Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Bruce Weir: Independent Urban Planning Expert on Labour's public transport policy

Transcript

Bruce Weir: Independent Urban Planning Expert on Labour's public transport policy · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Right, Labors finally put some policy on the table. It
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  Speaker 1: wants to cat public transport fares at twenty dollars a
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  Speaker 1: week in the main centers and just ten dollars a
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  Speaker 1: week out everywhere else. The price tag sixty five million,
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  Speaker 1: funded from about one percent of the National Land Transport Fund.
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  Speaker 1: Bruce Ware is the Independent Urban is an independent urban
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  Speaker 1: planner and strategic development expert, and he joins me, Now.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Groce, Good morning Francesca.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So from an urban planning perspective, is this feasible?
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  Speaker 1: Does that amount sam right to you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it sounds about right, and in yes, it's feasible.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it's a they're sort of embarking on something
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  Speaker 2: that's got a great headline number that it's a very
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  Speaker 2: slow burn in terms of benefit, but hey, look every
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  Speaker 2: little bit makes a difference, right, How.
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  Speaker 1: Slow would it burn? How quickly? Because they're anticipating six
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  Speaker 1: percent added patronage on public transport? How long would that
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  Speaker 1: take do you think to kick in?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's you're really talking about help, and I
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  Speaker 2: think it'll be quite slow. To be honest, I think
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  Speaker 2: I can't say it's not like an instant effect. I
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  Speaker 2: would have thought it would take sort of three to
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  Speaker 2: five years before you started to see some direct benefit.
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  Speaker 2: It's not as big a drop as so Brisbane, where
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  Speaker 2: they dropped, you know, fifty cent fears one dollar ferry rides,
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  Speaker 2: and you know this is so which was a massive
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  Speaker 2: effect pretty quickly. This is sort of a lot, a
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  Speaker 2: lot more graduated, but still Hailo adds to it. I
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  Speaker 2: guess it certainly helps help people at the bottom of
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  Speaker 2: the ladder, isn't it.
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  Speaker 1: We have the CRL opening in Auckland at some stage
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  Speaker 1: this year, potentially that's going to entice a lot more
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  Speaker 1: people onto public transport. Do you think they've accounted for that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think that will have a much more
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  Speaker 2: immediate effect in terms of changing people's behavior. The sort
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  Speaker 2: of we've worked three legs of the stall and looking
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  Speaker 2: for benefit you sort of you know it's sort of better, faster, cheaper,
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  Speaker 2: and they're trying to tackle the cheaper one, which is
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  Speaker 2: great better and so most centers, urban centers around New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand and electric buses a lot quieter, smoother, So that's
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  Speaker 2: underway faster Auckland roads. Yes, unless you've got dedicated lanes,
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  Speaker 2: you kind of it's just a different form. So you
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  Speaker 2: know you've got to tackle all three to get those
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  Speaker 2: big benefits. So CRL will be quite noticeable. And buses, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: look at it. It helps, certainly helps.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think the rest of the country has a
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  Speaker 1: bit of an issue with this, you know, potentially not
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  Speaker 1: wanting to pay for main centers to have a highly
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  Speaker 1: subsidized bus trip.
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  Speaker 2: It's a tricky one, you know, like one hundred million,
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  Speaker 2: sixty million doesn't go very far in roading. It sounds
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  Speaker 2: like a great big number and everybody jumps up and
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  Speaker 2: down about it. But you can think, you know, we
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  Speaker 2: do projects where you build the main road and the
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  Speaker 2: road costs not far from that for a single project,
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  Speaker 2: which sounds terrible, but you know, bang for buck it's
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  Speaker 2: if you sunk it into the roads network, it would
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  Speaker 2: see be distributed pretty quickly and you wouldn't see a
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  Speaker 2: lot a lot of benefit for it. So and look,
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  Speaker 2: if you can get twenty thirty thousand households better off
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  Speaker 2: by doing this, it's probably it's probably a reasonable investment.
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  Speaker 2: I there's other ones I think that you would probably
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  Speaker 2: push a bit harder on that would give a better
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  Speaker 2: bang for buck. I just think, you know, continuing through. Look,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not a huge site plus to a walk up,
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  Speaker 2: but if you can get people walking shorter distances, increasing
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  Speaker 2: the frequency of buses, dedicated bus lanes, probably have a
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  Speaker 2: better better outcome than dropping fares. You know, That's the
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  Speaker 2: way I'd be heading.
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  Speaker 1: Better services and a better run public service.
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  Speaker 2: Then I guess the one thing I would say is
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  Speaker 2: that you probably get savings in terms of admin if
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  Speaker 2: you can simplify the admin, get rid of bryucracy, and
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  Speaker 2: then it's the same push of the government's trying to
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  Speaker 2: do with healthcare. If you can get money to the
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  Speaker 2: front line where it counts, there's a lot better saving
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  Speaker 2: than just through the one benefit that you can't really
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  Speaker 2: quantify us how much you save in accounting and admin
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  Speaker 2: costs simplifying it all down so one yeah, look, that's
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  Speaker 2: that's the analogy for most people. Just make it simple, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: swipe and pay sit simple prices, not adding twenty five
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  Speaker 2: cents or something soory to each fair because the account
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  Speaker 2: would say, so.
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  Speaker 1: There we go. Bruce, really love you to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for more from early edition with
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  Speaker 2: Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news talks.
• 5:21
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• 5:24
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