Generation Zero are lovely people. They are committed to seeing a lower carbon future and the reality of global warming makes their activism more necessary than ever. That said, I had a brief run in on social media with a few of them over the weekend and I wanted to point out exactly what my problem with their plan for a Congestion Free Auckland is.
I am all in favor of building up the existing public transport infrastructure that they envisage. My beef however is that this simply seems to be a means of pumping public money into public transport infrastructure so that the middle classes can transition more comfortably from their cars to public transport than any wider social concerns.
Auckland is a SuperCity of poverty, those who ride public transport by necessity, not choice, are given nothing in this plan. The students, beneficiaries and working poor would benefit by having greatly reduced fares or free public transport and that is simply not part of this plan. I believe climate change is a serious threat, and that a rebuild of public transport infrastructure combined with a vast reduction in cost if not free public transport is the kind of radical solutions we need to adopt to give people the incentives to travel more by public transport.
For those who claim we can’t give the poor free public transport, I point at the Gold Card that older NZers have to travel for free and note that hypocrisy just highlights another glaring example of how we short change young people, the working poor and beneficiaries in this country.
Listening to one of Generation Zero’s leaders shrug off my criticisms that traveling by bus is already cheaper than maintaing a car suggests a middle class echo chamber out of touch with the grim reality that poverty is already causing many.
I support the work Generation Zero have provided, but cannot support their exclusion of the poor in the values they espouse. Free public transport or cheap public transport would do more for those at the bottom of the heap than merely building more public transport infrastructure so the middle classes can transition away from their addiction to cars.
Generation Zero they support Mayor Len Brown’s AMETI plan that calls for vast 4 lane highways across Auckland. But they don’t support free public transport. Its common sense Free Public Transport is a sustainable carbon free solution compared to motorways. When they got pulled up on this issue they decided to score Len Brown higher. Generation Zero you need to review the purpose of your organisation.
Generation zero – why not call yourselves the Year Zero Crew and be done with it.
The end of history in one way, is true. In that people have no sense of history, or more importantly what things means in comparison with the past.
And for Generation zero, the authoritarian left has just as dark sordid history, as the authoritarian right. Hence my anarchist principles and beliefs. That means looking at the big picture, not being wedded to ideology and not having to be right! And by right, I mean correct all the time – I’m really not passionate about being always right, indeed that mentality makes you a bit of an ass, with few friends.
Indeed the ass factor of being right means I’m not sympathetic to the right of politics either – with it’s always knows best attitude – so well represented by Helen Clark and John Key in our recent past.
So when new groups form and do political things they seem to have that, we know best attitude – we’re right attitude. My problem with Generation Zero – you have to be right – that makes you an ass.
– I love it how in melbourne u can travel all day weekends for $3.50
– i noticed how the gen zero crowd all spoke with a plum in their mouth, they say ‘right’ like ‘raight’ not ‘roight’ like most of us.
– 3 months ago i completed and handed to them my orange enrolment form which they must have binnned as i never received by local council voting papers’
OK, what gives with criticising their pronounciation? I speak with an accent and would prefer if that were not an issue. Other points are valid.
accents are great, attending their forum it felt exclusive, great theme, but class rooted responses can be limiting.
I raise this class issue of including voices from all income levels, a group of economically comfortable activists need to recognise their privilege and think about how they can include other voices into their org and power structure…includes relinquishing privilege and thinking outside square, like other posts are suggesting that their are communities who can’t even afford to catch the bus or train…
Papa,
Sorry that you didn’t receive your voting papers. Gen Zero handed all of them in to the electoral office. Of the 245 we handed in, only 135 were valid, so yours might have been among those that were invalid due to missing some part of the form, or incorrectly filling it in.
We’re not directly affiliated with the Electoral Office, so cannot confirm what they do with invalid forms. I believe that they contact the person who filled them out if they’re invalid.
so the solution might be …
realising that 60% of forms are wrongly filled in (shocking, not your fault, but real)…and that each and every one handed in needs to be checked and corrected with the enrolee by your table folk.
Being agents of change, think about how u can ID the prob, and come up with a response, not just say that the answer is somewhere else. BTW I am a gun at filling in the enrolment form, and even if it was wrong, no enrolment people contacted me… oh well, a trip to the post office to fill another form…
We can’t have concessions on public transport successfully unless we have better PT to do it on. Gold Card is mainly off peak, but students and workers are peak times. Policies on these things can be changed in the future, but we must have the infrastructure in place first.
This is noted, Helga. Free public transport will need a trebling of the bus fleet to cope with the demand. But isn’t that what we want? But this can be done very quickly, and at short notice without having to build any new infrastructure. This is the beauty of John Minto’s scheme. An almost immediate and massive almost overnight reduction in private motorcar use, and traffic congestion, and pollution that no other plan can provide. Climate Change is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed right now, immediately. I really don’t know what Generation Zero support.
Maybe they could tell us?
It’s a reasonably simple thing to increase the capacity of a transport network (eg add more buses/services to match demand) than it is to create a service from the outset.
Creating the service, particularly one that includes infrastructural investment such as additional roading lanes, train lines, terminals etc, is the primary factor here.
I agree that there is a need to look at how the service could be priced and funded to encourage the uptake by those who need it most, but lets not try to run before we can walk. the first hurdle is gaining agreement on the physical solution.
I think you need to look at Minto’s overall plan for free public transport, it includes taking back control by the council, not having contracts with 7 different bus companies, and of course expanding the service.
Free public transport is a climate change success story, where ever it has been introduced.
In the Belgium city of Hasselt where universal free public transport was trialed[i], despite having the highest private car ownership in Europe, it was a runaway success, everybody, (including middle class people), in Hasselt abandoned their cars in favour of public transport, leaving their cars at home in the garage, to jump on and ride the free public buses and trains. Instead of being an inconvenient pain, public transport became a hassel (t) free pleasure. People still kept their cars. But for the people of Hasselt private cars were kept for private use, for instance like taking the family to the beach on the weekend for a picnic, or a special trip to visit relatives who lived in cities without free public transport.
Why can’t Generation Zero see this?
Why can’t GZ see that this is a way cheaper and Greener option than building more motorways?
Have GZ got caught up in the political machinery of the corporate politicians and their false accounting that ignores climate change costs?
[i]After 16 years of sucessful universal free public transpor that has transformed the city, Hasselt has fallen victim to austerity and has cut back on its free public transport scheme, only allowing it for those under the age of 19 and pensioners. This was done as an act of European wide “Austerity. The iconic free public transport scheme already hated by the conservatives, became an easy target for cut backs. Universal free public transport was considered too expensive in the age of “Austerity”. But it was false accounting. The Billions of Euros that had been saved by scrapping the huge motorway projects that had been planned for the city in the ’90s was not counted. Before universal free public transport was introduced to the city a huge ring motorway had been planned to circle the city to cope with rush hour traffic congestion, with the introduction of free public transport this ring motorway was not needed and the land that had been purchased for the motorway was turned into parkland instead.
http://www.eltis.org/index.php?ID1=5&id=60&news_id=4183
However despite Europe wide austerity and a pushback from the fossil fuel industry and conservative politicians, the movement for Free Public transport has continued to gain momentum in Europe. Estonia is the first country to introduce free universal public transport in their Capital City.
http://www.eltis.org/index.php?ID1=5&id=60&news_id=3325
You can see that though free public transport will only be a minority of the Capital City’s public transport expenditure, and probably an even smaller percentage of Tallin’s overall transport costs, you can see how it makes an attractive easy target for the ignorant and arrogant corporate and banker driven austerity “user pays” movement.
I will probably go to my grave mumbling something about the Swiss half-tax system for public transport nationwide. It hasn’t been done here, suggested here, or even discussed here, to my knowledge. Yet, it would be perfect for us, just as it is for Switzerland (small cities, rivers & lakes, big mountains).
It costs about CHF 175 (NZ$200) per year to travel half-price on buses, trams and trains belonging to the national network. In NZ’s case it would include ferries (if we had any smart thinking)
The fundamental problem you miss here is that public transportation is at capacity in Auckland. Making public transportation free isn’t going to lower carbon emissions at all, furthermore we don’t have the money to pay for it. Minto has stated that it will come from highway projects, that’s all very well and good until you realize that these are assigned by central and not local government
Also if you’re passionate about reducing income inequality as I am, I don’t see how on earth making public transport free is the best way of reducing inequality. Giving all workers more money from the likes of a living wage is far more effective.
“Generation Zero’s leaders shrug off my criticisms that traveling by bus is already cheaper than maintaing a car suggests a middle class echo chamber out of touch” um I don’t know if you’ve noticed Martyn but maintaining a car certainly isn’t cheap, for under 25s like me insurance, rego and warrant is easily $1200 a year plus petrol and the initial cost of the car.
“I point at the Gold Card that older NZers have to travel for free and note that hypocrisy just highlights another glaring example of how we short change young people, the working poor and beneficiaries in this country”
Yes, and the Gold Card is a) for a minority of the population and b) is only available during off peak hours.
Kia ora Ben, thank you for your comment.
The fundamental problem you miss here is that public transportation is at capacity in Auckland. Making public transportation free isn’t going to lower carbon emissions at all, furthermore we don’t have the money to pay for it. Minto has stated that it will come from highway projects, that’s all very well and good until you realize that these are assigned by central and not local government
I am agreeing to an upgrade of public transport infrastructure, I’m just saying using public funds to do that while not addressing the poverty of people using by making it free it is a terribly middle class use of public money. If you believe in climate change as a genuine threat, then a radical solution like free public transport demands far more critical thought than the one paragraph you assign to it.
Also if you’re passionate about reducing income inequality as I am, I don’t see how on earth making public transport free is the best way of reducing inequality. Giving all workers more money from the likes of a living wage is far more effective.
That’s one way, another way is to remove their transport costs per week. Ask students and beneficiaries and the working poor how much more would that put in their pockets each month?
um I don’t know if you’ve noticed Martyn but maintaining a car certainly isn’t cheap, for under 25s like me insurance, rego and warrant is easily $1200 a year plus petrol and the initial cost of the car.
Um I don’t think you notice how patronizing that comes across. To those living with poverty struggling to pay the current bus fares, you are sounding remarkably out of touch.
Yes, and the Gold Card is a) for a minority of the population and b) is only available during off peak hours.
Yes, and it also shows how the older ducks and dears can cruise the city for free while the poor and the young face steeper and steeper fares.
Again, I support the spending of public funds on building up the public transport infrastructure, but to merely yet again shrug off the fact that these public funds won’t extend to the poorest in Auckland does leave you open to the middle class criticism.
“If you believe in climate change as a genuine threat, then a radical solution like free public transport demands far more critical thought than the one paragraph you assign to it.”
I do believe climate change is a genuine threat and we need real solutions but making PT free I don’t believe is the best way of going about it as I’ve said public transportation is near max. capacity making it free effectively moves money away from PT projects.
“That’s one way, another way is to remove their transport costs per week. Ask students and beneficiaries and the working poor how much more would that put in their pockets each month?” and “won’t extend to the poorest in Auckland does leave you open to the middle class criticism.”
The irony of that second statement is not lost on me as I am a student and a member of the ‘working poor'(earning under $10k a year).
Anecdotal evidence here but I don’t use public transport, nor do most of the students I know, I bike and most students either live in close proximity to their universities making public transportation not worthwhile or they use a car because PT is often slower than private cars. Making public transportation free will not entice students to use PT as its usually cheaper than private cars already or is less efficient than biking or walking. For me personally, my route from home to work is 4ks and biking is quicker than PT.
So for me, making public transport free doesn’t help me buy more food each week, pay off my loan quicker or make it any easier to pay exorbitant rents.
“Um I don’t think you notice how patronizing that comes across. To those living with poverty struggling to pay the current bus fares, you are sounding remarkably out of touch.”
How? You were the one articulating that owning a private car wasn’t cheaper than PT which is simply not true for the vast majority of students.
“Yes, and it also shows how the older ducks and dears can cruise the city for free while the poor and the young face steeper and steeper fares.”
We are in total agreement here, I think if PT is free for pensioners it should be for students too. I’m simply pointing out that a) it’s not a ‘radical’ solution to climate change and b) the goldcard doesn’t mean that it’s as easily affordable as you are suggesting.
A much better solution would be to develop public transportation and bike lanes throughout the country. Ensuring the PT is more reliable and efficient than public cars.
‘Yes, and it also shows how the older ducks and dears can cruise the city for free’ – and the many many old chooks who live in the sticks get remarkably little from their Gold Cards.
There really is life beyond the urban pale, and we’d like some affordable public transport, too. Not everyone in Heartland NZ can drive.
I totally agree!
Yes the Congestion Free Network is about infrastructure. It is a response to the integrated transport programme’s capital budget, that spends huge amounts of money on roads for little benefit.
It doesn’t say anything about fares, because that is not the point.
Nor does it say anything about walking, cycling, local buses, which are all concerns of ours, but it certainly is a proxy for redistributing spending.
This plan will substantially benefit all of Auckland, enabling people to travel around wide areas of the city. Auckland’s awful public transport system has meant that many working people are forced to buy expensive, unreliable cars, and become trapped by loan sharks.
One of the many reasons for the CFN is that will allow many people to get by without a car, and many that have several cars will only need one.
This will be huge benefit to low income people.
Much fairer fares are also an essential part of the plan’s success. Yes fares in Auckland are disastrous, largely as a result of private bus companies running amuck. However huge change is proposed in 2014/15 and AT are going to be centrally controlling fares, removing transfer penalties, adding daily caps. This will slash fares for anyone that has to rely on several buses or trains trips to get anywhere.
During this process we will be campaigning for affordable fares.
Attended a few Generation Zero events, and think the Congestion Free Network is a start in the right direction.
There does not seem to be much emphasis in South Auckland for getting transport right, whether it be by PT, private vehicle, cycling or walking.
Also noticed the omission of Gen Zero scorecards for our Local Boards and elections in Franklin – which I guess may be due to the lack of interest from this area and volunteer time so understandable, but raises another question.
How does Gen Zero address the lack of input from communities from which they have little membership or personal knowledge? Is the large South Auckland population served well by the seemingly frugal service shown on the CFN?
Smart Transport is about much more than public transport, even though you wouldn’t know that from local debates – the left and even the CFN is very light on active transport – by which I mainly mean cycling.
Elsewhere in the world, cycling is going gangbusters, but here we don’t have a clue, much less a plan.
But my point in relation to this post, is that a modest investment in cycling infra, and promotion – with its massive ROI /BCRs will have extra benefit for the poor, both economically (costs are a sliver of the average $10k we spend a year on a car) and in terms of health outcomes.
And with South Auckland being so much flatter than the gentrified centre or white-bread North Shore, the poor already have a cycling advantage.
However, except for the hardcore (ie those who brave commuting without separated cyclelanes), cycling is best for short trips. So in a cities as sprawling as ours, (until we see the benefits of the likes of Ak’s unitary plan), a connected transport network that integrates cycling, walking and public transport will be of most value to the poor, who, the world round suffer the most from sprawl.
And the cycling renaissance isn’t just for the gentrified in London and NYC – it’s a rapidly growing promoted solution for standout cities in latin America like Bogata, and across the stata of countries like Hungary.
I ran some numbers that scoped just some of the economic benefits of reducing our car ownership to that of the UK’s: A nett $1Bn+ back into the pockets of Aucklanders alone – every year, the chief beneficiaries being the poor. Getting smart with transport should be a very high priority for anyone concerned with inequality.
Smart transport is about much more than car Vs PT: It’s about realizing high value, liveable cities, designed for people rather than cars, its about building exercise into commutes. And claiming back time for healthier pursuits.
What is most important is that we abandon our parochial attitude to transport, get our car addiction into rehab, learn from the successes of other cities, and get some transport successes up on the board. And here again, it’s cycling that is the quickest and easiest to implement, with the greatest benefits across the board.
The only reason that isn’t happening is because cycling isn’t credible in NZ – it’s just not on our radar like in enlightened countries . That’s wrong: It should be front and centre.
There is also a cycling CFN made in association with Cycle Action Auckland. See http://caa.org.nz/committee/waiting-for-a-congestion-free-network-for-cycling/
Cycling always seen as in integral part to CFN as I mentioned above. Cycling also hugely increases active catchment from 1km to at least 3km, so great way to get people onto the Rapid Transit Network.
Bomber, I think you are neglecting the fact that a city’s transport system is closely related to the form of the city. Having a decent public transport system encourages a higher density form and hence more affordable housing. This is especially true when planning rules are changed to abolish such things a minimum parking requirements (as the AT Blog and GenZero are pushing for).
I think the call for free public transport is misplaced energy as the policy is difficult to justify to those that will pay for it. That energy would be better spent pushing for better quality public transport that will go on to address housing issues.
GenZero have come up with a fantastic campaign for the Congestion Free Network, which has potential to gain popular support for a decent public transport system for Auckland. Why you are choosing to dis them rather than support what is a professional and achievable campaign I can’t understand.
As I’ve pointed out on this blog before, when people pay to use public transport, they are subsidizing the benefits of fewer cars on the road and safer, faster traffic conditions for those who still use cars. That subsidy is the wrong way around.
>> Why you are choosing to dis them rather than support what is a professional and achievable campaign I can’t understand. <<
It might be because of the words "professional and achievable", which paraphrase exactly what Bomber is saying: the plan is blind to its own privilege and disappointingly unambitious.
Walking and cycling are important and should be part of any green transport plan, but it's easy for young, fit people to snap their lycra and tell the rest of us lazy slobs to get active. What about those who work more than an hours cycle away from where they live? What about the elderly, those with small children, those with disabilities, those who are ill, those who need to transport shopping? What about when it's raining, or blowing a gale? There are actually real reasons people have a car instead of walking or cycling everywhere, and public transport can address these for a lot of people, if it's not priced out of their reach.
As for how to pay for extending and improving the public transport network, while not charging users, what about charging a tax for bringing a car into the CBD, like other big, car-choked cities around the world have done?
[…] A brief word on my beef with Generation Zero By Martyn Bradbury https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/01/a-brief-word-on-my-beef-with-generation-zero/ […]
The best option would be to price roads and PT to clear the market. Then use the revenue to target poorer cohorts directly with cash transfers. Making PT universally free is an extremely inefficient solution to whatever problem you are trying to solve. (Although whether it is more or less efficient than plowing billions into infrastructure projects with negative net benefits is debatable).
PT is already running at capacity. It is impossible to provide it for free without improving the capacity. Therefore, we need Gen Zero’s plan to be implemented if we want to have free PT. Skip all the ridiculous infighting and work together for once, FFS
I have no problem with public transport as I used it myself when I was younger. I have no problem with your views of making it cheap or free for lower income families as I am one of these also.
What I do have a HUGE problem with is that it isn’t Auckland alone who will pay for this.
Fuel taxes will increase for everyone, public transport will get worse, the poor will become destitute, the middle class will be the new poor and the rich will build high walls around there houses so the children wont see it.
That’s why I don’t live in Auckland, I don’t want to be part of the problem.
I know how to fix it but no one would buy into the idea. It means that people would have to move out of Auckland including big business and they just couldn’t do that…
[…] Auckland needs to be directly involved in the building of council homes and the provision of social services funded from central Government and an upgrade in public transport services that goes beyond the City Rail Link. Even if fully funded, the CRL won’t make gridlock any better by 2030, it will in fact be worse. […]
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