via #BobDey Councillors to hear about mass transit blueprint on Tuesday 6 August 2013 in Infrastructure, Land use, Transport 0 Voluntary groups the Auckland Transport blog, Generation Zero and the Campaign for Better Transport will present their blueprint for expanding mass transit in Auckland to Auckland Council’s transport committee tomorrow. The 3 groups have collaborated to produce the congestion-free network proposal. Auckland Transport’s proposed integrated transport programme has put a price tag of $60 billion on transport projects to be undertaken in the next 30 years, but the 3 transport campaigners say travel around the region could still be worse even if all the money is found. They argue that the incidence of excessive congested travel would increase from 12% today to 27% by 2041, greenhouse gas emissions would increase by 17% from 2009 to 2040 compared to a target of a 49% reduction in the Auckland Plan, and public transport’s share of travel to the cbd would hardly change from 50%, whereas the Auckland Plan has a target of 70% by 2041. Apart from receiving the verbal presentation from Cameron Pitches, of the Campaign for Better Transport, it’s hard to see the council committee doing anything more. The mayor organised a study of options to pay for transport infrastructure last year and the consensus-building group released its report last month, promoting tolls & fuel tax as ways to pay the bill. The council shunted any decision on that through to the next council term. The first submissions period on Auckland Transport’s regional public transport plan, for South Auckland, closed last Friday. The Auckland Transport blog has grown its audience quickly as it’s begun examining transport issues around the region. In a 1 July article, blogger Patrick Reynolds wrote: “So far this sounds like a great story: Auckland’s come up with a long-term transport plan involving a number of very expensive projects and the government has broadly agreed with that plan. Unfortunately, the ITP is complete rubbish – full of stupid projects which simply don’t make sense and lacking a true vision for Auckland’s transport future. And somewhat surprisingly, even with the eye-watering price tag of $60+ billion, the transport network’s performance gets considerably worse over the next 30 years.” On 8 July, he continued: “Most public transport trips are on buses which mix with general traffic – meaning they get stuck in the same congestion as everyone else. For most trips, public transport is a poor alternative to driving. Too slow (because it’s stuck in the same traffic jams), too expensive, too unreliable. While perhaps overblown a bit, transport modelling highlights how pathetically slow public transport currently is for many trips across Auckland.”
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 21:36:08 +0000
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