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Speaker 1: Yoda.

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Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a

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Speaker 2: daily podcast.

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Speaker 1: Presented by the New Zealand Herald.

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Speaker 2: March madness is upon us, which means it's the busiest

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Speaker 2: time of year for anyone trying to get anywhere. It

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Speaker 2: usually marks the end of the summer holiday period. School

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Speaker 2: and university is back in session and most people are

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Speaker 2: heading back to work. So whether you're biking, driving, or

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Speaker 2: taking a train or bus, it is night marish. But

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Speaker 2: it does lead back to that age old question how

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Speaker 2: do we solve our traffic problems? Today on the Front Page,

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Speaker 2: we're joined by Matt Lowry from Greater Auckland to.

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Speaker 1: Look at some of the possible solutions.

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Speaker 2: So, Matt, we always love to find someone or something

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Speaker 2: to blame with problems like this. Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown

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Speaker 2: has pointed the finger at road cones mostly for example.

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Speaker 2: But do we actually know what causes traffic jams and congestion?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, ultimately it's too many people trying to

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Speaker 3: use the same piece of road or service. And so

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Speaker 3: if you have too many people and not enough capacity

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Speaker 3: or not enough alternatives, then you get congestion and you

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Speaker 3: get frustrated.

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Speaker 2: Well, Auckland does have been bitching about traffic for decades,

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Speaker 2: probably since the first motorway was built. Why does it

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Speaker 2: seem like we haven't done much to change anything.

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Speaker 4: There's a lot has.

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Speaker 3: Been done that The issue is that Auckland has grown

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Speaker 3: massively over even just the last decade, and so there's

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Speaker 3: only so much infrastructure that can be built, particularly when

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Speaker 3: this stuff costs a lot of money. It takes a

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Speaker 3: long time to deliver, you know, that's hard to keep

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Speaker 3: up with the demand of.

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Speaker 2: Essentially, is it time to start introducing congestion charges? I

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Speaker 2: know we all love talking about that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is.

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Speaker 3: We've seen in cities where it has been introduced that

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Speaker 3: it has made a big difference, and the most recent

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Speaker 3: one of those is New York, and New York is

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Speaker 3: seeing substantial crops in congestion and that means people who

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Speaker 3: are driving and taking having faster journeys. But it's also

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Speaker 3: not impacted local businesses and what have you that have

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Speaker 3: that was you know, people were worried about. So it

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Speaker 3: has been beneficial and it does raise revenue, and that revenue,

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Speaker 3: as you can be used to fund other infrastructure or

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Speaker 3: other services that can help make it easier to get around.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but when I think of New York, I think

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Speaker 2: about the subway system. Do we have something similar here?

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Speaker 3: We don't, not directly, but we will have the city

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Speaker 3: round and shortly, which will make our rail network significantly better.

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Speaker 3: And then you know, we have the Northern Busway, which

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Speaker 3: is which is kind of like around network, which is great,

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Speaker 3: and we've got more of those coming, but we also

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Speaker 3: need to build a lot more of them that you know,

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Speaker 3: that will cost money, takes time, and one of the

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Speaker 3: things that congestion pricing can do is encourage people to

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Speaker 3: think about.

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Speaker 4: How their travel and when their travel.

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Speaker 3: So you know, sometimes there are people who are traveling

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Speaker 3: who simply could delay their trip by an hour or

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Speaker 3: something like that to go to where they might be

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Speaker 3: wanted to go, and that might be enough to help

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Speaker 3: these congestion. We see the impact that a slight reduction

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Speaker 3: and traffic and it feels like a lot, but it's

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Speaker 3: only a slight reduction in real numbers that school holidays

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Speaker 3: have and that means that as soon as school holidays

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Speaker 3: come around, the roads are generally a lot freer.

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Speaker 4: There's still some congestion.

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Speaker 3: It's still not like a free flow condition, but it

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Speaker 3: is easier to get around, and that's a small percentage

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Speaker 3: of users changing their habits and the travel. And if

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Speaker 3: congestion pricing can enable that, you know, we could have

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Speaker 3: school holiday levels of traffic all the time.

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Speaker 4: It's not a surprisingly new thing.

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Speaker 2: You're just encouraging people to change their day or do

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Speaker 2: something differently or better still, get on a bus. There

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Speaker 2: are options, you know.

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Speaker 3: Get on a bus.

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Speaker 4: Browns take more people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but therein lies the problem with our public transport.

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Speaker 2: The main problem is people just don't want to do it.

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Speaker 3: I remember having a conversation here on this on this

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Speaker 3: program and the feedback that came through from people.

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Speaker 4: When they tried to.

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Speaker 2: People when we talk about congestion charges, how much like

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Speaker 2: what are some of the numbers being thrown around?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, generally it's potentially a couple of dollars per journey,

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Speaker 3: and that means you might travel in an out of,

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Speaker 3: or through congestion zone.

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Speaker 4: And so it's a cost to travel through that. It's

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Speaker 4: not a huge roup. It's also not in significant over

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Speaker 4: a long period of time.

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Speaker 3: But the exact amounts have to be whipped out and

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Speaker 3: whipped through that The previous estimations were sort of in

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Speaker 3: the in a few dollars to three four dollars, depending

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Speaker 3: on the time of day, the location.

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Speaker 4: Per journey.

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Speaker 2: What has patronage been like on Auckland's public transport?

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Speaker 1: Has it picked up post COVID not.

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Speaker 3: Fully, So we're back to sort of around eighty five

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Speaker 3: to ninety percent of what it was post COVID pre COVID,

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Speaker 3: I should say, but what we're seeing is that there

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Speaker 3: are a wider range of people using public transport, but

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Speaker 3: they're using it often at different times. So where particularly

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Speaker 3: on things like crosstown buses or buses that aren't going

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Speaker 3: to the city center or trains, those trips are actually

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Speaker 3: higher than they wear pre COVID on the weekends off,

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Speaker 3: so those trips are there are more people using public

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Speaker 3: transport now than there were back prior to COVID. Where

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Speaker 3: the drop has been is in the sort of commuters

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Speaker 3: to the city center, and that's really what's driven those

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Speaker 3: numbers to change.

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Speaker 2: Has anyone actually ever crunched the numbers and worked out

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Speaker 2: how much it had cost to make public transport completely free.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't have the.

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Speaker 3: Exact number of the topic, but it's hundreds of millions

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Speaker 3: of dollars a year to do that. And the challenge

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Speaker 3: has always been with this discussion is what's the best

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Speaker 3: use of that money. Is the best use of that

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Speaker 3: money to make public transport free and make it easy.

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Speaker 3: But the problem that you come with that is if

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Speaker 3: you have a lot more people using it at buses

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Speaker 3: are also also have congestion issues and capacity issues, so

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Speaker 3: our trains do we have enough capacity.

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Speaker 4: In our public transport system to be able to cope

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Speaker 4: with that?

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Speaker 3: And what has been seen in some cities that have

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Speaker 3: tried this is that the buses and the trains get

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Speaker 3: so forward people who are who might be instead of

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Speaker 3: walking a short distance or cypling a short distance or whatever,

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Speaker 3: they switched to using the public transport system that clogs

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Speaker 3: the public transport system up, which means that it's not

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Speaker 3: very usable for people who might want to use it

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Speaker 3: somewhere else, and so you don't necessarily get the beach

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Speaker 3: shift in usage or in behavior that you might expect

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Speaker 3: you to get if you just gather for free, and

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Speaker 3: that money is money that could be used to help

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Speaker 3: improve the system well.

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Speaker 2: Organs train services will have been suspended for almost one

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Speaker 2: hundred days between Christmas and January twenty twenty six as

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Speaker 2: improvements are made to the rail network before the City

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Speaker 2: rail Link is complete.

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Speaker 1: Have we seen much disruption here so far?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there's been.

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Speaker 3: Huge disruption that has occurred within the round it within

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Speaker 3: the last five years.

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Speaker 4: Really since about twenty twenty.

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Speaker 3: We've always had disruption that's occurred, but the last five

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Speaker 3: years it has been quite significant with various amounts of you

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Speaker 3: know what called rebuald work, with various issues that have

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Speaker 3: had to have cropped up and needed to be fixed,

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Speaker 3: and these often take quite some time. That is still

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Speaker 3: being worked through, and their intention is to hype, is

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Speaker 3: to get that finished before the City rail and opens up.

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Speaker 3: And if you actually look at what's going on and why,

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Speaker 3: it's really frustrating as a user to have to experience

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Speaker 3: that disruption. We're effectively building a whole almost a brand

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Speaker 3: new railway system in the middle of that times because

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Speaker 3: they're having to dig out all the foundations, relay all

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Speaker 3: the tracks because you know, some of these foundations are

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Speaker 3: of the tracts are over one hundred years old, they're

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Speaker 3: not in great condition, they need to be replaced. And

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Speaker 3: now we actually seen similar things happen and a lot

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Speaker 3: of other cities around the world where these networks are

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Speaker 3: having to be gone to undergo quite significant maintenance and

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Speaker 3: repair cycles. In Australia number of lines that can think

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Speaker 3: of that are doing that right now, and other countries

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Speaker 3: as well.

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Speaker 2: That has to be frustrating for people who usually do

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Speaker 2: or do rely on those services. Hey, do you think

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Speaker 2: there's any changing that attitude, particularly when I guess rail

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Speaker 2: network seems to be shut down all the time, blood

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Speaker 2: buses can't turn up late, and I mean, what do

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Speaker 2: we do?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really it's a really tough thing.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to justify someone using a public transport system

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Speaker 3: when it's unreliable. And so the two biggest drivers of

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Speaker 3: public transport usage is the frequency of services and obviously

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Speaker 3: where they go to is important, but the frequency of

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Speaker 3: services and the reliability, and so we've taken the reliability

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Speaker 3: away quite substantially.

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Speaker 4: Buses.

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Speaker 3: We also had the reliability issue last year or a

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Speaker 3: couple of years ago when we had a bus driver shortage.

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Speaker 3: Those that bus driver shortage has been resolved and actually

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Speaker 3: if you look at the bus the numbers, the bus

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Speaker 3: usage is almost back to what it was pre COVID,

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Speaker 3: so that the bus usage is about ninety seven percent

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Speaker 3: of what it was prior to COVID versus trains and

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Speaker 3: ferries are trains are sort of more in the sixty percent,

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Speaker 3: So that's where we've talked earlier about the up to

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Speaker 3: ninety percent of pre COVID levels, but buses are actually

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Speaker 3: closer to one hundred and that's because they are more reliable.

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Speaker 4: Again, they are.

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Speaker 3: Moving people that The issue with buses is often that

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Speaker 3: they get stuck in congestion, and the solution to that

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Speaker 3: is generally we need more bus priorities, a bus lanes,

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Speaker 3: things like that that allow buses to avoid that congestion.

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Speaker 3: And that means that when they do that, they'd be reliable,

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Speaker 3: they're faster, and they become more intrecutive. And we just

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Speaker 3: have to look at the Northern Busway as a great

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Speaker 3: example of a very high level bit of structure. More

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Speaker 3: people travel on the Northern Busway than any other bus

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Speaker 3: route of the country by a substantial margin.

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Speaker 5: There's no such thing as a sure thing in construction.

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Speaker 5: Nothing is guaranteed. And I've been around long enough to

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Speaker 5: see things come and whack you around the head when

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Speaker 5: you thought you heard everything resolved. And I've stopped in

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Speaker 5: my career some time ago, promising ministers there's certainty because

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Speaker 5: there's a danger they'll be disappointed. If you look at

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Speaker 5: any project, you have a whole series of traditional construction risks.

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Speaker 5: You have a procurement risk, numbers are always different once

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Speaker 5: you get into contract. You have a design risk. We

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Speaker 5: had a big underground risk where nearly all the city

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Speaker 5: ratlink is built underground. So once you go underground, you're

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Speaker 5: going to find things you didn't anticipate. We've found faults

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Speaker 5: and various things we didn't anticipate.

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Speaker 2: What are we expecting the CRL to be up and

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Speaker 2: running by the way, Yeah, current.

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Speaker 3: Planning is that it will be open early next year.

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Speaker 3: The executator has not been set. That depends on how

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Speaker 3: testing goes. And there's a bunch of work that can

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Speaker 3: transport has to do inters, training drivers and setting up

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Speaker 3: their own processes. So that stuff is underway. But the

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Speaker 3: indications are currently probably early next year, maybe February to April,

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Speaker 3: but that's.

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Speaker 4: Not locked in yet.

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Speaker 2: Well, given all the red tape there is around this stuff,

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Speaker 2: do you think it's enough time from saying now to

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Speaker 2: February next April for this to be sorted out?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? These level crossings won't be sorted out by then.

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Speaker 3: Part of the issue with resolving them, particularly that six

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Speaker 3: years mentioned in Southakland, is that they can't all be

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Speaker 3: done one at the same time, because that would mean

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Speaker 3: that there's no crossings available for people to get across

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Speaker 3: it around it, So you have to do some and

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Speaker 3: then wait for that to be finished before you can

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Speaker 3: start the next one. So that's why that time frame

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Speaker 3: is in place. But those will be resolved at least

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Speaker 3: relatively shortly. You know, six years is a long time,

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Speaker 3: but it's still relatantly shortened the ground scheme of things.

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Speaker 3: But there is currently as I mentioned, no there is

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Speaker 3: twenty level crossings on the Western Line.

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Speaker 4: There's no plans for those.

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Speaker 3: And the Western Line is actually going to experience huge

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Speaker 3: benefits from the Cereal because it have much shorter Juney

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Speaker 3: times to the city center and there's gonna be a

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Speaker 3: lot of usage and not going to be able an

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Speaker 3: increased capacity very much.

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Speaker 4: From what it is currently.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 2: Wayne Brown's anti traffic cone stance is just this week

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Speaker 2: called for a pause on the sixty million dollar Victorious

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Speaker 2: Street upgrade, which is adding cycle paths from Sky City

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Speaker 2: to Albert Park and reducing traffic to one lane each way.

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Speaker 1: Do you think his concerns here are valid?

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Speaker 4: No, I don't.

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Speaker 3: This has been a plan that's been in place for

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Speaker 3: over a decade. It's twenty twelve that original Council Ridgie

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Speaker 3: signed Blok. It was confirmed again back in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: that this was a preferred option.

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Speaker 4: And what's recapning here is Victoria.

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Speaker 3: Street is where one of the main entrances of the

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Speaker 3: t y Heritaria station for the City railminkers. We're going

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Speaker 3: to have thousands and thousands of people pouring out of

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Speaker 3: that station every single day, and the upgrade that's going

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Speaker 3: on is about making sure there's enough capacity within that pedestrial,

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Speaker 3: within the streets, and within the parts to handle all

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Speaker 3: these people that are going to be using the trains

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Speaker 3: that now from the City railant when it does open

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Speaker 3: in the future. And it's about making the city center

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Speaker 3: more walkable, more pedestrian for it. And what we're seeing

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Speaker 3: is when we do that in other areas of the

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Speaker 3: city center where individuals have happened, that we see increases

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Speaker 3: in usage in retail it occurs, and better outcomes for businesses,

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Speaker 3: for residents and to make courage more people to use

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Speaker 3: it as well.

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Speaker 2: It feels like we're constantly talking about how unequipped to

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Speaker 2: Auckland's roading network is for its population size, and we're

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Speaker 2: only getting bigger. Is there any hope on the horizon?

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Speaker 2: And don't tell me that everyone needs to get on bikes?

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Speaker 3: No, I don't think you've runs on bikes and even

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Speaker 3: a small a smaller proportion using bikes at five ten

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Speaker 3: percent would make a huge difference to how Aucklander is

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Speaker 3: get around it, and really is we need a wide

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Speaker 3: range of options. You know, we need better better bike options,

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Speaker 3: we need better public transport options, and we need to

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Speaker 3: make it easier to It's hard to make it easier

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Speaker 3: to drive, but we can, through things like congestion pricing,

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Speaker 3: make it free up the roads a bit and that

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Speaker 3: by encouraging people to either is it not travel at

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Speaker 3: the side at peak times or change out they travel.

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Speaker 3: And so it's really not a single solution. There's a

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Speaker 3: wide range of solutions that are required.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. The challenge. One of the.

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Speaker 3: Challenges with Auckland is because of our geography, we have

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Speaker 3: a lot of pinch points on our roading network that

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Speaker 3: other cities don't necessarily have, but that means a lot

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Speaker 3: of traffic is funneled into into and full of crossings,

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Speaker 3: and so for you to think about on coming into

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Speaker 3: the dismus you've got, it's only a can full of

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Speaker 3: roads that.

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Speaker 4: People can actually use, and that funnels all.

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Speaker 3: That traffic into very narrow corridors, and so it's very

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Speaker 3: hard to avoid congestion completely when you've got that sort

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Speaker 3: of situation occurring.

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Speaker 4: Looking at road options, there's very few options.

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Speaker 3: That you could build that for that you do, particularly

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Speaker 3: anything affordably betwood, that you make any material difference to

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Speaker 3: congestion with an auckland. So it's really about providing more

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Speaker 3: options for people, is the key.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Matt Problem.

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Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You

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Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage

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Speaker 2: at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is

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Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Seals and Richard Martin, who is also

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Speaker 2: our sound engineer.

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Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.

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Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you

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Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in on Money Day for

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Speaker 2: another look behind the headlines.