The Green Party says it could cut more than $5.6 billion off the cost of building light rail to Auckland Airport by putting it on the existing road lanes, instead of in a tunnel.
Tunneled light rail from Britomart to the airport has been estimated by the Government to cost $14.6 billion, while a surface alternative was priced at $9 billion.
The Greens’ surface plan would save even more money by not widening the road and therefore not needing to purchase any roadside property.
Building the rail line on the existing transport corridor in this way, would presumably mean replacing a bus or car lane along the route.
It could be completed by 2032 and cost $4.8 billion. The first stage would be from Britomart to Mount Roskill and would cost $1.9 billion to build by 2029.
“We don’t need the most expensive light rail project in the world. We need light rail that can be delivered without delay and within budget, with sensible sequencing, so the network can grow over time,” the party said in a policy document.
Money saved on the Auckland Light Rail project could then be directed towards similar projects in New Zealand’s other major cities.
Wellington could build a light rail line from Island Bay to the train station for $1.8 billion by 2029, instead of a second car tunnel.
Christchurch could build a light rail line starting with Church Corner to Papanui via the city centre, and then working outwards towards Hornby and Belfast in phase two.
The Greens estimate the first line could be operating by 2029 and the whole network operation by 2032 with a total price tag of $4.8 billion.
Greener cities
These light rail costs were revealed as part of the Green Party’s sweeping Climate-safe Communities policy, which aims to make cities more climate resilient.
A policy document outlining the suite of policies said previous governments had designed cities around cars, which had left them less livable and more vulnerable to climate change.
After the election, Cabinet will have to establish a National Planning Framework under the new Natural and Built Environments Act.
The Green Party wants to use this opportunity to steer council towards urban planning rules that would make communities more resilient to extreme weather and emit less carbon.
For example, it would require councils to assess tree cover in various suburbs and create a plan to improve the amount of urban trees. This would be incentivised through rebates or discounted “tree bonds”.
The policy would include a range of initiatives to make cities better at absorbing and filtering heavy rainfall, to avoid regular repeats of the flooding seen this year.
These include financial incentives for green roofs and onsite rainwater storage, promoting storm drains in planning rules, and requiring water entities to help councils manage risk.
The Green Party would reprioritise transport funding from building new urban highways towards walking and cycling infrastructure, doubling the minimum investment level from $500 million to $1 billion.
This would aim to encourage kids to cycle to school, like in 1990 when 12% of children cycled to school. That number had dropped to just 2% by 2014.
“Parents are hesitant to let kids make their own way to school because it isn’t safe, and therefore have to ferry them around in vehicles,” the policy document said.
A $750 million fund would be made available to councils over three years to fund community projects that are restoring and protecting nature in their local areas.
One example given, was community projects which were working to restore streams to their natural state, bringing them out of pipes and creating room for them on the surface.
“Giving urban streams more room to move can play a significant part in making our cities more resilient to flood risks”.
74 Comments
Sure, but the good thing about them is they have always been consistent about the need to start with improved public transport before any social benefit can be gained from tolls, congestion charging, value uplift and the like. I know it's a no brainer, but she had all the right facts, figures, arguments and counter-arguments.
CRL (massive time/cost-over-run that it is) once up and operational will mean that Aucklanders all look back and say, how did we ever do without this. So many examples from overseas.
It's what we should have reverted to once it become clear there was a huge stuff up in the LRT process - pre-Covid. If it needed to go along other routes in future, then add crosstown services and build a network.
But no, we have to have tunneled, golden-tracked, infinity trillion dollar exceptionalism on rails when every other city in the world builds cheap, street-level trams and actually realises the benefits of them.
Genter is one of the most brain dead politicians in parliament! The fact that she is there is a disgrace and due entirely to our stupid voting system! She would never win an electorate seat! Most of our massive roading issues can be sheeted directly back to her involvement during the last six years!
Genter is one of the most brain dead politicians in parliament! The fact that she is there is a disgrace and due entirely to our stupid voting system! She would never win an electorate seat! Most of our massive roading issues can be sheeted directly back to her involvement during the last six years!
Agree. She's dreadful. With her partner, making out like bandits from the state without contributing anything of note.
Road to Zero yeah sure
LGWM more like, lets not get Wellington moving, and all the shenanigans over her communications with the council
Genter thinks she sounds plausible, throwing in how she used to be a town planner. Some of those council planners are the most obstinate, obstructive and clueless A-holes around.
There was a chance to connect communities that currently have little transport - e.g. Mangere. But now we're not even doing that, it's going to run along the motorway and most of it will be underground - which makes it less accessible for many. As a street-level, hop-on, hop-off service that just happened to terminate at the airport, it had some value. But there was only ever going to be a small number of end-to-end trips either way.
Skybus closed due to Covid and never restarted, or am I imagining that?
I used to use it every time I travelled to Auckland for work (either getting off somewhere in the CBD, or I'd have meetings at Smells Farm on the North Shore) and it was a great service.
Now I Uber - at more expense and less comfort, which is a pain.
Apparently there is some replacement type service operated by Ritchies but I've never actually seen it leaving the airport. I also tried to take it from CBD (departs from Casino) to the airport and it never showed up to depart so once again I had to Uber.
A reintroduction of wealth/death duties/LVT etc will be the thin end of the wedge to fund future ideological fantasies at an ever increasing % until the goose is a shredded carcass.
"The problem with socialists is that they eventually run out of other peoples money."
A reintroduction of wealth/death duties/LVT etc will be the thin end of the wedge to fund future ideological fantasies at an ever increasing % until the goose is a shredded carcass.
Mate you can say this about any tax. E.g GST, Income taxes, they all have negative effects just like the taxes you listed above yet you never seem to moan and whinge about those to the same extent.
Christ the top income tax rate is 39%, and someone on minimum wage is coming close to 30%, maybe rather than getting all of our income from the one goose we actually go back to the principles of our tax system and have a broad low-rate tax base, bring back the LVT that we used to have and take some pressure off of income earners and workers rather than punishing them with an increasingly flat income tax brackets alongside a high GST that has a decent chance of being raised in the future with the way things are going.
The Lange/Douglas government introduced GST with compensatory income tax reduction. The aim was to arrive at flat income tax but that did not materialise. Since then GST has been increased and so too has income tax. History tells us that compensation for any new indirect tax is soon dispensed with by succeeding governments. PAYE is such an easy cash cow for a government, an irresistible target.
"The problem with socialists is that they eventually run out of other peoples money."
Not the first time you've thrown this one out there, and it makes zero sense in the current economy. Unless of course you are talking about the beneficiaries of the NZ housing market socialism loss-making experiment. Would be fascinating to see if all socialised subsidies to the NZ housing market were removed who would quickly run out of other peoples money. Here's a clue: it wouldn't be socialists.
We pay plenty of tax already. If it mattered, we could decide to not piss money away on massive centralisation policies. It's just a convenient beach head for the Greens and TPM to reach further into Kiwis' wallets. Notice how improving spending is never on the table, except when it comes to roads and transport people actually use.
“We don’t need the most expensive light rail project in the world. We need light rail that can be delivered without delay and within budget, with sensible sequencing, so the network can grow over time."
Great vision. Now show us the plan. That's what these people get paid to do.
The savings will not be there s signiifcant investment is still needed in the Auckland rail network,such as an additional 1.1b to enable the existing city rail (Includes additional electrical connection due to voltage constraints on the western line) this was in the independent review of CR released on friday,and has already been signaled by the AG report.
As well as the CRL project, Auckland Transport and KiwiRail Holdings Group (KiwiRail) are responsible for the wider network improvements needed to integrate the City Rail Link into the existing transport network in Auckland. These wider network improvements include new trains, removing level crossings, and the Wiri to Quay Park upgrade.
The budget for these wider network improvements is about $1.11 billion. This brings the current total
estimated cost of the work to enable the City Rail Link to start passenger services to about $5.53 billion.
These works will provide capacity for 27,000 passengers each hour during peak times.
Separate from the CRL project and the associated wider network improvements, Auckland Transport and KiwiRail have also signalled that, between now and 2036, additional investment of about $7.5 billion in the Auckland Rail Network Development Programme could enable up to 54,000 passengers totravel through the City Rail Link each hour during peak times.
Well, they would say that, wouldn't they.
Repeating my post from yesterday: When the political decisions are made based on ideology & the business cases have to support it...Analysis: What reviews of City Rail Link and hospital project reveal on business cases | RNZ News
My recollection of news reports is an increase of ~50%: of the original upfront $800M eventually costing $1200M. However, the PPP agreement has us paying over 3X the upfront cost over 25 years (to "finance, operate & maintain"): Key, Joyce & English were obsessed with PPP to keep it off / "balance the books" at a time of record low borrowing costs.
These people are idiots. You build better roading infrastructure and just run Electric Busses. Dedicated rail and dedicated bus lanes are also a waste, 95% of the time there is nothing on it. At least allow them to be used with 2 or more in a car or allow motorcycles on them as well.
Electric buses are a great idea.
Reserving space for bus lanes, such as Northern busway and the future Norwestern busway is also a great idea. The northern one is heavily used and i have no doubt the NW and the Eastern one will be too.
Those busways can be changed to light rail later as capacity forecasting demands.
But building some random vanity project to the airport is just idiocy. There are no other words for it, its just embarrassing.
Sort of. The Light Rail option out East is not a goer unless one of the bridges gets rebuilt, is my understanding - it got penny-pinched down to the point where that is no longer a feasible upgrade option. That's typical for NZ though. The NW 'busway' Labour proposes may not even be separated, at which is what made the Northern Express so good. It's clear though that a 'busway to Westgate' is only going to do half the job, it really needs to connect with Huapai in some way.
Agree though, that spending huge amounts on a single corridor with little purpose other than enabling even more expensive tunnels under the Harbour - and blowing what should be an entire region's rapid transit funding in one hit - is not what Auckland needs. Hell, I'll vote for someone who just wants to reinstate the original tram network.
Yeah like I said, LR out East is a future option if there is a reserved corridor for buses in place already.
No real idea of the detail of what Labour have proposed, what they say simply isn't relevant anymore.
But nothing is more obviously required in Auckland than those two projects - NW busway and Eastern busway.
The NW busway should have been the next stage of the Waterview project.
They exist to gather revenue. The Govt clocks up millions in fines for people entering the bus lane too early when they are turning left, or being stuck in it not even being aware its a bus lane (because in Chch one minute its a car lane, then its a bus lane, then its a car lane, then its a bus lane, all at different places on the same road, and at different times for each section).
Light rail in Christchurch? Nobody uses the buses now. Every time I pass one, I look inside and they are empty. Give up on forcing public transport on people, we don't want to use it. Its cold, dangerous, doesnt go where we want to go, is too expensive, cant take pets, cant transport goods, and takes 2-3 times as long to get to a destination than driving does.
I'm always amazed at how big the $$ are on these roading projects. Also, i have recently been wondering what would happen if, instead of buying more road, you bought every house in the country an e-bike or e-scooter. If it only moved 10% of cars off the roads it would free up the remainder???
I had a thought the government should provide every car owner one of these on re-registration of their vehicle;
Don't know if they work, but it could solve the ram raid problem overnight - especially if they were made mandatory for all cars parked on the streets..
Not if they cannot access it and their only mode of transport is being denied and limited. The poorest Maori with the worst wellbeing are disabled and the Greens cannot strip away their only mode of transport fast enough. You question that well I propose my dead Maori disabled cousin would rather have had access to live, basic medical care and work. Better luck with the next government then, the last two only killed a few family & friends on either side by govt actions stripping rights to access and essential living needs away. Lets hope the next one has none of the same people who directly acted pushing policies to cause those deaths. Its all fun and games for the ablebodied even when somebody else gets hurt and killed by those actions. Heck they actively encourage stripping access for those with no other transport even now.
Most the populace cannot use them in their transport journeys and you are directly discriminating and denying transport to the demographic with the poorest transport access and the poorest wellbeing of all social groups in NZ: the disabled. Less than 50% can get work and that lack of transport access is a big reason why more than 12.5% of the population cannot get work and cannot get an income to live on. Protip you were going for options that benefited the rich, those with the most transport choices already and the most able bodied only. Because your decision promotes real harm and hatred to those who literally have no choice in transport; those who are forced to be denied transport even to GPs, hospitals, work, education and family when they need those things the most.
I agree that no one solution is going to work for everyone; that is in the nature of disability. While e-scooters are not for everyone (my elderly mother would not be able to ride one) my idea is that if you remove a portion of cars from the urban areas then the remaining traffic moves faster. Surely that would mean that the taxi which "the disabled" (your term, not mine) rely on for transport is more efficient and probably less expensive.
Except in the city you propose removing all private vehicle access to key locations, thus removing the access altogether. It is not reducing congestion you are literally removing access and rapidly increasing the costs for disabled people of over $10000 per year, with massive added costs your favourite policies introduce and a tax that literally picks on mobility vehicles for the largest charges, when it is well known the disabled have the lowest incomes. Many have literally no income and no access to income support, and the least access to Gps and medical services now. You are literally saying well who cares if we are removing the ONLY transport access for some people and promoting only ablebodied to have extra luxury free multiple forms of transport costing billions of dollars that they by and large don't use. After all the disabled must have chosen to be restricted in their access and ability.
Yeah thanks for that. Tell you what when you need an operation and your access to surgery is cut tell me how well you survive. There literally is no space when you strip road access and remove parking. You don't even provide mobility parking according to population numbers in key essential areas. In fact by and large parking access is being removed from key public spaces and essential services. Perhaps you can live without access but those in vulnerable positions often have such limited choice in where they live, or what income source they have, and what health conditions they are in that they are already unable to go to where the last bastion of access in this country. Want to go to hospital or to council or to work well you attitude is that the disabled can keep dreaming because with your policies the costs just went up 10x and access to get to the buildings was stripped away. You cannot completely remove the only option of transport for the most vulnerable and then say we'll get to it later and then claim equity. You are literally proposing real physical harm to lives while you get to have CHOICES of billiions of dollars you ignore everyday.
In fact after being homeless for years because there literally was no available accessible housing (even with a high income at the time no money could make accessible housing with parking access both for family and for medical carers magically appear) that the only place left in NZ for the disabled is to leave the country. Australia and the USA is 3 decades ahead of NZ in transport access and they still do not provide accessible PT on most service lines (certainly not light rail). But even that is 3 decades ahead of NZ. Except the disabled don't get that choice because to leave the country to live elsewhere they would need to not be disabled in the first place. Those born here have their death sentences and imprisonment written into policy by people like you and those you support.
Hmm, read my comment.
I never said anything about removing any access to any locations, or any transport options from anyone. Furthermore, you have absolutely no idea what my personal experience with disability or homelessness might be.
Furthermore again, I don't write policy and you don't know who I might be voting for.
You will get more respect on here if you try commenting with facts rather than personal attacks.
Except they are all inaccessible, ableist and lead to real deaths in most the populace when they need transport the most. But sure so long as you are alright jack. Need an ambulance, or your family needs transport to work well get on your bike, and then realize that you cannot use it without functioning skeletal and heart muscles. Better luck staying alive next time. oh wait you are dead. I dare you to try it, while having a heart attack try cycling and staying upright in a 10km journey over an hour to the only open ER with your vision gone as well. Tell me how it goes, or better yet just get the coroner to forward the report.
"Hop on the bus, Gus you don't need to discuss much ,Just drop off the key Lee and get yourself free". "50 ways" Paul Simon . The advantage a bus has is it can be re routed ,it can go where there are no tracks...lol
Why overcook it ? ... How about we save Billions and just make the buses look like trams....lol
Genter,& Shaw and their party have done the most physical harm to the poorest and most vulnerable demographic in NZ. They both literally prioritizes hate campaigns against the disabled in their social media marketing. They verbally have hatred and ableism against disabled people dripping from every policy announcement and they stripped much of the transport access for disabled people to key public spaces. If anything it would be far less bloody & more social good outcomes voting for literally anyone who does not form a government with the Green party. The Green party takes the poorest and most discriminated against demographic and time and time again strips them of their basic rights to access and to live.
It is like they are literally pushing the same hate campaign lines from the early 1930s right back at us and it sends a chill every time they make a transport announcement as that is every time more dead family in those areas, except the sad part is once they die then the Green party can claim that the area is more carbon neutral... Yeah thanks I would rather they were alive again and able to have access to hospitals and work instead thanks. I am sick of family members under the age of 50 dying because of lack of access and rights in NZ. The funerals suck and most of them do not even have accessible transport to attend. I got a cheap framed photo and poetry from the last death; now empty words to match a now emptied heart. It trivializes the struggles of the disabled in NZ to hear the Greens patently ableist policy direction claims.
Only a truly evil genocidal person who literally approves abuse and elimination of the disabled in NZ would vote for the Green party. Considering NZs current and historical record of abuse against the disabled which still includes forced sterilization and being raped and starved to death I am not holding out much hope that less than 5% will vote for them. Because the hatred against the disabled is easy; it is the social group with the least access and ability to protest when they are stuck literally fighting for survival day to day. You don't get time off from a heart attack or magical new body to go to a protest and when your access to the city has been removed then you are denied the access to talk to MPs, council, parliament and protest. Disabled people do not even have the right to accessible voting in this country. That is how much the Green party hates them, they will do anything to further strip basic access to live away from disabled people and remove their voice in society. Not a single priority the Greens have actually includes disabled access as a human right. All animals are equal except only some animals get to have human rights and access.
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