CBD, Part 1

Sue Kedgley says there's not enough room in the CBD for the buses from the busway. But she's a strong supporter of light rail. In the CBD, light rail will run on existing streets. If there's not enough room for buses, how come there's enough room for light rail?

Here's the council's answer:

Road space would need to be reallocated to enable light rail tracks to be placed on lanes currently used by buses and general traffic. It is likely that existing bus lanes would need to be opened up to general traffic. This would have a significant impact on existing bus services and general traffic. - pg 50, Scenarios Report

In other words, to make room for light rail, the council expects to close the exisiting bus lanes - with adverse impacts not only on Northern Suburbs users, but on all other Wellington bus users too.

When Service Conditions are Equal

Tom has made an excellent map of train verus bus usage in the Northern Suburbs. It's a great, informative resource for everyone involved in this debate, and I encourage you to check it out.

Preferences

His analysis highlights one of the key difficulties, in trying to predict which scenario people will prefer: it's very hard to construct a "fair" comparison between bus and rail. The most common comparison is between trains on tracks and buses on roads - which skews the comparison because the roads are choked up with cars but the tracks are not. The fair comparison would be between trains on tracks and buses on busways. Of course, we can't run both rail and busway to Johnsonville, just to see which people prefer!

If we did, I suspect preferences might be split down the middle, amongst existing rail users. (Trains are more spacious, but buses are more frequent and take you into the CBD.) Existing rail users will be well served, in different ways, by both options. And that's important. The busway must done in such a way that it is a fair deal for existing rail users. If "we" take away their trains, we must compensate with things like more frequent service and seamless travel to the CBD. Things should work out about even (or better) for existing rail users. So this debate is not really about them. This debate is about existing bus users - the people who cannot walk to a rail station, and whose bus routes will suffer increasing delays and congestion if the busway does not go ahead. Already, traffic congestion costs us hours each week, hours which we could be spending with our families. Only the busway will give that time back to us (and our families). Once existing bus users understand that, their preference will be clear.

"When Service Conditions are Equal"

Anyway, back to Tom's comments, about the preferences of commuters who do have a choice. He quotes a page which reads as follows:

Because transit use is a function of travel time, fare, frequency of service, population, and density, increased transit use can not be attributed to rail transit when these other factors are improved. When these service conditions are equal, it is evident that rail transit is likely to attract from 34 percent to 43 percent more riders than will equivalent bus service. The data do not provide explanations for this phenomenon, but other studies and reports suggest that the clearly identifiable rail route; delineated stops that are often protected; more stable, safer, and more comfortable vehicles; freedom from fumes and excessive noise; and more generous vehicle dimensions may all be factors.

Again, that's great stuff, and should considered by everyone involved in this debate.

Are they Equal Now?

Let's look one-by-one at those points. Are service conditions currently equal, between bus and rail?

Travel time: bus has a significant advantage off-peak; rail often has an advantage on-peak (depending on how much traffic congestion is slowing the buses). On-peak rail certainly has an advantage in terms of predictable travel times. I believe Tom's data is journeys to work, so his map relates to on-peak travel choices.

Fare: One month's bus travel from Johnsonville = approx $86 to $103 (depending on how many days in the month, and whether you ride on into the CBD or get off at Wellington station). One month's rail travel = $60 (or $45 on a "Peace Train" ticket).

Frequency of Service: bus is once every 5 mins at height of morning peak; train is every 13 or 26 mins

Population and Density: Tom's approach successfully eliminates these variables (his train and bus passengers come from the same places)

In otherwords, service conditions are not currently equal. I'd be interested to know how the fare differences influence choice.

Factors that Make Rail Attractive

Now, let's look at the likely reasons that attract consumers to rail, according to the page Tom quoted. Fortunately, some of these attractive features can be preserved in the busway scenario.

Clearly Identifiable Rail Route: The busway will follow the same route. (And it will be important to ensure the the "return routes" of the off-peak buses are also clearly identifiable. I see that as a weekness in the current busway scenario, but I think it can be fixed fairly easily. I'll post details when I get round to it.)

Delineated Stops that are Often Protected: The busway will use the same stops (the existing rail stations)

More Stable, Safer, and More Comfortable Vehicles: Rail has the edge here, although it is worth noting that stability and comfort arise as much from the route as from the vehicle. A key ingedient in comfort is a route with gentle grades, gentle curves and no stops and starts caused by traffic congestion. In terms of the route, busway and train are virtually identical (as you would expect if you put a busway on an ex railway track!)

Freedom from Fumes and Excessive Noise: again, an edge for rail, although at least the busway gets away from fumes and noise caused by other vehicles.

More Generous Vehicle Dimensions: rail wins this one too. (Which is ironic, considering how many people are afraid the buses won't fit through the tunnels!)

Conclusion

Comparing rail with bus-on-road is not entirely relevant to this debate. The better comparison is comparing rail with bus-on-busway (serving the same suburbs via the same route) . Unfortunately, that comparison is much harder to make.

Rail: Neither Popular nor Affordable

Gareth Hughes wrote:

"...we have a fully operating, popular and affordable train network that is
cheaper to improve rather ripping it up and building a new transport
mode."

Let's look at those points, one by one:

Is it popular? No.

Actual usage is the only meaningful measure of popularity. It doesn't matter how much rail fans from other suburbs like the J'Ville trains. It matters how much Northern Suburbs residents use them.

The Council's Scenarios documents show that most public transport users prefer the bus. In fact, the 2001 Journey To Work Census (PDF) paints an even bleaker picture, with 63% of northen suburbs commuters choosing bus and only 36% chosing rail.

On the day of the census, only 858 people took the train from the Northern Suburbs to the CBD. (Yes, that's eight hundred and fifty eight.)

Is it really affordable? No.

Sure, passengers pay a low fare for each trip, but it's unrealistically and unfairly low. That's because neither the passengers, nor anyone else, has been covering the cost of rail units wearing out. Instead, the units have been run into the ground, without a cent put aside for their replacement, and now local government is being asked to make a massive lump-sum contribution to buy new rail units.

How much money are we talking about? Under the proposed the rail scenario, about $80m will be spent in the next 10 years alone. Let's assume half of that, i.e. $40m, will be spent on new rail units. $40m is more than enough to buy a brand-new, environmentally friendly Toyota Prius car for each of the 858 commuters mentioned above!

Alarmingly, page 77 of the Scenarios report indicates that, under the rail scenarios, no allowance will be made for depreciation in the future. Does that mean the same mistake will be made again? I think it does! Under the rail scenarios, we'll face the same bill again in another 30 or 40 years's time!

Is it really cheaper? No.

The busway is projected to cost $120-$130m.
The rail scenario is projected to cost $125-$160m.

In other words, the rail line is like a cheap electrical appliance. Repairs are so expensive, it's cheaper to throw it away and replace it with something better.

Why Transit Oriented Development is not Relevant (Here)

Tom also wrote in support of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). He suggests that light rail (modern trams) will encourage benefical patterns of land usage. The TOD approach is typically based on neighbourhoods up to 800m in diammeter, with high density development at the centre, focussed on a rail or bus station.

That's very good idea, but unfortunately it's about 100 years too late for the Northern Suburbs. The patterns of land usage are already established here, and they won't change just because a tram drives past.

In fact, the Council's technical report (2.5 MB PDF) finds that:

[Light rail] has a number of benefits including being able to influence land use
patterns through densification around stations and transit orientated development (TOD). This is however unlikely to be the case on the Johnsonville railway line due to nature of the communities it travels through. The exception is at Johnsonville where densification and TOD are likely to be viable if encouraged by planning policies.

In otherwords, there is only one point, in the whole Northern Suburbs, where TOD is viable. In the rest of the Northern Suburbs:

(a) Housing is too far from the rail line to make (rail-based) TOD viable.

and/or

(b) Land use patterns are entrenched, in the form of long-standing residental neighbourhoods. This is particularly true of those neighborhoods that lie along the rail line itself. They are not neighborhoods that may easily be changed. They contain well-maintained, well-loved, high-value homes. It would be polically, socially and economically infeasible to replace them with new high-density development.

Point (a) is graphically illustrated by the maps in the Council's Scenarios Reports. The maps show which areas are within 800 metres of a rail station. They show that about half the streets in the Nothern Suburbs are within 800 metres of a station.

Note that 800 metres is double the expected maximum walking distance in TOD. (TOD uses a diameter of 800 metres, whereas the Council is using a radius of 800 metres.) Even using double the recommended TOD walking distance, we still only encompass half of the Northern Suburbs. This is exactly the problem I was ranting about earlier.

The busway, on the other hand, gives a bus stop within 400 metres of virtually every home.

The only exceptions are some existing rail customers in the north-western sides of Ngaio and Crofton Downs - they are left with their existing 800-metre walk to their local station. See figure 6 in this section (2 MB PDF) of the report for details.

Frequency of Service, Part 2

Opposing the busway, Tom Beard wrote:

...the buses will still have to meander through the sprawling suburbs at the end of
the route, and those suburbs will never have the density to support truly
frequent services, especially off-peak.

His assumption is incorrect. The suburbs already support a 5-minute bus frequency during the morning peak right now. As for off peak, they support a 30-minute frequency, which is the same off-peak frequency as Johnsonville rail.

If the current bus service, which suffers heavily from road congestion, can support a 5-minute frequency, the more attactive busway service will have no difficulty in doing the same.

Sources: Metlink timetables for Newlands and Churton Park bus services.

Frequency of Service

What frequency of service will the various scenarios deliver to existing rail users?

Enhanced Rail: a train every 13 minutes, or every 10 minutes (the latter requires the closure of two stations and the creation of one new one)

Light Rail: a light rail unit (tram) every 10 minutes

Busway: a bus every 5 minutes (even every 3 minutes in some cases)

Source: the Council's Scenarios reports.

Good article on busway versus light rail

"This paper considers the evidence on the costs and benefits of light rail and bus-based transitway systems, with particular attention given to the biases in the positions taken by advocates of either form of public transport. The lessons to date reinforce the importance of delivering seamless transport services with good geographical coverage and sufficient flexibility to respond to changing market needs if we are to make a difference to the dominance of the automobile." from http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1228

Also,

".. the International Union of Public Transport in Europe stated recently that bus rapid transport is increasingly preferred over fixed-rail systems for value for money....We can start the investment, as Brisbane has, in bus rapid transport with clean-fuelled buses and get away from the adage that trains are sexy and buses are boring." from http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4484

Enhanced Rail: No new trains in peak periods

A quick note for rail fans: you might expect that the "enhanced rail" option will mean you'll travel to work on brand new trains. Not so, it would appear:

"Tranz Metro has advised that they intend to operate refurbished units on the line during the peak periods and new units during off-peak periods. During peak periods the new units would be used on other parts of the network where they are required for longer routes."

- from section 4.1.1.1 of the Council's Scenario's Report (2 MB PDF)

FAQ 1

A local resident emailed me with a number of questions. Here are the questions, and my answers:

1. it's a unidirectional service at peak times with return buses using the existing roads (from the Council site - that answered my question about how two-way bus flow could be accommodated - evidently it can't, or at least not at peak times. It will still be vulnerable to the effects of weather and congestion because the return buses may not get back to the start point in time to start their next journey in time. Correct?

Technically correct, yes. But in practice, because the return journey is in the opposite direction to peak traffic flows, it will suffer relatively little congestion.

2. is the plan to send the equivalents of all 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 buses along the busway? If together they make up a 3-5 minute frequency, how will that be better for Churton Park than the current 5 minute frequency of 54s during the morning peak and 10 minute freuqency in the evening? I'm assuming that Northern Suburbs residents to the east of the motorway will benefit from the busway - is that correct?

I don’t think Churton Park residents will get better frequency of service, just better reliability. I.e. a bus journey always takes about the same amount of time, without unpredictable delays due to congestion. I’d expect the journey duration, during peak times, to be approximately the same as current off peak journey times.

3. what is the reasonable expectation for peak journey times, given that a bus would stop at existing stops in the suburbs and then at each existing railway station? Where (if anywhere) could we expect the bus to get up to 100kph as they are claimed to do in Adelaide?

My memory of the council documents is a little hazy on this point. [The documents are available here.] My expectation is that buses serving J’Ville West, Churton Park, Newlands, Grenada North etc will not stop on the busway during peak periods. I.e. they will run as express services from J’Ville. As I recall, the stations on the busway route will be designed so express buses can pass buses which are stopped to load passengers.

4. If this proposal is accepted and the bus company thereby removes at a stroke its only significantly cheaper competition, how long before it exercises its monopoly by raising fares as high as it dares? If its only remaining competition is the private car and we include petrol and parking fees in the total expense of using the car, the bus company would have a lot of leeway to raise fares.

My impression is that both rail and bus prices are currently set after extensive consultation with the regional council, with the council’s level of subsidy having a large effect on the price. I.e. even now, it is not a pure competitive market. While the demise of rail may give the bus company some extra leverage in negotiations with the council, I think the situation will be closer to a regulated, subsidized monopoly than a pure monopoly. Obviously, the situation you describe already exists in all other Wellington suburbs (i.e. everything south of the Ngaio Gorge) because in all those areas Stagecoach is the sole operator. The council must regulate Stagecoach's fares, and they must be doing a fairly good job. Why? Because a month’s worth of Stagecoach travel costs $65. A months worth of travel on Newlands can cost as much as $120! (That’s 5 sections each way, every day, for a typical month) So the operator with competition is over 80% more expensive than the operator without!

Comments Now Enabled

Opps, there was a problem with comments. I've fixed it, so anonymous comments are enabled now.

Rant - Support the Busway

This is an angry post. I'm angry because I've lived in the Northern Suburbs for 9 years, enduring the failures and frustrations of our public transport system and now, when a great solution comes along, most on-line writing opposes it.

That solution is the Busway. It is the best solution for the largest number of people. Here is my point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments that have been made against it:

"International experience is that public transport users prefer trains"

Tell that to the queue of people who catch the bus from Johnsonville railway station each morning! At peak times, the queue is continous - there's a bus loading at Johnsonville, and it only departs when the next bus arrives and pulls up behind it. In other words, there is a steady stream of people boading a steady stream of buses - to travel from one railway station to another. Ask them which they prefer!

And what about commuters who can't even make it to a train station? No matter how much you upgrade the tracks, they won't get any closer to my house!

This is why 57% of Northern Suburbs commuters choose bus over rail. We do this even though busing costs more, and is less reliable (in the abscence of a busway, that is). If we choose buses even in the face of these drawbacks, will prettier trains really make us change our minds? I don't think so.

"The only argument in favour of buses is that they can provide a “seamless” service ... The light rail option can also do that."

Seamless light rail, to my house? Yeah, right.

Only the busway can provide a seamless service in the CBD and the suburbs. (Some of us live there, you know.)

"The busway will increase pollution"

If all NZ's energy was from renewable resources, that would be true. In reality, one quarter of our energy comes from coal and gas. In other words, we consume 33% more energy than our renewable sources can supply. So, we can burn diesel to run buses, or we can burn coal at Huntly to run electric trains. The environmental difference is not as big as many might claim.

(Yes, I know I've over-simplified the NZ electricity market in this description. But it's late, and I have to get up early in the morning to allow time for a slow bus trip on congested roads! :-)

"Overseas, Rail is More Successful than Busways"

You can find an example to prove almost any point - so here's a counter example to "prove" my point: Adelaide, Australia has run a very successful busway for 20 years.

Rail has obvious advantages for long narrow corridors (like the Hutt Valley and Kapiti Coast). The Nothern Suburbs is not a long, narrow corridor. It is comparatively short and "fat", swinging the balance in favour of buses. (Think about it - rail makes great sense for Upper Hutt; but not for Island Bay. Long narrow corridor = rail; shorter fatter corridor = bus.)

What's Missing from this Debate

Finally, there are three things missing from this debate.

Firstly, there's been no real discussion of the importance of pursuading residents who currently drive to work to switch to public transport. This is particularly important because those who drive clog up Ngauranga Gorge, which is a significant bottleneck in the region's infrastructure. Persuading Northern Suburbs residents to switch to public transport reduces congestion on the Gorge. The busway will appeal to the largest number people who currently drive, since it's the only option which offers everybody fast service from close to home - even faster than taking your car. Are fossil-fueled buses really such a bad thing, if they entice people out of their fossil-fueled cars?

Secondly, the suburbs are growing at the northern fringes: Churton Park, the northern fringes of the Newlands/Pararangi area etc. In otherwords, the suburbs are extending to the north, but the rail line is not. No-one in the new areas can walk to a railway station.

And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, where is the voice of the Northern suburbs commuter? 57% of us currently spend hours each week waiting for late buses, and sitting in traffic congestion once the buses arrive. Think how this is hurting our quality of life - we miss time with our children, we miss time we might spend socialising or exercising. Many of us can't walk to a station, no matter how flash the trains are. Should we continue to suffer, just so the country can burn coal at Huntly instead of diesel on the busway? Quality of life counts. Walk a mile in our shoes before you dismiss the busway.

"Go the busway!"

Hello

Hi,

This is a blog about bus transport in Wellington's Northern Suburbs. I'm inspired to begin this blog by the current debate around options for the future of the Johnsonville Rail line. So my next post will be a rant, on exactly that subject!