The South Island's public transport networks deserves some love, including in Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown, as well as a revived Southerner train. But this seems further away than ever.
Nicola Willis jumped the gun by cancelling the Interislander ferry build order before determining what caused the budget blowout. In my analysis the problem was with over-spec'd ports. The larger rail enabled ships were fine.
Ports spec was because of demands from the regional council to upgrade to current earthquake and sea level standards which have meant 70 metre long piles and raising the whole site in Wellington by a metre. This will still happen but the government will achieve their objective of fobbing it off onto Wellington and Marlborough ratepayers instead of paying for it from the Treasury coffers.
A significant part of the port work is replacing rail sidings that were torn up when the Arahura went out of service and road bridging became common. Notably in Picton a major amount of track was removed to make way for trucks (probably the road bridging vehicles). In the South Island the actual transfer is carried out in Blenheim with the containers trucked between there and Picton.
Christchurch really got the short end of the stick with transport funding. I'm surprised this hasn't generated more complaints in the media.
Strong public transport in Christchurch is a stepping stone to stronger public transport in the rest of the South Island, as it would increase demand for non-car connecting services to other cities.
Christchurch is astoundingly car-centric compared to Auckland/Wellington. Every time I go into the city centre it is shocking we still allow people to drive through Cathedral Square. The council has only managed to close off one side of the diamond of roads around the Cathedral and that was quite a few years ago.
There was a lot of anger from drivers around bike lanes reducing car throughput as well.
The challenge with PT is it needs to be rolled out in a way that even the people who are disadvantaged can see the benefit. It's going to be really hard to get the political support for the mass rapid transit proposal if it's not obvious to the majority how it will make the city better overall. I think this is what makes Auckland Light Rail so important for the smaller cities - it will be the local proof of concept showing how PT can unlock the potential of the city. Once Auckland has it, it'll be a point of competition between the cities (as was the stadium).
Fantastic review and reporting. Great to see the stats. I never ever thought we would be revisiting the need to provide regular comprehensive public transport!! Never!
IMHO it would have been easier to sell the PT improvements package if they had done the reasonable thing and separated the increase of bus routes from the nonsense "turn up and go" increased bus frequency on what are already high frequency routes.
The bus improvements package was misconceived. There is a need for more bus routes across the city, but adding extra bus frequency on a handful of key corridors at off peak times has to be justifiable on the grounds of patronage demand, which frequently it isn't. The regional council was arrogant and secretive over the public consultation they conducted on this matter.
The mass rapid transit business case is jumping the gun majorly when the light rail proposals haven't even been consented yet. Anecdotally, in Auckland, they decided to go underground after realising they could not take over the main roads along the route as light rail corridors without strong opposition from local residents and businesses, and this happened relatively early in the development process. Here in Christchurch, the surface light rail juggernaut is still steaming on with the misapprehension that it is virtually a done deal when residents and business groups have been "overlooked" in the consultation to date and whilst they are doing their very best to ignore the under-utilised and practically adjacent already consented and fully capable heavy rail corridor, not to mention the precedent of heavy rail commuter train development in Auckland and Wellington.
Nicola Willis jumped the gun by cancelling the Interislander ferry build order before determining what caused the budget blowout. In my analysis the problem was with over-spec'd ports. The larger rail enabled ships were fine.
https://t.co/KBw3o2JUxm
Thanks and fully agree. And your post on the subject was great.
Ports spec was because of demands from the regional council to upgrade to current earthquake and sea level standards which have meant 70 metre long piles and raising the whole site in Wellington by a metre. This will still happen but the government will achieve their objective of fobbing it off onto Wellington and Marlborough ratepayers instead of paying for it from the Treasury coffers.
A significant part of the port work is replacing rail sidings that were torn up when the Arahura went out of service and road bridging became common. Notably in Picton a major amount of track was removed to make way for trucks (probably the road bridging vehicles). In the South Island the actual transfer is carried out in Blenheim with the containers trucked between there and Picton.
Christchurch really got the short end of the stick with transport funding. I'm surprised this hasn't generated more complaints in the media.
Strong public transport in Christchurch is a stepping stone to stronger public transport in the rest of the South Island, as it would increase demand for non-car connecting services to other cities.
Christchurch is astoundingly car-centric compared to Auckland/Wellington. Every time I go into the city centre it is shocking we still allow people to drive through Cathedral Square. The council has only managed to close off one side of the diamond of roads around the Cathedral and that was quite a few years ago.
There was a lot of anger from drivers around bike lanes reducing car throughput as well.
The challenge with PT is it needs to be rolled out in a way that even the people who are disadvantaged can see the benefit. It's going to be really hard to get the political support for the mass rapid transit proposal if it's not obvious to the majority how it will make the city better overall. I think this is what makes Auckland Light Rail so important for the smaller cities - it will be the local proof of concept showing how PT can unlock the potential of the city. Once Auckland has it, it'll be a point of competition between the cities (as was the stadium).
Fantastic review and reporting. Great to see the stats. I never ever thought we would be revisiting the need to provide regular comprehensive public transport!! Never!
IMHO it would have been easier to sell the PT improvements package if they had done the reasonable thing and separated the increase of bus routes from the nonsense "turn up and go" increased bus frequency on what are already high frequency routes.
The bus improvements package was misconceived. There is a need for more bus routes across the city, but adding extra bus frequency on a handful of key corridors at off peak times has to be justifiable on the grounds of patronage demand, which frequently it isn't. The regional council was arrogant and secretive over the public consultation they conducted on this matter.
The mass rapid transit business case is jumping the gun majorly when the light rail proposals haven't even been consented yet. Anecdotally, in Auckland, they decided to go underground after realising they could not take over the main roads along the route as light rail corridors without strong opposition from local residents and businesses, and this happened relatively early in the development process. Here in Christchurch, the surface light rail juggernaut is still steaming on with the misapprehension that it is virtually a done deal when residents and business groups have been "overlooked" in the consultation to date and whilst they are doing their very best to ignore the under-utilised and practically adjacent already consented and fully capable heavy rail corridor, not to mention the precedent of heavy rail commuter train development in Auckland and Wellington.