Posts by Sacha
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Sacha,
who the 'Rugby World Cup organisers' are
Unless perhaps he's talking about the joint venture company Rugby World Cup 2011 Ltd. I hope someone has drawn a picture of all the entities involved.
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National Party pollster and communication conduit David Farrar comes down more on the side of local govt being responsible, but seems confused whether willfully or otherwise about who the 'Rugby World Cup organisers' are - a mixture of central and local govt agencies.
He specifically wonders why Auckland Council's online surveying panel wasn't used in forecasting waterfront demand. I'm not sure that the separate ATEED CCO even have access to it, would be the short answer. The Auckland Transport CCO has its own online panel.
As the owner of a market research company I am of course always thinking market research is a good idea, but it does stagger me that the Council's planning scenario of 50,000 was not based on any research.
Sure there can be factors, such as the wonderful weather that day, which will make turnout hard to predict, but asking Aucklanders what they plan to do is much more sensible than just making an assumption. The Auckland Council has to bear the brunt of the criticism over the waterfront, but I think you can also legitimately criticise the Rugby World Cup organisers for never asking the Council on what basis did they decide to plan for 50,000.
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Just found Goff's parliamentary speech about this the other day, focusing on the govt's responsibility but letting the local agencies off the hook.
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Thanks. There's so much more to say about how this reflects the tension between local and central government that has so long affected Auckland's development. Canterbury folk may also have some observations on that score, what with ECan and CERA.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to BenWilson,
Thorndon bubble
Our equivalent of Washington's "beltway" - the hermetic world of those who spend too much time near the corridors o power.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to BenWilson,
You'd think. Interesting when you read John Armstrong fawningly second-guessing McCully's reactions and motivations from within the Thorndon bubble.
He overstates the Minister's powers and understates his reponsibilities, but overall Armstrong's looking frantically for the single person to pin this on rather than being able to conceive of shared responsibility.
Such assurances go to the heart of the blame-game and the crucial question of ministerial responsibility. Who should take the wrap [sic] for what went wrong - McCully, Brown, Transport Minister Steven Joyce, Ateed, Auckland Transport or Veolia?
Labour, not surprisingly, went for McCully and Joyce. However, the lack of any direct chain of accountability - for example, between Joyce and the incidents which created the rail snafu - saw Parliament's Speaker Lockwood Smith decline Phil Goff's request for a snap debate on Tuesday.
The next day Goff narrowed the focus by accusing the two ministers of "an absolute failure of ministerial oversight".
According to briefing papers, the Minister for the Rugby World Cup is responsible "for leading co-ordination across all the government agencies involved in supporting a successful tournament".
There have been no obvious failures of co-ordination between government agencies.
There have been failures of oversight with regard to non-governmental agencies. But McCully - and for that matter, Joyce - were given assurances, for example, that the trains would run as promised, that Auckland Transport had the arrangements for the cup peer-reviewed by an independent body and that there were contingency plans.
Without the power to intervene in the day-to-day operations of Auckland Transport, McCully and Joyce had no means of checking the validity of such assurances.
The vexed question of ministerial responsibility has been answered by McCully's invoking of emergency powers.
Also remember how the Minister's colleagues avoided even mentioning his name during the parliamentary snap debate.
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Another part of the picture about why the waterfront was chosen as a focus: a detailed article about the huge Wynyard Quarter waterfront development and its proposed place in the city and nation's economic future. The final precinct is the same size as the existing CBD around Queen St. Shame it wasn't where they put the party..
Peter Gomm, chief executive of Mainzeal Property & Construction which built the new sheds, said his firm had worked at Wynyard for a decade, "undertaking in the first instance the strengthening works to North Wharf which was the precursor to the commercial redevelopment of the area".
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"With ASB [relocated head office] under construction, the proposed hotel plus other significant developments in the pipeline this is one of the last opportunities for Auckland to establish a world-class precinct.
"The relocation of the tank farm will create an iconic waterfront re-development site that can be developed for mixed use and be available for international Pacific regional headquarters.
"The development should be used to position Auckland as a vibrant, confident international city. This will attract growing numbers of overseas investors and visitors which can then provide a legacy that the people of Auckland can be proud of.
"You can see that it really is a unique opportunity for Auckland/New Zealand to push up to the next level in many different ways."
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to 3410,
I normally wouldn't rely on Trotter's opinion but you'll note it broadly matches Arbury's account - and the maps.
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A Herald story links a personal story of a mother and daughter using the rail network into Britomart with its design flaw in pretty basic terms.
One week on, it's still difficult to match the details of people's experiences with the official timeline provided by train operator Veolia. For instance there's confusion over how many trains were held up for how long at the biggest flashpoints, Newmarket and Britomart - passenger accounts suggest several trains held up for hours in the late afternoon - and Veolia said they were too busy preparing for this weekend to provide a more detailed explanation.
But it is clear that Britomart's faulty set-up, already criticised after previous rail network breakdowns, played an important part. The station has five platforms but there are only two tracks through the Britomart tunnel for trains from three lines, the Eastern, Western and Southern lines. This leads to a bottleneck which can mean long delays and frustrated passengers, even on a normal day.
Arriving trains have to leave the terminus the same way they came in - through the tunnel - to create platform space for incoming trains. These new arrivals often have to queue outside the tunnel for lengthy periods while the terminus is emptied out.
The central rail loop that doubles the entire rail network's capacity would never have been built in time for this tournament. However the experience last week should provide motivation to avoid what will otherwise be daily chaos as Auckland's population grows hugely over the next few decades. Britomart station's tunnels hit full capacity in 2 years time, not 20.
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Chris Trotter describes the longer historic background since the 1940s about why Auckland has built motorways rather than rail.
The debacle that was Auckland's public transport system last Friday night was more than 60 years in the making. That's how long it's been since a group of brilliant urban planners, based in the Ministry of Works, sent their blueprint for post-war Auckland to Parliament.
Had the Labour Party won just 50,000 more votes in the 1949 general election, that blueprint would have become reality, and Auckland would now be a very different city.
Joshua Arbury delves into that history in some detail, with cool old maps of what might have been.