Speaker: John Roughan is Scared
260 Responses
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Ben, I think the truth lies somewhere between those points. Although trucks may have some "Big Knob" appeal the desire goes much deeper and further back in personal development. One of the main reasons those on the right do not like trains is that they never attained their childhood dream of becoming a train driver so they resent those that did. The need to be in control extends to the love of cars, the need to take your penis substitute out on the street and thrash it about with gay abandon is about proving what a big boy they are, it is much more about shaking off the restrictions of nappies than anything sexual.
A bit like a dog marking it's territory I guess. -
Also on the topic of rail, and its relationship to freight, I just came across this article. There are some seriously huge numbers in there, like Fonterra saying that it's got 40k annual truck movements that aren't happening because the goods are going by rail. The scary bit is that Joyce seems to be thinking more like Dave Heatley (who thinks it would be better to shut rail down entirely than spend money trying to rehabilitate it) than like KR CEO Jim Quinn who would rather that KR be allowed to keep currently-non viable lines open and maintained so that he can try to grow business along them.
One line mentioned as facing closure is Northland, which is just stupid unless you're a trucking fan. One way to make SH1 safer is to get trucks off the road, and the way to do that is to have a functional railway. There's a lot of work required to bring the line up to scratch, but most of it is manual work that would employ dozens, if not hundreds, of people. That's a lot of new jobs, jobs that Shon Key supposedly wants to create. -
Considering how big and hard trains often are, it could actually be a case of penis envy?
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Does anyone else keep reading the title of this post wondering why John Roughan is sacred?
I thought that was just me. Hmmm, Dykslexia Rluse.
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Ben, If that were so then ACT would be all for trains.
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Matthew,
...tunnelling solely to get to the Shore simply means that it doesn't take that third, but it also doesn't add to the existing lines.
Tunneling westward makes sense because rail would need to follow the northern motorway and that means crossing to Birkenhead which is west of Britomart. This would double the number of tracks out of Britomart and thus double the capacity with this new capacity coming from the Northshore.
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One line mentioned as facing closure is Northland
Nnnnnnoooooooooo...........sob ...sob.
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Whilst we're here what is the bigger problem with Aucklands traffic?
Excuse me it I am incorrect again, but I have always assumed that the biggest congestion problem with Auckland stemmed from the proximity of the CBD (with its rush hour) to both the port and SH1/the bridge which are vital to commerce. There are many possible solutions to this including moving jobs out of the CBD, putting in a second harbour crossing to primarily take either commercial or rush hour traffic and moving the port.
What I don't see as a solution is further intensifying the amount of employment in the central city, without doing any of the other stuff first. This proposed subway loop will increase the capacity of the rail network to handle commuters from the South and West (which is a good thing), but it also attracts more people to work in the CBD and some of these people will be commuters from the Shore or East Tamaki. These people cannot access rail services so will make the bigger problem worse by commuting in cars or on buses.
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Hasn't been too bad a week down here. A truck and trailer flipping over at 5am in the morning yesterday and blocking - completely - (well done that lad!) the south bound motorway just south of Porirua. And this morning 2 trucks have a wee to do on SH2 and blocking that one. Tired drivers anyone??? Night shift problems anyone?
Nah. Lets have more of the f&*kers on the raod. The bigger the better...eh.
Lets hear it for Germany and a shit load of Europe. No trucks on Sunday. They make it so expensive for them to drive on sunday it is pointless to start them up.
Get 'em off I say. A danger to humanity. Use the freaking railway you clods!
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Tunneling westward makes sense because rail would need to follow the northern motorway and that means crossing to Birkenhead which is west of Britomart. This would double the number of tracks out of Britomart and thus double the capacity with this new capacity coming from the Northshore.
Only if it links back to the Western Line, though. Otherwise it's just two tracks going to a single line that doesn't link to any other part of the network. Which would still be an improvement on taking capacity away from existing lines, but does nothing to improve their capacity. Doubling capacity doesn't mean doubling the number of people with access to trains, it means doubling the number of trains that can use the network.
Loop lines are always more useful than branch ones. Turning the Onehunga branch into a loop that crosses to the Airport and then links to the Manukau branch would open up many options, including a train from Hamilton via the airport.
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Angus, again I cast my mind to Melbourne which has a much bigger port right next to the CBD and manages fine. It's fine because they keep expanding all kinds of capacity, roads, rail, light rail, etc. It's no surprise that ports end up next to cities - more accurate to say that cities initially tend to grow around ports.
For Auckland, people on trains are not on the roads so the port traffic is aided. Also, how would a rail loop encourage people who can't use it to the CBD?
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Turning the Onehunga branch into a loop that crosses to the Airport and then links to the Manukau branch would open up many options, including a train from Hamilton via the airport.
Not to mention airport to everywhere else on the train network.
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I still enjoy driving in London. The traffic is far denser but as everybody is driving defensively you can nip in and out of traffic with ease, people just share that space so effectively.
I really noticed that during my last trip to London in 2001. We were being let through (not even anything as assertive as waved through) for turns we'd never have made in Auckland.
Having just come back from a trip to the motherland, I would, respectfully, disagree. Getting across London at any time of day/week was a friggin' nightmare, and although the majority of drivers were polite, there were enough over-agressive knobheads whipping up on the inside (the one place you don't tend to look when moving slowly in traffic) to make driving a not altogether pleasant experience.
The motorways were (usually) fine, until there was an accident at some point in front of you, in which case you could add a good couple of hours to your journey time.
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Hasn't been too bad a week down here. A truck and trailer flipping over at 5am in the morning yesterday and blocking - completely - (well done that lad!) the south bound motorway just south of Porirua. And this morning 2 trucks have a wee to do on SH2 and blocking that one. Tired drivers anyone??? Night shift problems anyone?
They might be able to wriggle their way out of RUC's, but they just wait till OSH starts keeping an eye on them.
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Spaced
Well, if we're talking 'spaced', then surely the episode where Tim and Daisy go for a night out?
"spark up a big fatty McGratty, head up to Camden on the tube, find the nearest indie pub with an eclectic juke box and drink until we: a) fall over, or b) pass out, or c) fall over and pass out"
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Excuse me it I am incorrect again, but I have always assumed that the biggest congestion problem with Auckland stemmed from the proximity of the CBD (with its rush hour) to both the port and SH1/the bridge which are vital to commerce. There are many possible solutions to this including moving jobs out of the CBD, putting in a second harbour crossing to primarily take either commercial or rush hour traffic and moving the port.
Moving the port's a non-starter. The cost of trying to find enough land to viably take over as a container park means it's never going to happen, especially given that it must, by definition, be coastal land. It must also be flat, accessible by road, and preferably able to be linked into the rail network.
Why try and move jobs out of the CBD? Move them where? That would likely make traffic problems worse, forcing people to head on cross-town trips rather than converging on a central destination, with the corresponding decrease in public transport utility and utilisation. Better to get more people going to one area, well-serviced by public transport, with all the efficiencies that attach to high-density commercial space.Reality is that trucks are not a large part of traffic on Auckland's roads during peak time. It's an inefficient use of legally-rationed driving hours to be stuck in traffic, not to mention the wear on all the drive-train components. Have you noticed how much emptier the roads are when university and school holidays are on? How much smoother traffic flows are? That really says everything that needs to be said about what the primary driver of congestion is, especially the difference when universities are operating and schools aren't.
These people cannot access rail services so will make the bigger problem worse by commuting in cars or on buses.
Buses aren't a problem, really. One bus full of passengers is 40-70 cars that aren't on the road. That's pretty efficient. If only 10% of peak-hour commuters switched to buses, even if extra buses had to be added to accommodate them, it would still be an enormous reduction in traffic. A stretch of road carrying 2000 cars an hour would be down to 1800 cars and five buses, maybe three, and 2000 cars an hour isn't very much.
[edit] Those buses would also occupy only a fraction of the space of the cars they replace, when you consider that a bus of 13m length could be carrying 70 people whose cars alone would occupy over 200m in physical length plus all the associated following distances.[/edit]Alternatively, build park-and-ride facilities. Good ones, with security. Even the shitty, insecure ones at train stations are well-used, and would be so much more attractive if people could be comfortable that they'd come back to find their car unmolested. My ex gave up on taking the train from New Lynn after her car got vandalised once and broken into twice in the space of a month, and it's a beat-up '92 Corolla.
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Moving the port's a non-starter. The cost of trying to find enough land to viably take over as a container park means it's never going to happen, especially given that it must, by definition, be coastal land. It must also be flat, accessible by road, and preferably able to be linked into the rail network.
There's been a diversification of port usage, with Tauranga taking an increasing part of the upper North Island's imports and exports. Importantly for PoA though, they've opened an inland container park in Otahuhu, connected of course by rail. This is helping take some of the burden off the inner city motorway network, and improve reliability of PoA services.
Why try and move jobs out of the CBD? Move them where? That would likely make traffic problems worse, forcing people to head on cross-town trips rather than converging on a central destination, with the corresponding decrease in public transport utility and utilisation.
I believe Auckland's employment patterns are considerably more distributed than they were 30 years ago. There will always be a concentration in Central Auckland though, and as the city increases in size that number isn't likely to diminish.
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Angus, again I cast my mind to Melbourne which has a much bigger port right next to the CBD and manages fine. It's fine because they keep expanding all kinds of capacity, roads, rail, light rail, etc. It's no surprise that ports end up next to cities - more accurate to say that cities initially tend to grow around ports.
Auckland's port is very much geographically constrained when compared to Melbourne. They have a much better infrastructure than Auckland though, absolutely. Because they didn't have insane Governments for 20 years; destroying, selling, and underinvesting in rail.
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and it's a beat-up '92 Corolla.
maybe this was the cause of her problems, old cars like that are easier to break into and more likely to be without an alarm.
I believe Auckland's employment patterns are considerably more distributed than they were 30 years ago.
Yes, I think it is something a little less than 20% of the regions jobs are in the CBD, low by comparison with other cities. i'm pretty sure it has gone down over the years though I don't know if that trend has reversed recently. If you increase that number and provide better PT to service it, intensification will occur along the PT corridors. Land close to those corridors will also become more valuable. Of course, these things feed off each other and often start with providing good PT and clear plans for its future.
It is also easier for people to plan where to live if there is a high concentration of jobs in one place -- currently, getting a new job can mean working in a whole new neighborhood. As a higher proportion of jobs move into the same neighborhood, there is less chance that a can of job would force that move.
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Importantly for PoA though, they've opened an inland container park in Otahuhu, connected of course by rail. This is helping take some of the burden off the inner city motorway network, and improve reliability of PoA services.
Otahuhu? Don't you mean Wiri? Or is the container park separate from the inland port? As you say, it's vital that the rail link be maintained. The number of other coastal locations convenient to major roads in Auckland and convenient to rail is one: Onehunga, and it's already got a port. A smallish one, with growth constrained by surrounding geography and development. If we restrict ourselves to the east coast, I get a nice, round zero.
Could PoA be shut down, with everything handled by PoT and Onehunga? No, not really. Not without significant growth of both the above, and significant economic detriment to Auckland.
I believe Auckland's employment patterns are considerably more distributed than they were 30 years ago. There will always be a concentration in Central Auckland though, and as the city increases in size that number isn't likely to diminish.
Yes, they are, but it's also become possible for people to live and work within the same local government area, which is a big change. 30 years ago the Shore was pretty much a massive dormitory suburb for the city. Now there's significant business activity much closer to peoples' homes. Less so out west, but still a lot more economic activity than historically.
Another big change to 30 years ago is the growth of tertiary education providers. U.Auck has over 30,000 FTE students, and about half as many staff. AUTU has grown enormously from what it was as ATI, and there's now the unheard-of-30-years-ago concept of export education providers. There are at least 50,000 students centred around the CBD, which makes up for a lot of shift in economic centricity, and the CBD is now home to tens-of-thousands of people, which it wasn't even 15 years ago never mind 30. -
Does anyone else keep reading the title of this post wondering why John Roughan is sacred?
Scarred, for me
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I always find it interesting that roading projects are justified by how they will save commuters "x minutes". While saving a few minutes off a trip means an economic gain for truckies and other business trips, for regular commuters it just means we get to sleep in a few minutes more or get home from work a ew minute earlier.
In short, the road improvements give us a bit more free time. Now that's all well and good, but is it the most effective and efficient way of spending money to give people more free time? For the price of the $1.4 billion Waterview Connection the government could buy every household in Auckland a $2000 dishwasher. That'd create a lot more spare time I reckon.
Come on Steven Joyce, I don't want your new motorways, I want a dishwasher!
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Incidentally, does anyone know the reason why port bound trucks, rather than using the expensive motorway built for them, tend to drive up symonds St.
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For the price of the $1.4 billion Waterview Connection the government could buy every household in Auckland a $2000 dishwasher.
$2000 for a dishwasher? I hope it cooks breakfast!
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keep on trucking...
Hasn't been too bad a week down here. A truck and trailer flipping over at 5am in the morning yesterday and blocking - completely - (well done that lad!)
didn't seem a great mix carrying mail and highly flammable substances in the same load....
Architecture porn...
welcome to Christchurch's proposed new Transport Interchange (they finally got rid of that pesky "sex" in the old Bus Exchange name)if that You Tube link isn't working go to the Press article which has the Rabbit Warren and M(ah)oney clip embedded
Note the This is Not My Life/ Busexchange stark and clean look...
Note how the sun moves across the sky and casts pretty shadows...
Note the less than 10 people in the sterile downstairs area...
Note the lack of buses, or any indication of how the catching of a bus may actually be done...
Note the vast empty and seatless spaces surrounding the surface level...
Note parking for possibly 30 bikes nearby...
Note what seems to be the tunnels up from underneath surfacing in Lichfield street approx 50 yards from colombo street intersection...
Note that City CEO Tony Marryatt says:
Marryatt said one of the most compelling arguments for a new exchange was safety. "Currently, during peak hour, one bus crosses the footpath, in and out of the exchange, every nine seconds. By 2041, this will increase to one bus every five seconds."
what is gonna happen at rush hour when that light goes red with one bus leaving the tunnel mouth every 9 seconds or even every 18 seconds as there may be an underground exit on Tuam street as well...
methinks there will be quite a backup/gridlock effect...Note how the article doesn't mention whether this transport interchange will cater for the intercity buses which now congest entirely inappropriate areas of Worcester street, on either side of the square, and must totally tarnish every bus-visitor's first or last impression of chch...
give me a break, and let's not even get started on the cost....
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