Consultation on additional Waitemata harbour crossing options occurred earlier in the year. I had no time to get a submission in. The ‘emerging preferred option’ is two, three lane road tunnels and one tunnel for light rail, while the existing bridge gets reconfigured including separate walking and cycling lanes and one for buses. You could say: “everyone gets a lane”.
The Auckland mayor has said that the government's plans for a second harbour crossing are a "pipe dream".
It is interesting to see what role spatial planning has played in determining the options for new crossings and what may end up being the final project. Spatial planning is supposed to deliver us from the quagmire of multiple plans and strategies and set clear priorities for infrastructure projects. The Spatial Planning Act says that a regional spatial strategy must support a co-ordinated approach to infrastructure funding and investment by central government, local authorities, and other infrastructure providers. The regional transport committee under the Land Transport Management Act 2003 must be satisfied that its regional land transport plan is consistent with the relevant regional spatial strategy.
Can such a big decision about future transport connections be made in the absence of an agreed spatial plan? Auckland council is busy developing its next Future Development Strategy (aka spatial strategy). The Strategy is to replace the existing Auckland Plan 2050 and is supposed to set out the big picture vision for how and where we should grow over the next 30 years to achieve the best outcomes for Tāmaki Makaurau.
The Future Development Strategy has little to say about another harbour crossing, apart from stating the obvious: Projects such as Auckland Light Rail and the Waitematā Harbour Connections have region wide potential to change and improve people’s travel to work choices.
A bit later on in the draft Strategy there is the interesting observation: "Whether the Waitemata Harbour Connections project unlocks development on the eastern or western side of the (northern) motorway, or both, is a perquisite for determining which locations may be prioritised for further investment in the future".
So is transport shaping land use decisions, or should land use decisions shape transport decisions?
Back to the harbour crossing options.
Firstly, why additional transport connections north (rather than south or west) are getting so much attention is a bit hard to fathom. The northern urban area (or at least the 5 northern Local Board areas) represent about 24% of the region's population, up from 23% in 1996. South Auckland has grown much faster (from 32% of regional population in 1996 to 35% in 2022). Logistically, a business location in South Auckland makes more sense, and so too population growth will follow.
The draft 2023 Tāmaki Makaurau Future Development Strategy says that over the shorter term (next 10 years) the Auckland Housing Programme in Mt Roskill, Māngere and Tāmaki, an identified live-zoned area within Drury-Ōpaheke, and the Westgate and city centre nodes as the spatial priorities for council investment. In other words, the northern area is not a priority.
The future Harbour Crossing is noted as a mega project that could upset these priorities. The Strategy states the obvious: that the project will have transformational, city-shaping impacts on Auckland’s urban form and the way people and goods move around. However, these projects are currently unfunded and details such as routes and timeframes are not yet known. This uncertainty means "forecasting more location-specific impacts and market responses remain highly speculative at this stage, making longer-term prioritisation equally speculative".
So how do you decide what infrastructure is best when there is little clarity on how and in what way the northern urban area should develop?
The Business Case makes much of the danger of meeting demand for travel in and out of the northern area in one corridor - in particular its vulnerability. Whether this reliance on one main corridor is a reason to further boost the growth of the Northern area is not really discussed. Two ‘pipes’ in and out of the northern urban area may be more resilient than one pipe, but not by much.
Reading the Business Case does suggest that land use futures should be a critical element in determining the form of the best infrastructure option. The Business Case says that Waka Kotahi follows an ‘intervention hierarchy’ approach, with land-use planning and demand management the starting point, followed by network optimisation. New infrastructure initiatives are the last option. The Business Case says that there is a need to further investigate the potential for land-use planning and demand management (e.g. road pricing) to optimise existing infrastructure and delay the need for major investment.
These interventions are likely to delay the need for road investment but bring forward the need for public transport investment. Actions could cover:
- Addressing the link between the timing of greenfield urbanisation around Dairy Flat and the need for high-cost rapid transit and road investment.
- Focusing growth in and around major centres (especially Takapuna and Albany) will help reduce travel demand and support mode shift to public transport.
- Employment growth on the North Shore will ease pressure on the harbour crossing part of the corridor and potentially delay the need for major investments.
- Road pricing can help reduce congestion on the corridor, potentially delaying the need for road investment. However, it will increase public transport demand and potentially bring forward the need for rapid transit upgrades.
- City centre plans will reduce road capacity, discourage people from driving there, and increase public transport demand.
The Business Case says that these interventions are important ‘foundation’ elements of the investment programme and will play an important role in the timing (both delaying and accelerating different capital investments) of more infrastructure focused investments.
Sounds good.
But do the inputs into modelling of future transport demands reflect the above ‘foundation moves’?
What about the expected growth of jobs in the north, Will the new tunnels help or hinder more jobs on the Shore?
The Business Case says employment and population forecast ratios suggest that the 2016 jobs/population ratio of 0.4 will drop to 0.37 in 2048. In other words the level of self containment of work related trips in the northern urban area will drop, not increase.
Total travel originating on the North Shore in the AM peak of 145,000 trips in 2016 is projected to rise to 190,000 by 2048, an increase of 31%. Internal trips within the North Shore in the AM peak increase by 25%, while trips from the North Shore to the City Centre increase by 44%
The modelling is based on the city centre having a high and growing level of reliance on the North Shore’s pool of labour. The North Shore contributes 15% of the city centre’s workforce today, and this is expected to increase to 19% by 2048; making the North Shore second only to the Isthmus in terms of labour contribution. "This confirms that the North Shore’s access to the city centre is important to its potential performance. This is significant in the strategic context given the productivity of the city centre and its important role in realising Auckland’s land use objectives for a quality, compact city as expressed in the Auckland Plan". So much for working from home!
Should the modelling start with land use options and demand management actions that help achieve the wider goals set out above about more jobs and intensification around centres; with the residual demand served by new infrastructure. But it is new infrastructure that gets all the attention in the Business Case. If you are going to build some expensive infrastructure, then you want lots of users to help justify the large investment (and perhaps help pay for the new connection). So the residual demand after land use changes and demand management is not enough.
Looking more closely at jobs versus population, the ratio of people to jobs has improved over the 20 years 2001 to 2020 from 310 jobs per 1000 residents to 378 jobs per 1000 residents.
Figure 1: Jobs versus Population
This is a positive trend. Restricted cross harbour access may well have spurred on this trend.
Taking a closer look , the working age population (well, 15 to 65 year olds) has not grown much since 2018, but employment has slowly stepped up.
The Business Case says both an enhanced busway and an additional rapid transit connection are required to meet future demand. Upgrading the busway to light-rail results in a relatively small ‘net’ increase in overall corridor capacity (from around 10,000 to just over 14,000 people per hour). So a new light rail route is needed - but which way to go - east or west?
The modelling outputs indicate that the public transport improvements primarily result in more people being able to cross the harbour, rather than reducing the number of vehicles crossing the harbour (aside from a small southbound AM peak reduction). This means that there are still inefficiencies and unreliability in moving goods and services. Has enough attention been paid to business needs, if the prime objective is to support more local employment and less travel out of the sector?
