Rail transport should be in my DNA. My father ran Victoria’s freight railway system for many years and I grew up around trains. I even spent six months post university working in ‘the business’.
Even with this background, I have never understood why politicians, ‘experts’ and commentators have an inherent bias towards rail as the preferred mode of public transport.
Sure, heavy rail is most efficient when large numbers of passengers need to be moved point-to-point – such as on suburban train corridors into the CBD. The same can be said for freight rail when moving bulk commodities to port for export, or when moving containerised freight very long distances.
However, there are clear drawbacks from building a light rail system to service moderate passenger numbers. Most of the time, dedicated busses could get the job done equally well at lower cost, with greater flexibility in routes, as well as avoiding the massive interruption experienced with rail during the construction phase.
A classic example in the Australian context is the ACT Light Rail Project – the $710 million project to build a 12-kilometre light rail line connecting Gungahlin in the north and Civic – which has been exposed in detail on this site. Both the Productivity Commission and the Grattan Institute found that investing in bus rapid transit could have delivered the same benefits to Canberra commuters but at around half the taxpayer cost.
Both the Parramatta Light Rail Project and the Eastern Suburbs Light Rail Project have experienced massive cost blow-outs and delays.
Whereas we have witnessed endless advocacy of High-Speed Rail along the east coast, despite it dismally failing even the most basic cost-benefit analysis.
It seems the unwavering halo surrounding rail is by no means limited to Australia, however, with New Zealand’s transport minister, Phil Twyford, ignoring advice that buses would cost around a third of light rail between downtown Auckland and the airport:
Transport Minister Phil Twyford has received official advice to do more work on using buses instead of modern trams from downtown Auckland to the airport – a move that could save taxpayers as much as $2.5 billion.
But the minister, who says trams to the airport has a preliminary estimate of $3.7b, has rejected the idea of running buses on a dedicated corridor. Officials have put a cost of $1.2b to use advanced buses to the airport.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Twyford made an election promise last August to build modern trams, or light rail, from the CBD to the airport and from the CBD to West Auckland. The latest cost estimate for the project is $6b.
Papers obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act show Twyford was advised by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) shortly after coming to office in November to look further at advanced buses to the airport before finalising the preferred mode…
“These technologies (of the buses) have the potential to deliver light rail performance at lower cost due to less track and fewer overhead infrastructure requirements”.
What is it about the word “rail” that makes politicians, experts and commentators leave their brain at home and renders them incapable of conducting impartial analysis based on facts?
