A selfless editorial
March 4th, 2011 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarA very selfless editorial from the NZ Herald:
In the wake of the Christchurch earthquake a debate is developing about the merits of depriving other regions, notably Auckland, of development for the sake of Christchurch’s recovery.
In fact, there is no choice. Christchurch is one of the hubs of the national economy and the disruption of its normal activity will reduce economic activity nationwide. Its recovery is imperative and quite properly it will have first call on public investment for a good year or more.
The idea that boosting Auckland’s activity might enable the national economy to grow despite the earthquake is fanciful. Auckland’s infrastructure programmes are not gold discoveries; at best they are of incremental value to the economy.
They note:
In the wake of the earthquake, it seems clear the Auckland Council will have to forget about an inner-city rail loop if it wants this Government to fund it. That $2 billion proposition was already struggling to convince Transport Minister Steven Joyce that its business case was soundly based.
Members of the Auckland Council may be aggrieved that the centrepiece of their public transport plans may be sacrificed to the needs of Christchurch. …
If the Auckland Council dared to levy its own ratepayers for the bulk of the capital cost, its chances might be better still. But if the council continues to plead for national finance, it will find the Government more deaf than ever for a good while. The needs of Christchurch will take precedence over Auckland schemes, and properly so.
There will be two constraints on infrastructure spending outside Christchurch, which I agree must be the priority. One is fiscal – how much can one afford in any one year. But the more important constraint might be capacity – the construction industry is so big and can only handle so much work without leading to huge cost inflation. So some prioritisation in terms of timing may have to occur, and again Christchurch should win out.
Related posts:
- Herald fails Economics 101
- Editorial 28 June 2010
- Can anyone work out Labour’s position on Christchurch
- A confused editorial
March 4th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
How come there is so little debate over the merits of rebuilding Christchurch? What if another more powerful earthquake occurs in a couple of years and demolishes it again? It just may be that in common sense and economic terms, Christchurch is finished because it is in an earthquake prone area.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Good grief
Vote:I agree with Redbaiter
March 4th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
The Auckland inner city rail loop is a “Brown Elephant”. If it was a sensible idea, the council should put it out to tender, for a private company to build and operate.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
I find this bit slightly hard to stomach. The old council was ready to implement a regional petrol tax to help fund rail works within Auckland, but it was vetoed by Joyce and co. If Auckland is “plead[ing] for national finance”, then the central government must take part of the blame.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Napier is in an earthquake prone area.
Wellington is a disaster waiting to happen in an earthquake area.
NZ as a country is an earthquake prone area.
Kobe is an earthquake prone area.
Most of California is an earthquake prone area.
Should we abandon them all?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
“Should we abandon them all?”
So how many lives are you prepared to lose next time?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Redbaiter:
What a thoroughly idiotic thing to say. New Zealand — and the rest of the circum-Pacific seismic belt (AKA ‘The Ring of Fire’) is “prone” to earthquakes and volcanic activity. Apart from the sheer bad taste of musing about whether hundreds of thousands of people should just leave their homes and livelihoods to rot, why don’t have a national conversation about abandoning the whole damn country?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
So how many lives are you prepared to lose next time?
Perhaps, Redbaiter, you should be focusing your attention on not eroding building standards, taking lesson from this tragedy about how emergency services and civil defence infrastructure can be improved and the Herculean task of restoring basic services and infrastructure to people in desperate need. People, need I add, who don’t have the luxury of just walking away from their lives.
It would be nice to live in a world completely without risk – and where the natural world operated entirely for our comfort and convenience. But it’s not this one, Baiter.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Probably more along the lines of soft subsoil areas are completely unsuitable for rebuilding in the Chch area.
I think we do seriously need to debate the positioning of critical buildings or even entire areas if they are just going to repeatedly ‘break’.
It’s just that if we are stronger on sentiment than pragmatism the cost could be the economic ruin of us all.
If the (real) experts say it is o.k. to rebuild this and that here etc then so be it, but just to want to ‘make it like it was’ doesn’t seem to be realistic.
Rufus and Graigs non-argument extremist replies are unhelpful. Like kids who can’t cope with logic so make extreme statements to prove they were correct all along.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
No, if you can’t have perfection, you should give up. Well known fact. One location has earthquakes, abandon it. Another has volcanoes, abandon that. Another has floods, bush fires, tornadoes, droughts, malaria, tropical cyclones, storm surge. Abandon them all. Clearly we should only live in locations that are perfect.
Similarly, we should take the same approach to our politics. Some parties aren’t perfect, they don’t match every single line of my political beliefs. They get elected, and don’t immediately change every part of our social and economic life to match exactly what I want. Therefore, they are incompetent, communist, left losers. And we should abandon them. We are only prepared to vote for the perfect political party.
I think it is very important to judge all things against perfection. Comparing the actual options available in the real world, and picking the best of them, that would be compromising. Perfection or nothing.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Redbaiter – your comments are so ignorant it is hard to know where to start.
Firstly 1/2 of CHCH suffered no damage, about 1/4 only has moderate damage, with the other 1/4 suffering major damage. Most of the buildings that fell down were old brick buildings, nothing built after 1980 in the CBD fell down. Right next door to the CTV building is the IRD building and Les Mills, both new buildings and they are fine.
Yes there are areas of CHCH that probably should not be built on again, those areas that suffered lots of liquefaction damage and some hill areas, but it was no mystery that these areas would be badly damaged in a severe earthquake.
Please don’t watch the TV news and think the whole city has been reduced to rubble, it hasn’t and remember that over 80% of the buildings in the city (actually probably over 90%) have survived.
Any new buildings in CHCH need to be built capable or surviving the earthquakes we have just had and many of the buildings that survived need to be strengthened but the cost doing this would be minor, compared to the crazy idea of abandoning the city, as some have suggested.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Lance:
Oh, FFS. You’re damn right I’m pretty “extremist” about not telling dozens of friends and family that we should just forget about rebuilding Christchurch at all because it is “earthquake prone” when the whole country sits on the so-called Ring of Fire.
And when it comes to unhelpful non-arguments, I think we’re all perfectly well aware that rebuilding on land prone to turning into slush is not a good idea. When that gets walked out to a tasteless and flat out inaccurate assertion about the whole city, I must call bullshit.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Nice one, Lance – Rufus and Graigs non-argument extremist replies are unhelpful. Like kids who can’t cope with logic so make extreme statements to prove they were correct all along.
“non-argument”, “extremist”. Lovely way to engender respect towards your own contribution. Very mature.
Notice how Red used the word “Christchurch” – he was referring to abandoning the whole city. A ridiculous suggestion.
Take a good hard look at your 12:30 post, and compare it to Craig’s 12:25 post.
Craig suggests we try and learn from this earthquake, improve building codes and get on with building a better, more resilient City.
Your post at 12:30 suggests something similar, although you focus on land-use and zoning.
Way to go.
(Regarding “real experts” – they were the ones who approved the building of Chch in first place. They make that decision based on the knowledge they have at the time. Real experts now might make different decisions, based on new information learnt in this event. We all live and learn.)
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
This isn’t a selfless editorial, it’s an ignorant one.
Let’s get this straight. It is a CBD Rail tunnel. It won’t operate as a rail loop. It is a tunnel that will connect Mt Eden directly to Downtown Auckland, with stations at Symonds St, K’Rd, and Midtown. A trip from Kingsland to the middle of the city will take just 8 minutes. These sorts of time savings will be possible for trips from all stations on the Western line. Without the tunnel growth in public transport patronage will be limited by capacity within a few years.
Auckland’s population is expected to grow by a million people over the next 40 years. The CBD needs to grow and no other transport option will be able to support this. We know this because the $5m business case, which is dismissed out of hand by the Herald, established that alternative scenarios of private vehicles or buses won’t be able to cope with the demand. The BCR for the project is at least 3.5.
At best, construction of the CBD Rail tunnel won’t even start by 2016. There is therefore no excuse to stop the planning and designation work that needs to happen, which is relatively low cost. Transport blog covers this all in a far more informed manner than the Herald.
I haven’t heard this project (with a BCR of between 0.4 and 1.2, depending on which report you believe) or any of the RoNS are to be shelved. There has been no anaylsis on what the toll might be for Puhoi to Wellsford at this point. At this stage it is only going as far as Warkworth anyway and even this will only offer about a 6 minute time saving at a cost of nearly a billion dollars.
If there are any projects that should get the chop, or get delayed it should be the $10bn “Roads of National Significance”. Not because of the Christchurch earthquate, but because the current escalating petrol prices must surely mean that more roading capacity won’t be needed anytime soon.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
@Craig
No
I call bullshit on you and Rufus using the arument that if one suggests Chch situation needs serious consideration you retort with “why don’t have a national conversation about abandoning the whole damn country?”
Friggin silly statement designed to shut down debate.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
(1) Yes Christchurch is at risk of further earthquakes, next year, tomorrow or even right now. But that is also true of Wellington, Dunedin, Hamilton and Auckland. And uninhabited places like Fiordland. Living in New Zealand is dangerous, Chch is not unique.
(2)
It is **NOT** news that Chch is an earthquake-prone site, the structural design standards have for decades recognised that potential earthquake ground accelerations in Chch are similar to Wellington, and the buildings are designed accordingly.
(3)
The expected strength of earthquake shaking in Auckland (should a quake occur there tomorrow or even right now) is less than for Wellington or Christchurch, and as a consequence buildings there are designed with proportionally less earthquake resisting strength, because construction materials are very expensive and our supply of money is not limitless.
(4)
Vote:In summary, Christchurch is the most seismically at-risk place in New Zealand… Except for much of the rest of the country which is just the same.
March 4th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I have to say in 1988, Christchurch was an exciting, electrifying city for me.
Went back in 1997, it started to die, energy wise.
Like the candle was nearly burned out.
Went there on a skiing trip in 2000, all was cool but noticed some odd things, just there for a couple of days.
In 2002 passed through it was OK but never felt the same energy.
In 2005, I went back to live there, seemed something was missing.
In 2009, it seemed the city was dead.
I dunno, the feeling of CHCH has always been changeable for me.
How about you?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
What doesn’t seem to be mentioned, instead reverting to emotive issues, is the marginal cost/benefit of the projects. Auckland has basic services, so restoring these in Christchurch will yield a greater result (economically) and will make peoples lives better (compared with simply ‘more convenient’). If the road network is buggered, and you have no water or electricity in your house, things aren’t just a matter of the train being crowded or late. This doesn’t mean that Auckland shouldn’t have infrastructural upgrades, but Christchurch has a significantly greater cost/benefit situation for national finances and can justify basic humanitarian requirements before it’s even talking about having a slightly better railway system. Again, not advocating against Auckland, but it all seems emotive couched in hard facts. By comparison, I agree with DPF: if local councils want to launch grand new projects (such as the ideas of light rail in Wellington), then let them pay for it at the moment. Right now Christchurch requires simple rebuilding, not just making things ‘better’.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Lance,
Red suggested leaving Chch as is because it’s prone to further earthquakes.
If you go by that logic, you might as well abandon NZ because the whole country is prone to earthquakes.
This is so illogical, very few would propose it.
Others are suggesting rebuilding Chch, using the best information we have at hand. I fall into this camp. So does Craig. So do you (I think).
You’re getting the flow of this conversation a bit mixed up.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
@Bobbie Black – that has probably got more to do with you growing older than anything about CHCH changing.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Any reason it has to be the NZ construction industry? If it saved money and time could get an excellent team of high quality Koreans in who manage to build most things on time, to a high standard and at a decent price. Perhaps they could do transmission gully at the same time.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
@YesWeDid, yeah, but then I have always hated Auckland and Madrid gave me a hard-on in 1998, and Beijing blew me away for nearly ten years.
Cities have their energies it seems.
But yes, it is a valid point and one I myself ponder consistently.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Subjective.
But I have a mate who is unlikely to leave with his family away from CHCH.
I say leave now!
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
No need to bring in South Koreans, Mike Lee thinks our large pool of unemployed can do all the construction work, never mind skills give that woman a shovel
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
“If you go by that logic, you might as well abandon NZ because the whole country is prone to earthquakes.”
So how many other cities have been demolished twice?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
@Redbaiter – give up mate you have lost the argument.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Yeswedid demonstrating so keenly why Kiwblog is where all the intellectuals gather.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
So how many other cities have been demolished twice?
Vote:San Francisco?
March 4th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
@Redbaiter – considering the amount of posts you have made what does that say about you?
Honestly Redbaiter, adults are talking here, just disappear for awhile.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Gee, San Francisico in NZ? Never heard of it.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
If Chch is abandoned and left to ruin, where do all the Chch residents go?
Answer: Somewhere else in New Zealand that might equally fall victim to a great earthquake tomorrow / next week / next year.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Mr Farrar- Yeswedid’s comments breach your commenting rules on two grounds, 1) off topic, 2) personal attacks. This should earn him about 20-40 demerits.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
@Redbaiter – and what’s you comment at 1:28pm?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
What a pathetic, infantile appeal to rightist autocratic authority redbaiter. Like all fascits, you appeal to blunt power when reason fails. Let me guess – you felt great that first time you pushed someone over at kindy to get their trolly, and ever since you have strived to attain that original high. Like all rightists, you lust for the sadistic wielding of power of others. Scum.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Shit
Vote:I am no fan of Redbaiter but ‘magic bullet’ is being a dick.
Seriously dude that last post is unhinged.
March 4th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Hmm. I’ve never particularly liked Chch. But seems incredibly indelicate at this stage to be suggesting to people that we abandon Chch. Yes, there should be a discussion about what bits of Chch we rebuild, and how, what building standards are now appropriate. But I can’t see any likelihood that abandoning Chch would be a good idea.
I also think that it makes sense to rebuild a little slowly. What I mean by that is that if you build 25% of the CBD all in one go, you get a bunch of same-same buildings and usually not much of excitement. Whereas if you make some green space for a while (parks/lawns), and build what we can build now, then over the next 15 years in fill the gaps with high quality and interesting buildings. In 20-30 years, the residents of Chch will thank us.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
‘So how many other cities have been demolished twice?’
I wasn’t aware that Chch had been demolished twice. Was there a few weeks ago. It certainly didn’t look demolished to me. Your definition of demolished must differ from others.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Red – you gotta know when to stop. I generally like you contributions, but you never know when to give in, or give up. No-one is right all the time.
As for “So how many other cities have been demolished twice?” – this is an irrelevant question.
Christchurch has not been demolished.
Yes, it has suffered a whole lot of damage, but for the most of it it’s still standing, and living conditions, while uncomfortable, are better than for the majority of the world’s population.
Trust me, I live here.
Should we rebuild all of it, exactly as it was before? No. That would be silly, since we now know more about what works and where.
But to suggest we abandon the place is lunacy.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Um Lance – either you haven’t read much of redbaiter’s crap, or you don’t know parody when you see it.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Red @ 1:40pm. I thought DPF had told you about 10 times what the procedure is for reporting a comment. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve whinging on the thread. Did you also follow that procedure, and just comment to let us know you’re unhappy, or are you ignoring the procedure whilst loudly complaining about how the demerits are never given?
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
@ magic
To be fair… I gave up a long time ago, didn’t use RIP but just jumped over.
Bugger… caught in a parody. Out of touch today, my excuse is it’s Friday
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Lance:
“Friggin silly statement designed to shut down debate”? First, turn your psychic abilities to something useful — like telling me the Lotto numbers this week. Second, the only person who can “shut down” anything on Kiwiblog is Mr. Farrar banning commentators or closing a thread/not opening it in the first place. All of which he very rarely does. So don’t be a silly little drama queen. Baiter made a rather absurd general statement which I shot show, and while YMMV I think I was right to do so.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Rufus – spot on.
My parents own a 1970s brick & tile (actually Oamaru stone bricks, don’t you know?) house in Russley, not a scratch after the September 2010 quake, and still not a scratch even now after the 22/2/11 quake.
Rebuilding Chch will be a repair operation, not the construction of an entire new city.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Fair enough Lance. I wonder if redbaiter understood the parody, or perhaps he jumped in the excitement of thinking that there is someone else out there like him? We may never know.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
There’s nothing selfless about this editorial, as others have noted.
It is written by John Roughan, who has a pathological dislike of any kind of public transport but especially trains and trams, and uses every opportunity to expound his hatred of them.
At Christmas time, when the trains were briefly replaced by buses so works for the electrification could be done, he wrote an editorial claiming that the bustitution (at the quietest time of the year) proved trains were not needed and could be done away with.
Some years ago, both of us were on a journalists’ study tour of Switzerland. At one stage we boarded a Geneva tram together. John was horrified at it because he saw immediately how efficient a tram is. In his ego he even demanded I not return to New Zealand and say trams were good.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
poneke: I’m surprised to see you pointing out someone else’s axe to grind!! I thought you were a bit of a bus-spotter yourself (if there is such a thing).
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
At Christmas time, when the trains were briefly replaced by buses so works for the electrification could be done, he wrote an editorial claiming that the bustitution (at the quietest time of the year) proved trains were not needed and could be done away with.
Did he? What a numpty – my partner works for Veolia (who has the contract to run Auckland’s passenger network) and it took months of rather careful negotiation with bus companies to make sure there were busses and drivers available over and above their own (reduced holiday) services. Usually, finding emergency bus coverage for cancelled services is a nightmare. Then again, it’s always a crap-shoot whether any given John Roughan column is going to be incredibly thoughtful or dumb as a sack of hammers.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
“Redbaiter (13,197) Says:
March 4th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
How come there is so little debate over the merits of rebuilding Christchurch? What if another more powerful earthquake occurs in a couple of years and demolishes it again? It just may be that in common sense and economic terms, Christchurch is finished because it is in an earthquake prone area.”
RB you have come up with some asinine comments in the past but this one is up there as one of your more ridiculous comments.
Vote:March 4th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Did he? What a numpty
Yes. Here is the link:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10696906
Editorial: Rail shutdown casts doubt on service’s value
Wednesday Dec 29, 2010
It may be wondered why the city is getting an upgraded rail service’. If Aucklanders returning to work today have taken to commuting by train they are in for a surprise. No trains have been running in Auckland since Christmas Day. None. The entire service has been taken off the rails until at least January 10 so work can be done on the long-running electrification and upgrading of the network. This must be KiwiRail’s idea of a joke.
Not far from the railway, the Newmarket motorway viaduct is being replaced. The project has been engineered in a way that has enabled the bridge to be demolished and rebuilt in sections with minimal disruption to traffic on the busiest stretch of state highway in New Zealand.
Where roads are concerned, we take it for granted that surfaces can be replaced, repaired and maintained without entire thoroughfares being taken out of commission. In severe cases of disruption, such as in Quay St where new power and phone lines are being laid this summer, we complain. But when rail services are suspended, we raise hardly a whimper.
Maybe rail commuters are all on holiday at this time of year, or maybe those working are just as happy to take the buses that Auckland Transport has arranged.
In that case, it may be wondered why the city is getting an upgraded rail service to run at untold operating losses, if buses can do the same job.
Rail freight services to and through the Auckland region have also been suspended for the next few weeks. Trucks will pick up rail cargoes at Pukekohe. Residents of eastern Pukekohe will have about 10 trucks an hour through the town which will be mightily unpleasant.
But KiwiRail’s electrification project manager was surely joking when he said Pukekohe’s experience would give a valuable demonstration of what New Zealand roads would be like in the absence of freight trains. Rail’s share of all freight tonnage transported in New Zealand nowadays is roughly 6 per cent.
It is good for long-distance bulk shipments of coal and the like, to a port. But it cannot compete with road transport for the diverse, door-to-door deliveries that make up 73 per cent of freight movements. The same is true of urban passenger transport. In a city such as Auckland, trains will struggle to attract more than a small percentage of daily commuters, those who live near a station and work or study in the city centre.
The case for upgrading rail rests on assumptions that it will attract many more people to live near a station or become employers in the CBD. It is a gamble the Auckland Council is willing to take with the Government’s money. “Build it”, say our civic visionaries, “and commuters will come”.
They point to the growth in rail passengers since the Britomart terminal was built. But it was apparent to early assessors of the business plan for rail project that it would probably draw passengers from certain bus routes rather than increase public transport patronage overall. That impression is reinforced by the ease with which buses have been substituted for trains during this rail shutdown.
The council-controlled agency Auckland Transport should be aggrieved at KiwiRail’s clumsy project management. A total shutdown is surely not necessary for bridges to be raised to make room for electricity lines, or for other work on the tracks. This is not the first summer shutdown of the project and there is no assurance it will be the last. It is merely the most extensive.
It may have been timed for the quietest weeks of the year but passenger rail services in other places do not close down completely in these circumstances. They find ways to keep running. They realise their survival depends on being frequent and reliable. They have made themselves essential. Auckland’s railway remains hard to take seriously.
Vote:March 5th, 2011 at 12:35 am
For my 2 drunken cents I say wait 6 months before entrusting the CHCH CBD with rejuvenation. Partly I think insurance should pay rebuild costs and an aftershock doesn’t usually enable a new claim, it’s somewhat favourable that the latest quake is classed as a new quake for insurance purposes or there would be reduced payouts. But also I think the CBD must necessarily shift geographically, probably west. I’ve been involved with several business relocations in the last week and they’re all moving to premises outside the cordon, mostly to the west, often near the airport. And everyone is hurrying, I’ve heard of auctioning leases, basically the agent selling the lease to the highest bidder, because of the scramble for new offices.
Vote:March 5th, 2011 at 3:31 am
There doesn’t need to be a public debate about rebuilding. We’re not a centrally-planned soviet state. Insurance should take care of it – before a developer considers building a high-rise in Christchurch they will know the cost of insurance. If the building can’t be built safely in that area then the insurance will be very high.
And the fact is, most modern buildings survived well. Exactly as you would expect.
Vote: