Every day thousands of Aucklanders spend thousands of hours in congestion.
It is frustrating, time consuming, costly and reduces our quality of life. We have to reduce congestion in our city and must begin today.
There are really only three ways to address congestion. You can build more road capacity, provide more public transport or change the need for and timing of travel.
So often we get stuck in a heated debate about the first two and forget about the third. Politicians should probably take some of the blame as we make big promises about a project as if it would magically fix an entire transport network.
In reality, influencing timing of travel is as important as the other two solutions. But it takes longer, wins fewer votes and requires more thought. None of these attributes appeals to politicians!
If we can change when and where people need to travel, we can save our region lot of money and our people lot of frustration.
Auckland’s existing urban environment cannot affordably be retrofitted with public transport or continually enhanced by roads.
That is the single biggest lesson learnt during the last three years.
We have to build new areas which change the flow, direction and timing of existing travel and provide new, modern transport solutions which reduce the impact of new residents on our stretched network; which is why I am campaigning on a Satellite Centre approach to urban growth management.
Satellite approach
The location of any new Satellite Centre will have two characteristics: local support for jobs, activity and opportunity that the Centre would provide; and a bus way or rail station with direct connectivity to the CBD.
One of my first actions as Mayor will be to initiate a process to identify options for a new satellite. The primary objective of the Satellite Centre will be to provide high intensity living and employment on top of the existing rapid transit services.
Residents who value proximity to public transport and various urban amenities will live beside public transport in an environment designed for such transport.
The Satellite Centres will have well-illuminated, safe walkways with necessary feeder services to make it easy for people who want to live without a car to actually do so.
These Centres, by their scale and nature, will also change the future direction of flows on the road and rail networks.
This will help deliver better balance on our transport system without needing to provide more capacity.
If we can match jobs to residents or facilitate remote working we may be able to avoid the need for long commutes.
But Satellite Centres will not emerge overnight and our congestion problems are here today. Therefore, my first transport priority will be to build park and ride facilities at all train and bus way stations where there is local support and demand.
Electric Trains
Rail electrification creates a huge opportunity to get people onto public transport, making the best use of the service. Auckland’s relatively low density does not support walking to stations for most residents and each time a commuter has to use more than one service to get somewhere; their car becomes that bit more attractive.
Park and rides are the quickest, cheapest and most practical way to relieve pressure on our network over the near term.
Let us stop trying to get people out of their cars completely when it does not suit them, and just make it easier for them to take public transport.
John Palino is a Mayoral Candidate in the Auckland local Government Elections due to be held on October 12, 2013.
