Tim Welch

So we already have some really high functioning, but very highly prescribed, so very heavy user busways.

So if we look at kind of the Northern Express, which is a really popular bus route into the city,

On peak times, those are running close to capacity on some of the runs into the city and then runs back out in the evening.

And the Western Express, which is newer, is also getting close to capacity.

But if we kind of zoom out as a whole, the system in Auckland runs at about what we call 44% utilization rate.

So the buses and trains, if we look, and ferries, if we look overall, are only about half full.

which is actually a good number.

It seems low, but it's a pretty good number when we look at public transport systems.

So when we get into the details, that's where things can get a bit hairy.

But overall, the system does have capacity.

Well, that's the ideal is that every person that gets out of their car, especially on a morning or evening commute, and gets onto a train or gets on the bus, gets on a ferry, is one less car on the road.

And in aggregate, those can have a meaningful effect on the speed of public transportation, especially on buses that often sit in traffic.

So anything that helps get people out of their cars and

free up those roads even a little bit can help.

But we also already have the infrastructure in place in many areas like bus lanes, but they don't operate as efficiently as they could.

They're not as well connected into a single network that could really move buses very quickly.

So there's a lot of things we could do on kind of the system side of things that's not just making it cheaper for people to get on public transport to begin with.

Yeah, the issue of money is somewhat interesting because we seem to have an endless stream of cash available to build out highways that have questionable returns associated with them.

And I'm talking specifically about

The current and future list of roads of national significance, we're talking billions and billions to the point where central government doesn't want to share the cost benefits associated with those roads because they probably don't look great, even with kind of very favorable terms in the BCR.