Mayor lights the path to 'Wellington Transport' but will it get Wellington moving?

Friday, 12 July 2019

ANALYSIS: A decade ago a confusing spider-web diagram of 17 organisations with overlapping responsibilities for all things transport convinced a Royal Commission they needed to simplify transport in Auckland.

Today's equivalent of that for Wellington might be a Metlink board filled with cancellations or a list of the most colourful insults exchanged between Wellington City Councillors and Greater Wellington Regional Councillors.

Dubbed the 'bustrastrophe' by some the redesign of the capital city's bus service has caused many - including voters Stuff spoke to last week - to reconsider whether they want any elected official to be in charge of public transport.

The network redesign has been dubbed a 'bustastrophe' by some.

Responsibility for the crisis has been batted between the two organisations: Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), the organisation ultimately responsible for the bus network, and WCC - the road controlling authority.

Mayor Justin Lester has sparked a debate on a future regional transport authority.

* Trackless tram 'junket' to China for Wellington Mayor Justin Lester rejected by regional councillors

* Let's Get Wellington's Buses Moving: Wellington councils team up to enact long-awaited bus route fixes

National Party list MP Nicola Willis thinks Wellingtonians could be open to the idea of a regional transport authority.

* Bus crisis sparks war of words between Wellington's city and regional councillors**

Now the Mayor of Wellington has further stirred the debate, saying he supports a Regional Transport Authority minus any powers to set policies, control rates or levy user charges and will be promoting the idea during the election campaign.

Conor Hill says the RTA would be pointless without more powers.

In an interview with Stuff on Thursday morning Justin Lester said he envisioned it working like Wellington Water - which is governed by a committee of representatives from four different councils - but for transport.

The city council would also have a seat at the table and an ability to influence how public transport operates, something he says was a huge frustration to him during the bus crisis.

Matt Lowrie says Auckland Transport is often criticised but has delivered.

It's not far enough for Mayoral candidate Conor Hill who thought Lester's vision of an RTA was 'pointless' without an ability to set policies or levy rates.

A 2016 report concluded a RTA along the lines Lester is advocating would extract 'modest administration savings and integration benefits' but wouldn't resolve 'fundamental disconnects' between local and regional plans.

It said an Auckland Transport-esque Greater Wellington Transport with decision-making powers and which would own transport assets, including roads, would deliver more.

Matt Lowrie from transport lobby group Greater Auckland said AT had been a 'convenient whipping boy' for people over the years but the organisation, while far from perfect, had delivered.

'The thing that makes Auckland Transport successful is its ability to control the whole process.'

But control on that scale could involve less input at a community level and that makes people like Rongotai MP Paul Eagle and councillor Diane Calvert nervous.

They say there are other models, like putting city councillors on committees governing transport, that could prevent a future bus debacle while maintaining local control.

Regional councillor Daran Ponter thinks the debate is a distraction when both councils just need to put spades in the ground and get started on LGWM.

National MP Nicola Willis said she believed people were open to the idea of a RTA along the lines of what Lester was proposing, but feared it could add another level of bureaucracy to the region's governance.

'You're starting to get more entities than you can count on one hand, that's worrying.'