Vision of city wedded to cars, short of roads

By SCOTT MacLEOD transport reporter

Auckland, 2020. Empty trains rumble past empty apartment blocks to train stations that are ... empty.

Outside, thousands of cars inch forward in an arterial traffic jam that seizes the heart of our urban economy.

This is an extreme version of a city wasteland predicted by two United States experts. They say Aucklanders will keep spurning buses and trains for the convenience of their cars.

The solution? Forget about public transport and build more roads - an idea that challenges Auckland's $1 billion plan to lease rail routes and use them for buses or light trains.

Wendell Cox and Professor Randal O'Toole shared their vision with 200 people at a seminar called The Case for Roads, held yesterday at the Waipuna Hotel in Mt Wellington. Twenty Auckland businesses paid for them to come here. Professor O'Toole, an environmental economist who lectures at Utah State University, said Auckland was similar to Portland, Oregon, which tried to beat its traffic woes with a system called Smart Growth.

Part of the idea was to boost passenger train services, build high-density apartment blocks near train stations to encourage their use, and discourage motoring by cutting the capacity of city roads.

But most people kept using their cars and refused to shift into the apartment blocks.

In 1990, 92 per cent of Portlanders travelled by car. After huge investment in public transport, the rate dropped to 89 per cent.

"Wowie, zowie," said Professor O'Toole. "It costs a lot more money to force people to live like they don't want to live."

Mr Cox, a demographer and transport analyst who runs a consultancy in Illinois, said he was not impressed by a survey which showed 80 per cent of Aucklanders wanted a better public transport system. Mr Cox said he wanted better train services, too, but he would use them only if they stopped by his front door.

Another problem was that public transport tended to feed into downtown areas. Of the 13 per cent of Aucklanders employed in the central business district, 31 per cent already used public transport and it was unlikely that many more would be tempted. Centres such as Manukau would remain hard to reach.

"We all know that the car is going to be the dominant mode of transport in the future, as it is now."

The Business Roundtable and Contractors Federation backed the call for more roads, but the idea drew flak from some politicians and greenies.

Cycle Action Auckland chairman Dr Adrian Croucher said any new roads would be filled up within a few years of being built.

Public transport would free up road space for commercial vehicles, boosting the economy.

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