Posts by Joshua Arbury
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So the $2.77 billion option has a cost-benefit ratio of 1.15, even when you consider that 73% of those benefits are from time savings benefits that are criticised internationally as to whether they actually exist. Not only is the whole idea of time-savings benefits questionable, but the fact that NZTA documents expect 98% of people going from the North Shore to the airport to use this tunnel is also questionable. Once you have less people using the tunnel, your time-savings benefits are reduced and you BCR is lowered.
Because it's a tunnel, the $2.77 billion option doesn't affect the houses and open space above it, so therefore doesn't include as 'costs' the social & environmental effects of a surface option. Therefore, even though a surface option is $600 million cheaper than a full tunnel, if the extra costs (social and environmental ones) are more than $600 million then the BCR drops even lower.
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There have been rumours for decades of this link, but the motorway designation for SH20 runs out at Richardson Road. I think that there was a previous designation for the motorway but that was lifted in the 1970s.
The Avondale-Southdown designation runs next to the Mt Roskill SH20 link, but obviously runs out at the Western Line behind the Mt Albert Pak N Save.
A surface option was considered the most likely until a few years ago, but Labour (wisely) decided that it would be too difficult to get consent for that option within the timeframe they wanted the Western Ring Route complete (by 2015) so they proposed the full tunnel option. This was based on work by NZTA for years and years sorting out relative costs and benefits of the various options, so my guess is that Labour knew the cost difference between a full tunnel and a surface option weren't particularly big, so it was a no-brainer to go with the tunnel.
The NZ Herald reckons the decision has been made: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10571772
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It doesn't include Avondale-Southdown, mainly because I don't think that's a particularly viable passenger line in and of itself. Cross-town rail lines internationally aren't particularly common, and where they do occur they're not that successful (Cumberland Line in Sydney is one example). However, I think the Avondale-Southdown line will be necessary for freight to bypass Newmarket eventually.
Anyway, there's a rumour that we find out National's prefered option for Waterview tomorrow. I guess parliament must be sitting, question time will be interesting!
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Maybe Rodney Hide never bothered to read through to recommendation 27 in the executive summary of the Commission's report:
27. At the same time, the Commission was concerned not to create an organisational monolith, unconnected to the people it serves. With this in mind, the Commission considered carefully a number of variations of a two-tier model comprising a unitary authority with additional representation at a local level. The Commission concluded that having up to 20 community councils, as a number of submitters proposed, would be costly to establish and run, and disruptive to existing staff and services. The conclusion was borne out by independent financial analysis undertaken for the Commission by experts Taylor Duignan Barry.
Hmmmmmmm......
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Well the silly thing is that Quay Street is only a problem because it was shifted southwards in the 1990s, so the port could expand a bit. If you have a look at it on an aerial photograph you'll see that if Quay Street had stayed on its original alignment we'd have masses of room for 4 or 6 tracks into Britomart.
I just wish we had a bit of vision for public transport in Auckland. We should be trying to sell to the public a visionary scheme for 2030 - something like this I reckon: http://www.angelfire.com/tv/jarbury/aggins/auckland-rail-dream_copy.jpg
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Not really, it's one heck of a squeeze between Quay Street and Vector Arena. You'd need to narrow Quay Street a bit I imagine, although eventually the line would be far enough underground to avoid too many problems.
I think. I haven't looked in TOO much detail into that, although it's certainly a necessity as in a few more years we won't be able to increase the number of trains going in and out of Britomart. ARTA were considering terminating Onehunga trains at Newmarket for this very reason.
http://transportblog.co.nz/2009/04/16/dooming-the-onehunga-line-to-failure/
Fortunately ARTA have come to their senses and the Onehunga trains will run all the way to Britomart.... for now.
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Wow thanks for all the kind words everyone.
The one flaw in the "surface level Waterview Connection" versus "southwest rail corridor" argument is that you can't build that southwest rail corridor unless you build the CBD rail tunnel first. You just simply couldn't squeeze the necessary 6 trains per hour from the airport to Britomart without causing chaos.
However, if you spent $400 million on duplicating the eastern approach to Britomart you could buy yourself 10-15 years to build the CBD rail loop and do it properly.
$400 million on duplicating the Britomart tunnel plus the whole southwest rail corridor AND you'd still have a few hundred million in change from your $2.8 billion full tunnel option.
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Find Mr McShane's house and build SH1 right through it I say.
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Rich, we're stuffed either way without significant public transport investment. However, I would agree that we're MORE stuffed if the MUL gets removed and we sprawl like crazy.
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The decision has been made to complete the Western Ring Route, however the decision about WHEN this happens is still open I would guess.
How about after we invest in a CBD rail loop and rail to the airport?
Anyway, I look forward to hearing Steven Joyce pluck something magic out of thin air on this. I just worry with the RMA changes that are happening he will go with a surface option but people won't have much opportunity under the weakened RMA to oppose it.