How Christchurch can build light rail — and create the centres it needs in the process

by Peter Newman

This article was first published in the book Once in a lifetime: city-building after disaster in Christchurch (Freerange Press 2014).

Professor Peter Newman (born 1945) is Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and from 2008 to 2014 a board member of Infrastructure Australia. Peter is best known internationally for popularising the term ‘automobile dependence’ in the second half of the 1980s. He is author of numerous publications on sustainable cities and a lead author for Transport on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). He was an Erskine Fellow at University of Canterbury in 2013.

I have been coming to Christchurch and talking about light rail since the 1980s — not long after we began to win the same battle in my hometown. Christchurch obviously wanted light rail but couldn’t quite pull it off financially. Now we have a new opportunity as Christchurch recreates itself following the earthquake. I also now know a lot more about how it can be financed using land value capture.

Global trends

The challenge for urban transport and sustainable development is to radically reduce resource consumption and a centre’s ecological footprint whilst improving the liveability of cities. This seems rather daunting but the data from most developed cities suggests that the transition has begun. The peaking of car use, the rapid growth in public transport, bicycling and walking, and the regeneration of central areas all suggest that a major transformation to reduce car dependence is underway. [1]

Jeff Kenworthy and I first coined the term ‘automobile dependence’ in 1989 in our book Cities and Automobile Dependence, which investigated 32 global cities. We have expanded this survey to all parts of the world including Christchurch. Twenty-five years later, the parameters are all showing that automobile dependence has begun to decline and perhaps we are witnessing its demise. [2] The one hundred year growth in the use of the automobile in cities appears to have plateaued and then declined across the world’s developed cities. [3] The same patterns can be seen in New Zealand cities as shown in figure 1.

Demonstrations of how automobile cities are being restructured with rail transit are now being seen everywhere.This trend back to rail-based transit is perhaps to be expected in the relatively dense cities and countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. However, perhaps the more surprising trends have been in the traditional, car dependent cities of the US, Canada and Australia that once only considered bus transit suitable for their suburbs.They are now seeing a future based around rail. Perhaps this list could now include Christchurch.

Figure 1: Peak car use in New Zealand ( fig. by Newman, data sourced from Census NZ)

The need for a modern rail system is not just due to its transport system benefits but also its transformative force in reshaping urban centres.This has been recognised globally [4] with indications that public transport is a key element in ensuring a competitive city. [5]

Light rail attracts denser, mixed-use urban development that has less need for parking. It can therefore enable development in the city centre and along its route in sub-centres, including places like the University of Canterbury in Ilam. These denser centres are where real innovation in sustainability can be focused. It is where people-oriented urban design at street level begins to be meaningful. [6] Car-based suburbs and shopping centres are never going to be the basis of a sustainable and resilient city but with a vibrant city centre and an adjacent set of centres with a quality light rail linking them, then the suburbs and city centre can have a new life.

There is one fundamental that I believe about the city centre: it is going to need all the help it can get to revive. Investment does not come just because you plan the right zoning and say the words ‘please come, we are ready’. The redevelopment of the city centre is unlikely to have the market force it needs for establishing dense residential and commercial activity unless it is linked to a new light rail project.There is now a lot of global experience in city centres damaged not by earthquakes but by too much highway and suburban shopping centre development. [7] Most cities in the US and Australia have turned to rail projects that are magnets for urban development.The Gold Coast, Sydney, Canberra and Perth are all in various stages of developing new light rail lines that are closely linked to new urban developments. Melbourne of course has the world’s largest tram system and all new central area developments have trams built into them.

Can Christchurch do this? Probably not — unless we can find a new funding mechanism. In recent years our research team at CUSP (Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute) has been working on the new mechanism of land value capture.This mechanism ensures dense redevelopment is part of the integrated transport land-use financing package.The mechanism is now being adopted in the UK following many US cities and new data on how it can work in Perth suggests it is highly viable. A step-by-step approach will suggest how this can be achieved.

Why rail in Christchurch?

Rail is not just about transport; it is a city shaping mechanism, as outlined above. If a city wants to build up its central area and any sub-centres then
it links them together along a new light rail line. This has been a proven formula for many years in small towns throughout Europe and now towns
of all sizes in the US and Australia. In my own town of Perth rail has been transformative; it has gone from carrying 7 million passengers a year to 70 million and is seen as something of a model for how to get people out of cars in an automobile dependent city. [8] At the same time there has been a complete turn around in the fortunes of the Perth city centre. Once called Dullsville, it is now a thriving centre day and night.

Christchurch has a huge problem in attracting central area development and in creating real sub-centres that are not just shopping centres. Could a light rail help with this — not only providing a fast and comfortable transport service but at the same time enabling the city centre and sub-centres to attract mixed-use development?

Light rail

There are 545 cities with light rail, 118 of which have populations under 150,000. [9] This appears to suggest that a changing appreciation of the value of light rail in small cities has occurred.The change is probably associated with the shift in value associated with the trends in peak car use, fuel prices, urban traffic speed trends and urban economic and cultural changes as outlined in Newman et al. (2013). [10]

Perhaps the most significant trend in recent years in Australia (and America) has been the emergence of light rail as an issue in small car-dependent cities. Lobby groups in Australia have been actively pushing the political case for light rail in Canberra, Hobart, Bendigo, Darwin, Newcastle,

Cairns, the Sunshine Coast and Parramatta (although embedded within Sydney, it is like a small town, as it would need to be an independent and isolated system servicing a local population, not unlike the other smaller cities). These cities are mostly well under 300,000 people, Canberra being the largest at a little over 300,000. Similar trends have been observed in the US. [11]

The question needs to be asked whether light rail is likely to be a viable option for these small cities, since the traditional approach would suggest
it was not. Buses have long been considered the only viable public transport option for small cities. However, the above dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of light rail may be indicating that a new era of desirability and viability for light rail in small cities is emerging.The case for these cities
to be considered suitable for light rail is based on an understanding of
what is likely to be causing the trends outlined above in traditionally car-dominated cities, as well as some new options for assessing and funding light rail in such cities.

Figure 2: Light rail in Canberra (a smaller city than Christchurch) is about to happen after twenty years of discussion; it is based on a value capture funding scheme.

New approaches to funding rail through value capture

Rail infrastructure increases land value due to its accessibility benefits. This increase in financial value can be captured and used to help fund the infrastructure. A four-step process can work in the following way:

1. Accessibility benefits analysis. This will demonstrate the land area where owners will benefit most from the new infrastructure.
2. Land value data collection of the difference between those areas varying in accessibility. This can be around 20–25 per cent for residential land values and over 50 per cent for commercial land values. Along Perth’s Southern Rail line the value of land went up 42 per cent over the first five years after the announcement and then building of the railway. [12]
3. Assessment of the various potential financing mechanisms available in the city through public and private value capture. There is likely to be government land that could be contributed to the package being delivered to raise funds. This active fund raising is done in cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo. American cities, and recently London and Manchester, use a way of tapping into private land adjacent to train stations whereby the increased land value from the train translates into increased land-based rates and taxes; these are then ‘ring fenced’ into a special Transit Fund. In the Perth case study we found that 80 per cent of the cost of building the Southern Rail could have been raised using the value capture mechanism. [13]
4. Delivery through a planning mechanism, probably in a PPP (public-private partnership). The opportunity is there to use such Transit Funds as a way of bringing in private sector interests who have experience building new technology light rail in combination with land development. The local government could even consider seeking Expressions of Interest from consortia who could build, own and operate the system as well as design the value capture system that could help pay for the capital and operating costs.This intriguing possibility is being considered by a number of cities.
5. If rail is going to continue to grow and car use to decline then a range of sophisticated value capture mechanisms can be developed for each city to make the most of this opportunity for funding. Rail is getting off the welfare system that kept it alive for decades and is becoming a serious market in cities across the globe. In Manchester the next thirty years will see three new rail lines funded through this means. Christchurch needs to do a detailed assessment of its possibility.

Conclusions

Christchurch has some amazing grassroots innovations occurring that
are deeply impressive and suggest a great future for the city (see my film Christchurch: Resilient City). [14] But the basic structure of the city will remain car dependent and dominated by suburban centres unless a light rail can be brought to the city.There are many examples of small cities like Christchurch developing light rail and trends would suggest a future with many more cities doing this. The big question is how to fund it. Land value capture may be the way as it will help lock in the redevelopment of the city centre and some sub-centres along its corridor. Quality transit services attract people and hence urban development, thus opening up a mechanism for involving the private sector in creating the rail project. Can Christchurch take this new opportunity? Can it afford not to?

References

[1] Peter Newman, Jeffrey Kenworthy and Gary Glazebrook, “Peak Car Use and the Rise of Global Rail: Why This Is Happening and What It Means for Large and Small Cities,” Journal of Transporation Technologies 3 (2013): 272–287.

[2] Newman et al, “Peak Car Use,” 272–287.

[3] Benjamin Davis, Tony Dutzik and Phineas Baxandall,Transportation and the New Generation: Why Young People Are Driving Less and What It Means for Transportation Policy (Washington D.C.: Frontier Group
& U.S. PIRG Education Fund, 2012); Brookings Institution Metropolitan Program, “The Road . . . Less Traveled: An Analysis of Vehicle Miles Traveled Trends in the U.S.,” Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Series (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008); Steve Melia, “A Future Beyond the Car: Editorial Introduction,” World Transport Policy and Practice 17, no.4 (2011): 3–6; David Gargett, “Traffic Growth: Modelling a Global Phenomenon,” World Transport Policy and Practice 18.4 (2012): 27–45; Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, “’Peak Car Use’: Understanding the Demise of Automobile Dependence,” World Transport Policy and Practice 17, no.3 (2011): 31–42.

[4] Tim Beatley and Peter Newman, Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning from Sustainable Communities in Australia (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2009); Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1999).

[5] Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, “’Peak Car Use,” 31–42.

[6] Jan Gehl, Cities for People (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2010).

[7] Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence.

[8] James McIntosh, Peter Newman and Gary Glazebrook, “Why Fast Trains Work: An Assessment of a Fast Regional Rail System in Perth, Australia,” Journal of Transportation Technologies 3 (2013): 37–47.

[9] Peter Newman, Jeffrey Kenworthy and Gary Glazebrook, “Peak Car Use and the Rise of Global Rail,” 272–287.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Glen D. Bottoms, “Continuing Developments in Light Rail Transit in Western Europe: United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy,” 9th National Light Rail Conference (Portland: Transportation Research Board and APTA, 2003).

[12] James McIntosh, Peter Newman, Roman Trubka and Jeffrey Kenworthy (forthcoming), “Framework for Land Value Capture From the Investment in Transit in Car Dependent Cities,” Journal Of Land Use and Transport.

[13] McIntosh et al., “Framework for Land Value Capture,” forthcoming.

[14] Tim Beatley, Linda Blagg and Peter Newman, Christchurch: Resilient City, video, 49 minutes, 2014, https://vimeo. com/90474333.