The Government will pour $28 billion into what Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has described as the country’s largest ever civil construction project.
Speaking at the Newmarket train station alongside Transport Minister Phil Twyford, Goff called the 10-year package “transformational.”
Projects which will be funded by the package include light rail, Penlink and Mill Road, heavy rail and bus upgrades, safety improvements, and more dedicated cycle lanes.
“This $28 billion plan will help ease the awful congestion that has been caused by a decade of under-investment,” Twyford says.
“We will create a congestion-free rapid transit network and boost other alternatives to driving to help free up the roads, enable growth, and improve safety for drivers and others.”
The price tag for the multi-billion packages will be split between Auckland Council and central Government, with the lion’s share coming from the latter (see below).
Twyford also used the opportunity to take a swipe at the previous National-led Government, saying a previous Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) report revealed there was a $5.9 billion funding gap.
But those calculations and modeling failed to “inflation-proof” that programme of spending for the 10-year period, Twyford says.
He says the “fiscal hole” that was left by National is actually $9.7 billion.
“Today’s package fills that gap,” Twyford says.
The ATAP package seeks an appropriate balance that supports change, while also addressing Auckland’s transport challenges faces today (see below).
Goff says the new projects are possible because of the Auckland fuel tax, which will raise an extra $4.4 billion in expenditure for the Council.
“To raise the same sum from rates would result in a total rate increase of over 13% this year. Alternatively, to do nothing would see Auckland become increasingly gridlocked,” he says.
But Goff says central and local Government still need to find innovative ways to fund further development such as public-private partnerships (PPPs), special purpose vehicles (SPVs) or infrastructure bonds.
A work programme is underway to leverage sources of investment capital outside of ATAP for light rail, and an announcement will be made soon.
Under ATAP, Auckland is expected to receive 38% of the National Land Transport Fund over the next decade, proportionate with the region’s growing share of New Zealand’s population.
But Goff says that this “still falls short of Auckland’s projected 55% share of the country’s population growth over the next decade.”
ATAP major investments include:
- Committed projects like the City Rail Link and northern motorway improvements.
- Light rail
- Eastern busway (Panmure-Botany)
- Airport-Puhinui State highway upgrade, including a high quality public transport link to an upgraded Puhinui rail station
- Bus priority programme, to more rapidly grow Auckland’s bus lane network and support faster, more reliable and more efficient bus services
- Albany-Silverdale bus improvements
- Lower cost East West Link to address key freight issues in the area
- Papakura-Drury motorway widening
- First phase of the Mill Road corridor
- Penlink (tolled)
- Walking and cycling programme to expand the network and complete key connections (e.g. SkyPath)
The reaction
EMA Chief Executive Kim Campbell says the plan should be commended.
“Auckland’s a growing city and it needs a transport network which supports this. We know congestion is stifling the city’s economy and productivity. Which is why we encourage the Government and council to keep the pressure on to streamline these projects and ensure they happen at pace.”
But National says the only new idea in the package is a “multibillion-dollar tram,” paid for by motorists.
“The Government has just re-announced National’s Auckland transport package but confirmed it will tax Aucklanders an extra 25 cents a litre of fuel to deliver its half-planned, half-funded multi-billion-dollar tram to the Airport,” says the party’s Transport spokesman Jami-Lee Ross.
And here's the full Auckland Transport Alignment Project report.
103 Comments
I wonder is this is a smokescreen to justify the proposed Auckland fuel levy , and to pre-empt and take the heat off the Government and Auckland Council for what is certainly going to be an extremely unpopular levy ( A levy is a TAX just in case Taxinda tries her luck on semantics again ) and likely to become a huge bun-fight for everyone concerned
Yes the levy is a tax, one that Labour promised in their election campaign. I think you are getting confused with the general increase to fuel taxes which was not signalled before the election but is just business as usual for any government (including National that raised it 6 timers in 9 years).
Be careful what you wish for
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/07/honolulus-rapid-transit-…
This is the Honolulu white elephant
Roads are good & so are tunnels & a new Auckland harbour bridge
Spend it on a new bridge Auckland
Develope the farmland between Silverdale & Albany ( Dairy Flat ) for housing
There’s already a motorway running through it
Just get a new bridge built before the old one collapses
You could not drive trucks on the clip ons when I last lived there
When I hopped off the 957 bus four stops from Highbury at noon today there were no passengers left on the bus. Incidentally there are three bus routs along that stretch of Glenfield road but none had passed by for 15 minutes when I got on. So it was nothing to do with buses running in a convoy (although that was the case when I went to Glenfield at 10am).
I like and use PT but it is an expensive luxury.
I thought he said 30%. Perhaps you should read the paper in full so that the $28B announced will make sense. Obviously there is more to pay but at least it is a start. Mill Road for example is 10 years down the line since proposed. People seem to overlook that fact that there is only one way into Auckland from the South and that is through the Bombay Hills and only on SH1 until Manukau.
It will cost less to build an industrial town near Ramarama or Drury than building more roads to add to bring more people to the same business hubs ... Another bandaid - not a solution
Isn't it better to utilize the existing rail line down all the way to Hamilton to carry passengers during rush hours ? ... need few stations and car parks nearby and some Brains and Will to accomplish.
Waste of time taking the toll road North to Puhoi in the holidays. Got on it twice over Christmas and it cost me the toll and 30minutes sitting in traffic going nowhere.This will be sorted when the motorway extension is complete in 2021 as they will open the tunnel to TWO lanes and the traffic jam will then move North to Warkworth.
Think again...
"Travel time saving has the quality of a myth—a traditional story accepted as factual. It is what economists term a ‘stylized fact’, as opposed to an empirical fact".
http://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Metz-2008…
What we should be doing is encouraging people to live closer to work , and this may mean we need more commercial and industrial hubs that are outside the CBD , like Botany , Albany Basin , Silverdale commercial precinct , and Westgate .
If we could live closer to work it would make things a whole lot easier .
Right now we are building more and more office buildings that are in Auckland city , just look at the Wynyard office buildings.......... ASB , Fonterra to name just 2 .
Auckland Council's policies make sure it never works out that way.
Auckland Council short supplies land to Auckland City (and builds new massive sprawls in exurbia). This forces the price of land in Auckland higher than is economic to build on.
Which is why the places we get new apartment blocks tend to be on public land, in disused quarries and on old car lots. Places where land can be acquired cheaply.
Unable closp
Yes I don’t think Phil Goff or anyone can overcome the simple fact Auckland City has extreme debt of $8Billion & no way to pay it back.
Adding extra fuel levies or taxes will not alleviate that debt either.
Fundamentally Aucklands rating system is unsustainable and the chickens are coming home to roost
Ever increasing debt until bankruptcy unless the government manages a pathway out of debt for Auckland
Oh sorry I forgot the country is a Half Trillion in debt too
Oh dear
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/auckland-councils-net-debt-ne…
Looks like the moneys already been spent
By the way Auckland pop 1.5 Million has more debt than Toronto pop 5 Million
Jacinda tax levy is wrong
There needs to be land transfer tax on every property sale of 1.5% & annual rates of 1.3 % of assessed property value. You know..... like big cities. Actually it could be 1.2 or 1.4% annual property tax.
Expensive RE is subsidized by the rest of Auckland and until that paradigm is broken there will continue to be
underfunding , debt & not much else
There needs to be land transfer tax on every property sale of 1.5% & annual rates of 1.3 % of assessed property value. You know..... like big cities. Actually it could be 1.2 or 1.4% annual property tax.
Expensive RE is subsidized by the rest of Auckland and until that paradigm is broken there will continue to be
underfunding , debt & not much else
Therein lies a major problem. Unfortunately, even the most strident of nominally-capitalist are all for socialism when it's about others funding their property-based betterment. Mayors cannot get elected by espousing realistic solutions in line with grown-up cities.
Untrue.
Both Len Brown and Phil Goff have been elected with them promising to create compact liveable cities. The voters have delivered them both huge margins, proving that the idea of a compact liveable city is very popular. Unfortunately they both broke their promises, but that's not the fault of the people who voted for their policies. Auckland is now building massive sprawls from Pukekohe to Warkworth, in spite of Auckland voting overwhelmingly for a compact liveable city 3 times.
If you want a reason, it is because the lying Auckland Mayors do not have an effective opposing political movement to keep them honest. Our big right-wing political party doesn't even turn up for the Mayoral election.
You imply that businesses wan't to be outside the CBD! Maybe they know what is best...
- In the CBD your business is within a 1hr commute for 1.5 million potential employees, in Albany it is probably within a 1hr commute for 300k potential employees.
- In the CBD the majority of you business partners, meetings, etc will be close by.
- Why is a business in Albany any better situated than anywhere else in NZ?
The most I can say about the marriage of Auckland Council transport & land use planning - is that it is consistent.
Now that Auckland Council has banned further suburban development on most of the Mill Rd area until 2043, the move is rush ahead to spend $millions on local transport infrastructure in 2018. Just like after $millions were spent putting the Upper Harbour Highway through Greenhithe, Auckland Council zoned Greenhithe large lot to ban housing developments. Or whilst spending $billions on a railway system, including $millions on Swanson station, Auckland Council banned further suburban development at Swanson.
Sometimes it seems as if the only objective Auckland Council has is to waste money.
Gotta love the map - so stylised.
Kumeu, Silverdale and Pukekohe are all close to the city. Ironically in an effort to pretend their transportation plans look sane, Auckland has almost created a map showing the exurbs in places where Auckland Council has banned suburbs.
And that in a nutshell is why NZ has to spend the $18billion - Auckland has banned development in the sane places.
"Under ATAP, Auckland is expected to receive 38 per cent of the National Land Transport Fund over the next decade, proportionate with the region's growing share of New Zealand's population."
But I'm sure we still hear the usual whiners complain that they are 'subsidising awkland'
Then provide the answers! Where does the Government get it's income from, and how much of it can be attributed directly to Auckland? I am pretty sure that it has been established on this web site before, that this deal will mean Auckland is being subsidised by the rest of the country!. Let's face jafas have been in denial for over thirty years. Sir Dove-Meyer Robinson was forced out of the mayoralty because jafas didn't like his doom and gloom on the transport infrastructure then, and now they expect the rest of the country to pay for it. The next step is for the Government to make it a loan, which must be paid back to fund the same transport infrastructure for every city in the country!
Sounds like a lot on an aggregate basis but it's about $20k per person currently in Auckland over 10 years (i.e. $2k per capita per year.) That's also mitigated by annual population growth. Also a substantial part of this will be spent on projects already announced.
Most of these projects and extensions were spoken for, planned, or are already underway ... so this is not an achievement to be claimed by PT and take a swipe at SB - that is childish ... I bet they added a $1B of cycle ways to look good ... the devil is in the details .. bid deal between $26B and $28B over 10 years ... what an achievement boys !
"The Government is also reviewing the East-West Link - a project Twyford called a "gold-plated" and "wasteful" in the House earlier this month. " ... PT's jumping up and down won't make him a better clown than he is - talk about contradictions and big mouth policy maker !
LOL "National was lacking ideas" ... see who is talking! and who is implementing those ideas now ...
"A decade of underinvestment" ?..how shameless can a person be? the decade that started with Labours blunders and GFC and Quakes and all sorts of issues Mr. PT !
If only he can keep his trap shut and just get on with his Job !!
Eco Bird,
I'm confused. Can you please clarify?
So is the plan a good one now that it was (essentially) National's, or do you still stand by the quoted statement?
by Eco Bird | Thu, 26/04/2018 - 10:36
up1
It will cost less to build an industrial town near Ramarama or Drury than building more roads to add to bring more people to the same business hubs ... Another bandaid - not a solution
Isn't it better to utilize the existing rail line down all the way to Hamilton to carry passengers during rush hours ? ... need few stations and car parks nearby and some Brains and Will to accomplish.
the plan is improvement not breakthroughs as PT and FG wanted us to believe today -- No matter whose idea was it and who has inherited the project to execute.
this is not about good or bad -- most of the work are bandaids to catch up with population growth and we still need to wait another decade to see it all done ... I was commenting on the childish attitude of PT to claim everything as this CoL achievement and blame the others even if he was taking over projects they initiated or approved ,,, East West Highway is a prime example.
I stand by my proposal of building satellite cities both north and south of Auckland ...that is a long term solution which needs balls on both political parties to challenge the idiots in the ACC.
Try driving down to Hamilton on a weekday at say 6:00 am and look at the miserable car park northbound all the way from Manukau to Pokeno...it is disgusting and a shambles when we have a rail passing right beside it and under utilised !
I would put the $1B cycleway money in improving that ...rather than wasting it.
so around $4 billion for roads and $16billion for left-wing fantasies (early 20th century tech). No consideration for rapidly changing technology (autonomous vehicles, taxis, buses etc).
Public transport is slow, uncompetitive, uneconomic (currently 80% subsidised fares) and does not work outside of a few high density urban centres that invested in underground systems before western regulatory cost disease made them ruinously expensive to build. It will never work in Auckland with it's low density, water-way infested, widely distributed work place attributes.
If you want a fix: use congestion charging on conventional cars and trucks to get everyone into small footprint enclosed 3-wheel motorbikes, in mass production <$10k, and can be electric. Eg: https://newatlas.com/toyota-i-road-full-enclosed-tilting-electric-three…
Double Auckland road and parking capacity with almost no cost to govt.
Foyle
So how’s the right wing 9 year Nat fantasy delivered exactly ?
We had a PM equivalent to a Wilbur Ross ( minus the $billions) who appeared to offer no strategy for NZ apart from open the gates to massive numbers of immigrants who could not even speak English at percentages of population far greater than the numbers of migrants who entered the UK over the past several years
We could implement a modern quiet emissions free link through Dominion Road easily using new double cab bendy buses sharing just one central shared restricted marked lane down Dominion Rod and Queen street coming and going with modern electric busses.
These buses are already in service in China. One city has 1300 buses on order. The are powered by super capacitors that are re-charged in just 10 seconds from an overhead junction box at each stop. Range 5 km - more than adequate to the next stop.
Electronic communication could pass a token ( As used in single line railways for over 200 years ) between busses so they only pass when one is in an existing bus stop and the other then uses the single central lane.
A coupe of months work for Rocket Lab or Team NZ electronic whizzes !
This system - which offers the flexibility of buses - could be implemented for tens of millions of dollars - not billions in the space of a year given the will.
It would retain the existing bus stops.
It would deliver virtually identical service levels to light rail.
Implementation could be in less than a year given the will to proceed with very low disruption to existing roading as only involves construction a B-Central lane and signage down the centre of the road plus charging stations.
Costs are just a fraction of the costs of light rail
It delivers the flexibility of route changes and expansion that only buses offer.
It leaves Dominion Road as a retail area with car parks
Even if implemented as an interim program prior to light rail which is many years away - you still have the busses for alternative routes. Writing off the charging stations would be a totally insignificant amount in the scheme of things..
Light rail is yesterdays solution and the reason it was torn up many years ago was for the very valid reasons that exist today. We need to plan for the future - not rebuild the past.
Technology as always offers economical solutions for the brave and far-sighted.
Haha yes roads are so modern, all the road only cities are fantastic and those old fashioned cities with trains are rubbish. Los Angeles is the best place on earth, such a modern beautiful transport system much quicker to get around than Tokyo. I've never heard a bad word about LA transport. And the fumes smell lovely.
But I'd like to point out that NZ public transport subsidies are only 50%. Also petrol tax only pays for state highways (excluding roads of national party significance) and 50% of local roads, all the rest is subsidised by rates or tax.
I bet $28B will likely easily get to $58B-$100B. Just look at all the past public projects like fixing the auckland council car park building or the disastrous purchase of ASB bldg. by Council. I hope they spend taxpayers money wisely and not continually increase rates to cover all stupid expentitures. Whats wrong with a bit of grid lock in peak times. Hopefully will keep non essential users to look to use in less congested times. Ceawling traffic in and near cities is normal -Typical of any large and comparable city.
You cannot build efficiently in Auckland
Far better to tender the work to large foreign companies with manpower & equipment
Roads where I live are built in a fraction of the time because they have the technology equipment & skilled labour. Roading in Auckland is a cottage industry like housing.
So $28b to solve a problem created by half a million immigrants. Wouldn't it be cheaper to offer them $28,000,000,000 divided by 500,000 to return to country of origin? That is only the transport bill; how about hospitals and schools and libraries and social workers and extra council staff - they must cost something too.
By the time the $28b is spent we will have another half million new Aucklanders - what will we need to spend then? Isn't it expensive retro-fitting cities.
But Goff says that this “still falls short of Auckland’s projected 55% share of the country’s population growth over the next decade.”
Don't worry Phil Goff, with the way Phil Goff has jacked up house prices and blocked new housing by 2022 people will be fleeing Auckland in droves.
It’s not the city I enjoyed even 10 years ago. Unfortunately mass immigration, traffic congestion and over inflated house prices are already driving people away from Auckland. I never thought I would say this but I find Wellington in recent years has become really vibrant and friendly and Auckland is going in the opposite direction.
Ak is fine if you are retired and can drive around at midday.
Except that the rates and other taxs are going up at way more than the rate of inflation. (In fact if it wasn't rising so fast, inflation would itself be lower!)
I'm Ok though: working on a plan to get me some more cashflow.
But for many people I acknowledge that moving out must be the logical response.
"But Goff says central and local Government still need to find innovative ways to fund further development such as public-private partnerships (PPPs), special purpose vehicles (SPVs) or infrastructure bonds."
Drear Mr Mayor,
1) Stop looking for off-the-books solutions. Even with infrastructure bonds and PPPs the users still have to pay the debt down the track at what will be higher interest rates than central government can borrow at
2) Introduce the congestion tolls - this will delay the need for the future infrastructure and provide revenue proportionate to those users demanding peak period travel & reduce the subsidy needed for the rapid transit system,
3) Lobby government to reduce some of the distortions in transport pricing so that users pay closer to their real costs.
In the above, I see that the Crown contribution for the rail tunnel is still only 1.4 billion. Which lines up with the original cost estimate which even then didn't meet the required cost benefit ratio.
With the estimate now 3.4? billion and with Fletchers pulling out, who knows what the award price and eventual final price might be..
Disaster.
I would say the benefits would be much higher now considering the rapid population growth and massive rail use growth. What is the cost of not doing it? I doubt we can squeeze many more people in Auckland without total road gridlock can we? Is there a city on earth that regrets spending money on a decent train system?
Until we have a reliable , inexpensive bus service from North Shore into the city , the move to using public Transport will be slow.
At $10 for a uni student to get from Greenhithe to Akl Uni and another $10 to get back using two busses and taking as long as 2 hours is not a joke ,when the same trip in a car is under $5 and takes around 30 minutes .
Boatman, Greenhithe is three stages from auckland uni and less five dollars each way. It's dirt cheap. Two busses that connect easily at constellation drive. Driving that 40km is $8 plus parking plus all the hidden costs of car ownership. Not sure what the issue with the cost of PT is?
Actually it is not, especially when multiple buses, and connections are taken into account. Even to the new SHAs (those that actually got to keep & retain some form of PT instead of having it stripped away), the cost to city would be around $10 either way, (can go up much higher as the connecting journey's now have to route through transfer hubs which increase the costs at the switch to the next vehicle & mode of transport). For friends out in Takanini it was even worse as they would have to leave for work at 5:30 and it would take them 2.5hr journey's either way at a personal cost of $120 per day including lost time at work & requiring additional services. That was without the extra 3 hrs lost every second week from another points failure etc, where they would miss the entire morning of work due to PT failure. They drove in a couple days and even with a car breakdown & waiting for a replacement it only took 1hr, they mostly drive to this day as it is by far the cheapest and most reliable form of long distance transport in Auckland to date.
Note: as a member of the Total Mobility scheme NZ wide AT has dropped responsibility to provide PT access to the disabled and every journey through AT Total Mobility (aka AT fobs the disabled onto private taxi companies which often also cannot provide disabled services on demand) costs $80-$120 a day. By private single occupancy vehicle it is less than $20 (more appropriate since many disabled cannot get meaningful employment from local companies or are retired already). A bit striking the level of discrimination AT has towards the disabled, now removing disabled car parks in several areas and dropping any accessibility requirements for those with mobility issues, but then AT staff & company strategies/direction are often very abusive to disabled community members. Even Australia recognises the disabled have human rights and inescapable access needs to live. But AT does not.
Yeah, but fits my narrative excellently.
Greenhithe is a proximate suburb with a marvellous and easy connection to the city's existing public transport network. Which is probably why Phil Goff confined Greenhithe to large lot designation and banned most intensification there forever. Phil Goff prefers building sprawling suburbs around the Orewa and Warkworth areas, because that will mean nowhere near as good public transport options.
Basically the traffic is now stuffed in Auckland and you cannot fix it without some radical and really unpopular moves. Once is comes to a total halt then people are going to have to explore other options to get to work on time before they get fired and will be forced into public transport. Basically we are playing catchup on roading requirements and if we already had the proposed changes completed from 10 years from now it still wouldn't be enough. Really glad I no longer have to sit in traffic, it would do my head in.
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