Greetings to the Wellington light rail email list
… including those with a more ‘high level’ interest in light rail – councillors, MPs and journalists (added to this list without asking!), plus many contacts who have expressed an interest in the subject to me and gave me their addresses. If you don’t want it, just let me know by return email.
Remember the format: black and red text is my doing, dark green is copied from somewhere (but any bolding for emphasis is mine), and hyperlinks are blue.
1 What is this newsletter for?
From the earliest days (1878!) to about 2008, ‘everyone’ in Wellington recognised that having a regional rail transit system which didn’t run through the dense heart of the region where most of the economy happens was a very silly state of affairs. Many were the schemes to overcome this obvious and egregious infrastructure deficit. The plethora of studies and plans produced in the 1990s remain relevant today.
No one then dreamed of suggesting that the term ‘light rail’ meant anything other than an extension of the existing rail system (which has many ‘light rail’ characteristics) – even if only involving the Johnsonville Line in the first instance!
But a change of Government in 2008, to one advocating only a ‘roads only, not sustainability’ (RONS) transport policy, plus the ascension to local power of several conservative politicians and officers, plus the single daily newspaper being indifferent to a complete rail transit system (unlike its Evening Post predecessor), meant that institutional knowledge and political momentum was lost.
It is clear that the Lets Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) transport planning exercise, set up under the previous National Government and continued under Labour, offers no solution. (Its recent ‘health check’ – see item 3 below – admitted a “lack of expertise” as one of several of its problems. Nowhere is this lack of expertise more blatant than in the rail transit area.)
Wellington’s unique – but not in a good way: Wellington is probably the only city in the world which has a large (100 km) rail transit network which is the public transport spine for most (75%) of the region’s population, carries most (70%) of the PT function measured in passenger km, parallels most (92%) of the regional road transport corridors (SH1 & 2) – and yet our mass transit network does not penetrate the central area where most (77%) of the region’s economic activity happens.
Only the Trams-Action trust and myself remain focussed on the advocacy of a complete and coherent zero-carbon rail transit system joining most of the population to most of the economic activity and travel destinations in Wellington.
Brent Efford – NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn
2 TRAX lunch this Friday
Our lunch get-togethers – fortnightly (on average), on the 2nd and 4th Friday of the month, at TRAX Cafe and Bar, Wellington Railway Station, 12.00 – continue.
The next one is this Friday, 26 February.
3 Vaccinate LGWM with reality – an open letter to the GWRC
Leaders reject advice to pause $6.4b Wellington transport upgrade, warning public would be 'apoplectic' https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124224616/leaders-reject-advice-to-pause-64b-wellington-transport-upgrade-warning-public-would-be-apoplectic
Still seen by its conservative founders as primarily a “four lanes to the planes” roading study, Lets Get Wellington Moving has struggled with the concept of mass transit, refusing to connect to the large (100 km) electric rail mass transit system we already have serving most of the region, and proposing a ridiculous primary waterfront route of maximum passenger inconvenience and minimum passenger appeal, eschewing the Golden Mile. Its own ‘health check’ review has drawn a negative reaction.
The Greater Wellington Regional Council is a key player in all this. After all, it owns the big rail mass transit system that does most of the public transport work in the region, and serves most of the population. Plus it has a vested, as well as public and environmental, interest in seeing the rail system more used and taking traffic off the roads. Accordingly, I sent this open letter to all councillors last Monday:
An open letter to Greater Wellington Regional Councillors
22/2/21
Vaccinate LGWM with reality
Dear Daran, Roger, Thomas, Josh, Penny, Glenda, David, Jenny, Chris, Ken, Prue, Ros and Adrienne,
As the Greater Wellington Regional Council you:
own the large Metlink rail transit network – the only real alternative to regional commuter motoring,
manage public transport in the region
are responsible for regional transport planning
have a climate strategy recognising “transportation” as the region’s largest emissions source
are a large player in the governance of Lets Get Wellington Moving.
I, on the other hand, am merely the voluntary part-time NZ agent of the UK-based Light Rail Transit Association (www.lrta.org http://www.lrta.org/), which has been around since 1937 advocating for light rail. I was assisted by the GWRC in carrying out a Winston Churchill Fellowship study tour of light rail in the western US in 2003 and was a member of the Regional Land Transport Committee (as it was in those days) for several years.
I was also a helpless ‘reference group’ bystander in the Public Transport Spine Study of 2012/13, witnessing the manipulations involved in satisfying anti-rail political agendas, a process I now see being repeated.
Unsurprisingly, Lets Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) has failed its own health check. In fact, it is so sick that it was recommended that it be “paused” – put into an induced coma!
Hallucination is sometimes a symptom of severe illness. LGWM’s hallucinations include:
The travel habits of three-quarters of the region’s people are seemingly irrelevant (“out of scope”);
Previous studies of light rail through Wellington, despite drawing on worldwide experience, are also deemed irrelevant;
A continuous rail system to increase PT use is “out of scope” (but state highway enhancements like a 2nd Mt Victoria Tunnel to give a “four lanes to the planes” ride from as far away as Levin, massively increasing long-distance car commuting, are clearly regarded as ‘in scope’);
“Mass transit” is portrayed as an innovative new idea for Wellington, requiring special study and a new squad of consultants (reality: we actually have a 100 km Metlink rail transit system doing 70% of the regional public transport task, despite being incomplete – “mass transit” in any realist’s language. Extension/completion through the CBD has been studied repeatedly for 140 years, as I have documented in presentations and newsletters sent to you, and told LGWM in the few contacts I have been permitted);
Keeping us virtually the only metropolis in the world where the main mass transit system does not penetrate the CBD is somehow believed to be conducive to “getting Wellington moving”.
Other hallucinatory symptoms relate to the proposed route of the stand-alone “mass transit” that LGWM does envisage: avoiding the convenient corridor where ‘mass people’ are (the Golden Mile and Courtenay Place) in favour of the inconvenient ‘mass car’ arterial – the waterfront and Taranaki St. Totally contrary to normal practice and commonsense.
Even more of a delusion is the route to Miramar: several sharp curves, crossing Cobham Drive (SH1) at grade and through the cutting, before heading to the airport. Hardly competitive with the mass of airport-bound cars and taxis!
The quite dishonest graphics issued by LGWM, and used naively in the news media, showing the waterfront and Cobham Drive with cyclists and trackless ‘sham trams’ but miraculously almost free of motor vehicles, is further evidence of the magical thinking indulged in by the study.
The LGWM study should have been set up with a ‘vaccine’ of reality within its terms of reference, to prevent the infection of this “out of scope” nonsense.
LGWM admits it has insufficient expertise, but then ignores the freely-provided conclusions of experts (such as the quotes below, which can be multiplied many times) and, worse, ignores the plainly-obvious experience of light rail around the world which doesn’t even require “expertise” to assimilate.
An earlier joint study, by the Wellington City Council and regional council – the "Light Rail Transit feasibility study" of 1995 – never envisaged that “light rail” would be anything other than an extension of the current ‘light rail-like’ network and noted (p 12) “The location of the Railway Station on the northern edge of the CBD is a major deterrent to rail use in comparison with the use of a car, particularly for shorter distance travellers.”
Likewise, US consultant Tom Matoff of LTK Engineering Services, one of America’s most experienced light rail experts, and a contact made during my 2003 study tour, completed a pro-bono desktop study of converting the Johnsonville line to light rail to Courtenay Place in 2013, as a first stage towards regional light rail (tram-train). His report to me was attached to my 9/12/2020 newsletter. He comments (p 6):
The termination of “commuter” rail lines on the edge of the CBD, with a transfer required just to complete a basic journey to the center of town, and a service orientation to peak hours, is an antiquated concept based on historic precedents that are no longer valid. Public transport must compete for the public’s business, and to do so must be arranged to make the kinds of trips characteristic of the modern city, with dispersed trip patterns and non-traditional travel times, easy to make by bus and train.
Tom, now a close friend, made a similar comment in a later personal email:
Everyone should have high quality access to the heart of the urban region with no more than a single transfer of public transport vehicle, e.g. bus to rail. or auto-to-rail (park and ride). A second transfer to get to the heart of the city is a very bad design principle, unless you are trying to destroy the potential for public transport to compete with the automobile. A “high quality” transfer at the edge of the urban core is a recipe for sub-performance. Transfer once in the outer area, and ride through to the heart of the city on the vehicle (train) you have transferred to – THAT is the way to go.
(Email 18/6/2016).
Even the regional council’s former Transport Manager, who supervised several light rail studies in the 1990s (and in 1993 even announced one as being close to implementation!), Dr David Watson, has commented about those studies:
We always came to the same conclusion. Light rail as a stand alone service ( Station to airport ) was not a winner. We needed to extend to Johnsonville or even the Hutt. We looked at operating standard units and light rail on the same tracks and then allowing the light rail to extend into the City. We saw no problem with this ...
(Email Dr David Watson to Dr Neil Douglas, 6/3/2015)
If that isn’t enough, please consider this:
Housing availability and affordability is now acknowledged to be in a crisis situation, particularly in Wellington. The Wellington City Council’s Draft Spacial Plan cites “better public transport” as a key requirement for enabling further densification. It is difficult to see how this can be achieved without a complete and integrated rail spine running through the region’s centre.
A complete and integrated rail spine would encourage moderate densification, in the form of transit-oriented development (TOD) near rail lines, throughout the region. [See item 4 below] This would be highly preferable to cramming all the expected population growth into high-rises just in the Wellington CBD. The light rail extension through the Lower Hutt CBD, proposed in the 1999 Regional Land Transport Strategy, would be instrumental in building TOD in that satellite city, for example.
As the owner of the Metlink rail transit network, the GWRC should have an interest in its commercial success. Overseas experience of the cases where direct through service in a rail network have replaced CBD-edge stub terminals indicate that a patronage increase of at least 100% can be expected. This will not all be from new trips – much will be diversion from private cars. Nevertheless, the benefit to inner-city business activity and vitality, as well as the extra fare revenue, will be obvious.
A stand-alone ‘mass transit’ system south of the Railway Station will be considerably more expensive than a simple, staged, extension of the existing rail infrastructure.
The reason being the necessity to have a large workshop/servicing/storage facility established early in the construction process. The articulated light rail vehicles required will be at least 30m long, but should be about 43m (the length of the Matangis), or even more, for maximum productivity. A suitable site of adequate area does not exist within the Town Belt, and even in the eastern suburbs would require considerable property purchase. It would almost certainly cost at least $200M, and would mean that the whole line at least as far as Kilbirnie would have to be built in one stage before any of it could be used.
A light rail line built as an extension of the existing rail system would, of course, need no such new depot – saving $200M.
The existing EMU depot at Thorndon is very suitable for sharing with light rail vehicles and tram-trains. The light rail extension could be staged in practical chunks – Courtenay Place, then Hospital, then Kilbirnie, then Airport/Miramar – reducing construction risk markedly.
The Glengowrie tram depot in Adelaide is about the minimum size of depot for a small fleet of articulated trams on a single light rail line. Have a search and look on Google Earth and consider how it could be fitted in anywhere south of Wellington Railway Station, and how much the extra unnecessary cost would be.
Continuity is king, as far as effective sustainable transport infrastructure is concerned. Whether we are talking about closing the gaps in the NIMT electrification, or providing mass transit throughout the Wellington region, or even just providing trunk bus services like the #1 and 2 routes within Wellington City, an unbroken end to end service is essential. A change of vehicle at the edge of the densest (and main economic) area is an absurdity rejected by all other public transport operators.
Responsibility for the future: completing light rail infrastructure through town (and the NIMT electrification) will make possible automated tram-train services from the eastern suburbs and airport, through the region’s main street, every hour, to as far away as Palmerston North and Masterton, by 2050 – in addition to more frequent services closer in, of course. Contemplate what that could do for achieving zero-carbon transport targets, compared with the current policy of a fragmented public transport spine!
A cure requires direction by LGWM’s governors – including you. Some of you have knowledge of light rail and should know the essential truth of how healthy and vigorous rail transit systems are organised, with ‘direct through service’, not a broken spine.
The ball is in your court.
Ngā mihi
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn
The email above was copied to the media who had covered the original story of Lets Get Wellington Moving’s fall from grace, but only Wellington Scoop picked it up and republished it http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=134422 (thanks, Lindsay!), enabling some interesting discussion – much of it even more cynical than I am about the process! However, the first comment, from the Chair of the GWRC, confirms that a continuous rail spine (“rail penetration of the CBD” as the regional council planners of the early 2000s called it) is nowhere in the thinking of the 2021 GWRC – otherwise why would “BRT” and sham trams also be in the LGWM evaluation mix?
4 Californian TOD video – your best 15 minutes
More and cheaper housing, limiting urban sprawl, reducing or eliminating private car use, easier access, more choice, better support for the elderly and disabled (particularly when served by level-boarding, roll on/roll off trams!), even reducing the cost of large-lot housing on the urban fringes – and all within a zero-carbon scenario. What’s not to like about transit-oriented development?
NZ’s housing crisis, achieving zero carbon and liveable cities is a kiwi headline-hogger but we don’t have those issues on our own. Viewing Californian ‘Road guy Rob’ video Train drives thru an apartment http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=0&v=PGnZuQ2xUik&feature=youtu.be about transit-oriented development (TOD) is the best 15 minutes that you could spend.
New Zealand is suffering a major housing availability/affordability crisis and this is driving urban sprawl at the expense of long-term sustainability.
Although electric transport and even light rail gets lip service from politicians at all levels, mainly for zero-carbon reasons, the thrust of planning and current development investment is still towards roading and ‘freeing up land’ (i.e. urban sprawl served by automobiles, as advocated in predictable annual 'housing affordability' reports from Demographia, aka old rail transit foe Wendell Cox).
Transit-oriented development only gets a look-in from a few better-motivated NZ planners and politicians, and deliberate densification is now a live issue in Wellington https://planningforgrowth.wellington.govt.nz/your-views/consultations-and-engagements/draft-spatial-plan-feedback City, but very little TOD is apparent here as yet.
In Wellington (unlike Auckland with its City Rail Link subway well advanced) there is no planning to extend our core, large (100 km), ‘light rail like’ rail transit system downtown, to make TOD on a plethora of potential rail-adjacent sites around the region more attractive. (Example: TOD around rail in the Glenside – Tawa area would be much more accepted, and financially feasible, if there was a one-seat ‘mass transit’ ride to the Golden Mile, Courtenay Place, the hospital and the eastern suburbs available near the front door.)
By coincidence, I was introduced to the very beginning of Los Angeles' Del Mar TOD, featured in the video, in 2003, during my ‘WELLtrack' US light rail Winston Churchill Fellowship study tour, and featured it in my report-back presentation (below, R). At that time it was just a structural steel framework and promotional hoardings.
Another LA TOD idea: a tiny home village on an odd wedge of land beside a busway: https://urbanize.city/la/post/take-look-through-north-hollywoods-colorful-tiny-home-village?utm_source=Urbanize+Newsletter&utm_campaign=90026d2466-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_6_19_2018_10_25_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f2c8779a36-90026d2466-199384469
An appropriate way of using those odd pockets of land where full-size apartment buildings wouldn’t fit. The Wellington railway system has many such sites.
5 New links
(a) Electric rail’s big chance – Climate Change Commission ‘2021 Draft advice for Consultation’ https://ccc-production-media.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/public/evidence/advice-report-DRAFT-1ST-FEB/ADVICE/CCC-ADVICE-TO-GOVT-31-JAN-2021-pdf.pdf
For our grandchildren’s sake, one of the most important documents to be issued for public comment in a long time.
Transport electrification is an important part of NZ’s climate change response. Rail electrification is the real “low hanging fruit” of transport electrification: it is already widely deployed and supported by a local skill and resource base, and requires no technological breakthroughs and experimentation for a wider rollout.
But it is discontinuous (like the Wellington ‘light rail-like’ rail transit spine). It is therefore much less effective in offering a competitive zero-carbon alternative to long-distance diesel trucking. Nor can it offer faster half-day Queensland-style tilt-train trips between Wellington and Auckland as an alternative to flying or driving.
In a summary table (3.1, p 55) of key transitions, the CCC proposes “Electrification of rail” for the first budget period of the three leading up to 2050 – i.e. pretty much immediately. Submissions urging a reluctant Government and KiwiRail to get on with it would be worthwhile.
(b) San Diego MTS stable despite pandemic, looking to expand transit service https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/news/21206888/ca-fletcher-san-diego-mts-stable-despite-pandemic-looking-to-expand-transit-service?utm_source=MASS+NewsViews+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS210122041&o_eid=2005H5570989F9G&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C2005H5570989F9G
Following my item on light rail pioneer and example San Diego in the last newsletter. The pandemic has hit US public transport generally far more severely than in NZ …
The agency plans to continue pursuing an expansion of its rail and bus network while overhauling its approach to public safety. It's also on track to start service this fall on the roughly $2 billion Blue Line trolley extension.
(c) Hitachi tests battery LRV https://www.railjournal.com/news/hitachi-tests-battery-lrv/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=22476
Battery power for trams, supplementing or even replacing the use of overhead wires, is now quite commonplace around the world – among the many light rail vehicle manufacturers, Hitachi Rail is rather late in the game with this design for the wire-free historic centre of Florence. Battery power for Wellington tram-trains, charging on the existing rail network and running wire-free down the Golden Mile, would solve a number of aesthetic and engineering problems.
The Japanese company took over Ansaldo Breda of Italy. Prior to the takeover, Ansaldo had a very poor reputation for the quality of both its trams and high speed trains.
(d) MAV-Start receives first Stadler Citylink tram trains https://www.railjournal.com/fleet/mav-start-receives-first-stadler-citylink-tram-trains/
Hybrid electric and diesel tram-trains is another approach for ensuring unbroken 'direct through service' over railway and tramway lines, like this example in Hungary. Advantage: introduces direct through service quickly and cheaply even over non-electrified railway lines. Disadvantages: doesn’t eliminate the use of fossil fuel, and doesn’t provide zero-carbon electrified track that freight trains would also use – an important consideration in the NZ context, where freight is the dominant rail use. (A similar second-best solution of electro-diesel hybrid trains is being considered in Wellington, rather than the more climate-friendly but costly alternatives of completing electrification to Palmerston North and Masterton.)
(e) Extension of Canberra's light rail, overhauling London Circuit, gets federal environmental approval http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-03/light-rail-stage-2a-london-circuit-canberra/13114480
When I visited Canberra in 2010, light rail there was just a Green Party proposal, derided by conservatives. But Australia’s capital moved faster than NZ’s seems capable of. Light rail Stage 1 opened in 2019, stage 2A has been approved for tender and design work on 2B – including wire-free operation in the Parliamentary Precinct – is well under way.
(f) Robotaxis for the last mile – Apple and Hyundai-Kia pushing toward deal on Apple Car http://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/apple-and-hyundai-kia-driving-towards-deal-on-apple-car.html
The ‘last mile’ issue – how to connect a fixed-route (particularly rail) transit system with homes and other destinations some distance from the station – dogs public transport. Walking and cycling are desirable but lose their practicality and appeal as the ‘last mile’ becomes two, or three, or more miles. Park + ride is big around Wellington, but hogs land which could be used for TOD, and does nothing to reduce car dependence and help those who do not own cars. Scheduled feeder buses are the current solution but have a myriad of problems, are quite costly per passenger and thus generally very intermittent if residential density is low.
Automated rail for the trunk corridors, and automated ‘robotaxis’ serving defined low-density urban areas, may be the answer:
“The first Apple Cars will not be designed to have a driver,” said one source with knowledge of the current plan. “These will be autonomous, electric vehicles designed to operate without a driver and focused on the last mile.” That could mean Apple cars, at least initially, could focus on package food delivery operations and firms incorporating robotaxis.
Coordinate the tram-train and robotaxi automation systems and your robotaxi will be waiting for you when you arrive at the station! And the park+ride lots could be repurposed as bases for the storage and charging of the robotaxis.
Coincidentally, an short article on AV development in this week’s NZ Listener (Look, no hands, p 45) notes that the cost of them, when they happen, will militate against them being individually owned and used like current motor cars, and notes:
Part of the green case for going autonomous involves car ownership overall declining as people increasingly use car-share schemes, which should be more affordable as running costs decrease. But that will require linking up public transport with car-share hubs to make them attractive to use.
So those park+ride lots, even if not used for TODs, have a legitimate post-carbon future after all!
(g) Ponti Design Studio creates driverless tram concept for Hong Kong post-Covid https://www.dezeen.com/2020/07/20/ponti-design-studio-driverless-tram-concept-hong-kong/
Of interest here – the track gauge of the Hong Kong double deck trams is the same as would be used in Wellington for light rail, if sanity prevails. Trams like this could be used on a waterfront – Golden Mile loop once light rail downtown is implemented.
Driverless control systems for trams are already being developed by companies like Hitachi and Bosch, as a spin-off from autonomous vehicle research, and are obviously much closer to practical deployment.
6 Enduring links
I don’t have the time and resources to run my own website any more. Instead I use others, like these:
1 Direct through service … tram-train for a complete rail system https://www.rtsa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/190214-Efford-RTSA-presentation-notes-attachments-with-disclaimer.pdf
My 2019 presentation to the Railway Technical Society of Australasia, plus other PDF material. It was delivered on Valentines Day, hence the corny introduction, and terminated early because of a fire evacuation. Note the extra material, including the academic paper by Nageli et al: “A checklist for successful application of tram-train systems in Europe"
2 TramTrain connects town and country https://www.kvv.de/fileadmin/user_upload/kvv/Dateien/Broschueren/AVG-Broschuere_TramTrain_EN.pdf
The PDF booklet explaining the Karlsruhe tram-train experience, published by the operator KVV. Note the population size similarity to Wellington (Karlsruhe is actually 33% smaller) but the massively greater PT use in the German region.
3 The Karlsruhe Model https://www.karlsruher-modell.de/en/index.html
More about Karlsruhe.
4 Light Rail Transit Association http://www.lrta.org/
Established 1937, the world’s senior light rail advocacy organisation, which I represent in NZ.
5 UKTram https://uktram.com/
The “voice of light rail” – the UK industry organisation for light rail operators. Daily news, conferences, guidance and standards documents, expert papers and presentations.
6 Light rail is a feminist issue https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-07-2020/why-labours-new-plan-for-auckland-rapid-transit-is-stupid-and-sexist/
That’s my title for this perceptive Spinoff op-ed about why street-based light rail is more accessible and convenient, particularly for women, compared with expensive higher speed, but limited stop, and harder to access, underground or overhead transit lines.
7 Attempted media comments
(a) Why just Auckland?
Investment expert Paul Brownsey ( Borrow now at cheap rates to fund the future, 25 Jan) is quite right to decry the lack of mode choice in transport investment, and cites several Auckland exurbs which should be connected to its electric rail network.
But why is it always just “Auckland, Auckland, Auckland” when more rail connection is being urged?
Here in Wellington, we have an extensive (100 km) “light rail-like” suburban rail mass transit network which doesn’t traverse the central area where 77% of the region’s economy happens – our most egregious transport infrastructure deficit by far.
Wellington is the only metropolis in the world having rail transit where a continuous downtown link neither exists nor is planned. Even Auckland is getting its City Rail Link.
Considering the effect that the lack of a continuous CBD rail spine has on congestion, pedestrian access, carbon emissions, urban sprawl and housing distribution, it is a very bad look for the responsible councils, the interminable Lets Get Wellington Moving planning project, and the Dominion Post to ignore the issue.
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn [25/1/21, not published.]
(b) Inner-city access
Jo Healey of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce (in “Dynamic Auckland tops stagnating capital” 28 Jan) observes … “ to keep attracting people into the CBD, it must be made as easy as possible to get into the middle of the city from the suburbs.”
Precisely!
Why then does the Chamber, and apparently Lets Get Wellington Moving, not back reviving the various 1990s proposals to extend our light rail-like Metlink rail transit network down the Golden Mile?
One such regional council proposal was greeted editorially by the Evening Post (23/11/1993) as creating …” exciting possibilities for recharging retailing and ending commuter agonies … a long-term expansion to the airport would make real sense … the ordering of modern equipment which can operate anywhere on the Wellington system and through the city should be a major consideration.”
Instead we got the Matangi trains – not suitable for street running – and a continuous programme of roading expansion, which is the absolutely worst strategy during a climate emergency, or for improving access to a dense inner city.
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn [28/1/21, not published.]
(c) Light rail to Wainuiomata?
Lack of train station derails ‘effortless daily commute’ * (Jan 29) brings to mind the long-forgotten 1999 Regional Land Transport Strategy, as well as other meritorious studies and proposals during the 1990s with the common theme of seamlessly linking outlying residential suburbs with Wellington’s Golden Mile and airport. Existing rail infrastructure would be used as per the so-called Karlsruhe Model (tram-train).
Serious proposals for both a heavy rail link as well as a tramway to Wainuiomata date back to the 1920s**, much earlier than the 1970s quoted by the KiwiRail spokesman. A road tunnel was commenced in 1932 but never completed for lack of funds. The 1-in-15 gradient through such a tunnel could easily be handled by light rail, while heavy rail would struggle, as evidenced by the flange squeal and wheel slip still experienced by the Matangi units on the Johnsonville line. Unfortunately, the Draft NZ Rail Plan curtly dismisses light rail, obviously through a lack of experience and expertise in this mode.
Wellington’s sad history is one of studies and proposals without follow-up. Lighter tram-trains can do exactly the same work as the Matangis, while also being able to be operated on-street like trams. This would enable future rail extensions at much lower cost than heavy rail.
Demetrius Christoforou
Mt Victoria
[*A Christchurch-based developer risibly advertised properties “close to the Wainuiomata train station” in ignorance, to the amusement of the Dominion Post. **Actually, like the Newtown to Lower Hutt tram-train project, the idea of light rail to Wainuiomata dates back to 1879! See the 1879 Evening Post clipping, item 8 below. For more on serious studies of heavy rail to Wainuiomata see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainuiomata_railway_proposals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainuiomata_railway_proposals For more about the partly-completed tunnel, now owned by the GWRC, through which light rail could be routed, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainuiomata_Tunnel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainuiomata_Tunnel ]
(d) Broken rail spine
‘Doubling cycling and bus trips won’t shift carbon dial’ (Feb 4). Maybe not – but doubling the use of our regional electric rail system sure would make a dent in the tens of thousands of cars driven quite long distances from Hutt, Porirua and Kapiti to congest central Wellington every day!
World experience, reflected in the configuration of every other rail transit system, is quite unequivocal: to achieve a usage increase of that magnitude, Wellington’s ‘light rail-like’ Metlink rail system must be extended through the CBD and beyond, and through central Lower Hutt.
NGO and local government proposals to do exactly that were published in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000. They were spurned in favour of Transmission Gully and other motorway development – and appear likely to be ignored by Lets Get Wellington Moving and government at all levels even in the ‘climate emergency’ environment of 2021.
Unlike broken pipes, the effects of our broken public transport spine stopping short of the densest travel destinations doesn’t get much coverage in the Dominion Post, either!
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn [4/2/21, not published.]
(e) Mass transit hallucinations
Unsurprisingly, Lets Get Wellington Moving has failed its own health check.
Symptoms of its sickness include hallucinations: that the travel habits of three-quarters of the region are irrelevant; that there is no existing mass transit system (when we actually have a 100 km Metlink rail spine doing 70% of the regional public transport task, despite being incomplete); and that keeping us the only metropolis in the world where the main mass transit does not penetrate the CBD is somehow conducive to “getting Wellington moving”.
Other hallucinatory symptoms relate to the proposed route of the short fragment of new “mass transit” that LGWM does envisage: avoiding the convenient corridor where mass people are (the Golden Mile and Courtenay Place) in favour of the inconvenient mass car arterial – waterfront and Taranaki St.
Even more of a delusion is the route to Miramar: several sharp curves, crossing Cobham Drive (SH1) at grade and through the cutting, before heading to the airport. Hardly competitive with the mass of airport-bound cars and taxis!
A cure requires direction by LGWM’s governors, who should know better – like, how effective rail transit systems are organised, with ‘direct through service’, not a broken spine.
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn [13/2/21, not published.]
(f) Plans but no action
I sympathise with Nigel Williams (Letters, Feb 15) about the gross inconvenience of going to the airport by public transport from Stokes Valley.
The 1999 Regional Land Transport Strategy specifically planned for outlying residential suburbs such as Stokes Valley and Whitby to be linked to a rail network extended through Wellington’s CBD and operated by tram-trains as pioneered in the German city of Karlsruhe, to be implemented by 2019. Eventually, the rails would have reached the airport.
Wellington’s history is one of plans but no action. The excellent plans of the 1990s have long been forgotten and 25 years later as urgency and congestion builds up, Let’s Get Wellington Moving is having a “health check”. Having made submissions to them three times, with three different directors, but never having received any feedback whatsoever on these, I would suggest that LGWM should be dispensed with forthwith. The $4M per month being wasted would purchase a new light rail vehicle or lay 200 metres of track through the Golden Mile every month.
Hopefully, a more streamlined Greater Wellington Regional Council, with its draft transport plan about to be released, will at last see the light and proceed with implementation of these long overdue rail plans.
Demetrius Christoforou
Spokesperson
Trams-Action [15/2/21, not published]
Have you sent letters on similar light rail lines to the Dominion Post or other media? Even if never published, if you would like your thoughts to not go entirely unrecognised, I would be delighted to have a copy to share in these fortnightly newsletters.
8 Clipping of the month
Thanks, again, to Papers Past – another 1879 reminder that ambitions and actions for a complete rail spine and ‘direct through service’ in Wellington go back a long way – Evening Post 26/6/1879.
As shown in the clipping in the last newsletter, the intention to link railway and tramway to give a through service from Newtown to Lower Hutt – tram-train in modern parlance – came close to realisation in 1879. Rolling stock was even imported for it. At least one budding politician envisaged it extending to Wainuiomata.
Unlike Victorian anti-Chinese racism and enforced sabbath-observance, a light rail link to Wainui still has merit, particularly if it was part of affordable and accessible housing provision and sustainable community-building. (His broad-based taxation suggestions are also worthy of 21st century consideration!)
9 Quote of the month
Guard the light
This ”lightness” of light rail – a combination of flexibility, low impact, modest cost, and environmental softness – is ephemeral. It must be carefully guarded. Ignorance or ineptitude during the planning, design, specification writing, engineering, or construction phases of a project can lose the “lightness”. Light railʼs advantages can be diminished or even destroyed with overdesigned overhead; ugly, noisy, or difficult-to-maintain cars; poorly conceived alignments; or simply uneconomic applications.
Source: Light Rail Transit Special Report 221, United States Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, p 92.
(My emphases, showing the faults inherent in the Lets Get Wellington Moving “broken spine” model of mass transit in Wellington!)
Nga mihi
Brent Efford
NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn