David Farrar: Big plans for Auckland

An important speech by Chris Bishop to the Committee for Auckland. Key aspects are:

• Congestion stifles economic growth in Auckland, with studies showing that it costs between $900 million to $1.3 billion per year. Congestion is essentially a tax on time, productivity, and growth. And like most taxes, I’m keen to reduce it.

• The government will be progressing legislation this year to allow the introduction of Time of Use pricing on our roads

• Any money collected through time of use charging will be required to be invested back into transport infrastructure that benefits Kiwis and businesses living and working in the region where the money was raised.

• Modelling has shown that successful congestion charging could reduce congestion by up to 8 to 12 percent at peak times (DPF: In New York travel times are down 10% to 30%)

• New Zealand can raise our productivity simply by allowing our towns and cities to grow up and out.

• The Government will be allocating funding for its share of the cost of accelerating the grade-separation of 7 level crossings in Takāanini and Glen Innes.

• This approach promotes compact, mixed-use, pedestrian friendly cities, with development clustered around, and integrated with, mass transit. The idea is to have as many jobs, houses, services and amenities as possible around public transport stations.

• My aspiration is that in 10-20 years’ time, we have 10-20 storey apartment blocks dotting the rail line as far west as Swanson and Ranui.

• One barrier to proper high-density in Auckland, including around City Rail Link stations, is undoubtedly the current settings of the 73 viewshafts that have restricted the height of the city since the early 1970s

• A study done in 2018, looking at this one view shaft – the E10 – showed that its cost was roughly $1.4 billion in lost development opportunities. This is just the impact of one of the 73 viewshafts.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.