Transport questions

As I promised, I will be posting answers to questions that have been asked of me when they are published.

This time its on transport. The full report and answers from other candidates can be found on http://wellingtontransport.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/wellington-city-council-candidates-respond-to-our-transport-questionnaire/

Here’s what I said.

1. What proportion of the transport funding in the Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) of the Council you are standing for would you want to see devoted to:
a. Public transport?
b. Walking (facilities and promotion)?
c. Cycling (facilities and promotion)?

Please explain these choices.

Without having received costings on a bike hire scheme (something I’d like to see put on the agenda) and the councils ability to influence the revised bus fares, as well as being able to rank projects already approved by council that could be suspended or deferred – this would seem hard to provide any meaningful answer to this question. However, what I think I can say is that the over-arching focus should be on improving public transport utilising all 3 mediums in the best possible mix, that reduces dependence on other transport mediums, for the dollars spent. For example, if lighting was provided through central park, how many more people would walk between Brooklyn and the city, rather than use other transport modes. Such a project would also improve public safety. So why hasn’t council already done it as part of the central parks recent revamp? I would like to see these type of initiatives explored and undertaken.

2. Do you support the following transport projects, where applicable:

Note: Options a-c are mutually exclusive. Each assumes that essential service vehicles would have limited access.

a. Turning the Golden Mile into a public transport corridor Y/N

b. Turning the Golden Mile into a pedestrian corridor Y/N

c. Turning the Golden Mile into a dedicated public transport/pedestrian space Yes/N.

d. Extending the rail system through the Wellington CBD, by developing modern trams as a priority for the short term Y/No – $140+ million is unaffordable in the short-term given the impending water supply crisis (we may need the $140 million for a dam) and the fact council have already incurred substantial debt – and now we have to accommodate the leaky homes bail-out. Water has to come before transport – and I’m not sure if the public want another rates increase. That said, there are other alternatives in the short-term that can be done to improve public transport – see below. Best we can do now is explore costings and implementation plan for rail extension – and put out to public for feedback with alternative options.

e. A Basin Reserve flyover Y/No. There are much better alternatives that also provide greener spaces and safer access to nearby schools. I’ve cited these on my blog. The recent use of the traffic warden camera cars would seem to suggest the council are also concerned over safety around schools? So a flyover should logically not get much support if any. However, voting history on transport issues would suggest otherwise.

f. Doubling the Terrace Tunnel Y/No – Not in the short term. Poor decision making by existing councilors in locating the new indoor stadium in Cobham Drive will put pressure on this tunnel to be expanded. An outcome every councilor who voted for it knew would happen. Make sure you publish the names of those councilors who voted for it. And make sure they do not get in again. They had their chance to show their support for reducing unsustainable transport systems – and failed. Unfortunately we have more pressing short term pressure on the public fund – our water supply. We cannot afford to fund a $176 million dollar tunnel expansion project until we have sorted out our water supply.

g. Doubling the Mt Victoria Tunnel Y/No – Not in the short term. See comments above.

h. The Kapiti Expressway Y/NA – Not a city or ward issue. But it does appear to divide that region in two. Is that desirable? What are the alternatives?

3. Do you support the creation of an integrated public transport system across the region? If so, what changes would you propose making to bring this about?

Yes, an integrated system would be desirable. How? For a start, getting all the different parties and stakeholders together to agree on such a vision. And then making it happen through an agreed plan. Definitely part of a long term vision plan that the public are aware of – which is something we do not appear to have at present.

4. What do you consider should be the top transport priorities of the Council for which you are standing?

Short term – ensuring all council actions reinforce the message to use public transport. At present, council are sending mixed messages. Why are we increasing fares for public transport, if we want to reduce congestion? Why didn’t our council do something to prevent this before it went public? Why did our council support the indoor sports facility at Cobham Drive – knowing full well it would put pressure on traffic congestion. A tunnel expansion could have been avoided. We also need to improve our bus system, improve flow management and shift it to sustainable energy. Our buses can be made a more appealing option over the next 3 years. If light rail can have a dedicated corridor, why can’t buses? What other improvements can we make to our bus services to make them more appealing. Finally council need to clearly communicate a long term vision for public transport and be responsive to public feedback. Unfortunately, the council have not been very good in listening to its communities. Clearly there is support for light rail – so we need to sound this out and put in place costings and if this would be rolled out in an affordable manner – as well as offer alternatives (improved bus electrification and design). It might be more transport hubs are the way of the future (eg an integrated mixed solution)? We need to be re-examining all those reports comissioned by the council some time ago that are gathering dust.

5. What are your own top transport priorities for the region?

(1) Better decisions that do not put pressure on our existing transport system. The existing council have put unnecessary pressure on the Mt Vic tunnel and the wider basin area by locating the new Indoor Sports Facility in Cobham Drive. The facility should have been located next to the stadium to maximise the existing public transport hub and to enable broader use by the local business community. Any councilor who voted for Cobham Drive should be held accountable and not receive your vote if good transport systems are important to you.

(2) Improving our bus service through better flow management. Light rail proposals will require a dedicated corridor – why can’t we provide this for buses? There are a number of small improvements we could make to our bus system in the short-term.

(3) How are council incentivising car pooling? Not much action here either.

(4) I’d also like to see a bike-hire scheme (already in Paris and London) considered. This would require more consideration for providing space for cycle use in the city.

(5) Better co-ordinated infrastructural maintenance that reduces traffic congestion.

(6) We need to have a long-term plan, and be heading towards it. Something that has been seriously lacking.

(7) All my thoughts on transport issues can be found by clicking “transport” on the tag cloud of my blog.

Its about our buses

Recently we have heard a lot about light rail, as part of a long term public transport vision.

But what we really need to be focusing on NOW, are our buses.

Why?

Because if we continue to send the wrong messages, we are going to end up with even more congestion in our city. And we have certainly been getting a lot of mixed messages from our council.

We need better incentives to use public transport. We need improved flow management and travel times. We don’t need more cars passing though our city, which is exactly what the Cobham Drive Sports Centre development will do.

Take the recent bus fare increases.

For the vast majority of people who use buses to travel to work, they subsribe to the “Monthly” bus pass. And if you are a zone 3 user, that amounts to $99 per month (unlimited travel). A great incentive to use public transport.

Well, from 1 October, the price of a monthly bus ticket increases from $99 to $185.

How? Well, the monthly pass has been terminated and not replaced. So bus users will either have to use the new $185 “Get About” pass or use snapper.

A snapper zone 3 user will pay $3.23 per trip (20% discount on normal fare). If you are travelling twice a day, 7 days a week, for 4 weeks (eg, “monthly”) you will pay around $180.88. And this is not unlimited travel.

For unlimited travel (as per the old monthly pass) you wil need to pay an extra $4 for the $185 “Get About” pass. Which will let you travel outside of zone 3, as far as the Hut Valley.

A price increase of nearly 90%. So much for promoting affordable bus travel in our city.

And has our council made any noise about this? None. Absolutely zip.

We need to be subsidizing our buses, not parties.

We need to be sending the right messages, not mixed messages.

We need change.

http://www.metlink.org.nz/assets/Home-Page/Publications/J0099WRCFares-Leafletweb.pdf, http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/4090106/Fare-rises-will-nearly-double-cost-of-monthly-bus-passes

Art, energy and bicycles

Sometime ago I suggested that it would be a wonderful idea if Wellington looked at the Parisian bike solution.

Well, now London have jumped onto the bandwagon, or should that be bike?

Now we just need dedicated bus lanes (rather than shared). And we might see our transport problems dramatically change like Paris. Of course that would take some courage, but not much more.

Keeping with the London theme, and mindful of our reputation, I wonder if our cities architects will ever consider adding wind turbines into future tower designs? Well, Sydney property developers, keen to reduce the energy consumption of their commercial and residential buildings, wanted too — but a lack of wind meant it was not feasible.

Secure green energy and ample water supply could well be our business destination edge over Sydney.

Lets make it happen!

And speaking of art and creative design. The word is, the mayor has announced that there will be no more funding support for the NZ Art Show. A show estimated to bring 10,000 visitors into our city.

So much for supporting a creative community (and local business)?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jul/18/strata-tower-london-green-architecture, http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/windpowered-highrise-living-20100730-10z80.html, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/29/cycle-hire-scheme-live-updates

A pedestrian’s view of the world

A lot of heat is coming from citizens, and now businesses, over the manners st debacle.

An $11 million debacle, that had 74% opposition from 722 submissions during consultation.

Did our council listen? No. It rubbished dissent as a “a pedestrian’s view of the world.” And did its own survey that spun the line that 68% were in favour (how many participated in that survey is unknown, but I bet it wasn’t  nearly as large or representative). So much for transport policies that seek to get more people walking to work. Instead we are left with an open wound. One wonders what fate awaits the basin reserve.

So in accordance with transparency and full disclosure, you can find out who voted for this (list in the comments below the article), and make your own mind up about the wisdom of spending $11 million on it, rather than more pressing priorities – like reducing water leakage or removing the sewerage stink.

In 2-months time you get to hold them accountable.

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2009/12/manners-mall-the-council-knows-best, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/07/the-misery-of-manners-street-and-willis-street-and-taranaki-street, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/06/mind-your-manners-the-upheaval-begins/

Light ideas

Where do I stand on light rail?

If its 20 years away, its a red herring for this election. We have more pressing priorities, and new technology is making it redundant.

Why do we want to spend $140+ million on light rail when we need urgent action on our water supply. We are going to need that $140 million for a new dam. Otherwise heavier water restrictions and water meters will be on the council agenda (or a rates\debt increase to fund both).

Countries that adopted light rail a decade ago did so to use electricity instead of fossil fuels and remove overhead wiring. New bus technology makes overhead wiring unnecessary. And bio-diesel is here.

So why invest in laying rail tracks and maintaining another mode of transport?

Light rail might be romantic, but we have more immediate concerns.

Its about priorities.

http://eco-thinker.com/no-plug-in-hybrid-wirelessly-rechargeable-bus-by-hino-motors/, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0612/S00039.htm, http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/3865043/Businesses-consider-plan-to-buy-biodiesel-in-bulk, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/03/the-future-of-fuel-do-oil-and-water-mix/

Raising debt

Do you get the feeling our city might have suddenly realised its in a bit of a financial hole?

Only a few days after the announcement parking wardens will be armed with cameras to bill more unsuspecting offenders of public safety, we now learn 4 experts from the USA are here to teach the council about alternative ways to raise more debt to fund development. Interestingly, the case study to examine this new form of debt raising will be the failed bid to develop Adelaide road.

You might recall the Adelaide road debacle?

Council began consulting in 2007 on developing Adelaide road, so it had already invested a considerable amount of time and public money, when it was subsequently told the bad news earlier this year. Apparently the council failed to appreciate from the start of the project that they could never slip the Adelaide Road project into the Basin Reserve redevelopment: “councilors were told … (in a document headed Appendix Z and buried at the bottom of a pile of reports) that the expected Transport Agency subsidy of $9 million would not be available because the changes would not significantly reduce travel times and the benefits would be worth less than the cost.” According to the article in scoop, the Adelaide Road project has been shelved for an alternative: Taranaki Street.

How much more debt is the council contemplating undertaking on our behalf? And where does it intend spending it? Hopefully it’s on infrastructure screaming out for attention (sewerage and water) and not on projects that other agencies can clearly see have no financial merit.

Where are our priorities?

Speaking of which, I also have to say that the public safety spin justifying the introduction of cameras in parking warden cars, does not sit very comfortably with me. Why wait for people to change their attitudes when they get around to opening their mail.

Why wait several weeks to get the message across?

Surely if public safety is the concern, it would be far better to have a few wardens in the at risk areas now, reminding people, that illegally stopping around schools  is a safety issue, and if they do it again they will be fined. This reinforces the issue immediately, and enforces public safety “now”, not weeks after they receive their mail. Clearly if the message has not sunk in, then by all means follow it up, with some financial incentives. But why go for the wallet first, if its a public safety issue? Lets try and help our residents out, rather than take their money.

In the meantime, lets hope the infringement notice at least explains that the reason they are being fined is due to a safety issue – and not just because they stopped illegally.

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/07/four-us-experts-to-advise-wellington-on-how-to-pay-for-new-city-developments, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/03/9m-disappears-so-adelaide-road-wont-become-a-grand-boulevard-after-all, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/07/council-to-spend-250000-photographing-illegally-parked-cars,

Parking, its a problem

Parking in our city is a real problem for both residents and non-residents.

Its getting more expensive and much more difficult to find. Non-residents struggle to find parking and are left to infringe, impacting on residents. Residents are then left to infringe in order to find a park themselves, and the only winner is the parking warden (and council) who fines everyone. No doubt this problem is a massive revenue earner for the council. Talk about stakeholder capture.

Clearly the problem is a manifestation of poor management, planning, and design.

One of the problems is poor signage. People are not able to see where residential or public parks are. I’m not a fan of signs (another form of visual pollution), and have always wondered why they don’t colour code the lines on the roads to indicate permitted parking areas.

An easy solution is to increase supply. Existing roads are a good source. We could provide more parking spaces on wide roads by having angle parks (even if its only on one side of the street). We could use idle land that is waiting re-development. Of course all of these ideas would just invite more cars coming into the city – resulting in greater congestion.

What about reducing demand? Increasing pricing would put pressure on usage. Apart from the fact, this has already been done several times already, pricing strategies merely benefit the rich, who have greater disposable income. Pricing has little impact on the decisions of the wealthy. Parking policies need to be fair.

Perhaps we could better manage existing parking spaces? For a start, we could mark out individual car spaces on the road. So often poorly parked cars result in wasted street parking, because other cars are unable to fit. Could we incentivise car and mini-van pooling by providing dedicated car-pool parking space that is free? Perhaps we could also improve our bus services. What about supporting inner city vehicle leasing and bike usage (see earlier post about the Parisian solution).

Perhaps we should ask why people are bringing their cars into the city? A study would be useful. Where are the flow of cars coming from, that puts pressure on residents parking? Is there a parking problem in another area of the town (eg, around the polytechnic) that requires attention? Taking pressure off one place, may flow though to other places, reducing parking pressures.

It’s about better management and planning of our parking.

Let them eat cake

The Mayor has called for cars to be banned from Wellington’s golden mile … after the Manners Mall redevelopment, Basin Reserve motorway, and Mt Victoria Tunnel have been constructed. This should be around 10 to 20 years time.

Talk about hot air and mixed messages. As Sue Kedgley has pointed out, “we don’t need to wait 20 years to make the city people-friendly” adding “there needs to be some logic to our transportation projects”. I agree.

Although not sure we can afford light rail yet (and then there is integration with existing public transport to consider). Enhancing our bus service is probably more realistic, and would deliver more immediate benefits for residents and tourists. Its good to have aspirations. But we need action, and now, not in 20 years time.

At the same time, another trade delegation from Wellington heads to china. Fantastic. But why is the Mayor of Wellington going? Isn’t this the domain of the Minister of Trade or embassy people – people with real clout? That’s why we have embassy’s, right? Can we afford this?

I thought the council was telling us that local services will have to be pruned back. Surely, now is the time for the Mayor to be at the office, doing the hard yards, leading by example – and saving money.

Perhaps talking to the Mayor of our sister city in China on the phone (or skype),  and inviting them to look after our cities delegation of business people? Or working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure our business people have all the support they need. Or perhaps this trip sums up the state of our council – give them dreams while we eat cake.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3756104/Mayor-and-business-group-head-to-China, http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/light-rail-golden-mile-should-come-first

Its about being accountable

I’ve been talking recently about traffic, congestion, cycling, walking and listening to residents (eg, manners mall). Well I came across this blog and it seems to make a lot of sensible points.

Why is Council not listening to us? Why do they lock us out from any meaningful dialogue?

Perhaps new voices are required who are willing to actively engage and listen. Residents have an opportunity to send a clear message to Council, by voting for change.

Its about being accountable.

http://wellingtontransport.wordpress.com

Actively encouraging cycling

Here is another example from Europe (this time Copenhagen) on the success of encouraging cycling that is now being considered by Sydney.

Great to see Sydney is actively committed to cycling and reducing traffic congestion. Where is our study? http://www.smh.com.au/national/benefits-of-bike-network-far-outweigh-cost-says-study-20100513-v1u2.html.

Here is some information on Copenhagen’s success story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen