If there is any part of Auckland that should appreciate what investing in bus priority infrastructure can achieve, it is the North Shore. Over the past few years investment in the Northern Busway, and efforts to improve bus and transit lanes in other parts of the North Shore, have resulted in some pretty impressive results. You can see this in the graph below:
Not only has the number of bus users across the Harbour Bridge improved significantly during this time, but we have actually seen a decline in the number of cars crossing the bridge: freeing up space so everyone’s trip is faster and more reliable. Even more recent figures show a continuation, and acceleration, of this trend:
So almost 12,000 out of the 29,000 people crossing the bridge in the morning peak are now travelling by bus. That’s 40.7% of all people for those not so great at maths – up from 2004 figures which show roughly 5,000 out of 27,000 (18.5%) of people coming across the bridge at peak times being on the bus. As someone who drives across the harbour bridge at peak times once or twice a week, I have absolutely noticed a decline in congestion on the Northern Motorway (particularly north of Onewa Road) over the past few years – something that seems directly attributable to the busway. Clearly the busway has been a huge success with the public, I imagine both for people who catch the bus and also for those who now enjoy a less congested Northern Motorway.
The busway isn’t the only bus success story on the North Shore though. The Onewa Road T3 lane has been a massive success over the years and now carries the vast majority of people travelling down this congested corridor:
Even though bus priority measures on the North Shore, such as the Northern Busway and the Onewa Road T3 lane, have been so successful, for some bizarre reason they continue to come under attack from local politicians. At today’s Auckland Council Transport Committee meeting we saw bus priority on the North Shore come under wide ranging attack.
First, from the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, whose chair Chris Darby argued for a resolution the board made back in February:
Then we saw a slightly less dramatic, but all-the-same undermining of bus priority from Lindsay Waugh, Chair of the Kaipatiki Local Board, who argued in favour of one of their earlier resolutions:
Councillor George Wood spent a good chunk of the discussion on the agenda item moaning about the lack of progress allowing cars on the whole of the busway (something that, to his credit, Chris Darby reiterated the local board was not pushing for). Then just to put icing on the cake, Orakei Local Board member Ken Baguley made a plea to see Remuera Road’s bus lanes turned into T2 lanes, even though the study sitting before him clearly indicated that bus lanes was the most efficient solution for this road.
While in some respect the constant undermining of bus priority measures is to be expected from certain local politicians, I think what annoys me most is that many of these very same politicians will put themselves forward as huge public transport advocates. Councillor Wood was dismayed back in November last year at missing out on becoming chair of the Transport Committee, because he saw himself as such a strong advocate for improving public transport:
Mr Wood said that in the three years he had been out of office, he had taken a real interest in public transport.
“What I have seen in particular areas, especially in the southern suburbs isn’t a pretty sight,” he said.
He believed his institutional knowledge built up as Mayor of North Shore for nine years should be used to look at how public transport was organised and funded.
“My highest priority is to find out where the $143.5 million ratepayer and road-user subsidy to public transport for this year is spent.”…
…His emphasis on improving existing public transport is different to that of Mr Brown, who has made a central city rail loop, rail to the airport and rail to the North Shore his top transport priorities.
As another member of the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, Jan O’Connor, said – if Auckland Council is actually serious about trying to improve the city’s public transport system it needs to stop with this constant undermining of the bus priority measures we have in place. While the City Rail Link, which has pretty much the entire council’s support (except for Councillor Wood, oddly enough), is clearly a priority the little things that can be done to improve Auckland’s bus system, like keeping cars out of the busway and keeping bus lanes as bus lanes, are arguably of equal importance in their cumulative effect.
What I would actually like to see is some local politicians starting to propose where we should have additional bus priority measures. Like asking NZTA to fix the stupid new Fanshawe Street onramp, which forces buses to merge awkwardly with general traffic instead of giving them a clear run through to the Harbour Bridge.
(Oh and don’t even get me started on Jonathan Coleman).
The reason they keep pushing for it is they are a bunch of no idiots who can’t read a simple report and can’t comprehend the impacts that would result. It also probably a bit of pretending to be the little guy standing up against the big evil CCO.
Out of interest did the rest of the transport committee shut them down and ask if they had read the report?
What is quite telling is that none of them ever propose that a general traffic lane on the motorway should become an HOV rather.
@rtc Well interestingly, Penny Webster of all people, did just that! proposing that HOVs on the existing general lanes be investigated on the Northern…. good idea, and obviously the best way to reward car poolers without slowing down bus users.
I think it’s because they’re all middle-aged and rich. They grew up at a time of rampant car ownership and unfettered driving. They don’t understand that many of the fellow younger citizens actually depend on public transport. Plus, when you’re trying to get votes nothing better than appealing to the grey-haired fogeys – most of whom don’t work in town and so probably have no need for PT.
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yes of course, Ken Baguley was the most muddled, his only argument was that ‘it didn’t used to be like that’, well Remuera Rd used to have trams, so all this is is the politics of privilege and entitlement. We don’t have numbers for Remuera or Lake road but for Onewa Rd above those that object to the HOV are arguing that the lane that carries only 17% of the people in the morning peak needs more space from the one carrying the other 83%!
We do have numbers for Remuera Rd, that was done as part of the bus lane study that AT did and it found that the bus lane carries about 1/3 of the people along the route but that changing it to T2 or T3 would see the overall number of people moved along the road reduced as a result of T2/3 cars weaving back into the general traffic lane to get around buses at stops which just slows everyone else down.
Also as one of the Board members who supported DTLBs motion, one other point of clarification…I’m 19 and not particularly rich, so do I count as one of these grey haired politicians?
I know who I won’t be voting for next time round.
Can I also just clarify (for Joseph and Richard Hills’ sake) that my earlier comment was mainly directed at Wood, Baguley, and Coleman (i.e. the politicians mentioned in the post), who’s personal record on PT issues is not flash.
Just to clarify, I’m a member of the DTLB and stand by the Boards decision. I catch at least two buses almost every day of the working week (the odd exception of course) and am a firm advocate for bus use. But the Esmonde Road case is, I feel not so much an issue of the buses being hindered as it is a matter of reducing single occupant cars on the road. The intervals between buses at even the peak times are something like 10 minutes, and the percentage of vehicles using the current general traffic lanes between 7:00 and 8:30 who are single occupants is 90%. by removing 10% of the general traffic and giving them priority access to the motorway, I believe we are alleviating both modes of transport without shifting a huge burden onto the bus users. In my view if we can get people out of their singular modal transport, then we’re one step closer to getting them into Quality Rapid Transit modes. Ideally I’d like to see the buses that travel down Esmonde diverted through Akoranga as well. Every morning when the bus goes past that stop I feel sorry for the people who can’t get on because the bus is pretty much full by the time it reaches Smales.
Firstly, I want to thank you for engaging. I’m always pleased when I see representatives and decision-makers (both elected and appointed) engaging actively with the community and with informed commentary on subjects of interest.
Every morning when the bus goes past that stop I feel sorry for the people who can’t get on because the bus is pretty much full by the time it reaches Smales.
In which case, lobby for more buses. More buses have been put on, to cater for massive and continued increases in ridership. Your statement that they come every 10 minutes, is not true. From a post here in late April, the new schedule is as follows:
Service frequency increase ex Albany to 3 minutes 7.00am to 8.00am School term only (currently 4-5 minutes).
Service frequency increase ex Albany to 5 minutes from 6.30am to 7.00am (currently 10 minutes).
Service frequency increase ex Britomart to 5 minutes 3.00pm to 4.00pm (currently 10 minutes).
Service frequency increase ex Britomart to 3 minutes 5.00pm to 5.45pm School term only (currently 4-5 minutes).
Service span increase Monday to Thursday – last service 12.00am ex Britomart. Service will operate every 15 minutes with last service 12 midnight from Britomart (1130 Albany).
Even well outside peak times, buses are still running at 15 minute frequencies. Ridership is increasing, and these numbers will change again soon, I am absolutely sure.
The problem with putting regular cars on bus-lanes is that it’s like putting sand into a bearing. The small increase in users quickly clogs the lane, and means that the 30% or so of users see significant reductions, moving congestion back onto the motorway, and slowing everything down again. Car drivers in Auckland are actually very bad at driving in ways that reduce congestion, and they will shift that into the bus-lanes.
Hi George, thanks for that! I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clearer, but the 10 minute interval was the bus stops on Esmonde not the Akoranga station…but I’ve since learned it’s closer to 7 minutes. In either case, there are fairly large gaps at peak and off peak times where we could have carpool vehicles running through the lanes. But def keen to hear any criticism of that, because of course we’re just requesting it be investigated urgently, not necessarily definitely proceed.
The problem with politicians like you is that you completely ignore advice from experts and keep pushing your own theories even though they have no basis if fact and is one of the good reasons that AT is a bit more independent and not under direct political control. Also theory’s about what will happen to the traffic as a result of changes rarely turn out to be what actually happens and surely a better way to solve the issue of single occupant cars would be to make PT across the city better so those drivers have a legitimate alternative. Taking 10% of cars out of one lane will just free up space for 10% more single occupant cars to join in at the other end and congestion will still be just as bad. The same thing happens on the motorway, if we widen it and add lanes then those new lanes end up just as clogged as they always were.
Actually the report presented to us by the transport experts RECOMMENDED the bus lane on Esmonde be turned into a HOV lane. As for your “making PT better” solution…that’s a long term very complicated project…this is a short term quick and good win to achieve more efficient use of the existing traffic lanes.
Hi Joseph
The Akoranga issue is mostly described in this 2007 acticle: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/road-transport/news/article.cfm?c_id=214&objectid=10480338
My understanding is that the origional plan had been to remove the bus lane completely from Esmonde Road and have buses either use the central general traffic lane along Esmonde Road which would be uncongested or travel between Akoranga and Takapuna via Anzac Street.
That would have been stupid. There are a million buses serving Akoranga why slow down the buses along Esmonde by forcing such an unnecessary detour?
The reason for connecting with Akoranga is to improve the connection between Devonport (and Takapuna) and the Busway. Currently the bus services are very southward focused even though there is a need for northbound trips to Albany etc.
If Anzac Street had bus lanes (or there was a bus link across the reserve) then it wouldn’t be any different then Esmonde Road, which is the worst (peak vs offpeak) local road in NZ according to Tomtom.
Also try getting from Fanshawe Street to Takapuna by bus, the services are both so full and unreliable that you have to go to Smales on the NEX and then transfer to go back south to Takapuna (How is that not a destination?).
“Like asking NZTA to fix the stupid new Fanshawe Street onramp, which forces buses to merge awkwardly with general traffic instead of giving them a clear run through to the Harbour Bridge.”
I presume (and could be totally wrong) that the buses will have a head start with a B light so this could actually be sensible? Though you are right that there should be a bus lane to the bridge once the 5th lane is open.
I dont understand the first plot. The only two categories are busway and cars. Where are a) Onewa Rd bus users b) Motorcyclists?
And yes Jonathan Coleman is a complete idiot who seems to call for the T2ing of Onewa Rd despite being well aware of the evidence.
What I don’t get about the two charts is that 2010 in the first one seems to match the predicted column for DEC 2010 in the second one… was there a big boom in late 2010 in bridge travel? Is Dec a busy month? How is 2011 looking?
As I discussed with Josh last night, Lindsays motion was in response to residents saying that it was difficult or dangerous for T3 lane users to get into the general lane before the bridge at the bottom of Onewa Rd, as it abruptly changes from T3 to buslane and if no one let’s you in, you either have to go North instead if South or illegally use buslane. But as Josh pointed out One issue could be making it hard to merge with buses at other end. But we will wait for the report from NZTA which members of the community asked for. Lindsay and I support the report which says To keep the T3, as 70% of all people are using the T3 lane in 400 vehicles and the other 30% are using over 1000 vehilcles. Coleman and two members on my board want it cut down to a T2 but as Lindsay said in NST on 11/08/2011 The T3 lane is “extremely successful” and it is an important way to promote public transport and carpooling. I agree and anything less than a T3 would have adverse effect on buses and put people back jnto their cars out of frustration.
Thanks for dropping by Richard and it is super-excellent to know that the majority of the Kaipatiki Local Board supports the Onewa T3 lane. Let’s get a T3 going up the hill in the PM peak now.
In terms of the merge issue it is clear that unless you add a lane to the harbour bridge it will be necessary to merge that T3 lane back into general traffic at some point – the question is “where is the safest place to do that?”
It seems to me that merging on a straight stretch of local road (the bottom of Onewa) is tonnes safer than after the overbridge on a curve where speeds are higher and where buses are merging from the busway.
In short, there is a strong logic to the existing situation.
Once again thanks for dropping by, great to see local board members involved in these discussions.
I think extending the merge across the intersection seems reasonable – not all the way around the corner, but just for 20m or so as is common after intersections throughout Auckland. That way T3 vehicles can merge with the general traffic as vehicles are moving. If traffic is stopped for the lights in the general traffic lane and you are in the T3 lane you can stay in the T3 lane and merge on the green just after the intersection. I cant see how this would slow down buses, if anything it would improve the flow for buses – currently there could be situations where someone blocks the T3 lane trying to merge.
But I agree that there is little value having the T3 go all the way around to the motorway in the bus lane, and that could hold up buses from the busway.
Dear Sir, You seem to be unfairly inferring that I hate buses.
Firstly I believe that my record as a bus and train user shows that the contrary is actually the reality. Since this council term started I have regularly traveled to and from meetings at the Auckland CBD by bus. I’ve also been to meetings at Papakura, Manurewa and Henderson (2) by train.
In the 4 months since the HOP card came on board I have used my card on 87 occasions to travel across to Auckland CBD and return home to Forrest Hill (retrieved from the HOP web site). This works out at about 6.2 trips per week. This would be about average since I was elected in October last year. Surely this would seem to indicate that I don’t actually hate buses but more to the contrary that I am a supporter. Many times in the morning peak I board the city express North Star bus at the Sunnynook Bus Station.
Also, as the mayor of North Shore City I was the person who lead the charge to get North Shore City parking officers enforcing the Onewa Road priority lane. This was the first time that non police officers were allowed to enforce bus lanes in New Zealand. Prior to this occurring the lane operated very inefficiently. I certainly held out for this lane remaining as a T3 but believe that improvements can be made by taking the Transit lane over the Northern Motorway bridge.
During my mayoral term the number of Transit and Bus lanes increased considerably. As for the Northern Busway and the many additional feeder cross-city bus services: I believe that it was a team effort that got the Northern Busway in place but at the same time it would have happened without a lot of effort to get the funding in place.
Thanks for dropping by George and certainly it’s great you use the bus so regularly. It is a huge problem that so many of our political representatives and senior transport officials don’t actually use the PT system.
But this leaves the obvious question – if you use the bus so regularly surely you can see how popular and successful the busway is, and how we don’t want to mess with that success by allowing cars onto it?
George – your personal use of public transport is to be commended. But I’d like to suggest that there’s a need for elected officials to take a more pro-active stance on public transport.
From where I’m sitting the general discourse on bus lanes (particularly on the North Shore) is overwhelmingly negative, despite the overwhelming success of the Northern Busway and public transport in general.
It’s all very well pledging passive support – but this type of issue needs active leadership. For example why has no-one on the Shore written a public rebuttal to Coleman’s mis-informed article?
That leaves Coleman and Baguley as the last men accused …
George Wood continues his push to destroy the busway.
“But committee member George Wood, who was mayor of the former North Shore City when the $300 million busway was built, said planning commissioners who approved a designation for it did so on the condition that high occupancy vehicles could use it.
He said a special tunnel had been built at the Constellation Drive bus station to let cars join the busway”
You can plead that more ratepayers’ money and more road users’ money be spent on more buses to fill up bus lanes, but the simple economics state that a grossly underused bus lane is a grossly underused resource when large numbers of other vehicles are sitting idling. The reason HOV lanes are commonplace in the US is because bus only lanes would be empty. So the case for allowing other vehicles is strong, as long as it does not severely deteriorate the service standards for buses.
The economic justification is that exclusive lanes are a proxy for road pricing. The presumption being that bus users and full cars would be more likely to pay to use the road as a scarce resource at peak times (so would trucks in fact).
Now I’d actually argue that it may be preferable to allow any HGVs (3.5t +) to use bus lanes that have spare capacity, given they all pay RUC and the HGVs have absolutely no alternative. The environmental benefits of avoiding trucks idling are considerable, and the truth is that there will be very few in any case. After that, allowing T3s would be another way of easing congestion.
The Northern Busway is another story. I’d simply toll it for anyone else who wants to use it. The toll would be set to maintain current speeds, but it would be an express lane ideal for those who have a high value of time at any single point. On top of that, it would be valuable revenue to support maintenance of the busway. Offpeak the toll would be low, enough to be a small contribution on top of the cost of the transaction, but at peaks it would offer an express lane, ideal for those with appointments, flights or personal emergencies.
What “problem” are you trying to solve though? The busway is carrying around 2.5 lanes worth of traffic at peak times, an enormously efficient use of its road space, and it has taken vehicles off the road as well as allowing more people to get over the bridge at peak times than before (almost 30,000 in the two hour peak).
The busway works really well, yet still has capacity for further growth. Why mess with it?
The “problem” is the congestion on the parallel corridor, or have you submitted to the “congestion is a tool” argument? Freight has no choice, commercial vehicles have no choice and some motorists have no reasonable choice if they are not going to the CBD.
Why continue with a sub-optimal situation when you can get more usage out of an underutilised resource and generate net benefits?
Yes the busway works well, but how is allowing tolled users going to “mess with it”? After all, motorists generally paid for it, not bus companies alone.
Across the US, HOT lanes are being installed that have buses, HOVs and tolled vehicles using precious capacity, and it works very well. There is no reason to assume it couldn’t be the same in NZ. If it happened, it would provide some vehicles with a tremendous improvement in service (which they would be paying for) and make a modest difference to the other lanes.
Other than the busway, the case is stronger. You’ve already touted the success of the T3 Onewa Rd lane which gets a 50% increase in people carried whilst maintaining a reasonable level of service. Why not allow HGVs onto bus lanes that have ample capacity? Again, they pay the same to use the road and HGVs have no alternative.
The issue with allowing other vehicles in standard bus lanes i.e. Dominion Rd is the impact they create when buses stop to pick up or drop off passengers, what tends to happen is that instead of waiting behind the bus they push into the general traffic lane which slows that lane down while they merge and the end result is slower trips overall or as AT’s recent bus lane study puts it, less productivity. Putting HGV’s in bus lanes would have a similar effect unless they were banned from re entering the general traffic lane and I could see some places where large numbers could potentially come off the motorway and clog up bus lanes in an attempt to avoid congestion on the motorway. Just because a lane may look empty for 30 seconds, it doesn’t mean that we should be trying to fill that space up with cars.
As for the argument that HGV’s should be able to use them as they pay RUC’s, what a load of nonsense, the RUC charges don’t even cover the cost those vehicles impose on the system let alone entitle them to special treatment
Let’s be clear, there are two distinct issues:
- Allowing more vehicles on grossly underutilised bus lanes;
- Converting North Shore Busway into a busway with a dynamically priced toll lane.
In the first case if you think there is something environmentally friendly and positive about allowing half of the capacity of a congested road to go unutilised for half an hour, then you need to check your premises, and perhaps see evidence overseas. It doesn’t make economic or environmental sense, and can only be “justified” if you have a blinkered view that is profoundly anti-road transport except buses.
The obvious case I know is in London where black cabs have unfettered use of most bus lanes, and funnily enough the net effect on bus travel times is minimal, mainly because they accelerate and get out of the way of buses that stop.
What’s your evidence that HGVs are underpriced in RUC? The only argument you could have is on local roads where ratepayers pick up on average half the tab (something that should be changed), but the same case can be made for buses. However, if you dive into the costs of building and maintaining roads, you’d discover that half of these costs are fixed – not usage related, so might fairly be allocated either among all users evenly, or to a fixed charge (rates aren’t the best way of doing that).
So given that HGVs have no alternative, and pay the same as buses to use the roads, what’s the rational argument against freight using bus lanes in cases when there is ample capacity? I wouldn’t argue it for blanket application, and besides, the fuel costs for stop-start traffic with traffic lights for trucks are enormous, and would hardly incentivise them to rat run from slow motorway running onto local streets.
The problem with letting vehicles in bus lanes is that they chop and change lanes when buses stop to pick up passengers – and therefore end up slowing down traffic in the general lane.
When Auckland City Council turned Tamaki Drive back from a bus lane to T2 lane, travel time in the general traffic lane increased quite significantly – the opposite to what you’d think as vehicles could now also use the T2 lane. This was discovered to be the result of vehicles changing lanes.
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At a general level if our only transport goal is the reduction of congestion, if you could add vehicles to the busway (be they toll-paying, trucks or whatever) without those vehicles affecting the operation of the busway, then that wouldn’t necessarily be a problem (except for issues like reversibility at the stage when we’re running so many buses that we need to get rid of the other vehicles but can’t for political reasons).
The problem is that it isn’t that simple. You’d potentially have issues around station, you would get situations where cars would get stuck behind buses and potentially do dangerous passing manoeuvres and you have the Onewa merging issue.
In terms of “roads users have paid for the busway”, I agree – and they’re benefitting from it hugely. The data above appears to show that over the past 6-7 years the number of peak time bus users from the North Shore has increased by around 5000. Even if these trips are calculated to be average length for buses (which I think is conservative) we can make the following calculations:
Peak time road user benefit per bus trip (from NZTA EEM): $11.73
Additional bus trips per peak: 10,000 (5,000 in each peak)
Total benefits per year: $11.73 * 10,000 * 229 work days a year = $26.86 million a year of road user benefits
And that ignores the (admittedly lower) off-peak benefits.
Bus operators pay RUCs too don’t forget… even crazed ideologs obsessed with the short sighted and discredited god of user pays can’t possibly find any justification for undermining the Northern Busway.
What a pranet; there is not even any demand for more lanes outside of peak hours [only congested at peak], so what possible use could that daft scheme have? Can’t sleep at night knowing there is a successful and unmolested PT ROW functioning in Auckland? Fun though watching the ninny get into such blue fit over such evident rebuttal of his tired and outdated ideology.
Setting aside your obvious ideological bigotry, my interest is in getting the best use out of scarce resources. I have long thought the Northern Busway would be a great success, and it has been. I supported it having such a priority when I had some responsibility for transport funding in NZ.
However, as Josh has indicated, as long as it can maintain the current service standards of the busway, why should anyone oppose allowing other vehicles on it, with dynamically priced tolling, to support more revenue to maintain it – unless you’re a starry eyed socialist who warmly embraces the idea that everyone in cars ought to queue, rather than pay a premium to get past it.
I wouldn’t want the busway “messed with”, I want it to be better utilised, and if it means a $10 peak toll as an express lane, then so be it. I doubt there would be many users off peak for a $1 toll of course.
The other objective is that it exposes motorists to paying for congestion, and paying to avoid it, which will do far more for mobility and the environment than vanity rail projects.
But the motorway isn’t congested out of peak, so all allowing cars would do outside peak would be to introduce safety issues with the busway operation.
And at peak times we’re starting to need most of the busway capacity. My worry is once you open up the busway to any vehicles (be they T3 or $10 toll paying) you’re going to struggle to get them off in the future when you really need every last bit of capacity out of the busway.