Auckland, what is it good for?

Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the City Centre Advisory Panel

…and what can we do to increase its success?

Here at Greater Auckland it is axiomatic that cities are, or at least can and should be, forces for good for their inhabitants and host nations. This of course explains their universal existence throughout history, across all cultures and geographies.

Obviously they have their downsides too, so the question really becomes; how to maximise their advantages and minimise the disadvantages. In other words: cities are great, but some cities are better at it than others. Detail matters. The key challenges in cities are pollution, disease, and congestion. The first two are fought with public sanitation infrastructure, the electrification of everything, and public health measures (especially mass vaccination). The last one with urban transport systems, changes in urban form, and especially road pricing, and other forms of traffic demand management.

It is clear from this Auckland budget that most of our infrastructure efforts go into addressing these two areas: transport and water (also note how minor, declining, and nearly over is the CRL capex cost)

So first what do cities do best?

Last month our official public body for thinking about this sort of thing, Te Waihanga, published an evaluation of Auckland, here. It’s full of interesting insight, I’ll include a few charts on transport in the post, but the whole paper is worth a look. Here are the top two conclusions:

Economists have a fancy term for the advantages larger denser cities exhibit: Agglomeration Economies (or Effects), essentially that the greater complexity, choice and competition, accessible to city dwellers makes them more productive. Sure enough Auckland shows these effects, including, efficiency in physical connectivity. This is shown be the fact that despite being the biggest city, covering the greatest area, we drive less than people everywhere else in the country to do all the things, we also, as you’d expect, use public transport more:

Additionally that gap is consistently widening, even as the city spreads further. Suggesting Auckland is developing in the usual city way: needing and using more spatially efficient movement systems, PT walking and cycling, to access more nearby options. This means we need less road space per capita but more PT services:

This also means we spend way less on road maintenance, half in fact, but more on PT…

…and way more on building any new roads:

So in our biggest densest city, building new roads is more expensive, but because we can invest in PT we don’t need to so much. Which in turn saves on road maintenance, but we do need to keep operating that PT. No free lunch, but by choosing to invest more in PT (and other spatially efficient systems), over congestion inducing roads we increase the great urban prize: more valuable efficient density. Which is to say increased density and productivity with a lower traffic congestion cost.

Transport investment policy should be markedly different for cities, rather than one model fits all across the nation.

Furthermore, increasing the density especially on the best public transport routes will increase those efficiencies even more.

All our cities need this this to a degree, but Auckland is anomalous in NZ in both size and density, so this is where the greatest benefit in more city-shaped investment lies.

So how are we doing on plans to expand public transport and density? Or are we still trying to force more urban highways through the city when instead we should be accelerating alternatives more urgently?

Happily there are two very big agglomeration enablers that we are wisely investing in right now, both nearing completion: The City Rail Link (and the rest of the network) and the huge wastewater tunnel, the Central Interceptor (also with network effects). So the questions become: how to get the best value from these investments, and what’s next?

To get the best from them we should enable, plan, and fund more intensity in the areas their networks serve. More on that below.

So what’s next with these systems?

Starting with Rapid Transit, this is the plan, and it’s good. But it shows there’s a great deal still to complete: Electrification to Pukekohe is the latest addition to the network, though the intermediate stations are yet to complete. Then what?

Other than the CRL and the rail rebuild, the Eastern Busway is currently being extended to Botany. Great. A lot of energy and some funding is going into improving the nascent North Western direction also with buses. The Harbour crossing since the change of government now all about traffic lanes, at enormous cost, a pivot that this study doesn’t really support. Upper Harbour (SH18) needs addressing. But the biggest void is the Isthmus and Mangere direction or the CC2M. Since the killing of the woefully off-track Auckland Light Rail separate agency, nothing has been proposed in its place. There is an opportunity and need for leadership from within Auckland on this. This is a route that needs its Robbie or Len Brown.

No good being able to get there if there is no supporting fresh, waste, and storm water infrastructure to support that density. So where’s that at?

Usefully Watercare have just published at network capacity map, and a list of areas and dates for upgrades currently underway:

Putting these these together there is pretty good correlation too:

Now there are plenty of other complications, like flood prone land, which the Council has been very focused on after the 2023 inundation, and social infrastructure. And the always important issue of land value and building cost, which govern the actual likelihood of things being built by the private sector.

But the biggest missing piece in the puzzle is some kind of lead agency, with capital, along with quality urban design and land assembly skills, to spark great development, in the locations unlocked by these huge agglomerative infrastructure investments. The private sector will deliver market rate developments, and do respond to the new infrastructure where it is most profitable and least risky to do so. But to get the highest public benefit, and to internalise public return (economically if not financially) on these huge public investments, best practice internationally is to coordinate the infra with the outcomes. The most obvious example of this sort of coordination is in Transport Oriented Developments (TOD).  High quality public transport systems will revalue land around stations by making it better connected, but still usually needs masterplanning, up zoning, and site assembly. The new Transport and Housing Minister did mention this positively in his speech last week.

However the city has just dissolved Eke Panuku, and central government has removed all such powers and funding from Kaianga Ora for this work.

This Te Waihanga report should help concentrate the minds of the city and the government on the economic and wellbeing benefits of prioritising urbanising infrastructure for our cities, and the need to follow through to be sure the best outcomes are delivered.

Post Script. For anyone with any doubt about the welling being costs of trying to densify on a driving dominant pattern, below is a magisterial summary of the where leads by Ray Delhanty of City Nerd.

And note Greater Auckland is hosting Ray in person TONIGHT, details here come along!

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