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By admin, on May 25th, 2010 There seems to be some confusion around as to whether the changes to the Auckland Law Reform Bill actually opens up the operations of the council controlled organisations (such as Auckland Transport) to public scrutiny or not. More specifically, will they have to hold their meetings in public? Will they have to publish their agendas and minutes? Will it be possible to actually know what these giant organisations are doing?
My post yesterday suggested that I remained unconvinced, although the NZ Herald seems to believe that “everything’s hunky-dory” I think it’s probably necessary to dig a bit deeper and find out what the real answer is. It is rather complex, but I will try to spell things out as clearly as I can.
As I noted yesterday, much of the “secretive nature” of the CCOs arose because the bill, as originally drafted, made Auckland Transport (and the other CCOs I think) exempt from section 74 of the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA). This is what Section 74 of the Local Government Act says: Now if we turn to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, that piece of legislation effectively outlines the process by which you can request information from CCOs in a similar manner as how you can request information from government agencies under the Official Information Act 1982. In other words, if the CCOs had remained exempt from section 74 of the LGA, then as far as I can see, we wouldn’t have even been able to make the equivalent of OIA requests from Auckland Transport (and perhaps the other CCOs).
It’s important to note that section 74 of the LGA only talks about Parts 1 to 6 of the 1987 Act, which are the parts that relate to the information requests, not Part 7 which relates to the publication of agendas, minutes and allowing the public to attend meetings etc. etc. It would appear as though under the LGA there is currently no requirement for CCOs to do anything much publicly, aside from being subject to information requests, which somewhat outrageously the Super City Bill in its original state would have removed.
Looking at the changes to the legislation the select committee has made, CCOs are now subject to section 74 of the LGA (meaning you can OIA request them), which is absolutely essential to ensure that they are at least somewhat accountable. Furthermore, in terms of Part 7 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (the bit that actually relates to allowing the public to attend meetings etc. etc.) we see the following added to the Bill by the select committee: 
The important one here is (e), which relates to ensuring that substantive CCOs (meaning Auckland Transport, Watercare and the Waterfront Development Agency I think) are subject to Part 7 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 – which means that the meetings have to be open to the public, that agendas and minutes have to be published, and so forth.
So that is good, although I must say I find it rather strange that this complex arrangement is achieved through the Council adopting a policy that requires the CCOs to operate in a publicly accessible manner. I mean why not just include that in the legislation? The worry for me is that in the time it takes for the council to sort out this policy and implement it, Auckland Transport and the other big CCOs will remain secretive. This might not be the biggest problem in the world, but it would be good to know why that can’t just be in the legislation.
Perhaps what is interesting to learn from looking a bit deeper into this issue is that it would appear as though existing CCOs aren’t subject to Part 7 of the 1987 Meetings Act (I think I’ll just call it that for now, the full name is rather long). This probably explains a bit why Auckland Transport wasn’t initially made less secretive, although it certainly doesn’t explain why section 74 of the LGA was not to apply to Auckland Transport. I guess there was an argument of “if current CCOs don’t have to comply with Part 7 of the 1987 Meetings Act, then why should Auckland Transport and the other big CCOs?” Well I think the answer to that is fairly obvious, in that Auckland Transport in particular will do a lot of things that are currently done by councils, so therefore it should be more open to scrutiny than, for example, ARTA is at the moment.
While all this appears to satisfy my concerns about whether Auckland Transport (and the other big CCOs) will be able to operate in secret as long as the Council sets that policy, there’s still the rather odd issue of this:
The strange thing is that my understanding of section 74 of the LGA, is that it doesn’t mention Part 7 of the 1987 Meetings Act. So this seems to be rather unnecessary, although perhaps is simply included to try to reinforce that it is not this legislation which ensures Auckland Transport will operate in a non-secretive way, but only the Auckland Council’s policy, as set out in 75AA(2)(e) that ensures we know what Auckland Transport is up to.
It has certainly confused me to some extent, but overall it does seem that things are OK and Auckland Transport will not be able to operate in secret. While this is reliant upon the Auckland Council making a policy that requires them to do so, I can’t imagine Auckland Council not making such a policy. However, I must say that I’m still pretty shocked that the Bill, as introduced, would have shielded Auckland Transport from information requests. That’s pretty damn cheeky if you ask me.
By admin, on May 24th, 2010 On the weekend I went out to take some photos of New Lynn train station, to see what progress is being made on its redevelopment. One half of the rail trench opened back in March, and since then there has been a lot of additional work on building the other half of the trench, as well as constructing the station building that will sit on top of the trench.
Here are some images from ARTA, which give us some idea of what we’re heading towards with the project:   While I overall really like the proposal, I am a bit concerned that the train station looks a bit like an island surrounded by a sea of large roads. I think some further effort will need to go into ensuring that the station integrates well with the surrounding area. The redevelopment of the current bus terminal land is probably quite a crucial part of that process.
As you can see in the photo below, work on the second half of the trench is progressing well. I think that it’s meant to open to trains in early June: I’m guessing the tracks will be laid pretty soon!
Outside the trench, the station building itself is really starting to take shape. This is a view of it from the Memorial Ave side, a vaguely similar perspective to the middle picture from the ARTA website: Wandering around New Lynn is actually a bit of a nightmare at the moment, there are so many roadworks going on. But at the same time it really feels like everything’s starting to come together, and that in the not too distant future the place will be a revolutionised space. Below is another photo of the new station, but this time from the opposite angle – Clark Street.
One thing that I found quite interesting in New Lynn, was that despite the roadworks, Clark Street and that side of the town centre felt much more integrated and connected to the Lynn Mall side. I guess that process will only continue further once the station is completed and all the roadworks are finished off, and is one of the biggest benefits of the New Lynn trench project.
It will be interesting watching the project shift towards completion (September/October for the station & trench) over the next few months. This is a pretty exciting project for Auckland.
By admin, on May 24th, 2010 Today the select committee on the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill, more commonly known as “the third Super City bill”, reported back to parliament with suggested alterations to the legislation that have arisen from the 800 odd submissions that were made on the bill. Of most interest to this blog is that this bill creates a council controlled organisation – known simply as “Auckland Transport” – that will control all transport activities within Auckland, except for state highways and railways (and airports and ports of course).
I have made numerous posts on Auckland Transport over the past few months, outlining my concerns with how the agency was being established, and in particular on matters relating to how it would be accountable and transparent, the structure and appointment process of its board, and fundamentally whether or not it was a good idea to separate off transport from the other functions undertaken by council. Perhaps the most useful blog post that outlines my concerns is entitled “Reflecting on the Auckland Transport CCO” – as it summarises the matters that I felt needed to be addressed by the select committee. It’s interesting to have a look and see what has, and has not, been changed. Simply put, the areas of concern that I had were:
- The structure of the board of Auckland Transport. In particular:
- That the initial board will be chosen by the Minister of Transport, rather than by current regional and local politicians
- That KiwiRail doesn’t have a non-voting director on the board, even though NZTA for some reason does.
- That the board itself chooses its chair, rather than Auckland Council
- The Auckland Council’s oversight of Auckland Transport (or lack thereof). This mainly arose out of parts of the bill that said Auckland Transport did not have to act in accordance with various sections of the Local Government Act 2002 that related to ensuring it was accountable. A large part of this concern also related to the ability of Auckland Transport to hold its meetings in secret.
- Whether the Mayor and Council can achieve their transport goals. This was very much related to the previous issue, and is based around the fact that transport is a huge issue in Auckland that politicians will campaign on – but may not be able to actually do anything about.
- The Local Boards and Auckland Transport. My concern that the wishes and desires of the Local Boards could be completely ignored by Auckland Transport.
- Integrating land-use planning and transport planning. In some ways this was my most fundamental concern with Auckland Transport, that by simply having a CCO for transport matters, rather than having it rolled into council, we would see further separation of land-use and transport planning, when what we actually need is better integration.
The select committee report is a whopping 380 pages long, and is certainly fairly dense reading – and not altogether easy to dig through and find the important bits that you’re after, but I have had a reasonable crack at seeing how (or if) my concerns outlined above have been addressed. The results are quite interesting.
If we look first at the membership of the board of Auckland Transport, it would appear as though some changes have been made generally to the way directors on the board of CCOs are appointed. This is outlined below: In english, what this actually means is that although the government will continue to appoint the directors of the CCOs (I think both Steven Joyce and Rodney Hide will appoint Auckland Transport’s directors) it will be made clear that the Council can sack those directors at any time. Furthermore, not all the director seats will be appointed until the council is in existence. It will be the council itself that appoints the chair and deputy chair of Auckland Transport’s board, rather than the board itself. I think that’s quite an important change. However, in terms of my other concerns, we still don’t see any KiwiRail director on the board.
Overall, I think the changes to the board structure are pretty good and generally most of my concerns have been taken into account. I think it’s very important that there has been clarification to ensure that the council can sack any board members whenever they please. I can imagine most council candidates promoting that from day one.
Turning to the second matter of concern that I had, of accountability and transparency, this is the area where I had the most hope of change from the select committee report. Some changes have been made that make a big difference here – most notably the removal of “Clause 38(3)” in the bill, which doesn’t look like much, but had some huge consequences: The section that has been crossed out effectively enabled Auckland Transport to not have to act in accordance with the wishes of Auckland Council, to not have to act in accordance with its statement of intent, to not have to be a good employer, to not have to act in a responsible manner and to not have to hold its meeting in public. Whilst I’m damn well relieved that this section has been deleted, I’m pretty shocked it was ever put there in the first place. Pretty damn right cheeky if you ask me.
However, there’s a little catch here, as it relates to section 74 of the Local Government Act (the part which effectively requires the CCO to hold their meetings in public and publish their agenda and minutes). And this can be found a couple of pages on (page 136 of the select committee report): My understanding of this section of the bill is that actually the only meetings that will be open to the public, and the only agendas and minutes that will be published by Auckland Transport, are those which relate to bylaws – a fairly small minority of decisions that Auckland Transport will make. So I very much remain unconvinced that this CCO will be transparent to the public, and that is a huge concern. For a start, it will severely limit the amount of information that’s available to me for the writing of blog posts.
So overall, in terms of accountability and transparency, we have certainly seen an improvement in the accountability of the agency. In short, it will have to do what Auckland Council want it to do – and that is a very good thing. However, I don’t think that the transparency concerns have been addressed. It would appear as though Auckland Transport will still be a secret agency – and that’s not good enough.
Turning to the issue of whether the mayor and council will able to achieve their goals, that has certainly been enhanced by the changes made that relate to accountability. The ability of the council to dismiss board members appointed by central government at any stage is also a step in the right direction in that respect. Of course there are still issues relating to the question of how much influence the council will really have over what Auckland Transport does, but short of getting rid of the CCO (which was never going to happen) I think that this issue has been at least somewhat addressed.
On the issue of local board, and what influence they will have over what Auckland Transport does, that’s probably the trickiest issue to understand. To be quite honest I don’t think anyone knows exactly how the local boards will interact with the council, let alone the Transport CCO. It will be interesting to see how these details sort themselves out. I don’t have particularly much faith that the local boards will end up having much, if any, influence over what Auckland Transport does.
Which leaves us with the fundamental issue of integrating land-use planning (which is what the council will do) with transport planning (what Auckland Transport will do). As I stated in my previous post, I really can’t see how this issue can be resolved without getting rid of the Transport CCO model altogether, and instead including transport within Auckland Council. As this obviously hasn’t happened, my concerns still remain. However, the “purpose” of Auckland Transport has been broadened somewhat, in a way that links it to outcomes that stretch beyond simply transport matters. This is outlined below:
 While I don’t think that this will actually fix my concerns about a lack of integration between planning and transport, the fact that Auckland Transport’s specific purpose is to create a transport system that contributes to a better city is a damn good thing. Hopefully this will make it clear that Auckland Transport can’t ignore land-use planning outcomes.
So overall, the changes made to this bill have certainly improved it. The accountability of Auckland Transport has been improved significantly, the changes made to the board structure mean that the council will have more control over Auckland Transport than it had before, and the changes to the wording of Auckland Transport’s purpose should mean that we see a slight improvement in the integration of transport and land-use planning. However, my understanding of the bill is that Auckland Transport will still operate largely in secret, that the local boards will still have limited control over what Auckland Transport does and that fundamentally it will still be difficult to integrate land-use and transport planning. So while things definitely aren’t as bad as they were, I still have some pretty big concerns with the way Auckland Transport is being created.
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By admin, on May 24th, 2010 A lot of the writing about parking policies is quite complicated, and in some respects counter-intuitive. So it’s good when you can get the impact of our current parking policies simplified into something that’s quite easy to digest and understand. This 12 page document entitled “How free is your parking?” outlines many of the problems caused by the idea that land-uses should have to provide for parking that they generate: particularly in terms of the economic and transport impact this has.
Interestingly, if you look at residential typologies (different types of housing that you could provide) the need to provide parking (usually two spaces per unit, plus visitor parking) has been shown to frequently make it uneconomic to develop above three levels, unless you jump to nine-levels of more. This is because anything over three-levels of development will usually require underground parking – and that’s so expensive (because of the minimum parking requirements) that developers can’t recoup the costs until they’re building around nine-level or more apartment blocks. So much of that 4-5 level “European” style density that we hope to achieve in our town centres is made extremely uneconomic (and therefore won’t happen) largely because of parking controls.
Obviously, many shops and so forth would continue to provide off-street parking if you took away these controls. However, at least they’d have the choice to put the land to a more economic use if they thought that made more economic sense. Forcing a less economic use, through parking controls, is an enormous burden on developers that makes it much more difficult to achieve the intensification that our land-use planning strategies are trying to encourage.
The transport effects are also very significant: That 12 cents a kilometre value of parking is quite incredible. If we take that to be around $NZ0.17, and then consider that a typical car might get 10km per litre of petrol, that’s a doubling of the price of petrol (around $1.70 a litre up to $3.40 a litre) to truly take into account the value of parking that is provided “free” to car-users. The $0.12 a kilometre comes from research undertaken by Todd Litman, and can be accessed here.
I think there are the beginnings of a change in attitude towards parking regulations here in New Zealand. In a number of recent District Plan Changes, such as those relating to Wynyard Quarter and Sylvia Park, it is clear that there is at least a basic understanding that the more parking you provide, the more cars you will encourage to the area. While of course this is only part of the reason to remove minimum parking requirements, and in some cases impose maximum controls, it is certainly a step in the right direction. It seems obvious to me that if Auckland City Council is, for example, worried about the traffic impacts that an expanded Sylvia Park might have on surrounding roads, the best way to control that is to limit the number of additional parking spaces provided. After all, that is what will limit the number of vehicles accessing the site – if people start to realise that the carpark is always full on Saturday afternoons then they’ll either come at another time or they’ll catch the bus or train. All of which are good outcomes for the surrounding road network.
However, there are a lot of transport engineers, and planners for that matter, who are very much wedded to the idea of minimum parking requirements and think that the world will descend into chaos without them. So it’ll take some time to convince everyone of the need to change parking regulations.
By admin, on May 22nd, 2010 Having finally got the 30 year Regional Land Transport Strategy completed, it’s important to look at the question “where to next?” This is particularly important to consider when you realise how the whole management of transport in Auckland is going to be revolutionised in the next few months, with the creation of the Auckland Transport CCO. This vast change in how transport will be run in Auckland is both a huge risk and a huge opportunity, as there will be the chance to start from scratch in some respects, but at the same time there is also the opportunity to build on gains made in the past few years.
With a potential vacuum during the changeover from ARTA and a pile of transport departments in each council roll into the new Auckland Transport agency, I think it’s important that there are some clear plans for what gets done in the next five years in particular. Obviously ARTA has its transport plans, and each individual council have their plans, NZTA have their plans and so forth, but for the first time in the near future we will see most of these plan come together (unfortunately Auckland Transport will still have no real power over the state highway or railway system) and we will have the opportunity to actually start giving effect to the very many plans and strategies that are sitting around.
Probably the best indicator of current thinking about what transport will be constructed, or have its planning advanced with a mind towards construction in the not too distant future, is laid out in ARTA’s 2009-2012 Regional Land Transport Programme. Keeping in mind that this only covers three years, and that we’re already one year into its timeframe, it’s a bit more shorter-term than what I think we need to be considering, but it’s still a useful starting point. Here are some of the major projects in the current programme:
Major local roading and State highway projects which are scheduled to be constructed in the 2009/10–2011/12 programme are:
- The Central Connector.
- SH1 Newmarket Viaduct.
- SH18 Hobsonville Deviation.
- New roading connections and improvements associated with the New Lynn rail trenching and transport interchange.
- Major roading projects in new development areas, especially Flat Bush, East Tamaki and Pukekohe.
- Bus priority programmes.
- Major pavement reconstruction.
In addition there will be significant funding in the following public transport areas in the three-year time period of the RLTP:
- Integrated fares and ticketing and the completion of the real time public information system.
- Trains
- Significant rail station upgrades will take place during the RLTP period, including major new transport interchanges at Newmarket, New Lynn and Manukau. KiwiRail will continue its programme of signalling upgrades and double tracking. The Western Line double tracking is expected to be completed by June 2010.
- Electrification will build on the momentum achieved in Auckland rail over the past five years in which patronage has grown from just over 2 million to over 7 million passenger trips per year. Seat capacity will be increased by at least 12.5 % over the three-year period as a result of additional and longer trains in service as more refurbished carriages are brought into operation. The Government has given its commitment to electrifying Auckland’s rail network and is working with the region on the mechanisms to deliver an electrified rail network.
- Buses
- Service improvements will be implemented on the Isthmus, Waitakere, North West Rodney, Manukau and Papakura including better connections to rail stations.
- Ferries
- Half Moon Bay ferry terminal upgrade.
- Hobsonville ferry terminal in conjunction with new housing development.
- Bayswater ferry terminal design.
- Birkenhead – installation of hydraulic ramp.
Major schemes proposed for study, investigation and design stage include:
- CBD Rail Tunnel.
- Crash reduction studies in Auckland City, Waitakere and Franklin.
- Freight Transhipment studies on the State highway network.
- Designation of Constellation to Albany busway extension.
- Albany Highway Corridor upgrade.
- CBD Waterfront access.
Extending this programme out by a couple more years would allow the new Transport Agency to be a bit more visionary, and also reflects that many of these projects (Hobsonville Deviation, Newmarket Viaduct, Central Connector, railway station upgrades etc.) are already under construction and are therefore not really relevant for considering what new projects should be prioritised over the next five years.
I think splitting the type of project up into roads, public transport and other (such as walking/cycling/other pedestrian improvements) is quite a useful start, and I also think that it’s useful to consider whether we would hope to be constructing this project within the next five years, or whether the main focus is on planning/design/consenting etc. Many of the bigger projects are obviously going to be mainly in the planning and design phase, and the important thing will be to ensure that everything is ready to go once we have the money available or once the need for the project becomes particularly clear.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the distinctions between projects can at times be fuzzy, particularly the question of whether a roading upgrade with bus lanes should be counted as a roading project or as a public transport project. I generally make the distinction based on the issue of “who benefits most?” By in large, new roads will benefit motorists the most, even if they have peak hour bus lanes, so therefore I would put that under roads. In contrast, turning part of an existing road into bus lanes primarily benefits public transport users, so therefore would be a public transport project.
OK well let’s start with roading projects, and as shown in the table below there is a particular focus on state highway projects already underway, or those that are likely to be underway in the not too distant future. The list looks fairly short, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that “other arterial road improvements” is quite broad, and there are likely to be a number of areas where arterial road upgrades are either constructed, or get close to being constructed, during this time period:
 I don’t think anything is particularly controversial there, apart from perhaps the priority I have given to PenLink. I’ll have a think about that one a bit more myself, but my general thinking behind it is based on the current route to Whangaparaoa being a huge dogleg detour, and therefore the gains from constructing PenLink do see to be long-lasting and real. Note that I do not include the widening of State Highway 16 in my list, as I think it’s stupid for us to waste $800 million widening a motorway just to watch it fill up again with induced demand. Also unsurprisingly I think that just a Warkworth bypass and a safety upgrade of SH1 between Puhoi and Wellsford is needed, rather than a multi-billion dollar holiday highway.
In terms of public transport projects, obviously my list is rather longer – perhaps because that’s an area where I have greater interest, or perhaps because we really are coming to the end of roading projects in Auckland that need to be undertaken, and most of the remaining list of transport projects are related to improving public transport. Looking at the projects I would want to see under construction (or implemented might be a more encompassing term) I think what should come across most obviously is that they’re mostly about buses. There are two big rail projects within the next five years: the completion of Project DART and rail electrification. That should keep us busy enough, along with some platform lengthening, perhaps the addition of a Parnell/University station and the very much needed third track between Wiri and Westfield.
The reason I have focused so much on bus projects in the next five years is because they are relatively quick and easy to implement: as Human Transit’s latest blog post notes, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper and faster to put some paint on a road (bus lane) than it is to build rail. So there are key bus-based projects, like getting an interim QTN (Quality Transit Network – read bus lanes) up and running between Panmure and Botany (and also between Botany and Manukau I should probably add), upgrading Dominion Road: hopefully to light-rail but potentially in the shorter term just to having better quality bus lanes, getting a QTN operational along the SH18 corridor as that develops, and perhaps most critically: getting bus lanes in operation along all the nominated QTN corridors. This shouldn’t be a particularly expensive project, it just needs some willpower. Other important projects for implementation include a complete redesign of the bus route system, so the it better reflects the integrated ticketing system we will have and so that it takes advantage of the “network effect” benefits I have described previously. There are probably some other ferry upgrades that will be required, hopefully taking advantage of integrated ticketing and a simplified bus route structure to encourage people to catch feeder buses to their ferries.
In terms of design/consenting, here’s where more of the “big ticket items” emerge, such as the CBD Rail Tunnel, rail to the airport, the extension of the busway to Albany and the southeast Auckland RTN (hopefully in the form of a Howick/Botany Line). The Regional Land Transport Strategy highlights many of these projects for construction in the 2020-2040 period, except for the CBD rail tunnel which is recognised as crucial for construction by 2021, but I think it’s essential that the routes for all these projects are protected and that they are pretty much “ready to go” as soon as the funding and political will is there to push the go button. Not future-proofing or protecting the routes of important transport projects can lead to disaster, if someone builds something really big in the way, so I think it’s essential there’s a really big push to sort them out as soon as possible. I also think that extensions of the little tram network we will have hopefully created between Wynyard Quarter and Britomart will become increasingly sensible in the future, so doing the background work to extend the system along Tamaki Drive and Dominion Road seems sensible to me. Finally, in terms of projects that would be at their initial investigation phase, I have put a North Shore railway line and the Avondale Southdown railway line into this group. These projects are likely to be some of the later “big ticket items”, but it’s still useful in my opinion to be analysing them and working out which routes/options we would want to proceed with.
Turning to walking, cycling and other projects, these are projects that are mainly about improving the lot for pedestrians and cyclists. There are a few “big ticket items”, like the Harbour Bridge Cycleway idea which seems to be proceeding quite well, but many others are just about changing around existing areas to make them more pedestrian friendly. Rolling out the shared streets idea more and more is an example of that.
 The great thing about walking and cycling improvements is that they generally aren’t particularly expensive. For just a few million you can get many kilometres of cycleway, whereas by comparison the Victoria Park Tunnel project costs nearly a million dollars a metre to build. Some of the other projects to implement, such as lowering the speed on non-arterial routes, wouldn’t cost anything (apart from signage) but would contribute significantly to making our city more friendly and livable I think. In the longer term, I really do hope that bigger and potentially more challenging projects such as pedestrianising parts of Queen Street and Quay Street can be possible. If we had a tram running up and down Queen Street, to connect our Wynyard Quarter tramway with a Dominion Road one, that could mix quite well with an otherwise pedestrianised street.
Well anyway, that’s my idea of a transport plan for Auckland over the next 5 years. It’s a lot of work, but then the new Auckland Transport agency will be sucking up a lot of money so it should be able to achieve a plan like this, at least the parts that it can control. There’s generally nothing much new in my plan, apart from the Howick/Botany railway line and my tramway ideas, but instead it’s all about implementing what’s in the RLTS and in ARTA’s 10 year “Auckland Transport Plan“. In terms of the focus on buses, this is because doing so is a “low hanging fruit” – potentially big benefits for relatively low cost. But at the same time, I think it’s critical the big ticket items are progressed, at lest in terms of getting all the design and consenting done so that once funding is available they are ready to go.
I am sure I’ve missed things, or that there are parts of this plan people disagree with. So it’d be great to get some feedback on it, so I can refine it and hopefully eventually turn these basic ideas into something that might really make a difference.
By admin, on May 22nd, 2010 I had a brief look at progress on the Avondale train station today, and it seems as though we’re nearly there in terms of the station being ready for opening. One of the workers on the site said that they were to be done by Monday, although he didn’t know when the station would be opening. I think the opening date is some time in June, perhaps after Queen’s Birthday weekend?
Here are a few photos: This photo looks down at the station from the eastern side of Crayford Street. While it’s a fairly basic looking station, it does integrate into the surround neighbourhood far better than the current (or previous) stations did. This integration is even more obvious from the other end of Crayford Street (which is sliced in half by the railway line), looking up towards the station from the direction of the Avondale town centre: Up to now Avondale has been in the utterly crazy situation of having a railway station relatively near its town centre, but having absolutely no linkage between the town centre and the railway station. Luckily this insanity is coming to an end. The next photo looks at the station from the St Jude Street end, once again showing that it’s a fairly basic, but quite functional station: And another photo from a similar angle: What I think will be particularly interesting is seeing how much patronage from Avondale station increases once the new station opens. I am guessing quite significantly, as not long is the station brought closer to the town centre and people to the south and west of the station, it is also brought close to people living off New North Road too. In fact, very few people will actually be further from the station in its new location than they were previously. In the longer term, I also hope it can be a catalyst for some serious redevelopment and intensification of Avondale.
By admin, on May 21st, 2010 Manukau City Council seem to have finally come to the realisation that creating a massive area of auto-dependent sprawl out in a far corner of Auckland, miles from any railway lines, motorways or high-frequency bus routes, might not be the smartest idea. Particularly, there seems to be a realisation that the way Flat Bush has developed so far, as a confusing maze of cul-de-sacs, has helped create the beginnings of the most extraordinarily soulless and depressing suburb.
This “realisation” is made clear in the Stage Two Masterplan for Flat Bush. This new Master Plan (whole 72 page, 15 MB document here, summary here) picks up on many of the points I made about street patterns in a recent blog post, and perhaps its biggest suggestion is the move away from the pattern of curved arterials with local roads made up of highly complex and confusing little streets.
Here’s an example of the street network in an existing part of Flat Bush:
Someone living here is only ever going to use their car to get around and undertake most of their daily activities. What a mess.
Fortunately, the Masterplan does involve quite a significant shift away from this type of street network, as shown below:
The areas in grey are those which exist already, while the orange streets show the newly proposed, far more “gridded” street network. This is a huge step in the right direction.
The advantages of a grid-style street network (in a planning sense rather than a transport sense for now) are around the flexibility that is offered to the kind of building typology you end up creating. On the messy cul-de-sac system you have every lot ending up a different size and shape, and that is only really suitable for single-detached housing. With a gridded system, you can have apartments, townhouses, semi-detached and fully detached housing types all using the same type of street network. This offers long-term flexibility benefits, as over time areas that firstly develop at a lower density have the opportunity to increase their densities without having to bulldoze entire neighbourhoods and restructure street networks.
This flexibility is shown in the picture below:
So there are certainly some very good steps forward that this Master Plan encompasses. I now have a little bit of hope that Flat Bush won’t turn into yet another complete and utter sprawled mess, like most of the development that has occurred around the edges of Auckland in the past 30 years. However, there are still some huge problems with Flat Bush, and they are almost completely summed up by the question “but how about its connections with the rest of Auckland?”
Flat Bush is still on the very southeast corner of Auckland. It is still going to be around 40,000 people living nowhere near any motorways, railway lines, high frequency bus services or anything. It is still a hugely isolated place, and in the same way that AMETI ignores the “elephant in the room” of a Rapid Transit Network link between Panmure and the southeast suburbs, Flat Bush’s Master Plan does exactly the same – completely ignoring how the area is going to be provided with rapid transit connections to Auckland’s CBD to the north and Manukau City centre to the south. There are some brief mentions of “light rail down Te Irirangi Drive”, but the potential locations of a train station, how feeder buses to that station might work, how the issue could be addressed in the short-to-medium term and so forth are completely ignored.
This ignorance of “how are we going to link Flat Bush with rapid transit” has already had some seriously bad outcomes for the design of the place. It appears most logical that eventually our most likely rapid transit line will run down the middle of Te Irirangi Drive – in the form of some sort of rail, or a busway (I would just like to state again that simple bus lanes are NOT rapid transit), but the intersection of Ormiston Road and Te Irirangi Drive (the most likely place for a train station) has been cut off from the rest of Flat Bush by a huge new school and the developing Barry Curtis Park. So anyone living in Flat Bush and hoping to walk to the train station is in for a pretty long hike – at least 1 km from the town centre to where a station might go. Gee that was smart – not! I’m also a bit concerned that the Master Plan potentially calls for local streets to be made wider. I’m a massive fan of making local roads as narrow as practically possible (isn’t John Street in Ponsonby fantastic because of its narrowness?) to slow cars down and create more of a sense of intimacy. So wider streets would be a worry to me.
Overall, the Master Plan is a step in the right direction, with a shift to a gridded street network in particular being an utterly crucial change to at least give Flat Bush a chance of avoiding becoming another soulless area of sprawl. However, I am still frustrated that very little thought seems to have gone into how people might access other parts of Auckland from Flat Bush without having to use their cars. Specifically, it would seem that once again the Panmure-Botany-Manukau southeast RTN corridor is being completely an utterly ignored. If we don’t develop our urban areas around the existing and proposed rapid transit systems, then I struggle to think how we’re ever going to become less auto-dependent. At the very least an indicative station location, some mention of possible bus routes to that station, and some sort of “transit-oriented development” analysis would add tremendously to this Master Plan.
I guess this is what happens when you don’t integrate transport and land-use thinking. We can look forward to much more of transport and land-use planning ignoring each other in the upcoming Super City structure I imagine.
By admin, on May 20th, 2010 The Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative, generally known as “AMETI“, came out as something of a replacement of the failed “Eastern Motorway” idea. It’s a fairly complex series of projects designed to ease congestion and improve transport for a number of different modes in the Panmure/Mt Wellington/Pakuranga part of Auckland. As shown in the map below, there are a large number of projects which make up AMETI, and the timeline for completing them spreads over the next 20 or so years:
There has been a lot of talk about AMETI over the past few years, but really nothing much has happened at all in advancing this project. Well, at least until now. It seems as though the first section of AMETI, some upgrades around Panmure, is kicking into action – at least in its design stage. This seems to be the plan for Panmure:
Phase One: 2012-2014
Design for this phase will take place 2010-2012.
In Phase One of Panmure, a new street link will be created from Mt Wellington Highway to Fraser Road. This new street will remove around 25,000 vehicles (that are wanting to simply pass through) from the Panmure Roundabout each day.
The new road will extend along from William Harvey Place (where Big Save Furniture is currently), beside the railway line, under the Ellerslie Panmure Highway, and join back into a local road at Fraser Road.
In the short term, the new road will link through to William Harvey Place, however, in the longer-term, this will take a different route, passing near to Van Damme’s Lagoon and on towards Waipuna Road.
This new street development is an interim measure and comprises one lane in each direction. Capacity has been built into this project to widen this to two lanes in each direction at a later stage.
Phase Two: 2014-2016
Design for this phase will take place 2010-2014.
Once the new connection road between Mt Wellington Highway and Fraser Road is complete, taking traffic off the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Lagoon Drive, it will allow Rapid Transit Network (RTN) related capacity improvements to be made in the area. The Panmure RTN components form part of a region-wide high quality PT network connecting through to Pakuranga, Botany and eventually Manukau.
- On Lagoon Drive, one dedicated RTN bus and one traffic lane in either direction will be introduced (there are currently two general traffic lanes in either direction). Because traffic and buses will continue to travel across the Panmure Bridge, it is also expected that the “tidal flow” of traffic together with bus priority across the Panmure Bridge will be retained.
- On the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway, there will be one RTN dedicated bus lane connecting to a bus-rail RTN interchange above Panmure station, and two general traffic lanes in each direction (there are currently three general traffic lanes in each direction).
- The Panmure Bridge will have an extended structure. It is anticipated that between 2012 and 2015 a new cycle and pedestrian structure will be designed and built adjacent to the south side of the Panmure Bridge. On the Manukau side of the bridge, the new cycle/pedestrian bridge will be designed to tie in with the cycleway and footpath adjacent to the Tamaki River (the Rotary Walkway), as well as the existing footpath down the Pakuranga Highway. It will also link into improved cycle facilities that are planned in the area. On the Auckland city side of the Panmure Bridge, the new structure will be designed to tie in with the existing footpath flowing onto Lagoon Drive, as well as the cycleway and facilities around the Panmure lagoon.
In the medium to long term, a bus and cycle route is proposed on Ti Rakau Drive. It is anticipated that the cycle/pedestrian bridge will become an important link for this future cycle route.
The Panmure Roundabout will be reconfigured to take into account the new road from the Mt Wellington Highway towards Glen Innes, and the new configurations of Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Lagoon Drive. The design of the roundabout is not yet confirmed. Consultation will occur over the best solution closer to construction and once traffic flows are known. RTN bus priority through the reconfigured roundabout will be introduced.
There are a bunch of interesting artist impressions about what we might expect to see:
 
 
 
While I imagine there are certainly some advantages in eliminating (or altering) some of the nastier bottlenecks in this area, such as the Panmure roundabout, what I see in the pictures above just seems like a giant roadsfest, except for one image of an upgraded Panmure train station. The roads are generally proposed as high-speed multi-lane semi-highways, coming across as particularly unfriendly to pedestrians – not exactly what you would hope to see around Panmure, which is potentially a pretty major urban intensification node. Not really a place to be slamming through high-speed arterials I would have thought.
Sure, AMETI as a whole doesn’t ignore public transport completely – as we will see a number of new bus lanes and hopefully in the longer term something resembling a “Rapid Transit Network” (RTN) line linking through to southeast Auckland – although I would like to take this opportunity to remind the involved parties that basic bus lanes do not constitute an RTN. An RTN is either a railway line or a “Northern Busway” quality busway.
And ultimately, I think that’s my biggest problem with AMETI. It proposes spending a pretty massive amount of money ($1.3 billion I think) on upgrades to transport in this part of Auckland, but avoids/ignores the biggest cause of the problems faced by that area of the city at the moment – the complete and utter lack of anything resembling rapid transit to the east of Tamaki River. While certainly some aspects of AMETI make sense, completely avoiding/ignoring the main issue – how to provide that RTN from Panmure through to Pakuranga and beyond – is utterly stupid. It’s an excellent example of the good old saying “avoiding the elephant in the room”. What Auckland desperately needs is an RTN out to the southeast part of the city, and what we ideally need is for that RTN to be rail – so that it can link into the existing Eastern railway line and we don’t end up in the silly situation of either having to build a busway next to the existing railway line between Panmure and the CBD, or forcing thousands of bus commuters from the southeast to transfer onto a (probably already crowded) train at Panmure to make the last leg of their journey into the city. There really is no feasible alternative to the idea of a Howick/Botany railway line. The sooner we realise that, and get on with planning for this critical project, the sooner we’ll stop ignoring the elephant in the room and stop wasting money on road upgrades that will only tinker around the edges and not solve the real problem.
By admin, on May 19th, 2010 The 2010-2040 Regional Land Transport Strategy was today formally launched (downloadable in two parts: one and two). I have blogged about the RLTS on a number of previous occasions as it has slowly wound its way through the process of becoming a reality. Before I turn to the strategy itself, it is worth noting that this strategy is very different from all previous RLTS’s in that it covers a 30 year time period, rather than a 10 year one. This strategy is also able to focus much more on what projects are to be undertaken over the next 30 years to actually achieve the vision of the strategy. It also comes out at a really crucial time, with the reorganisation of Auckland’s local government just a few months away now. The RLTS sets the framework for what should happen in Auckland over the next 30 years, but in reality it remains to be seen whether that will happen. In that context it is clear that a top quality strategy is absolutely needed to reflect the difference between this RLTS (both in terms of its timeframe and the critical juncture of Auckland’s local government history we sit at) and previous ones.
Fortunately, I am pretty sure it delivers. While it’s certainly not perfect, the strategy is most probably Auckland’s best transport document in 60 years – and quite carefully looks towards creating a balance between outlining the step-change that is needed to be made to transport in Auckland, while at the same time ensuring that it’s a realistic and achievable strategy – not just some pie in the sky document that will become nothing more than a door stop. Here’s the foreword: It’s good that the CBD rail tunnel gets a strong mention in the foreword. After all, it is Auckland’s most important transport project for the next 10 years in my opinion.
The executive summary of the RLTS provides a good outline of the RLTS’s vision, which I think manages to be both visionary and yet sensible/achievable at the same time:
Of course visions are just fluff without actions to make them happen. And unlike many previous regional land transport strategies, this one actually has a pretty decent line-up of important projects that are considered necessary to achieve the vision and give effect to the more general words of the strategy: It would certainly be good to bring forward the timeframe for completing a few of those big ticket rail projects, particularly rail to the airport, but at least for the first time these projects are actually on the books. Whether or not they actually happen, and when they happen, is going to of course be dependent upon funding. And it is when we get through to the issue of funding that actually giving effect to the RLTS becomes a bit more challenging.
The graph below compares the amount of money estimated to be required for each type of transport investment (in blue) and the funding available (grey). It’s a bit worrying to see that hugely more funding than currently available will be needed for public transport services (subsidies) and rail improvements, while for state highways there’s far more money available than required.
If we can shift that big chunk of excess state highways funding into public transport then hopefully we might see some of the big ticket projects in the RLTS happen.
Overall, while I probably need to have a bit more of a detailed read through the strategy to be sure I can give it a wholehearted tick, it does in general look pretty good. However, the key will be its implementation – and in particular how the future Auckland Transport CCO hits the ground running to implement the strategy. That’s probably one of the biggest tasks for public transport advocates in the next few months, to keep this strategy centre-stage, to ensure that we can achieve the vision it sets out.
By admin, on May 19th, 2010 Hot off the press:
Auckland announces free ride to RWC 2011 matches
Public transport will be free to all Rugby World Cup 2011 matches in Auckland for ticketholders, enabling fans to get to the game quicker.
Auckland RWC 2011 transport director Bruce Barnard says the free ride to games will mean people can board more efficiently without passengers having to buy tickets on the bus or train.
“This in turn means faster movement to and from matches which is the name of our game,” says Barnard who has successfully managed transport for major events such as the Australian Grand Prix and the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
He says the Transport Plan for Eden Park’s RWC 2011 matches, which was released last week, aims to get 75% of people out of their cars with the majority of these onto public transport for the finals and 60% for pool matches.
Free public transport for match ticketholders has already proven successful in getting Aucklanders out of their cars with 12,000 using public transport to the 2008 Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park.
Auckland Regional Transport Authority chair Rabin Rabindran says making public transport the easiest and most convenient way to get to RWC 2011 matches is the key to the effective movement of the large number of visitors.
“Uncongested rapid transit corridors such as rail and the use of bus lanes offer the ability to move thousands of people quickly. The majority of our international visitors use public transport every day as a matter of course and more than 25% of Aucklanders on average are now realising that public transport is the easiest way to get to and from major events.”
Mr Rabindran said that the Eden Park component of free public transport for RWC 2011 patrons is being funded by both the Auckland region and the Tournament organisers Rugby New Zealand 2011 (RNZ 2011). Auckland’s contribution will come from within existing budgets.
The free ride will be available to fans on the production of a RWC 2011 match ticket for rail services within Auckland three hours before the match and three hours after the match.
For special event bus services the free ride will be available three hours before the match and between one to one and a half hours after the match or until all fans have been cleared.
Special event bus services to Eden Park will operate to and from Midtown, North Shore and other selected suburban destinations that include Botany/Pakuranga and Manukau.
Meanwhile bus services to and from North Harbour Stadium will operate from Midtown, Downtown, the North Shore via Takapuna, Orewa, Henderson and other selected suburban destinations including Botany, Pakuranga and Manukau.
RNZ 2011 says that free public transport has played a critical part in the success of other major events worldwide.
“We want all those going to RWC 2011 matches to have the best possible experience so we think a free ride to Auckland’s RWC 2011 matches will make a great contribution to that,” says RNZ 2011 Tournament Services General Manager Nigel Cass.
“This will really impress our overseas visitors as well as encouraging more New Zealanders to take public transport on match day.”
In addition to the free ride to the game, improvements to Auckland’s public transport service for RWC 2011, including a major upgrade to Kingsland Station, will leave Aucklanders with even greater public transport choices in the future.
For those wishing to purchase RWC 2011 match tickets, this week sees the last days of the first phase of ticket sales for Venue and Team Pool Packs. Applications close at 5pm on Friday 21 May.
On the one hand this is very sensible, to get as many people on public transport rather than clogging the streets around Eden Park with cars. However, on the other hand a lot of public money has gone into capacity upgrades (particularly of Kingsland station) specifically for RWC games. So it seems a bit strange that none of that investment will be recouped.
I suppose that with integrated ticketing only going to be “partly operational” for the World Cup, it would be pretty embarrassing seeing clippies going up and down the trains, so perhaps that’s the answer?
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