Transport for Suburbia

Transport for Suburbia

Beyond the automobile age

Talk by Dr Paul Mees

Wellington - 2 October 2009

I was in Wellington to attend Dr Mees' talk. He has been retained by NZTransport Agency (now unofficially called the NZ Roading Agency by some Wellington wits)  to study and report on the Auckland transport issues.

With scathing humour he cites the example of the richest city in the world - Zurich where residents spend less per capita on transport than those in comparable cities. This success of the public transport system he attributes to a strategy underpinned by governance, funding and service planning policy. 42% of Zurich workers arrive at work on public transport while in Auckland 6% do. And yet Auckland's roading investments in the last 20 years and expenditure proposed by the Minister will make Auckland no 1 in the world for per capita road outlay! Auckland behaves as if it is the richest city in the world with its chronic overspend on roads.

Zurich's example shows that you can be rich and save money, time and effort by riding public transport. Auckland is a global statistic of road spend and poor transport efficiency at higher per capita costs worn by taxpayers.

In most of Europe the model has been adapted to suburban, urban and  rural transport networks to provide a genuine alternative to single occupancy vehicles. Taking us on a virtual tour of the world he cited other examples from Europe, Canada and Brazil, including successful network planning and utilisation for small towns and low density rural areas.

I was particularly delighted that some of the proposals made by the Tram Trust regarding the current public transport network in Manawatu reflect aspects of Dr Mees network design model for small towns. There is much to learn from Dr Mees forthcoming publication on the subject.