Kia ora.
Alan Preston here in Mangawhai,Northland.
I have been involved in advocating for the maintenance of the North Auckland Line and the retention of freight services and for the recommencement of passenger services on that line as a convener for the unofficial community that came together in 2010 as 'Save Our Rail Northland' . In 2011 we collected 13,471 ( hard copy ) signatures calling for our rail infrastructure to be maintained.
As this community is still informal , I can not, and am not claiming to act as their spokesperson .
I do run the Save Our Rail Northland website and facebook group to maintain interest and awareness of developments as they happen.
https://sites.google.com/site/saveourrailnorthland/future/potential-users/passenger-transport
https://www.facebook.com/groups/saveourrailnorthland
My comments... ( Despite having noted the terms of reference ) .
Extant realities :
New Zealand is a remote island nation.
Our transport fleet is virtually dependent on imported fossil fuels.
The International Energy Agency has been warning that New Zealand needs to urgently and drastically reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels for our strategic security and to ensure our robustness, resilience and self-sustainability in the event /inevitability that our access to our fuel sources are either limited or totally cut off due to reasons beyond our control.
The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has been warning that New Zealand needs to urgently and drastically reduce our burning of fossil fuels for transport to reduce our contribution to anthropogenic climate change.
i.e. Inter-regional passenger rail is both strategically and climatically indispensable.
Despite having done some good work, New Zealand's state-owned media ( Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand ) have had little success in helping New Zealanders come to terms with the enormity of the situation we are in with climate change and with the urgency with which need to be transitioning away from greenhouse-gas producing activities and specifically the actual points that substantiate the IPCC's declaration that we are in a Climate Emergency.
Taking advantage of the resulting uncertainty, a growing and vociferous section of New Zealand society is exercising its freedom of thought and expression to make assertions that are predicated on a denial of the science of climate change and using the inherent complexity and lack of easy-to-refer-to-examples that make the scientific conclusions obvious to hold sway over the narrative within their communities and their peers. This new 'received wisdom' must be challenged and its deficiencies must be exposed.
These people will oppose, dismiss, denigrate and ridicule every attempt that is made to address climate change .
At $3 per litre petroleum equates to 1.7 % of the $172 earned over an 8 hour day on the minimum wage of $21.50 per hour.
This artificially low pricing level encourages the profligately wasteful burning of this extremely valuable energy source ( at something like NZ$25million per day.) and has enabled a culture that takes its mobility for granted but which is making no provision for anything but the perpetuation of the status quo. ... More motorways. More dependence on oil, more vulnerability created by that dependence.
We are totally dependent on and vulnerable to our relationship with the outside world for our main energy source.. This is strategically extremely dangerous.
At every stage, from planning, to building and to its being used - a comprehensively extensive network of fully electrified double-tracked railways within and between our population centres and out into and around the regions will provide economic, social , environmental benefits and will ensure that New Zealand is able to function in the event that our access to the fossil fuels on which we totally depend are affected due to circumstances beyond our control.
It is imperative that the case for inter-regional passenger rail is seen to be substantiated , verifiable and logically consistent according to the value it provides to New Zealand's long-term strategic security AND to its value as the means by which New Zealanders will be able to maintain their mobility as fossil fuels become increasingly unaffordable.
This case must be communicated through our media.
We must identify and promote the benefits and opportunities that investing in inter-regional passenger rail will open up.
Inter-regional passenger rail can be dismissed as a 'nice to have' luxury when we don't really need it - but it will be an absolute necessity when we do - and we inevitably will.
Our way of thinking must change.
The approach to the provision of inter-regional passenger rail must undergo a total paradigm shift from being thought of as being a 'nice to have'
- given existing conditions in which the price of a litre of fuel equates to only 1.72% of a day's earnings of a worker on the minimum wage
- to being the alternative infrastructure that the people of New Zealand, a remote island nation, can not live without.
Inter-regional passenger rail is a strategic necessity .
It is imperative that we proactively invest in and build this network while we have the wherewithal, the expertise and the resources instead of waiting to find ourselves scrambling re-actively having to resort to using the existing totally insufficient , run down and broken infrastructure.
Funding for Inter-regional passenger rail must be derived from levies against fossil fuels - as has been done with funding for road-building projects.
Legislation to enable this must be drafted, put through select committees and enacted.
The people of New Zealand must continually be reminded of WHY we need to be doing what we are doing - and of the benefits that this investment is bringing.
The scientific community needs to be much more visible through our media to explain the scientific conclusions that substantiate the need for us to support the measures that ANY government of New Zealand is going to need to undertake to prioritise the funding for rail-based mass-transit infrastructure over the building of new roading projects - especially over those which are building roads alongside the existing roading network. ( i.e. Roads of 'National' Significance ).
The electrification of the existing rail network is imperative.
Prioritisation must be given to technologies that are not dependent for their operation and maintenance on imported components. i.e. battery operated systems.
Regional Councils and Local Territorial Authorities must ( be directed to ) update their information to quantify existing rail infrastructure in their areas and to identify existing rail infrastructure's proximity to existing and potential resources and infrastructure ( roading / water / electricity/ communications /food sources etc ) and to identify potential land-use opportunities along rail-corridors, especially for residential and commercial activities, and for the placement of stations - with parking areas for passengers and with sidings for freight loading / unloading.
Zoning to permit and encourage commercial and residential land-uses along rail corridors.
Re-establish 'moth-balled' ( e.g.The Stratford-Ohakura Line, The Dargaville Branch Line, the Napier to Gisborne Line Thames to Morrinsville Line etc )
Extend existing rail infrastructure ( e.g. From the North Auckland Line to the Oakleigh -Northport Rail Link, )
Complete previously surveyed but never built corridors ( Cromwell to Wanaka ) ( Lumsden to Te Anau ) .
and to complete connections with other sections of the lines ( Otiria to Kawakawa - to Opua Port ) (Tanetua to Gisborne ) .
Establish a network to communicate with the communities that are along the lines and elicit from them ideas that may not be obvious to outsiders.
Create a resource to provide information on the current situation with passenger rail throughout New Zealand, the history of inter-regional passenger rail , and to brainstorm ideas for the future.
Every opportunity to incorporate rail-based mass-transit into our motorways must be investigated, funding allocated and designed and built to complement existing transport networks. ( see Joondalup Line , Perth , Western Australia ).
Central Government must invest in the machinery to lease to engineering contractors to build tunnels, bridges and tracks ( see China )
If we were to carry out a cost-benefit analysis using existing indicators, the case for inter-regional passenger rail would be somewhat weak and easy for detractors to undermine.
If we were to carry out a cost-benefit analysis using indicators that would exist in the context of total societal and economic collapse due to restricted availability to fossil fuels, the case for inter-regional passenger rail will be irrefutable.
If we were to carry out a cost-benefit analysis using indicators based on the the projections being made by climate scientists, the case for investing in inter-regional passenger rail will be unavoidable.
If government insists on basing the cost-benefit analysis for inter-regional passenger rail on existing indicators , it is not going to be able to make the case to justify funding contracts.
Therefore it is imperative that a methodology be employed by which we make the cost-benefit analysis based from a hypothetical ( but totally plausible ) future. i.e. Long term strategic planning.
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contact Alan Preston in Mangawhai, Northland ( web-site) Tel: +64 9 4315389 .
e-mail @ e-mail:saveourrailnorthland@gmail.com
web-site:https://sites.google.com/site/saveourrailnorthland/home
facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/saveourrailnorthland/