Failure to assess all the impacts - Newtown to City Connections Part One

Background

There is a lot of talk about “evidence-based” transport policy, typically as a criticism of some of the policies of the current Minister of Transport, Hon. Simeon Brown.  Certainly the more evidence behind public policy the better, although that evidence should be carefully refined and assessed as to its relevance. Unfortunately, there are instances of what appears to be either deliberate or negligent failure to gather evidence to support highly contentious policy initiatives. I’m going to highlight one that deserves greater consideration, and which as a result, both undermines the case for the initiative (because the omission of evidence gives reasons to doubt its effectiveness) and also calls into question the objectives behind the initiative.  The case study is the introduction of cycle lanes and bus lanes in Wellington on a key southern corridor.

Newtown to City Connections

Depiction of the southern corridor between hospital and Basin Reserve and Basin and Wakefield Street

The project is titled “Newtown to City Connections” and Wellington City Council (WCC) released a report on 19 September 2024 called the “Monitoring and Evaluation Report” (“the Report”). The project consists of:

• 24/7 bus lanes installed northbound on Riddiford Street from Hall Street to John Street.

• 24/7 bus lanes installed in both directions on Adelaide Road from John Street to Rugby Street.

• Extending bus lane operating hours on Cambridge and Kent Terraces to/from the Basin Reserve to 7 days a week 0700-1900.

• Separated cycle lanes installed on the Riddiford and Adelaide Road sections, and installation of a two-way cycleway on Cambridge Terrace and a short segment of Kent Terrace between the Basin Reserve and Wakefield Street.

What isn’t mentioned is that it also includes removal of the following:

• Halving of general traffic capacity on Riddiford Street to Hall Street northbound (but not southbound which retains two lanes for all traffic)

• Removal of carparks on Riddiford Street western side and on Adelaide Road on both sides

• Reduction of general traffic capacity on Cambridge Tce by 50-66% depending on the time of day

• Reduction of general traffic capacity on Kent Terrace from Cable Street to Elizabeth Street by a third.

The image below illustrates how two general traffic lanes and parking were altered to one general traffic lane, a 24/7 bus lane and a cycle lane on Riddiford Street northbound.

Before and after of northbound cycle and 24/7 bus lanes on Riddiford Street

The project was only $4.6m in cost because it was largely about signs and lines and some physical barriers on the road network, along with some new traffic signals, although one might question the quality of road lining in places (old road lines are still highly visible and confusing), but that is beside the point. It is touted as a low cost roadspace reallocation from general traffic towards buses and bicycles. The real issue around costs is not the construction costs, but the trade off of costs and benefits between all road users, unfortunately there hasn't been enough of an evaluation of impacts (or if there has, it has not been published).

The case for implementing such reallocations is typically about giving priority to some modes over others, and for cyclists primarily to address safety issues, in particular preventing serious and fatal crashes. The effect of the latter will be to encourage more to cycle, hopefully reducing congestion from car driving but also in some cases overcrowding on public transport (London was primarily about the latter).

 The problems to be solved and expected outcomes for such a project should be:

• Reducing traffic congestion, travel times and consequently improving trip reliability for buses.

• Reducing the incidence of fatal and serious cycling accidents.

• Reducing general traffic congestion by inducing modal shift from car driving to bus riding or cycling sufficient to offset any negative impacts on general traffic.

• Increasing the attractiveness of the corridors for pedestrians and retail/service/hospitality oriented businesses to offset any negative impacts of removal of carparks.

Unfortunately the Report published by WCC appears to have only provided some partial assessment of impacts and leaves some big questions unanswered. These are questions that should be answered.  It should also be answered as to why a complete picture has not been provided.

This blogpost is in two parts. 

This first part focuses on the critical issues that are not adequately addressed in the Report and what WCC should do about it. The second is a review of the report contents itself, which are frankly not particularly enlightening.

Key issues

As the cost of this project in capital terms is relatively low, compared to other road infrastructure works, the big questions are the ones noted in the bullets above.  Given the project is primarily about reallocating road space from moving general traffic and parked vehicles, towards buses and cycling, it ought to, at a bare minimum, result in a total reduction in transport user costs and hopefully reduce negative externalities, so that the value of the reduction of those costs is greater than the capital costs of the project. In reality, it should mean those facing any increases in costs (e.g, those looking for a car park or general traffic more generally) should have those costs more than offset by the value of the benefits to those facing reductions in costs, as well as society as a whole through lower negative externalities. 

It should work like this:

• Travel times for buses should be shorter or less variable (so that timetables are met reliably) compared to before, and this should be especially so outside peak times (as there were already peak bus lanes on two out of three of the road segments). 

• Travel times for general traffic should ideally be no worse than before as a minimum (because the reallocated road space was underutilised), and ideally better (if modal shift occurs).

• The incidence of fatal and serious injury crashes should drop, particularly for cyclists given the focus of the project, but also crashes for pedestrians and motor vehicle (including bus) occupants should at least be no worse, and ideally be better.

• Counts of pedestrians along the corridor should increase, offsetting the loss of car parks, as a broad proxy for enhanced opportunities for retail.

Unfortunately, there is only sparse data on any of this, and none on some of these factors.

What do we know?

1. Travel times for buses have increased (see the Figure below from The Report). This is attributed to increase boardings, but although data on bus patronage indicates a large increase over two years, this also parallels growth in demand across the network due to the end of the pandemic. January-July 2022 the country was in Red and Orange status under the traffic light system, so a 69% increase in patronage is not surprising, particularly as in January-July 2022 some weeks saw around 10% of the Number 1 bus route not even operating.  Introducing bus lanes should more than offset increased boardings, but even then, why wasn’t data used to compare patronage and travel times pre-pandemic? 

2. In the eight years from 2016 until 2023, there were no fatal crashes (see the Figure below from The Report), in three years no serious crashes and in two years one, in two years two and in one year three serious crashes. In no year were there more than nine minor crashes.There has been no discernible impact on injury/fatal crashes at all from the works, but clearly perceptions of safety for cyclists have improved understandably, but not for other road users.

What don’t we know?

1. There is no data reported on travel times for general traffic. It would seem extraordinary that travel times have not increased, particularly on Riddiford Street and Cambridge Terrace, but WCC is either not collecting that data or not reporting on it. If there has been no increase or a decrease then this should be something to show off, but if it has increased significantly, then this is a cost on not just car traffic, but also commercial traffic for deliveries and business traffic. 

2. There is no data on any changes in modal use of the corridors. This would ideally require surveying both cycling and bus users, but also count pedestrians and car traffic. If there was modal shift, it would be worth reporting, but if not then what is the benefit of reallocating road space?

3. There is no data on pedestrian counts, which might be a useful measure of people accessing retail or service businesses by modes other than cars, given the removal of car parks.

So the actual impacts of this project, in the whole, are unclear. At best it appears it increased cycling trips, but we don’t know where they came from. It is unclear if it has impacted on bus trips, but we don’t know if they were a shift by mode or new trips.

At worst, it is plausible that the bus lanes had no impact on bus travel times, because they two of the three improvements were extending hours beyond peak times, or (as it more plausible) the queues of general traffic northbound on Rintoul and Riddiford Streets due to the congestion of the single northbound lane (on a road with two southbound lanes) have more than offset the benefits of the bus lane. It's fairly obvious that a road with only one northbound lane and two southbound lanes for general traffic would suffer congestion northbound.

Indeed at 4.40pm on a Friday, this screenshot from Google Maps illustrates this. Traffic is slow on the northbound side backing up to the two lane northbound segment from Rintoul to Hall Street and further into Riddiford Street further south.

Indeed the intersection that the Report cites as having much higher cycling traffic has considerable congestion (see above), including in the directions with no bus lanes. If this work has not saved time for buses, then questions need to be asked as to the impacts on general traffic (and as a result, local air quality). Clearly there is not enough modal shift onto cycling to offset this.

It is clearly plausible that the travel times for general traffic on Riddiford Street, Adelaide Road and Cambridge Terrace have worsened with the reallocation of road space. In other words, congestion has increased and possibly noxious emissions as well. It may also be plausible that the reduction in car parks has negatively impacted local businesses, but this is much less clear, given there are so many factors affecting these businesses.

Conclusion

There are significant gaps in analysis that make it not at all possible to assess whether this project has made a net positive contribution to the costs of travel along this corridor for all users or indeed the costs to society as a whole.

It is clear that cyclists have benefited and there is more cycling, but it is unclear whether these are just new trips, or people have shifted from driving cars (or walking, or riding buses). WCC didn’t collect that data.

Pedestrians do not seem to have benefited at all (indeed if congestion is worse, it may have worsened air quality for them). Bus passengers may or may not have benefited, as travel times haven’t improved. General traffic almost certainly has lost, so this means everyone travelling by car, but also freight and commercial traffic (e.g. plumbers) and this includes traffic to and from the hospital. It may also have impacted on retail, but there isn’t enough evidence on this. 

Surely advocates of this sort of project ought to also advocate for more data to be collected. If this project is to be defended, it should be on the basis that the benefits of it are worth the costs.  If worsening general traffic congestion is seen as a good thing, then the advocates should defend this position and say it is part of a process to encourage behaviour change.  

Wellington has multiple projects like this (see Thorndon Quay, Karori, Thorndon). There is a real risk more of these projects won't proceed at all, or may even be reversed if there is not full transparency as to the benefits and costs of these projects. Failure to provide this fuels an unnecessary culture war, as advocates regard critics as wanting "cyclists killed" or "denying climate change", while opponents see it as a "war on cars" that "benefits a tiny minority".

I would hope that there might be some consistent, clear and open evaluation of impacts that is transparent about different impacts on different network users.  Concealing or failing to evaluate impacts on some road users (particularly those who motoring taxes help pay for these projects) is quite simply very poor public policy, and does not help promote public acceptability or trust in decision makers.

If Wellington, or indeed any city, wants to advance projects that controversially take road space from some road users to benefit others, there should be robust analysis underpinning it. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that the Newtown to City Connection project has that at all.