Urban Planning and Management

Hon Judith Tizard MP
Associate Minister of Transport
MP Auckland Central

Wednesday, 27th September 2000

Urban Planning & Management Conference

Hyatt Regency, Auckland

Ensuring efficient and cost effective service delivery for urban infrastructure

Introduction

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Your conference is addressing one of New Zealand's major concerns - the future of our cities. It is highly appropriate that this conference is being held in the centre of New Zealand's largest urban area, where current social and economic problems come into their sharpest focus.

Today I want to look at the nature of those problems, and to identify them in terms of Aucklands concerns, as well as identifying what this Government is doing to tackle them.

My focus today will be on what we are doing to ensure that Auckland has the transport system, as well as the central and local governments structures and funding that it needs to provide employment growth to lead New Zealand in the Twenty First Century.

I was appointed as Minister of State advising the Prime Minister on Auckland Issues as well as well as the Associate Minister for Transport with a specific brief to begin to tackle these issues, which have to a large extent been neglected for the last ten years. Helen Clark's instructions to all of the Ministers outside cabinet was to work across portfolios, to get away from silo policy development; and further delivery; so that we can look at problems as they affect real people not as they occur to departments and Ministries in Wellington.

The problems of transport in Auckland today

The transport system in our city has become a major brake on economic growth - and it is economic growth, as much as anything else that will help us to tackle the major social issues that we are all concerned about.

People often talk of "the" Auckland transport problem - yet, in reality, there is a series of transport problems, each of which is closely linked to the others, but which affects each of us in different ways.

· If you are a car driver or passenger, then "the" transport problem is congestion. The steady increase in journey times on our motorway and main road system is a growing source of deep frustration to people travelling to work; to parents taking their children to and from school; and to businesses for whom good road transport is fundamental to their financial success.
· Equally, there is wide public concern about our road safety record. There have been substantial improvements in recent years, but no-one can look at the current risk to road users and feel that we have done all that we could do.

· If you use public transport, then "the" transport problem is the run down state of much of our public transport system. Many people - including me - see public transport as a key to improving accessibility to jobs and social opportunity in the Auckland Region. It is a difficult argument to promote, however, when using public transport it means you may have to wait on a poorly lit, graffiti covered railway station for a elderly, often overcrowded and infrequent train service; or if you have to make several slow bus journeys to get from where you live to where you work.

· If you walk, then you face the considerable risk of using road corridors that could rarely be described as "pedestrian friendly". We should be ashamed that many of our roads, footpaths and crossings have been designed in such way as to be barriers to movement for the young and the elderly. Many parents drive their children to school in no small part because they see our present pedestrian network as unsafe.

· If you are a cyclist on many of Auckland's roads, then I can only say that I admire your courage and determination. No-one in their wildest dreams would say that Auckland roads provide a safe cycling environment, yet the costs of providing a urban cycling network that would both improve both the transport system and increase health benefits is a fraction of the money we have already spent on motorways.

· If you are concerned for the environment, then "the" transport problem is the way in which air, water and land resources in and around Auckland are being affected by the transport system. Problems with air pollution have been well publicised in recent weeks. Runoff from the road system is increasingly polluting our waterways, while demands for land to build new motorways merely highlights that over 30% of the city's existing land area is already in use for transport purposes.

Auckland and the New Zealand infrastructure problem

"The" Auckland transport problem takes many forms, and each of us who lives in Auckland has our own view of what needs to be done. While we all have our own individual perspectives, the sum of all those transport problems delivers costs that affect us all, wherever we live.

One study from the mid 1990s estimated that at that time Auckland's traffic congestion alone costs New Zealanders more than $800 million per year. I stress the importance of this cost, because it is one that every New Zealander shares. The transport network links us all and we all pay the costs for it.

If you live in Invercargill or Palmerston North, just as if you live in Waitakere or Manukau, you will probably never see a transport bill that includes an amount for "congestion in Auckland". Yet, such is the interlinked nature of our economy and its transport system that, wherever you live, you will be paying for some part of those costs.

Nor do I want to leave you with the impression that infrastructure problems are limited to Auckland. People at this conference will know better than most that many regional transport networks are having difficulty keeping pace with the financial and operational demands of a growing and changing economy and society. The growth of dairying in Southland, forestry in Marlborough or on the East Coast and tourism in Coromandel or Northland put pressures on our transport system that local communities struggle to meet.

We have to do better in managing our total transport system.

The Government's goal

This Government wants to build a sustainable transport system.

What do we mean by sustainability?

· A sustainable transport system is one in which passengers, workers and the communities that come into contact with transport operations can expect a high level of personal safety.

· A sustainable transport system is one that meets the needs of its customers, in a timely and cost effective manner.

· A sustainable transport system is one in which investors and shareholders can expect a reasonable return on their investments, through providing innovative services and infrastructure in the right place at the right time at the right price, while providing rewarding employment for their employees.

· A sustainable transport system is one that carefully manages its impacts on our air, water and land resources.

· And a sustainable transport system is one that provides both mobility and accessibility opportunities to all those who live in the society in which it operates.

None of these goals can exist in isolation.

· A transport system that makes money through cutting corners on safety or through devastating the physical environment is not sustainable.

· A transport system that minimises its impact on the environment but cannot earn sufficient returns to support future investment in infrastructure is not sustainable.

· A transport system that drives urban sprawl, rather than meeting the needs and aspirations of the whole community is not sustainable.

· A transport system that does not meet the needs of its customers is not sustainable.

To reach our goal of a sustainable transport system, we must carefully balance the interests of safety, customer and employee needs, investment, the environment and social equity.

The Government has begun that task.

Short term and long term

Changing transport policy is not a rapid business.

Many of the decisions that led to the system that we have today - and its problems - were made as much as fifty or more years ago. Once major transport infrastructure investments are made, they can have an impact that lasts for decades or even centuries.

Since the 1960s 65% of all of the planned motorways have been built but Auckland is yet to see a single major public transport project, and the effects of this on the urban form of the city is becoming clear.

We cannot simply turn the clock back - we have to fashion a new transport approach taking into account what has been done and what exists today.

The Government has therefore had to adopt a two stage approach to the development of transport policy.

· First we have taken a number of short term measures to begin the process of change in key areas such as road safety, the environment and passenger transport.

· Secondly, we have begun a programme of consultation with communities and stakeholders to identify and implement a long term approach to addressing the problems I identified earlier.

I will now deal with these initiatives in more detail.

Improving safety

Transport safety is a high priority goal for this Government.

Our most immediate task is to continue to improve our road safety record. Over the last decade, the road toll has been substantially reduced, but we are still well below the best results achieved by similar countries.

The Government has announced a series of decisions that will enable us to make substantial immediate improvements in road safety, while we develop a more strategic approach.

Improved safety management package

· From late this year, 225 extra police officers will be working exclusively on road safety on the State Highways. These officers will staff the new Highway Patrol, which is designed to provide a high profile police presence on the most highly used part of the road system

· We have almost doubled the amount of money going to community driver education initiatives, with particular emphasis on initiatives coming from the Maori and Pacific Island communities.

· Additional police resources are being put into breath testing campaigns, especially in rural areas.

· The police have tightened the tolerances used in speed limit enforcement, and are paying especial attention to the wearing of seat belts.

· New Zealand has joined the Australian road vehicle crash test programme, so that consumers can now have a better understanding of the safety record of vehicles they buy.

I believe that a more visible police presence on the road network, together with the education and information measures that I have detailed, will be an effective way to make a substantial and rapid reduction in the road toll.

Safety strategy to 2010

Within the next few days, the Government will release comprehensive proposals for a long-term road safety strategy for the next ten years to 2010. This is a crucially important decision affecting every one of us, and we are concerned that all interested parties give it the attention it deserves.

Over the last three years a wide variety of central and local government and community organisations have worked together on this strategy, and the result does them credit.

The first key question in that strategy will be: How far can we push the road toll down over the next ten years?

If we adopt world best practice as our goal, then we are looking at a reduction in our road toll from just over 500 deaths per year to 280 per year. That is no mean target when we also expect substantial growth in traffic over the same period.

The second key question will be: How do we achieve our chosen road safety goal?

There is a wide range of possible options ranging from substantial increases in enforcement standards and activity through enhanced and improved education programmes to a massive programme of road rebuilding and improved ways of managing road infrastructure. In addition the provision of safer alternatives to the private motor car will be a solution in some areas and for some people.

Each option has its costs, both social and financial, and the Government will be seeking wide community input into these issues before we set a long-term direction early next year.

If this road safety target setting process proves successful, then we intend to use the same analytical and consultative approach to set long term safety targets for other modes of transport, such as shipping, aviation and railways.

Improving the environment

New Zealand relies heavily on its "clean green" image to market itself in a world that is increasingly concerned about the environment.

Improving the reality of our environment to match the marketing image is a high priority for this Government, and the transport sector will play an important part in that task.

Managing environmental impacts

Before the end of this year, the Government expects to put in place new emission standards for all vehicles arriving in New Zealand for the first time. We need to make sure that all imported vehicles - whether new or used - meet the best international practice for air emissions.

We are moving to improve public passenger transport in our major cities, recognising that an important benefit of such an improvement can be a reduction in vehicle emissions.

We also need to review those sections of the Resource Management Act that deal with land transport. I can see no valid reason why roads and railways should be exempt from the air emissions requirements of that Act. I strongly believe that new road and rail projects would greatly benefit from full public evaluation and monitoring of their impacts, as part of the wider community overview of the environment for which local authorities are responsible.

The Ministry of Transport has been working closely with local authorities in Auckland and Christchurch to develop the systems for air emissions evaluation and monitoring, and the results of that co-operation are beginning to be made available.

We are also working on new rules to govern smoky road vehicles. While the intent of the current law is a good one, its administration is unreasonably complex, and plans for a simpler approach to dealing with smoky vehicles are well advanced.

Scientific research into the impacts of land transport on water runoff is also well underway, as is research into the impacts of noise on communities.

Kyoto Protocol

The Government has decided to accede to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change in the second half of 2002.

This means that we will be making a commitment that by 2008 we will have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions to no more than they were in 1990.

This is no small task.

Currently the transport sector generates about 15% of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions. The bulk of those emissions are CO2 generated by the burning of fossil fuel on our roads.

This means that we are going to have to make a serious effort to improve road vehicle fuel efficiency.

We will certainly need to ensure that our vehicle fleet uses the latest and most efficient propulsion technologies - such as hybrid systems and fuel cells - as soon as they are available.

Making progress on climate change is a high priority for the Government, and we plan to work closely with local government and other groups in the transport sector. If we work together in a pragmatic way, I believe that we can both meet our environmental goals, while making more efficient use of our transport system.

Improving passenger transport

Transport is not just about mobility. It is also about accessibility.

New Zealand is second only to the United States in terms of cars per person. Yet we often forget that many New Zealanders rely on a public transport system that has been slowly running down for the last fifty years to exercise their social and economic opportunities.

We have to have a better public transport system.

The Government has already announced a series of immediate measures to begin the improvement of public transport in New Zealand.

· The artificial limit on public transport spending imposed by the last Government has been abolished.

· From November this year, we will put in place a new system of funding that pays money to Regional Councils in direct proportion to the number of passengers using public transport in their region. Peak hour trips will attract a higher level of funding, but no Region will be financially worse off because of this change. Transfund New Zealand is working closely with Regional Councils to get this new system in place.

· Current requirements for cost effective expenditure will be kept in place.

We estimate that if Regional Councils seize these opportunities, as we expect they will, passenger transport funding from the National Roads Fund will rise from $46 million last year to $93 million in 2003, with large benefits in terms of accessibility in our major cities.

Regional Councils, in close co-operation with City and District Councils can now get on with developing passenger transport services that attract more passengers, and begin to tackle some of the social, environmental and safety problems that our urban transport systems impose on our cities.

Working with local government, as it has done to date in this area, the Government is also reviewing the future of other elements of passenger transport funding, including the future management and funding of the Total Mobility scheme. We plan to make decisions here before the end of this year.

In conducting this review, I am particularly concerned that we focus on the actual needs of people in society.

While our mass transit systems clearly need development, I am also concerned that we have tended to overlook the importance of those services that provide door to door service.

Taxis and shuttles provide a crucial level of service to many in our urban and rural communities who do not have access to cars, in a way that buses, trains and ferries will never be able to do. I want to ensure that we make better use of such door to door services in the future.

The longer term solution

When it took office, the Government had already recognised that we needed to take a long hard look at the whole issue of land transport infrastructure management and investment. We saw a number of fundamental problems that were the cause of the problems I outlined at the start of this speech:
· We need to make sure that we are getting value for money from existing transport infrastructure before we build expensive new systems.

· We need to ensure that we get transport investment going to the place that it is needed when it is needed.

· We need to ensure that safety is built in to new infrastructure investment, and that existing systems are redeveloped to improve safety.

· We need to make sure that transport systems have a minimal impact on the environment.

· We need to ensure that future investments are innovative and allow for the rapid rate of technology change now under way in land transport systems

· We have to make sure that transport systems offer access to social and economic opportunities for all New Zealanders

Infrastructure solutions

The Government's manifesto set out a number of areas for land transport management and investment that we wanted to explore, and discussions between Mark Gosche and myself with local government and other groups have raised a number of other related issues.

From those discussions we believe that there is a general consensus that we need to change the way we manage and fund our land transport system. Many people believe that we need to find better ways of charging for road use, and that some changes to management structures are desirable.

We have now started an extensive development programme in consultation with local government, community groups and stakeholders that will cover three fundamental issues:

· We need to put in place systems to manage the external impacts of the road system, including improving safety and environmental management and our public transport system. In doing this, we need to make it clear to decision makers that road corridors are for a wide variety of users, including pedestrians and cyclists. They, just as much as motorists, have a right to use road corridors in safety.

· Secondly, we need to examine the way in which we charge for roads. New technology now enables us to consider a wider range of options within the present Road User Charges system. We also need to consider whether the present funding system can be made simpler, while retaining its basic principle of cost effectiveness.

· Last, we also need to consider whether our present management structures can be improved in a pragmatic and gradual way, without generating any more of the upheavals that have characterised reforms in the past.

Consultation

Mark Gosche announced in July that we were going to begin a round of consultation on these three broad areas so that the Government could make decisions to move forward on these issues by the end of this year.

We wanted this consultation to be pragmatic and productive, and to agree a framework on directions, without getting bogged down in a mass of detail.

The last Government spent five years debating the issues but could not reach a practical solution to our road problems.

I am pleased to be able to tell you today that our discussions with a wide range of groups are going well, and that we are making good progress towards developing an innovative package of measures that will begin to tackle the very real problems that we face in the land transport sector.

The Government is planning to begin to make decisions on a wide range of land transport issues before the end of this year, Those changes that need legislation will then be addressed in a Bill that we plan to introduce into Parliament early next year.

It is not just a matter of dealing with a few high profile road projects. If that were all we were considering, then the problem might be solved within a shorter timeframe.

The problem is much more complex than that. We have to put in place a package that:

· Enables us to make sensible investment and management decisions without the constant air of impending crisis that too often seems to characterise land transport investment.

· Improves safety for all modes of transport

· Reduces the environmental impacts of the transport system

· Maximises accessibility to opportunity for all New Zealanders.

We are well on the way to developing such an approach.

Setting the direction

If the transport sector is to support a positive future for New Zealand, then we have to work towards a sustainable transport system.

Uniting all the elements that I have discussed into a comprehensive package that sets a clear path for the whole transport sector is a complex exercise, but one to which we are committed.

The Government intends to develop a New Zealand Transport Strategy to bring together all the issues I have discussed today into a comprehensive package that will give certainty for future investment and development. This work will be part of the staged package of measures that I mentioned earlier.

The New Zealand Transport Strategy, which will be based on the principle of sustainable development, will have to set long term directions in terms of safety, environmental performance and accessibility. It will emphasise that the core issues of investment and innovation will depend on a transport system that will thrive by providing high quality service to all its users.

It will be a guide for all who use the transport system, invest in it, or ensure that transport is a vital part of our communities.

Conclusion

There are no quick fixes in dealing with transport problems.

Change has to be carefully managed.

Above all, change has to have public support.

While we all have our own personal solutions to the very real problems that face us, we all have to recognise that if any proposals are to be successful, then there will have to be public confidence in those proposals.

This Government is determined to put in place a range of solutions that will allow Auckland to begin to solve its transport problems.

We have already made a number of short term changes that will begin to directly address very real problems of safety, the environment and accessibility in the latter part of this year.

We are intensively working on a longer term package of changes that will set a course towards a sustainable transport system both for Auckland and for New Zealand as a whole. The shape of those changes will begin to become clearer as this year goes on, and should be in place by the end of 2001.

I look forward to working with all of you in this vital task.