Getting city moving, strike three
Transport Minister Phil Twyford was quite excited yesterday afternoon.
“We’re changing the world,” he told the Herald. And, he added, “It’s going to mean a quantum shift in the way we invest in Auckland.”
He was not wrong. The obvious changes to transport funding are that public transport and active transport (walking and cycling) will get much more money, at the expense of the former Government’s Roads of National Significance. But there’s a lot more to it than that. One big change is that the Land Transport Fund will now cover spending across all land transport modes. This means the new transport strategy should be able to fully integrate planning for roads and rail, public transport and private use, existing bus and rail services and the proposed new rapid transit network.
Auckland’s wildly successful Northern Busway was built with special funds from the Crown, not from Land Transport, and the stations were paid for by local councils. That piecemeal approach is no longer.
It’s not just “improvements to quality and frequency” of public transport but, Twyford said, also “possible fare reductions”.
“We need to make it worth their while for people to get out of their single-occupancy cars.”
Later on he expects to introduce “demand pricing”.
But he played down another big change, which is to clearly anoint the NZ Transport Agency in Wellington as the lead agency in Auckland transport planning.
“It’s not really a downgrading of Auckland Transport,” he said. He didn’t see it as a particular threat to Auckland Council’s authority either.
But it’s hard to see it any other way. As Minister of Housing Twyford has already signalled a new Urban Development Authority to steer the building of houses in Auckland.
His colleague David Parker took the lead in solving the America’s Cup syndicates-base impasse. This transport move is strike three. Twyford said the Government’s vision was to use transport funding to help “unclog the cities and kickstart the regions”. It’s the right goal. We’re going to hold them to it.