sees them as vital to raising community support for tougher options ahead - probably not far down the track.

These will "most probably" include rationing motorway space by controlling access at onramps or even by slowing mainstream traffic flows at interchanges to discourage people from choosing to move further away from work.

The new legislation allows tolls to become a major funding source to build new roads, and the Ministry of Transport is studying the idea of charging for the use of existing routes in Auckland through what it calls congestion-pricing.

"But here's the crunch," Mr van Barneveld explains carefully, although with almost evangelical zeal.

"Implementing and developing comfort and confidence with the soft measures is an essential prerequisite to developing those harder measures, so the lead time has got to be used to our advantage.

"It's essential you deal beforehand with the social consequences so you do not establish a new elite which [alone] can afford to travel."

This means providing affordable public transport, and land use management practices that encourage people to live and work in places and ways for which cars are not needed.

"It isn't just about fuel and emissions, because if we move to hydrogen fuel cells or more petrol-efficient hybrid motor cars, that won't change the fact that these vehicles use space and make noise and vibrate."

He keeps returning to his theme that Transit cannot change public attitudes on its own, and needs local communities to take responsibility for their transport future, but indicates his organisation will be breathing down their necks.

"It is important we are not seen as imposers, we just want to contribute to the debate with a lot of determination to demand a solution for the congestion issue which is not just by building new roads."



Mountain biker on a mission

Q. How do you travel to work?

A. Living some 15km from town, I share a car trip 3-4 days a week and for the rest I cycle to keep fit and enjoy the fresh air.

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Q. What is your favourite means of transport?

A. Mountain-biking around Wellington's ridges on a dark night.

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Q. Do you accept Transit has an image problem as a road-building juggernaut, and what will you do about it?

A. In some camps that may be how we are seen but in others, especially in Auckland, many people want us to get on and build more highways. Striking the right balance is the most important part of my job. I don't think juggernaut is fair as we consult extensively with affected communities on every project - and we do change things as a result, eg on the SH20 Mt Roskill project, even after consents had been obtained we have been able to significantly improve the result around the volcanic cone.

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Q. What will be your biggest challenge in helping to put the New Zealand Transport Strategy into effect?

A. Time. You can't just stop the planned work and that which is already under way while we consider the broader view and how we will fit in with local authority plans. We also need to nurture cultural change within Transit. We are beginning to take a broader, more holistic view as we consolidate to more integrated transport solutions. This is evident in our latest 10-year plan. I'm confident the cultural change is happening.

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Q. If you were in charge of Auckland's transport planning 50 years ago, what would you have done differently, and what may have been the result today?

A. Hindsight is not very useful for today as we are best to look forward. The political, social and economic issues which shaped decisions then were different and it is not helpful for me to speculate on what I might have done.

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Q. What is the first big-picture thing you would do now to sort out Auckland's traffic problems that is not already being done?

A. We need to secure alignment in Auckland on the need for urgently tackling demand management to complement the very big road building initiative which we have under way. This will ensure that as we get Auckland moving it keeps going.

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Q. Is the Auckland Regional Transport Strategy's prediction of a doubling in the use of cars by Aucklanders in the next 20 years something that will have to be accommodated at all costs, or is it realistic to expect travel demand management measures to make enough of a dent?

A. My opinion is not very important but I am sure that Auckland opinion leaders and the wider Auckland community need to tackle this question and settle on a certain answer around which we can all plan for the future.