Auckland City Centre Rail Link - Business Case Review - Ministry of ...

Auckland City Centre Rail Link Business Case Review | May 2011
1.3 Purpose, origins and scope of the Business Case
Given existing congestion around the CBD and expectations of increased activity and
employment within the CBD, the Business Case examined the benefits the project
would provide by increasing passenger rail access to the CBD. The project is seen
by Auckland Council as an important component of a package of measures required
to support and promote growth in the productivity of the CBD and its social amenity,
and as such to contribute to Auckland‘s growth as a whole.
The background to the Business Case is important to understanding its timing and
content.
On 1 May 2008 the Minister of Finance under the previous government, wrote to the
chair of NZ Railways Corporation (now part of KiwiRail) stating:
“In my view it is in the long term public interest to secure and protect the CBD
tunnel route, even though construction may not take place for many years...it is
appropriate for ONTRACK to assist in the protection of the CBD tunnel route by
acting to protect the route at the earliest appropriate opportunity”.
This request was a response to the former Auckland City Council‘s granting of a nonnotified
consent for a property development which could have compromised the
future construction of the proposed tunnel. The route has no formal designation
although it is mentioned in a range of planning documents.
In June 2009, following an open procurement process between the Auckland
Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) and KiwiRail, KiwiRail gave approval for a
contract to be signed with a consortium of Aecom, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Beca
(APB&B) for the investigation and design of the CCRL. KiwiRail and ARTA shared
the costs of the Business Case and the NZTA provided a 60 percent subsidy for
ARTA‘s share of costs. The objective of the study was to ―produce Notice of
Requirement documentation of a quality sufficient to support designation of the
route‖.
Assessment of various CCRL route options and the number and locations of stations
was undertaken from August 2009 to February 2010, when the preferred option was
approved by ARTA and KiwiRail and endorsed by the former Auckland Regional
Council, the Auckland City Council and the Auckland Regional Transport Committee.
Subsequently in July 2010, following an initial business case stakeholder workshop 3
in May, APB&B‘s brief for the Business Case was extended to undertake a review of
the CBD demographic trends and associated transport demands over the next 30
years, together with an assessment of possible options for meeting these demands.
The evolution and timing of the Business Case‘s development has meant that it does
not contain some core elements set out in the NZTA‘s Economic Evaluation Manual
(EEM) and the Treasury‘s Business Case guidelines (see www.infrastructure.govt.nz/
publications/betterbusinesscases), which are requirements that need to be
addressed before funding can be considered by the government. These most notably
relate to the lack of a broad problem definition (the whole transport challenge facing
the CBD) and the consequential full investigation of alternatives. This is not an area
of disagreement between central government agencies and Auckland Council and
Auckland Transport but reflects the changing pattern of expectations of this work
3 The workshop was attended by representatives of the Treasury, the Ministry of Transport, and the NZTA as well as
the former Auckland Regional and Auckland City Councils,
10