Auckland Transport Plan

Download the Auckland Transport Plan as PDF

Better Public Transport for Auckland

The Green Party’s vision for Auckland’s transport will make your life easier, give you more choices and save you money Our transport plan for Auckland will get you home faster and deliver:

• More choice in the face of higher petrol prices.
• Fewer traffic jams
• Cleaner air and lower carbon emissions
• More room on the roads for essential travel
• Healthier lifestyles and safer streets

We’ll also support smart planning, good urban design, and faster, cheaper broadband to help reduce your need to travel.

Background and issues

In Auckland, the Green Party’s top priority is to give the city a world class public transport system, and make life easier for cyclist and pedestrians. This is an urgent matter, with oil prices rising and Aucklanders look to reduce their travel by car.

Aucklanders have been voting with their feet. Bus and rail patronage increased dramatically once the North Shore Busway came on stream and rail services were improved through double-tracking the western line.

But we need much more and roading is still given priority over better public transport, or walking and cycling facilities. We want to change this. There are so many reasons for making it easier for people to leave their cars at home.

Higher fuel prices are here to stay: and in fact they are likely to get higher as the world-wide demand for oil outstrips supply. Without alternatives to the car people will be increasing prevented from getting to their jobs, visiting family, or engaging in their chosen recreation.

Emissions from cars are a major contributor to climate change. The less we use them the better.

Trains, buses, ferries and cycles are more environmentally friendly. Much of Auckland’s pollution comes from having too many cars on the roads, particularly at peak hours.

Our vision

A connecting network of trains, buses and ferries that can carry people easier across Auckland. It will now be possible for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to plan this, now a Public Transport Management Bill, promoted by the Greens, has gone through Parliament.

A pricing system that is affordable to all. Increased public subsidies will pay for themselves in improving mobility for people, less road congestion, lower oil imports and less pollution.

The Green Party Transport Plan for Auckland includes:

• Creating a $1 ‘anywhere for 2 hours’ off peak fare for all services
• One electronic ticket, which passengers can use on all buses, trains and ferries.
• More frequent services with the aim of 10 minute services on most routes at rush hour.
• Bus lanes along all major corridors
• Decent rail and bus stations across Auckland.
• Separated cycleways or cycle lanes along all major routes.
• Each road and intersection reviewed to make it is pedestrian friendly.
• Provide cheaper day, week and month passes you can use on all services, with a 50% discount for children, beneficiaries and students.
• Give public transport, walking and cycling priority funding, ahead of new motorways
• Shift responsibility for funding walking, cycling and public transport from councils to government, creating more choice without more rates
• Reduce speed limits where lots of people, especially children, walk and give cyclists better legal protection

What the Network will Look Like

The Greens Transport Plan for Auckland is based on building a triple-loop rapid transit system that connects all four corners with the centre of the city and provides access to the major industrial and commercial areas. All local bus services, cycleways, walkways, and parking facilities will be configured to provide access to the loop system. When you get on the loop you can go anywhere in Auckland.

This means Aucklanders, wherever they live, will be able to make their main journey to any part of the city – or the airport - by passenger rail or express bus

Plans for the regions

Central:

• Underground rail loop from Britomart to Mt Eden
• More bus and cycle lanes,
• Cycle/walkway across the harbour bridge
• Complete a wider isthmus rail loop by extending the soon to be reopened Penrose to Onehunga line to connect with the Western line at Avondale.

North:

• More bus lanes on feeder routes to the Northern busway
• New North West Busway loop to connect with West Auckland
• Expanded ferry service

West:

• More trains on the Western line
• Rail connection to Mangere airport
• More ferries to the city and North Shore

South and East:

• Rail linking Manukau, Onehunga, and Mangere Airport
• More bus and cycle lanes
• New South East Busway through Manukau, Botany Downs and Panmure

Complete and electrify the rail network:

• Speeding up the electrification of the passenger rail network
• Extending rail underground beyond Britomart to make an inner city rail loop, ending at Mt Eden. This will enable more frequent services.
• Finishing reopening the Onehunga Line
• Creating new airport lines from Onehunga and Manukau City
• Enabling a west to airport link through an Avondale-Onehunga line through the State Highway 20 corridor.
• New rolling stock to enable more frequent services.
• Build new bridges and underpasses to get rid of dangerous level crossings

More buses, better connections

• More frequent bus services, including more express services.
• Better timetables that reduce waiting times between buses, and connect better with train services.
• Rush hour bus lanes down all major routes.
• Quick bus loading through use of an electronic swipe card.

Bus rapid transit systems
A bus rapid transit (BRT) system is what areas of Auckland such as Manukau City needs, right now.

• A South East busway will provide a high-capacity public transport “backbone” for Manukau City. It will run from the rail junction at Onehunga to the junction at Panmure, connecting Mangere, the Airport, Manukau City centre, Botany Downs and Pakuranga to each other and to the Isthmus rail loop.

• BRT is much faster and cheaper to build than rail. It can make use of existing roading and motorway infrastructure. The concept has been successful in Eindhoven (Holland), Brisbane, Curibita (Brazil), Colombia.

• BRT uses buses, but not as Aucklanders know them. The vehicles are longer, cleaner, quieter gas-electric hybrid buses. They run on dedicated routes but they can also be used on ordinary roads. They stop at specially-built platforms that allow you to roll a wheelchair or stroller straight on and straight off.

• The BRT routes can be later upgraded to light rail, tram-trains (electric trams that can also travel on the main rail lines), or full electric heavy rail. This could be accomplished within the service life of the initial fleet of BRT vehicles (10 to 20 years).

Extend and improve the ferry network

• More ferry terminals and services in the upper Waitamata
• Develop regular ferry services from Onehunga wharf

Improved walking and cycling options

• Make cycling safe through special lanes, cycleways and education of drivers.
• Make better provision for cycles on trains, ferries and buses.
• Provide secure parking facilities to enable cyclists transfer to train, bus and ferry services.
• Reduce speed limits where lots of people, especially children, walk and give cyclists better legal protection
• We support building a walking and cycling path on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The strengthening work that’s about to commence is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a pathway that will provide a safe walking and cycling route for daily commuters, a weekend recreation for the your family, and an attraction for visitors to Auckland.

Good urban design

Successful communities in the 21st century will be planned, designed and created so that people can get around by walking and cycling.

• One of the keys to reducing carbon emissions is creating communities where most of the things your family needs are available near where you live. The Greens will push for sustainable development and urban design that prevents further urban sprawl and creates liveable local communities.
• Walking and cycling are good for the environment, good for the community and good for your physical health. The Green Party’s policies aim to deliver benefits to the whole person, as well as the whole planet.

The Greens will push for a much greater Government contribution to new public transport infrastructure in Auckland.
Much of the money can be provided by putting new motorways back in the queue and spending that money on more urgently needed public transport projects.

The $1.9 billion presented budgeted for the 4.5 kilometres Mt Roskill-Waterview motorway would be better spent on public transport.

The Greens will help overcome the barriers to more progress on Auckland’s public transport

• We’ll remove the current financial incentive for councils to favour new highways – the 100% percent government funding - by extending it to new public transport infrastructure. This is particularly important for the needed investments in rail and new busways.
• We will shift the balance of government funding to public transport – the mechanisms are in a private members in the name of Jeanette Fitzsimons which will be debated in the next Parliament.

Auckland needs a governance structure and funding that empowers the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to get on with the job.

One Transport Authority

• ARTA will be the single point of responsibility, the sole planner, funder and provider of Auckland’s strategic transport system.

Responsible and Accountable

• The people of Auckland will know who is responsible for the transport system, because there’ll be only one responsible body, not ten (as there are currently).

One Funding Stream

• All national land transport funding allocated for the Auckland region will be ARTA’s responsibility, including funding that currently goes to Transit New Zealand for motorways.

The Greens have presented a major submission to the Royal Commission on Auckland, advocating for more democratic local input into land and transport planning and stronger regional powers for delivering these plans once they‘ve been agreed. We look forward to the Royal Commission’s report and will act on it without delay.

The Green Party isn’t making election year promises with this transport plan. We have been working hard in parliament and in local government. Some of the initiatives:

• Auckland Transport Plan 2005: This 2008 Transport Plan builds on “Getting There” the Green Party’s Auckland Transport Plan for 2005. Many of the initiatives we were advocating for three years ago have been implemented, and more are currently being planned. Our 2005 Plan remains relevant and we are glad to have made significant progress. But in the last three years oil prices have risen steeply and the world has learned much more about the extreme global danger of climate change. Now the Greens have an even greater sense of urgency. Auckland can’t wait any longer: we need to Get Real about the issues of oil price and climate change and Get On with the job of transforming Auckland’s transport system.
• Climate Change (Transport Funding) Bill: Green Party Co-leader Jeannette Fitzsimons introduced this private members bill to change the balance of transport funding so we can future-proof the New Zealand transport system. New Zealand needs to kick the carbon habit. We need to ensure our economy is less reliant on oil, and therefore less vulnerable to rising oil prices. Currently, the National Land Transport Program allocates disproportionate amounts of funding on unsustainable modes of transport. In 2007/08, New Zealand spent six times as much on maintaining and growing the road transport network as spent on rail, sea, walking, and cycling.
• Land Transport Management Bill 2008: This is the legislation that created the regional petrol tax. In its first draft Government Ministers would have had the power to decide which transport priorities for Auckland would be funded from the petrol tax, even if Auckland didn’t support them. The Green Party presented a submission to the select committee on the bill, seeking to have that clause removed and when National refused to support the bill, we used our influence to have it changed. Because we believe Aucklanders should decide what’s good for Auckland.
• Royal Commission on Auckland: We expect the Royal Commission to come up with a robust and sensible plan to improve Auckland’s local governance. The Green Party has presented a submission that emphasises greater local input to decision-making (to overcome the influence of the road lobby and property developers), and which also gives the regional authority more power, and clearer accountabilities, for planning, funding and delivering a fully–integrated public transport system.