Auckland parking woes cited as grounds for public transport use

OPINION: Auckland officials and the Government are deep into looking at ways to curb the growth of vehicle traffic.

Expensive and high-tech road-charging systems are part of the mix in the catchily named "Congestion Question" project.

"Congestion pricing works by encouraging road users to change their travel behaviour, and therefore have long-term effects," said a line in a presentation last year.

STUFF Auckland's AT HOP public transport ticketing system cost $100 million. (FILE PHOTO)

In December, Auckland tried for one afternoon to do that - by making public transport fare-free.

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The initiative on the last Friday before Christmas was to keep commuters who might be having post-work drinks, out of their cars.

So why not do it every day? Scrap fares as a powerful incentive to make public transport irresistible, cutting pollution and travel times.

It's not a new or unique idea. The Estonian city of Tallinn in 2013 became the first European capital to scrap fares for its 420,000 residents.

Luxembourg follows suit this year in a small country of 107,000, that is swamped daily by 400,000 commuters from neighbouring countries.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has just announced free public transport travel for under-11s from September.

Three smaller French cities, and 14 towns also do fare-free public transport.

In Auckland, the late Jim Anderton promoted the policy in his 1977 bid for the Auckland City Mayoralty, and John Minto followed suited in his 2013 Auckland mayoral campaign.

Locally, the main advocate is Roger Fowler, a former bus driver who is now on Auckland Council's senior advisory panel.

Fowler made a pitch to Auckland Transport's "Big Idea" project last year, arguing it would bring environmental and social transformation.

The pitch seems to have fallen on deaf ears at the council agency.

It was assessed by AT's Commercial Manager David Stephenson for senior executives in a paper revealingly subtitled "Fare Free Public Transport for Auckland - There's no such thing as a free ride".

Stephenson concluded that as a purely political goal, free public transport may be a legitimate idea.

"But when free fare schemes are advocated and justified as a means to meeting environmental, social or efficiency goals, the evidence presented suggests the arguments are largely misguided."

The report was written a week before Luxembourg's decision to scrap fares.

Stephenson is right, public transport can never be free. It has to be paid for somehow.

In Auckland, the fares cover only 46 per cent of the cost of services. So we are already 54 per cent of the way to being fare free.

Giving up those fares would cost Auckland $176 million a year, and AT estimates increased demand would cost an extra $60m to meet.

Like most things, quantifying the costs is easy. Totting up the value of benefits to health, the environment, the need to accommodate growing vehicle numbers - that's too hard.

Auckland Council is staging a major climate change conference in March, looking at how it can achieve more ambitious reductions in the city's carbon footprint.

If the council can spend nearly $1m for consultants to ponder a mirage-like downtown stadium, maybe it's time to have a serious look at the case for fare-free public transport in Auckland.

Just so we know.

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