Not So Good
It comes as no real surprise that the National government’s review of the council-based business case for a CBD rail loop has found that the council review vastly overstated the benefits. Rail enthusiasts will now all cast aspertions on this report, saying how the review has been loaded with anti-rail bias. More-or-less the opposite of the gung-ho rail enthusiasts in the last review, then.
The problem is that the quantified benefits of the rail system are all complete guesswork and the real benefit will probably lie somewhere in between. The new report has been very hard-nosed about benefits, while the previous report appeared to be the product of interesting pharmacology.
Neither business case impresses me much. It seems highly likely to me that the slow trend towards telecommuting will pick up rapidly, particularly with the new broadband initiative. It is therefore somewhat debateable as to whether the CBD will be anything like the business hub it is at present.
Having said that, I would quite like to see a monorail set up like the one in Sydney. I just can’t see it ever paying for itself.
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May 31 11 9:51 pm
It is therefore somewhat debateable as to whether the CBD will be anything like the business hub it is at present.
Part of the problem is of course that the CBD is at present a lot less the business hub many people think so. Only 15% of the city works there.
The other problem is that the green lobby successfully hobbled the original Britomart proposal (because it had car parks on top, and also because they didn’t understand that the structure of the transaction removed all risk for the council). Unsurprisingly, the compromise solution is… compromised.
scrubone´s last [type] ..Ha- they didn’t think of that!