Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
As I've said, that has been done competently and thoroughly by others
Yes, I know. I've followed their work. This is the first time it's been absolutely unarguable that the patronage of Auckland's rail network is higher than the usage of the Puhoi-Warkworth stretch, even in the face of Key's debateable usage figures for the road.
You can get as pissy about it as you like, but when faced with "statisticians" like Key and Joyce the only way to shut them down completely is to have evidence that's completely overwhelming. This is that evidence.
As for the Greens, yes, I have been somewhat disappointed by their response to the patronage figures. I'd expected better, but gave up on them actually giving a tinker's cuss about it and doing real homework. -
Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Oh, and PS: Jones only took over Transport about a month ago. It's a bit much to expect him to be across every detail just yet, especially something that can be twisted and munged as much as this one.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
It has been thoroughly debunked on transportblog for the last couple of years
Uh, except that until recently is was a very close-run thing. The figures used by National were actually plausible, depending how one did the counting at Puford. The September annual rail figure made it very, very close, and was the 24.5k figure Key used yesterday if averaged over a 365-day operating year.
It's the November numbers that finally tip things over the edge, and if this month break the million mark then there'll be something with which Joyce and Key can be shot down for good and all. They'd have to have car occupancy averaging 2 to get close, and still they'd fall short. -
Hard News: What Now?, in reply to BenWilson,
Isn't it almost always going to be more efficient to pump money into Auckland infrastructure, because the ROI is higher, due to the high population, with high wages, paying more tax? Aren't we already seeing a runaway effect?
Depends how Auckand grows. If the city sprawls more, as envisaged by Darth Joyce, there won't be enough money to support quality services to the metropolitan area. We already have the outer areas on tanks for water and septic services, and these are places within 20 minutes' drive of the CBD. People won't stand for that forever, especially if they're being rated like they have reticulated services, and even if their rates are lower they'll still expect high-speed intertubes, quality schools, convenient medical treatment, etc. Those things cost, and reticulated services cost, and even now we don't capture the full expense from developers.
Pumping money into an ineffcient, sprawling city is probably worse than pumping it into a bunch of smaller cities that are just as inefficient but, due to their smaller geography, can have their sprawl serviced more cheaply. Adding 20k residents to the outskirts of Hamilton or Tauranga or Wellington will be considerably cheaper to handle than the same number on the outskirts of Auckland.
Auckland's true economic value will be recognised if the central city grows. It's already the highest-value centre of employment in the country, but will hit limits on the ability of new workers to even get into the CBD during peak times within the next 15 or so years. If that happens, as seems to be Joyce's wont, then the jobs will devolve to other business centres around the region (or simply won't come to Auckland at all, instead they'll go to Brisbane, or Melbourne, or Perth) and the economic power of clustering highly-paid people in close proximity will be lost. And we'll be continuing to lament our nation's poor economic performance right to the point where the cost of supporting the boomers becomes so great that most members of Gen Y and the Millenials will simply up stakes and leave because there's no future when taxes are 80% and it's all going on paying for people who happily screwed the country when they had the levers of control.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
Hope someone on the opposition benches was ready with the rebuttal evidence - or they can just get out of the way.
To be fair to them, the last highly-public figure for rail patronage was the one Key used - a figure that was actually better than the old figure for Puford, but Key handily had revised data for Puford that had it higher than Auckland rail. I didn't even realise that the November patronage figure (850k-ish) had been released until I saw it on AKT. I emailed Shane Jones this morning, and asked him to please use the new figures to shoot National down next time they try and claim Auckland rail is less-used than Puford.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
Two words: peak oil
Quite. Contrary to the pronouncements of Joyce and English, transport modality is sensitive to the cost of petrol where an alternative exists. Rail patronage in Auckland is increasing at a great rate; the 18:16 service I caught home last night was so packed the train manager didn't even try to clip tickets, and I didn't encounter that level of crowding during the first week of university which is traditionally the busiest week of the year. Apparently March is looking like it might break a million passengers. So much for Key's claim in the House yesterday that more people use the Puford route daily than use rail in Auckland - 1m/month is about 35k passengers per day, against a revised-upwards figure of 27k/day for Puford.
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
It’s called Operation Lifesaver.
Quite. Couldn't remember what it was called, just the rough details.
Also, Cecelia, if you're really worried about Northland's economy, what's going to happen to the domestic tourist market in five years' time when petrol is likely to be nearer $3/L if the only convenient way to get there is by road? Puford makes no sense from any angle, unless you really do view it as a "Holiday Highway". On every other measure, it's a waste of time and money.
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Time to decide what you stand for and who you're with, pollies.
Which is one of Goff's biggest problems. He doesn't know. He's closer-aligned to National than to traditional Labour, and isn't capable of truly changing his spots.
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Heather Gaye,
David Cunliffe laying the smack down.
And what a smack it is! Cunliffe for PM!
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Cecelia,
Nevertheless, the term “holiday highway” seems unnecessarily emotive from my Northland pov.
Maybe so, but it's rather apt when the current PM has a holiday home at Omaha and the "congestion problem" that the highway is supposed to "fix" only occurs on a handful of days a year directly related to people going on vacation.
For less than the cost of Joyce's wet-dream, the road could have full median barriers and edge barriers installed, some realignments of the worst sections, and the northern rail line upgraded to a standard that would make it an attractive alternative to road freight. It would also be possible to complete the road works within three years and probably the rail work within five, as opposed to at least 10 years before the section of highway to Warkworth is completed and over 15 until it reaches Wellsford.
If you really care about a safe trip south, push for the quick, cheap, effective option rather than the monument to men who think that the price of petrol is irrelevant to how people travel (tell that to the passengers on the standing-room-only train I caught home tonight. So packed that the train manager didn't even try to clip tickets!) and thus the only transport option worth consideration is moar roads!