Land use and transport integration

• Transport and regional growth
• Transport and density
• Implementation progress and challenges
• Evaluation of the growth strategy

Transport and regional growth

The location and nature of land use is a key factor in determining the region's transport needs, while transport systems can both facilitate and reinforce development patterns and provide for quality, liveable places. Together land use and transport are "city shaping".

The Regional Land Transport Strategy and related action plans and investment strategies propose continued and increased investment in the passenger transport network, to support a compact urban form. They also focus on supporting measures to manage demand and to encourage more sustainable travel behaviour.

Transport and density

Rapid passenger transport services (by train or bus) work best and most efficiently where large numbers of people can easily access the services. Focussing higher density residential development within and near town centres on the passenger transport network will increase transport choices for many people and enable them to access a wide range of employment opportunities, services and facilities without being dependent on their car. Good design is crucial so that centres are places where people want to walk, cycle and use passenger transport to get around.

Implementation progress and challenges

Since the adoption of the RGS, there has been significant progress in the planning, management and delivery of an improved and refocused transport system:

• legislative and consequential organisation realignment with the establishment of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA), and significant adjustment to the planning, funding and service delivery of passenger-transport services
• a substantial shift to public transport investment, including improvements to the rail network, construction of the Northern Busway, and significant transit priority on key road corridors
• development and service funding of four basic components of the passenger-transport system: the Rapid Transit Network, Quality Transit Network, Local Connector Network, and targeted services
• continued investment in the strategic roading network including extensions of the State Highway network and the use of traffic-management systems to improve the operation of the existing strategic roading network
• the use of travel-demand management measures
• Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Act (2004) and subsequent plan changes (including Proposed Plan Change 6 to the Regional Policy Statement) which require improved integration between land use and transport planning in Auckland.

Evaluation of the growth strategy

In 2007 we released a document called Growing Smarter; a comprehensive evaluation of the RGS. The evaluation concluded that greater success occurs where:

• the integration of land use and transport recognises the different functions of centres and corridors, and signals the primacy of centres and the relationship of corridors
• development initiatives are focused on a limited number of places (key centres and corridors) to maximise investment benefits
• land use policies complement and promote sustainable travel choices
• density provisions and parking management support passenger-transport investment
• planning and investment focus on people in centres before vehicles, using design approaches such as the Transit-Oriented Design (TOD), Pedestrian-Orientated Design (POD), and Green-Orientated Design (GOD). These design approaches are just as important as public transport in stimulating changes in economic efficiency and agglomeration (or extended city or town) benefits
• investment strategies improve accessibility.