A Final Word

A local paper, the Norwester, recently published a letter from me about the busway. I'll quote from that letter here, to summarise my view on the busway decision.

Firstly, some comments on what is perhaps the pivotal event in this whole debate:

In parliament on September 14: Mr Dunne quoted a cost of $115m for the busway and $5m for rail. In response the Minister of Finance said Labour would not support the busway. Dr Cullen went on say, "If we did receive a proposal with that sort of cost, I doubt very much that we would want to give it very serious consideration at all" – implying that his decision was based on Mr Dunne's costs.

But Mr Dunne’s rail cost was false. It included widening the tunnels but not buying any trains!

Even the Council’s new "base case" rail option costs 12 times the figure Mr Dunne gave in parliament! (Base case = $60 million over next 25 years).

Regrettably, when Kerry Prendergast and Ian Buchanan asked for written confirmation of Dr Cullen’s view, he restated it without giving any evidence that he had first sought out unbiased costings.

As I've noted previously, most of his reply (pdf) consists of an attachment written by ONTRACK.

Finally, I wrote these concluding remarks on the busway issue:

I support the busway because it offers more benefits to more people than rail. I’ll never convince the skeptics, but I would have liked to convince the general public in the Northern Suburbs. Local residents stood to gain a lot from the busway. Unfortunately, rhetoric has drowned out the facts (and I’ll accept my share of the blame for that) so let me conclude by quoting the November 10 report from the Regional Council’s Passenger Transport subcommittee:

"In addition to the [main technical] report, WCC commissioned a report from Derek Kemp, an urban design specialist, [on] public transport choice, public transport use, public transport operational efficiency and urban densities, land use planning, urban design and urban form. It found that the busway scenario was clearly superior in terms of the 'qualitative' benefits considered in the report."

In other words, a lot of good would have come from the busway. It's a shame local residents never heard the details, since they never received comprehensive unbiased information [e.g. a detailed mailout from the council to every house in the area]

Double Disapointment

As you will know by now, the City and Regional Council's have decided to halt all consultation, and go with the "base case" rail option - an option which they never included in the scenarios for public consultation.

I saw a lot of advantages in the busway, so I'm disappointed in their decision. But I'm even more disappointed in how the decision was made:

• The consultation process was abandoned part way through. In particular, it was abandonned before the promised consulation on the Councils' final choice.


• Much has been made of Labour's position on the issue. Michael Cullen's official letter on the topic is cusory at best. It is disapointing to see that most of it's content was actually written by the CEO of ONTRACK. Did the Minster of Finance more-or-less delegate his decision to ONTRACK, an organisation which presumably has a vested interest in the outcome, and which describes itself as "an advocate for rail"? Yes, he should have consulted with rail advocates, but not only with rail advocates.


• The technical report, by consultants SKM, is dissapointing. It seems to make a number of questionable assumptions. For instance, it assumes that the "Petone-Grenada" link will be built, but I understand that's now in some doubt. That link has a significant impact on the very road congestion at the heart of this issue (Ngaruanga Gorge). I would also question the stated assumption that the buses would travel at the same speed as the trains. Surely the buses can do better than an average of 30kph! Surely a more valid assumption would be that a busway bus would take about the same time as the equivalent off-peak car journey (J'Ville to Wgtn via Ngaio Gorge), which takes 40% less time than the train.


• The involvement of the Greens and United Future is disapointing. It's understandable in the case of the Greens, although they pushed it a bit too far. It's not so understandable in the case of Ohariu-Belmont's MP, Peter Dunne. He has just campaigned for $1 billion of road spending on Transmission Gully. That's a road so that people who live far beyond the northern boundary of his electorate can drive their cars to work more easily, creating more road congestion in his electorate. When he gets the chance to make things up to his own supporters, by using the busway to solve the road congestion he's created, he backs rail instead. We've now seen him run two transport campaigns, Transmission Gully and rail-verus-busway, which individually and collectively leave his own supporters worse off.

What do you think?

Bus Only?

Tom reports rumours that the "bus only" option is the likely choice.

While that's nobody's first choice, there is a way to make it everybody's second choice, to get real value out of it, and lock nobody into an unnaceptable long-term choice:

Just change the bus only option as follows:

1. Treat it as a test not as the long term solution. Run the buses on the roads but just don't rip up the tracks. After 5 to 10 years, make the final decision as to what to do with the tracks. Running the buses on roads for 5 to 10 years will prove or disprove many of the claims/assumptions made by those on both sides of this debate. Was "peak oil" in 2004, and is it about to drive fossil fueled vehicles off the road? Or will road congestion get worse? If the trains stop, will a significant number of rail passengers use their cars instead of riding buses? After the test period, if it becomes clear that rail is the only long-term option, just buy some trains and start running them on the line again. The expense can be justified because the bus option has been tested, and failed.


2. Use hybrid diesel-electric buses, for a solution that's probably just as green as rail (since rail involves heavy vehicles powered on, basically, 25% coal-fired electricity). Bus on road is cheaper, making the extra expense of these buses more likely to be acceptable.


3. Do it quickly, to free up the J'Ville trains for a few years use elsewhere in the region (since we have a train shortage, that cannot otherwise be filled for a number of years)


4. Take bus priority measures very seriously.

This is probably no-one's first choice, not even mine, but if I was the council, faced with a bill not far from $100,000 per passenger for rail, I would want to run a test before I parted with that kind of cash.

Just a thought. Interested in your comments...

Tracks, Lies and Audiotape

I'm a great believer that debates should be about ideas not personalities. When you disagree, you should attack the message and not the messenger.

But, when Sue Kedgley bolsters her argument with half-truths, well, somebody has to hold her to account. Today, that somebody is me...

I left last night's "Save the Line" meeting with an uneasy feeling that the good people of Johnsonville had been conned.

Firstly, it's easy to drum up support for rail when the public is kept in the dark about the alternatives. I chatted with a number of people after the meeting and was one of the last to leave. I believe a majority of attendees arrived knowing little about the busway, and left knowing no more. During the meeting any mention of the busway was quickly stifled by Ms Kedgley saying, "That's not what this meeting is about. This meeting is about saving the rail." Which is true, it was about saving rail; it was not about choosing the most effective public transport.

Secondly, Ms Kedgley bolstered her argument with a number of misleading statements, which I feel someone has to point out.

• She made a big deal of the recent growth in rail patronage; never mentioning that bus patronage has grown by by a similar percentage over the same period!


• If the busway goes ahead, she said "the estimates are" for 30 to 40 extra buses per hour. She never mentioned who made that estimate. Did she make it herself? The real estimate, in the North Wellington Public Transport study, is 16-18 extra buses per hour (page E13 in the Technical Appendix). Even allowing for the recent 13% growth, that's still only 20 extra buses per hour. That's one bus every 3 minutes, which equals approximately two extra buses on Lambton Quay at any given time. (Does anyone seriously suggest that Lambton Quay is so congested it can't accomodate two more vehicles?!)


• She said (I took notes) that electric trains "emit no carbon". That's like saying that Bill Clinton never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. It may be technically correct, but it's also misleading. The careful wording suggests deliberate deception. Yes, no carbon dioxide is emitted by the actual trains, but 25% of their electricity does come from fossil fuels (including coal, now that Huntly is coal-fired).


• She said that the Johnsonville busway would be the only one-way busway in the world. That's another "Clinton-esque" statement. It's easy to find an example of a one-way busway: look no further than Auckland where the last 2.5 kms of the new busway will be one way. The difference is that the one-way portion will run in the mornings only. It won't reverse direction at lunchtime (and it's not a guided busway).

I was disapointed to see her last point make it into Radio New Zealand's piece this morning (listen). I guess I can't complain though, since they included a soundbite from me too ;-)

Johnsonville Busway Meeting

I've just got back from the Save the Line meeting in Johnsonville.

For those who were there, yes, I'm the guy who asked for a show of hands about how many people actually took the train to work this morning.

(By the way, when relatively few hands went up, I heard the whispered objection, "But many of us don't live in the area." On either side of this debate, where is the voice of people who actually live here?)

Anyway, although we didn't all agree, it was great to meet afterwards with so many people genuinely interested in improving public transport.

I'll blog more about the meeting later.

12 Reasons to Say "Yes" to the Busway

Gareth Hughes wrote 12 Reasons to Say No to the Busway. Naturally, I can't resist responding! Here are 12 reasons to say Yes:

1. It benefits everyone. Most northern suburbs residents take buses. The busway helps everyone, not just the minority who use rail.


2. For current rail users: More frequent services - a peak-period bus once every 5 minutes, instead of a train every 13 minutes.


3. For current rail users: Service all the way to Countenary Place.


4. For current rail users (from Johnsonville): Faster, non-stop express service.


5. For current bus users: avoids road congestion - leading to shorter trips and, perhaps more importantly, more predictable journey times.


6. For current bus users: helps buses run on time. As a bus user, you don't just suffer from congestion when you are in the bus, you also suffer from it while you wait for late buses that have been held up in traffic. At the affected times of the day, its not uncommon to see a bus arrive 10 or even 20 minute late. The busway will vastly reduce those delays.


7. Cost effective. Let's quote TransMetro's own pamphlet: busway $120 to $130 million; rail $125 to $160 million.


8. A resilient, reliable service. If a slip blocks the rail corridor, buses can temporarily revert to running roads.


9. It can reach new suburbs. New suburbs will be built (whether you like it or not, Tom and Gareth) and only buses will be able to reach them.


10. One unified service, instead of two parallel ones. Say, it's 7:15 at night, and you want to get to Johnsonville. Should you catch a train, or a bus? Which leaves first? Which arrives first? Where do they depart from? With the busway, there is exactly one clearly defined service, instead of two competing ones with different timetables and departure points.


11. It will encourage more residents to leave their cars at home. Why? Because it's more frequent, goes into the CBD and reaches everybody (not just people who live close to train stations). When the Newlands bus service boosted frequency and extended service to Courtenay Place, patronage jumped by 40%.


12. Cheaper, better off-peak services. The busway could provide an off-peak service that's better than the existing peak rail service!

And, one more as an extra bonus:

13. A chance to buy New Zealand Made. Buses are made in New Zealand, trains are not. Come on Green Party, support your own campaign ;-)

(I have just phoned Designline to confirm that they do indeed build here, not just design here. They always build the body in NZ usually, but not always, on an imported chassis.)

Today's Paper

There's a full page article on rail on page 10 of today's Dominion Post. It mentions passenger rail and freight, but not the Johnsonville line itself.