Newsletter #46 - 3 August 2017
In a week where the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research released a report estimating that Auckland congestion costs the economy $1.9b, Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers presented to the Auckland Transport Board about suggested improvements in and around the Hill Street intersection.
CONGESTION COSTS
The NZIER report ‘Benefits from Auckland road decongestion’ can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/2f8Kfs0. It was commissioned by the Employers and Manufacturers Association, Auckland International Airport Ltd, Infrastructure NZ, Ports of Auckland Ltd and the National Road Carriers Association.
The Herald ran this article about the NZIER report: http://bit.ly/2vqZAKl.
Greater Auckland published this analysis of the report, pushing their own cause in the process: http://bit.ly/2vkEYE4.
The NZIER report bases its findings on a few numbers pumped into a spreadsheet. The findings reinforce the position of those who commissioned the report, i.e., the transport and road building industry.
We’ve seen numbers pumped into a spreadsheet before. Remember the Puhoi-Warkworth RoNS Business Case? (http://bit.ly/2kUWOIh) That report effectively justified spending $750m on a motorway at the expense of fixing the Hill Street intersection.
Building motorways is big business. Consultants and lobbyists can clip a bigger chunk out of the ticket. In the short time that we waited at Parliament’s reception area last week, we watched a procession of former ministerial advisors/cronies (who are now ‘government relations managers’ in large infrastructure companies) stream towards ministers’ offices.
Greater Auckland reckon that the escalating cost of roading is due to the nature of existing road corridors (http://bit.ly/2vqOQf4). Looking at Warkworth – where there is plenty of land available for new road corridors – the issues are exorbitant compliance costs and exploitative consultant fees. Roads are over-designed, over-managed, and there is over-demand for labour and materials. In other words, the industry is milking it. And we’ve seen it with how the NZTA and Auckland Transport is willing to spend $800m+ building a ring road and motorway bypass which they know won’t fix Hill Street.
SLEEPWALKING COSTS
First on the agenda for the 1 August Auckland Transport board meeting was a presentation by Greg Sayers in support of a resolution of the Snells Beach Residents and Ratepayers Association (http://bit.ly/2vkUdN8). Here is the presentation: http://bit.ly/2w8ShVQ.
Ahead of the meeting, Greg lodged four suggestions: