Greetings to the Wellington light rail email list.

(Seeing this heads-up for the first time? Probably because of recent contact we made re light rail, urbanism, Lets Get Wellington Moving, Congestion Free Wellington, etc – but email me back if you don’t want to get any more.)

These newsletters appear personally from me, Brent Efford, in my role as the NZ Agent for the Light Rail Transit Association (LRTA). No one else is to blame. The amount of content depends on the time I have for research and writing.

Black and red type is my composition, green is copied.

What is the LRTA?: SEE 3 BELOW!

1 Reminder: TRAX lunch: this Friday, 14 December

Our regular lunch get-togethers are on the 2nd and 4th Friday of the month, at TRAX, Wellington Railway Station, 12.00. Our next TRAX lunch is this Friday, 14 December.

It will, of course, be our last for the year and, allowing for a decent holiday break, the first for 2019 will be on Friday 25 January.

2 Quick links

(a) Oklahoma City streetcar about to launch

Following on from the successful inaugurations of streetcar service in Milwaukee (already carrying well above projected passenger numbers) and El Paso within the last month ...
http://www.news9.com/story/39609071/okc-streetcar-service-begins-in-1-week http://www.news9.com/story/39609071/okc-streetcar-service-begins-in-1-week

(b) Avenio M tram inaugurates passenger service on new Line 2 in Ulm, Germany

Another expanding tram service using non-standard-gauge cars:
http://www.siemens.com/press/PR2018120093MOEN http://www.siemens.com/press/PR2018120093MOEN

(c) Danish tram report has NZ lessons

Forwarded by US light rail expert Tom Matoff – an auto-translated German report on Danish light rail developments, including the Aarhus tram-train:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nahverkehrhamburg.de%2Fstrassenbahn-feiert-renaissance-in-drei-staedten-in-daenemark-9493%2F&edit-text=

(d) Tennerife trams inspire

A YouTube look at the only rail transport in the Canary Islands. Our exact needs may be different – as is every city’s – but the level of service, lawn tracks, general streetscaping, avoidance of congestion hotspots and the direct connection to the important urban travel centres and tourist attractions is typical of modern tram systems and something Wellington should seek to emulate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeppS4Pi2CU&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1iPNfC0DbBM9BcJ6C9uCGFc-hRJ77qa_x3MBISrCu1d1Bwth5ktOsqONo https://www.cbs58.com/news/businesses-get-hop-along-kits-ahead-of-launch-of-milwaukee-streetcar

(e) Health effects of diesel cost European taxpayers billions

Has anyone calculated for New Zealand, as the GWRC ‘promise' of 100% electric buses for Wellington recedes into distant memory – and even on-street charging for electric cars looks to be headed for the Wellington City Council’s ‘too hard’ basket?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/health-effects-of-diesel-cost-european-taxpayers-billions?fbclid=IwAR2B6OivMpjmvB3dpE9YQo3rN26UhvTXi_VVB5FrT2aRrvv98rK06goNGoE https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/health-effects-of-diesel-cost-european-taxpayers-billions?fbclid=IwAR2B6OivMpjmvB3dpE9YQo3rN26UhvTXi_VVB5FrT2aRrvv98rK06goNGoE

(f) Did Houston’s light rail reduce traffic pollution?

Meanwhile, from the US oil capital: A new study that tracked air monitors near the city's first rail line suggests it had significant impacts on air pollution.
https://kinder.rice.edu/2018/10/12/did-houstons-light-rail-reduce-traffic-pollution https://kinder.rice.edu/2018/10/12/did-houstons-light-rail-reduce-traffic-pollution

3 2018: for light rail, one step forward, how many back?

This year started on an optimistic note, with a Government in place with a transport policy statement distinctly different from the ‘roads only, not sustainability’ approach of its predecessor and a Minister of Transport keen to start light rail in both Auckland and Wellington during his first term. However, other portents have not been so good.

The Greater Wellington Regional Council destroyed its reputation as a public transport planner and administrator with the bumbling ‘bustastrophe’ which is still ongoing – a downstream effect of the now-forgotten ‘bus rapid transit’ (BRT) promise of the 2012-13 Public Transport Spine Study.

Worse, the Lets Get Wellington Moving study, initiated in reaction to the rejection of the Basin Reserve flyover, appears to be caught between a hankering for a mainly roading Four Lanes to the Planes ‘solution' and the ministerial imperative for ‘light rail’. The secretive LGWM process will not now report until sometime in 2019; April is one rumour..

Worse, it appears that LGWM has adopted the limited south-of-WRS-only model of light rail advanced by anti-tram-train group FIT (see https://www.rtsa..com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NZ-Chapter-FIT-Presentation-Kerry-Wood.pdf https://www.rtsa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NZ-Chapter-FIT-Presentation-Kerry-Wood.pdf for slides of a recent FIT presentation.) This is exactly the scenario described by Dr David Watson (who headed GWRC transport planning back in the days when it did have credibility) as “… not a winner.” according to the several studies he supervised. It would leave our rail transit system uniquely crippled: hardly any other systems serving the bulk of the regional population end in a stub terminal at the CBD edge. And those few that still do – like Auckland – are generally spending billions to achieve through-CBD operation. A staged extension of the existing Wellington system, starting with light rail down the Golden Mile and the existing EMU depot for stabling and maintenance, would cost peanuts in comparison.

Actually, it is blindingly obvious that ‘rail penetration of the CBD’ (as Dr Watson and his colleagues used to urge) and beyond is pivotal to any potential for public transport to compete with ‘four lanes to the planes’ and attract travel off the state highways. Let alone the other benefits from using electric PT rather than the private car. Starting in 2020, the Transmission Gully Motorway is projected to move 25% off existing Kapiti rail services onto road, so the issue is becoming urgent.

The LGWM team has apparently ignored other submissions (including my LRTA one), previous studies and the lessons of world experience in forming its view of what ‘light rail’ should be in the Wellington context.. If that is to be the basis for official policy then the prospects for successful light rail in this city, which theoretically has the best circumstances in the whole world for rail transit, are not good despite the step forward at central Government level.

4 (Repeat) Wise words from California

One of the long-term outcomes from WELLtrack – my 2003 Churchill Fellowship study tour of US light rail – has been access to an array of experts in the field. None more so than my friend and primary advisor Tom Matoff of Winters, California, a director of LTK Consulting and a veteran of planning and setting up light rail systems throughout the US. Tom did a pro-bono report on light rail on the Johnsonville Line in 2012, which has been attached to previous newsletters, which includes his full resume.

A comment in an email from Tom, which is worth passing on in response to the in-expert bad-mouthing of light rail and tram-train which still persists in spite of the evidence (my emphasis):

… We are very far away from determining the critical issues affecting operations and capacity of light rail operations through Central Wellington - maximum operable length of light rail trains, vehicle type, capacity (seated and standing) and performance characteristics, minimum operable headway consistent with traffic circulation requirements, method of traffic control and train movement prioritization, specific station locations and permissible platform lengths consistent with urban design criteria, and so forth. Arbitrary imposition of limitations in any of these and related areas suggests an interest in furthering some underlying hidden personal agenda, rather than interest in a rational technical discussion with a view to resolving important issues. For what it’s worth, as I believe Brent has personally seen in Sacramento, Regional Transit has for decades regularly and successfully operated four-car trains of 24 meter cars, total 96 meters, on the surface through the Downtown area, on an average 7 ½ minute bi-directional headway. In Calgary, 24 trains per hour in surface running carry 10,000 passengers per direction per peak hour. Light rail as a mode is full of possibilities, and I am confident that Wellington’s transport needs are well within its range of appropriate application. ....

5 What is the LRTA?

The Light Rail Transit Association was formed in the UK in 1937 and … “ is the world’s leading organisation concerned with the achievement of better public transport through light rail, tramway and metro systems in towns and cities world–wide.” (http://www.lrta.org/ http://www.lrta.org/).
The Association is a partnership between civil society advocates (such as myself) and professionals within the public transport industry.

The main activities of the LRTA are:

· Information provision and advocacy

· Publication of the monthly light rail industry journal Tramways and Urban Transport; T&UT is available online, by subscription online (via the above website), and also retail in some magazine outlets like Magnetix in Wellington.

· Sponsorship of major UK light rail industry events such as the annual Light Rail Awards and a separate annual industry conference.

Although remaining UK-based, the LRTA has a world-wide reach, including agents in a number of countries. One of its most notable achievements was the provision of information about modern tramways which informed and led to the establishment of light rail in San Diego, opening in 1981 – the first new-generation LRT system in the United States and the progenitor of several dozen new systems now operating there.

Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn