In what appears to be a bungy-policy, NZ Bus , owners of Go Wellington and Valley Flyer, are re-restricting drinks on buses. It’s only been a few months since the little blue signs appeared, giving the thumbs-up to lidded drinks.

Boarding the bus that takes me to work in the morning, I was told that my coffee, lidded – as required by the current policy, was not allowed and I would be refused passage next time. Never one to let mis-information get in the way of a good coffee, I emailed Metlink for clarification.

It seems that just recently information has come to hand that we will be removing the old notices and replacing the buses with new ones regarding drinks etc. Drinks – even with lids – will not be permitted on our buses. Might pay to have your coffee fix before you get on the bus. Hope with clarifies things for you.

Yes, it does. Bummy, but clear. Bummy because I won’t have time between going to the gym and catching the bus to drink a coffee. Not comfortably and probably not safely. Not without ice cubes.

On Thursday of last week, I gave an oral submission on the “Draft Walking Plan”: to a city council sub-committee. I was relatively happy with how it went and it seemed to be well received. After speaking, I was asked 3 questions based on my discussion of inline skating and 1 question on my prior written submission regarding pedestrian signals. Being somewhat prone to reasoned answers, I wanted to expand on 3 of them here.

I don’t remember the order of the questions and I’m in danger of mis-attributing questions to councillors, but I think the question/answer pairs are the most important part.

The city council has considered an approximated distance that translates to 25 minutes’ travel time as a range for active mode transport to the city. How far would that be for inline skates. (Celia Wade-Brown)

In my original answer, I stated that the surrounding hills restrict the access to central city. The area is more limited than a time-based range would allow for. I stand by this answer, but provide a caveat. There are at least two feasible paths that circumvent the hills that can be used as corridors that allow longer trips to be viable.

• Evans Bay/Oriental Bay has a continuous, flat footpath along the waterfront. It is easily handled in low-wind conditions, although there are sections of narrow and/or rough surfaces.

• Riddiford St and Adelaide Rd provide access to Newtown and slightly beyond. Construction is a current limitation, but should be completed shortly.

• For some people, it is possible to pass through the Mt. Victoria tunnel. It is quite steep on the city side and not for everyone.

Can you convince me that it’s safe? (Helene Ritchie)

Well, no. Nothing is inherently safe. This was my original answer, adding a comment about our knees being our bumper. Again, this is still true, but I’d like to be a little more explicit.

Safety is multi-variate. It depends on the driver’s/skater’s ability to anticipate and react to dangerous situations, avoiding if possible or mitigating damages otherwise. Experience and attention are major factors for anticipation and reacting. On the other hand, when evasive action must be taken, environmental factors come into play as well as some features of the vehicle. In the case of inline skates, wet or rough conditions become dangerous very quickly, but stopping is often not necessary, given the ease of side-step manoeuvring. I recommend to students that they stay on the footpath under normal circumstances.

Don’t you think that you’re suggesting over-engineering a solution? (Jo Coughlan)

My complaint was regarding having to push a button to receive a pedestrian signal. At busier intersections, a hold-off period of nearing 30 seconds is required or the signal will become activated during the following light phase. I believe that this is an indication of pedestrians being second-class citizens. I also believe that Cr. Coughlan’s question is intended to keep pedestrians in their place.

From an engineering perspective, treating pedestrians as equal partners in the transport equation is the easiest option. The signal shall allow for pedestrians to cross during every light cycle. If there are no pedestrians crossing, traffic proceeds as normal. Otherwise, people may safely cross with minimal delay. There is no extra engineering required. This is a common situation in Canada.

After my 10 minutes had passed, I watched several other submissions from the gallery. A couple of people submitted on the “Draft Cycling Plan”. Helene Ritchie repeatedly asked a question that was not adequately answered by the submitters. She described a generic accident that happens from time to time where a bus knocks down a cyclist in a very narrow section of road. Cr Ritchie asked what should happen in that situation.

My reply would be surprisingly simple. The bus is not to overtake the cyclist unless it is safe to do so – end of story. If the driver does not see the cyclist, it is less reckless and a bit more negligent. Responsibility is responsibility. The solution to prevent the situation from occuring is driver education. I have been on many buses that have been dangerously close to cyclists and an educational safety program is long overdue.

I found the whole process to be strangely enjoyable. I expect that I will participate again in subsequent submissions. Next time, I’ll try to take better notes.

As of this morning, there is no bus service provided by Go Wellington. The streets were relatively quiet at 7:20, when I caught my Eastbourne-bound bus to work. I was surprised that we didn’t have a huge number of extra passengers, but with the very nice weather hanging over the capital, some people may have walked the 20-minute journey instead of taking the 10-minute bus ride.

I’m cheering for the drivers on this one. They don’t get the pay or the respect that they deserve for the service they provide. Poneke talks about the money side in terms of dollars, rather than percentages, which paints a very bleak picture. Go Wellington Drivers!

With the end of August loitering over on the edge of the calendar, it’s time to take stock of the upcoming changes to the way buses are operating.

The Eastbourne routes are displaying posters announcing the end of the trial, which extended the #83 to the Wellington Hospital. The trial has been terminated and is considered unsuccessful, citing insufficient patronage to continue the service. Users are advised that they can still reach the hospital by bus, requiring a transfer from the Valley Flyer service to a Go Wellington service. However, this transfer will incur a second full fare, since there is still no integrated ticketing available for the Wellington region.

As of August 29th, Go Wellington will be discontinuing 10-trip tickets in favour of Snapper payments. Snapper offers a 25% discount over regular fares, compared to 20% for the 10-trip tickets, but after October 1st will start to incur transaction costs to load money on the card. On the other hand, regular fares are on the rise. The extra discount that Snapper offers will easily be lost in the increases. No one should be surprised.

With the new prices, however, it is again time to evaluate the benefits of the monthly pass versus per-trip fares. The short story is that my beloved Platinum Pass is no longer cost-effective. A combination of smart-cards will be responsible for getting me to and from work.

These two graphs show the cross-over point of affordability for trips on a single bus. The comparison is the constant price of a monthly pass versus the increasing cost of discounted fares – two trips per day, ranging from 16 to 22 working days per month.

A Gold Pass is marginally affordable for people traveling 2 zones, depending on any extra trips that may be taken outside of work requirements.

The Platinum Pass becomes useful for 5 zone commuters, but only in months without holidays.

With my recent move from Hataitai (Zone 2) to Mount Cook (Zone 1), my affordability line has shifted away from using the Platinum Pass. For a 20-day working month, I fall $36 dollars short of affordability, considering only work. Even with a weekly 2-way 2 zone trip to Kilbirnie, I still don’t quite cross the line for a normal month. I may hold off on the shift, though. September has 23 working days and 5 Mondays, costing $165.60 and $22.50 for the two requirements, which just passes the $180 of a Platinum Pass, assuming I don’t take a day off along the way.

Future changes may make this sort of evaluation irrelevant. Poneke says that Snapper is to replace the Gold Pass next year, and the Platinum Pass may be replaced eventually, if the bus companies can work out their integrated ticketing roadblocks. Ideally, a clever smart-card would stop charging a user who has surpassed the cost of a monthly pass. One could hope.

It’s hard to come to a conclusion about who was at fault for the scare on the bus this morning. The driver is typically a bit aggressive, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt unsafe. However, I’m not convinced that his driving was the problem.

There is an off-ramp to Petone, which leads to my work and an industrial park. As a result, there is a fair bit of heavy-vehicle traffic that takes the exit. In this case, we were late to merge into the off-ramp lane. This isn’t overly uncommon; bus drivers often count on the kindness of other drivers to let them merge in when necessary. As it turned out, our bus tried to merge with less than 500m before the off-ramp.

This is where things started to go weird. There was about 1.5 bus-lengths available to slide into, but that was quickly cut off by a freight truck moving up from behind. Instead of allowing the bus to merge, he effectively cut us off. Horns were honked and our driver continued to be assertive, but to no avail. The freight truck blocked us off all the way to the meridian of the off-ramp, where we were forced to make a sudden stop.

Most of the passengers were a little frightened by the event and I have a feeling that the driver may get into a little trouble over this, but I’m not convinced that he was in the wrong. I’m tempted to think that the truck driver acted irresponsibly and put us all in danger. Having said that, we should have merged earlier.

This points to a problem that I see all over the city. Drivers – car drivers – will often stream past a bus that is trying to pull out of a bus stop. Even after it has merged in, it’s not uncommon to see another car or two race up from behind to overtake the bus? The problem is that buses aren’t given much respect on the road. Can we fix this somehow?

On the Draft

Light Rail, First

The draft plan starts in the wrong direction. The first thing it does is states that light rail is not an option.

Various light rail options were proposed and tested in the development of this draft plan, but none were found to be feasible within the next 10 years. The two key challenges are the high cost of the light rail infrastructure, and how to successfully integrate bus and light rail networks.

Having read the technical document that Opus delivered, I fail to see the basis for this statement. Yes, there are infrastructure costs, but they are not the most expensive of the infrastructure costs that are considered within the scope of this study. Further, the draft plan seems to ignore the run-time costs being lower per-person-per-kilometre than similar capacity for buses, and certainly for private vehicles. The ability for light rail and buses to integrate is not a technical problem. Many cities have implemented coordinated bus and light rail plans quite successfully. I think that the dismissal of light rail is short-sighted and overzealous.

The bulk of the peak-hour traffic in Wellington is based on the in-flow of traffic through a single major artery. Further north, this artery branches into two flows. This limited shaft of traffic into the city is exactly the problem that high-density transport solves. With flow into the CBD from the south, via Adelaide Road, and from the east, via the Mt. Victoria tunnel, we again see high density shafts. The Wellington region is especially well suited to implementation of light rail and enhancement of the existing heavy rail system. This is also true within the city. Many people insist that the topography of Wellington excludes light rail, but there is sufficient space to connect the railway station with the hospital with very little geological work, if modern articulated trams are to be used.

Public Transportation Focus

Light rail is just one piece of the public transportation network needed to keep Wellington moving. At peak hours, the bus companies fail to supply adequate service on multiple fronts. Firstly, buses on main routes are often running at full capacity, leaving behind passengers to wait for the next bus. Secondly, buses between the railway station and Courtenay Place struggle to maintain adequate scheduling, due to dwell times and increased congestion. Bus lanes and priority signalling are a major step to solving the congestion problems, but dwell times cannot be solved as easily. Transport intensification, again light rail, is the most effective way to battle dwell-time problems.

The draft plan does begin to put a focus on public transport, but it stops far too short. In an aim to be “flexible and adaptable”, the proposal does not accomplish much at all. Funding is largely stacked up to roading projects instead of public transport improvements, and given that Wellington City Council has already started backtracking on bus prioritisation projects along Courtenay Place, the mentions of public transport fall to mere lip-service.

Active Modes

This section should really be placed higher than public transportation. It is far too common for pedestrian and cycle plans to be placed last in the list of priorities – a gross injustice to the residents of the city. In fact, the draft plan defers any planning for pedestrian and cycle activities for other projects and allocates no funds. Active modes are a vital aspect to a city with a small footprint. Instead of residents taking short trips in a car or on transit, many choose to travel by their own power, using minimal resources, leaving minimal waste and needing minimal infrastructure. Transportation planners must stop impeding active modes.

Cobham Drive and Hataitai

Currently, the two roundabouts between the airport and Hataitai are dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians. The draft plan calls for extra lanes to provide extra road capacity. However, this only worsens the situation for active modes. With the proposed sports complex to sit aside Cobham Drive, this impediment to movement only ensures that patrons will drive; the pedestrian path faces Evans Bay and is fully disconnected from the site of the complex. A more productive measure for this location would be signalised intersections. The effectiveness of roundabouts breaks down at high volumes of traffic and makes safe pedestrian access impossible

The proposal to dual-lane Ruahine St is equally maligned. It is irresponsible to place a 70km/h speed zone in between a public park and a residential area. There is also no plan for a cycle lane or pathway, putting the faster flowing traffic in the same space as cycles on the road. Enhancing the roading that already exists will steal space from the park and further hinder access. Additionally, the corner onto Wellington Road will need significant geological work to safely route the traffic to and from Kilbirnie, which is ignored by the plan.

Inner-city Bypass

The plan places focus on a “ring or bypass route for vehicles”. The current implementation of the bypass is already a roadblock for residents to the south of the CBD. There is next to no priority for active transport modes to cross the bypass route. Further increases of traffic through this route must be accompanied with amenities for people to safely cross in a timely fashion.

Themes

The projects that are depicted in the draft plan should be measured against several themes that are relevant to the lives of those who work in, live in and travel to Wellington.

Many of the sections of the plan place focus on increasing capacity for the existing network. The city cannot widen streets each time there is a congestion buildup. Capacity must be increased via densification. As many trips as possible should be low-overhead. Active transport is cost-effective for everyone when it is safe and amenable. Public transport reduces congestion and waste over short and long distance travel. Private vehicles should not be restricted, but preference should be given to more energy- and space-efficient modes. Roading projects are a very costly solution, which scale poorly, to the problem of congestion. They encourage urban sprawl and reduce the effectiveness of transport planning.

Energy use and waste management of the transport options are becoming more important in light of climate change scenarios and rising energy costs. By placing many people behind a single engine, buses and trains carry far more people for the same amount of energy than private transport and put out much less emissions per person.

Costs associated with individual projects are contentious. Funding for roads comes from a different body than funding for public transport. It’s easy to see why conservative councillors would want to push for projects that they don’t have to pay for. Favouring projects along SH1 earns “free” money, whereas public transport options are funded internally. However, costs to the residents should also be considered. In this time of high petrol prices, many commuters are struggling to pay their commuting bills, while public transport users are sheltered from much of the cost – not by virtue of subsidy, but by efficiency, which becomes more pronounced with increased patronage. Investment in that efficiency is needed in the short term and medium term, based on predictions for petrol demand and pricing over the coming years. Siphoning money, free or otherwise, to roading projects would be contrary to the conditions that city and country are facing.

List of Demands

For whomever reads this and skims for the highlights, here they are:

• Consider cyclist and pedestrian corridors first
• Implement light rail
• Implement bus priority measures
• Stop building bigger roads – they don’t work

On the Consultation Process

Having made submissions for the two previous phases of the Ngauranga to Airport study, I have become aware of several problems that hinder public processes such as this. It is no surprise that the public is often disillusioned by their governments, but it is becoming apparent why that might be.

I saw a poster announcing the consultation process on a bus. It incorrectly indicated the internet address to be “http://www.gw.govt.nz.n2a”;. This address will lead to a “Server not found” error. I can understand that mistakes happen, but no action was taken to correct this as of July 21st, 2008. For advertising that is targeting public transportation users, this effectively biases the responses away from those who stand behind public transport or demand improvements.

The evolution of the three phases paints a very dark picture of the consultation process. It’s not important to point fingers; it indicts the whole system. Despite a very strong public response favouring enhanced public transportation options, including light rail, the draft plan dismisses the light rail option with a hand-wave and proceeds to put forth a plan that fails to reflect any public input.

The activity of the local body gets closer to the daily lives of people as any branch of government. When residents transition from being interested and involved to disillusioned, the local government is not healthy. One should worry about the consultation process when finding a reaction like this:

“I’ll have to be honest and state that after the reading about the urban corridor I’ve done I’ve decided not to make a submission to the Council. Primarily this is because I’ve been becoming increasingly convinced that it’s entirely a waste of time and effort.”¹

¹ http://objectdart.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/the-ngauranga-airport-corridor-plan-mk2/

I noticed something funny on the bus tonight. It was a poster advertising the Ngauranga to Airport consultation. It looked pretty good: a bus in a bus lane, a cyclist not getting run down and an overhead picture of a mass of cars funnelling into Wellington. But one thing in particular caught my attention:

www.gw.govt.nz.n2a

I’m pretty sure that n2a is not a root server, even after ICAAN has opened up the field. I also happen to know the URL that is being used for the process. It’s a simple error; the last period should be a slash.

How did this not make it through proof-reading? It would have been designed and sent to the printers – two sets of eyes, at least. When it was received, didn’t it get looked at? Or when it was being put up in the buses¹? That’s got to be nearing a half-dozen people in the chain.

The conspiracy theory: people who take buses would likely complain about problems with public transport and demand improvements. This is not what the councils seem to want, having seen the evolution of the corridor plans. Instead of listening to these people, just send them to the wrong place and hope they are sufficiently deterred to bother making an actual submission.

I hope I’m wrong, but you do have to wonder what the odds are that so many people would have been involved who just didn’t think to check the address the poster advertises.

¹ I’ve only seen the one. Maybe it’s unique.

I’ve got two main wishes for public transportation in Wellington¹: real-time information and integrated ticketing. And within a hairs-breadth of my birthday (yesterday), there is motion on both fronts.

Metlink and Greater Wellington Regional Council are seeking feedback on use and expectation for real-time information. I’ve already filled it out and suggest that everyone within the region does, regular PT user or otherwise. If we’re going to implement a system, it should at least meet our needs. There are so many benefits that from the user point of view, it’s hard to lose, though.

While following the links, I saw another little news entry on Metlink. They are trailing a combination train/bus ticket from September through December. It’s a far cry from actual integrated ticketing, but the notion is starting to spread. I don’t know if Snapper activation will may the process any easier. So far, it seems limited to Go Wellington buses, and I think that the problem is more political than technical anyway. We can only wait and see.

¹ There are more than two, but these are at the top of the list. Actually, light rail is on the top of the list, but that’s a much different battle.

I just had a chance to read this article about administration of Auckland’s regional public transport system. It is something I’ve been musing about for a few weeks, Why is there a lack of coordination within the regional transport bodies? It looks as if it’s national policy, mandated 15 years ago in the name of privatisation. The unfortunate side effect of open competition is an extreme lack of regard for public useability.

This topic demands public discussion. Even in Wellington, which boasts about public transport utilisation, we’re struggling to get from bus to train without paying a second full fare. The people are losing out and this policy needs to be examined.

As expected, the Greater Wellington Regional Council announced the fare increases coming into effect as of September 1st, 2008. The justification for the changes is the increased operating costs.

Our bus operating contract has cost us $2.4 million more this financial year, due largely to oil prices, and is estimated to increase a lot more next year for the same reason. Our rail operating contract has cost us $2.5 million more this financial year, largely because of higher labour-related costs. We’re also paying more to maintain our infrastructure such as bus shelters, car parks and trolley bus overhead wires.

The increases listed cover zone-based travel within the region. It’s good to see that the short trips are not changing in price. For regular commuters, though, the extra costs will add up quickly. Monthly bus passes are not listed in the schedule, but I’ve been assured that they will see the increase as well.

The Gold and Platinum passes are products that the operators offer and set the price on (they are not specified by us). The operators are increasing the prices of these in line with general fares on 1 September, to $99 and $180 respectively. Our web site will be updated to include all fare products by tomorrow.¹

The fare increases were opposed by Councillor Paul Bruce, but he was unable to sway the decision. With the higher price of petrol at the moment, there is a shift towards public transport modes becoming apparent. Increasing the fares will push back at commuters who are considering leaving the car at home, which is unfortunate. However, according to the Q&A page, there is a silver lining:

17. If patronage is increasing, doesn’t that mean that Greater Wellington is receiving more money to pay for the cost increases?
Patronage is increasing, but not at a rate fast enough to off-set the cost increases. And patronage increases bring their own costs, with extra vehicles and services being needed to meet the increased demand.

Well done, GWRC, on avoiding those extra costs of increased demand.

Where is the extra money to go? Are users expected to get any better service for the extra money going into the system? Well, no.

14. Why not raise fares when significant public transport improvements have begun?
Fares are going up to meet increasing costs, not to fund improvements. Greater Wellington is facing hefty cost increases to merely keep current services operating.

Service is not at a standstill, though. There is capital funding coming from Central government to help with service quality, with a small portion coming from fares. There have been noticeable service improvements to both train and bus services since the fare increases of 2006. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting on some major usability issues: integrated ticketing and real-time information.

Amongst other things, users have contributed through fares to general service enhancements, the new Wairarapa trains, the new trolley buses (which are gradually coming into service), and the real-time information project. The last of these is well underway – tenders are to be called later this year, with the system to roll out in 2010 (a user survey for this will appear on our web site in the next week or so). New electric trains have been ordered and will also start arriving from 2010. Integrated ticketing will be a little further away, but we are in the process of beginning the design of such a system.¹

I find the time-delay for implementation to be disappointing, to say the least, but at least it is being worked on. I’m not holding my breath, however, on the integrated ticketing. Trying to get the separate bus companies to agree on cost sharing will be a nightmare.²

Looking to the future, we’re told that we should expect more increases like this one.

20. The last fare increase was in 2006 – is a fare increase going to be a regular two yearly event?
In future, fares will be increased annually so the level of increases can be kept to a minimum.
The issue of the 50 cent rounding will remain a challenge until electronic ticketing makes it possible to adjust all fares by a similar percentage if required. Until then, and until all zones are relative in price, fare adjustments will be lumpy. Every effort will be made to ensure that increases will be spread evenly over time and that those fare payers affected more than others one time will not be affected so much the next time.

I am not thrilled by this. The council seems very quick to collect funds from user charges. I believe that public transportation should be considered an essential service to be provided. Effort should be made from local and central government to bear a higher proportion of the operational costs. Again, will not be holding my breath.

A side note, only slightly related. I’d sent an email to Snapper asking about the future of monthly passes in light of the planned replacement of 10-trip concession cards with a smart device. They didn’t quite answer my question, and have yet to answer my request for clarification, but the reply seems valid for the near-future:

As of 14 July 2008 we will be replacing the 10 trip tickets with snapper in the future we will also change the passes. More information will be available closer to the time. Passes like Gold card will still be available.

¹ Thanks to Doug Weir for answering my questions.

² Why we can’t have a stronger regional transport authority that can mandate/arbitrate in cases like these is beyond me. My best guess is that we’re stuck with a weak-willed government which believes that the free-market genie will solve everything.