Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carry Wood and Mornings podcast from
News Talk sad B.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
As you will have heard, Transport Minister Chris Bishop rail
Minister Winston Peters have announced six hundred and four point
six million dollars to fully fund the rail network investment
program till twenty twenty seven. The freight network will get
four hundred and sixty one million dollars. One hundred and
forty three million will be spent on Auckland and Wellington's
metropolitan commuter trains. Bishop says Auckland Council and Greater Wellington
(00:35):
Regional Council will also need to meet their fair share
of costs to deliver the services we want for metro Rail.
I'm joined now by the director of the Greater Auckland
Advocacy website, Matt Lowry. A very very good morning to you.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Carry A caller where we were discussing this over the
last hour and caller said, look all very well and good,
but this money, this investment is going into maintenance. Basically,
it's to we're spending all of this money simply to
stand still. Is that a fair comment?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
To a degree, yes, it is. But one of the
problems that we've had with our with our routing, particularly
on our metro networks, is maintenance just hadn't been done
for in many cases decades. You know that the key
route are currently replacing parts of lines in Auckland that
haven't been touched for one hundred years, and so you
know these should have been these should have been changed
(01:31):
and improved decades ago, they weren't. That funding is now
coming through and we need to get these improvements done
just so that we can maintain services and improve them.
So particularly in Aukland onnths, the city rail and copens.
Next year we can be a lot more demand for services.
And what we've seen in particularly the last few years
is the huge amount of disruption of these works take place,
(01:52):
and that that is needed so that they can actually
run services and run them more frequently and ideally more
ideally faster, and which they've promised.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And I did point out to our caller that andre
Love said, once this work is done, then we'll be
able to stay ahead of maintenance, will be proactive in
terms of maintenance. There won't be this level of disruption
or closure. And he was a bit cynical about that.
He said, well, of course said.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Say that we Rail would say that, yeah, I would
agree that that's a waiting to Sakiril have have had
a history of liking to big, large closures rather than
keeping things maintained. One of the one of the improvements
that they've promised is that there will be better maintenance
processes to make sure that these networks are maintained to
(02:39):
the level that they should be at. So, you know,
one of the problems that we've had is that our
networks haven't been to the standard of what a rail
passenger rail networkers expected to be and so effectively we're
running we're running passenger trains over a over a rundown
freight network and what we're doing is trying to get
these up to date to be a modern passenger rail
(03:01):
network so that we can have fast, reliable services.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
How vital is a commuter rail network to a city
like Auckland, which is vastly different to a city like Wellington.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is incredibly important. You know, prior to COVID, pent
Rail and Auckland moved over twenty million people a year.
You know, that's eighty two hundred thousand people a day.
You know, those people who are not fucking not sitting
in traffic who are not causing contributing to that congestion.
And once the city rail and copens is going to
be even more you know, we could be seeing with
(03:37):
the forty fifty million people a year using the rail network.
And the big thing that's holding people back at the
moment has been the lack of reliability because of both
the maintenance, but also prior to the maintenance were all
the faults that were occurring, the unreliability that was coming
into the network. And so getting these networks back up
the speed is really really important to giving both people
(03:59):
back confidence and using the service and also and then
allowing for that growth.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Why wouldn't people use the buses? Why would why would
they opt for the trains over the buses when they've
got used to the buses, they know the timetables, they
know the frequency.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, I mean it depends on we will have Obviously
we don't have trains everywhere in Auckland or in Wellington.
You know, if a train is close to you and
and it works, then people will use it. And what
we're what we're trying to do within Auckland is to
have more people living closer to to train stations and
bus stations. That's part of the government desire as well.
(04:35):
The if if the train has been unreliable and is
the bus service that you can use, that that will
get you to where you want to go, and that
will do so more reliably, then people will use it.
And you know, people are effectively creature the habit. If
it works and if it's reliable, people will will use
it going forward. And you know you have well, once
the train that was are running properly, you then have
a very strong, reliable service that is from congestion and
(04:58):
able to get you where you want to go and
you can do what you want to do on it.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I think we've been poorly served by by our bureaucrats
and our governments because we have spent an absolute fortune
on rail. We've sold it off, we've brought it back again,
you know, different parts of the rail network. We've come
up with fanciful ideas that have come to absolutely nothing.
(05:23):
You know, the money that we have earned and given
to the government to spend on our behalf could have
bought and paid for a brilliant rail network probably two
or three times over. Do we have any confidence that
this time around the powers that be can deliver.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I think the big thing this time is the City
rail Link has happening, is underway, you know, stud to
open next year and when that, particularly for Auckland, is
a game changer. You know, we haven't seen anything is
quite transformative within the transport system for quite a long time,
and so that is going to really drive a lot
more people using it. But it's also driving a lot
(06:03):
more investment outside of the route. You know, we're seeing
a lot of development that's occurred both in the city
center but also close to the around as a result
of that, and that really is going to help encourage
more people to use it. And I think once it opens,
it's going to be a case of why can't we
have this elsewhere? Why can't we do more? And that's
really what drives that we have had for a long time,
and it is still to some degree it's sort of
(06:25):
an ideological opposition to rail from some parts of government
and council and what have you. But the reality is
once people actually, you know, for when it work work fantastically,
it's a fantastic service and people really want to want
to use it and want more of it. And so
as we see the City Rail and coping. I think
we will see a lot more people calling for for
(06:47):
more of it for you know, what's next, whether we
want it, where else do we want to put this thing?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
How much money should a rail network be able to
lose before taxpayers go this is silly?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, I think it's we often have this view of
rail that it's a financial cost, which we think of
a financial cost, but not of the benefits it provides.
And that's really what's missing is we don't think of
roads that way. If we sort of roads the same
way as we sort of rail, we would never build
things like the Waterview, Kinnel, We would never build a
harve a crossing all these things because that they physically
(07:25):
lose money. The money that we gain from road user
taxes and fuel charges don't cover the cost of building
them and maintaining them. But the economic benefits they provide
are huge often and so the rail network is exactly
the same way. It's not about how much money it
builds and it collects, and it's about how much benefit
(07:48):
overall provides. And you know, if we just look at
the City rail Link as an example, you know that's
a five and a half billion dollar investment, and there's
a lot of you, there are a lot that we have
questioned whether that was worth it. We've already seen at
least that amount of development in the private sector as
a result of the City rail Link and the city
center alone. You know, we've got can probably have brought
their downtown Toffolk building. They're going to put spend a
(08:10):
billion plus dollars on new buildings there in the coming years,
and they've just spent another billion dollars in what's now
Commercial Bay. All that investment is all premised on the
city rail and coming through and these other other developments
through the city as well. So we talk about the
cost of the project, but not all the other things
that it is driven and the other investment that comes
from the private sector as a result of it. And
(08:32):
that's those are all benefits that come from this investment
in the rail network.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
All right, I thank you very much for your time.
Matt Larry, Director of Greater Auckland Advocacy website.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
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