March is known as March Madness for a very good reason, it is when all university students are back along with schools and most workers. This results in extremely busy periods on our transport networks as there are a lot of people wanting to get around the city and in recent years has seen patronage on public transport soar. That’s why this announcement is just plain stupid.
Transpower advised today that it will begin work to install high voltage cables in the Northern Busway on Monday 12 March, as part of its project to reinforce the power supply into Auckland and the upper North Island.
The work comes under the North Auckland and Northland (NAaN) grid upgrade project which will address the current reliance on a single transmission line between Otahuhu and Henderson and will increase security of power supply into the region.
Project Director Paul Duffy said Transpower wished to advise passengers that this work has the potential to disrupt Busway users.
“We have worked with Auckland Transport and the NZ Transport Agency to ensure measures are in place to minimise the impact of our work. This includes restricting our activities so that only sections of the Busway will be affected at one time,” he said.
Some speed restrictions will apply around the work sites and portable traffic signals will help to manage traffic flow. Priority will be given to buses heading south in the morning and north in the evening to take account of peak travelling times.
Mr Duffy said that crews will also work extended hours to ensure the Busway work is completed quickly.
“Unfortunately delays to bus services are unavoidable; however these are expected to be within planned traffic management levels and could range from one to four minutes.
“We will carefully monitor bus flows so that adjustments to the traffic management can be made quickly to avoid unnecessary delays and to take account of special events that may increase traffic on the Busway,” he said.
Work will start at Constellation Drive, connecting through the new substation at Wairau Road before returning to the motorway corridor and completing the section from Wairau Road to the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Completion of this section of the project is expected early next year.
Mr Duffy said Transpower was aware of the thousands of passengers travelling daily on the Busway and were working hard to ensure delays are kept to the minimum while construction is underway.
“We took the opportunity years ago to install ducts during the construction of the Northern Busway in preparation for the cable installation so that we could cause as little disruption as possible.”
“We would like to apologise in advance for any interruption our work may cause passengers on the Northern Busway and appreciate their support for this critical infrastructure upgrade,” Mr Duffy said
Now I want to say first up that I can completely understand the need for the project so am not criticising that but what I am questioning is the timing of this. Why in the middle of the busiest month we have every single year would Auckland Transport let a utility company effectively dig up parts of the busway, one of the key public transport corridors in the whole region.
I can just imagine how loud the howls from motorists would be if they suggested that a lane of the harbour bridge (or even just the motorway) needed to be closed in peak times to lay some cables so why should PT users have to suffer the same issues. Could it not have waited for a slightly quieter month and I wonder what the economic impact is on this disruption as while it may not seem like much, adding 1-4 minutes on to every bus journey would quickly add up both in users time but also in operational costs.
Yeah why not do it in January when the buses are comparatively empty?
Yep or even wait till Easter which is only a month or so away as after that things start to ease off.
Seems pretty ridiculous to me, sounds like people within council aren’t talking to one another. I wonder if transpower is aware thet are affecting the commute of 50% of people heading into the CBD from the shore…
F**king retarded would be the word I’d use.
Then again utlilities such as Telecom/Chorus and the power companies just don’t seem to give a rats arse about other road users at all – look at the mess that Quay St was last year. Why can’t they do things like this at Christmas time?
Hithere, I am working for Transpower on this project. I understand there is no good time to disrupt public transport users or motorists.
In our planning we have done what we can to ensure we cause as little disruption as possible. This includes night work, having one lane open around work sites, and limiting our construction areas to only four sites at a time.
This is a large project with many dependencies that all need to line up in order to commission the new high voltage link by 2013 (a link that Auckland and North Auckland really need). You might already have seem some of our cable installing work in Albany.
It would be good if we could do all the work over Xmas periods or the middle of the night, but unfortunately this is not possible and this work will be going on for several months.
You may remember we did do a trial in December to understand how travel times could be affected and we’ve incorporated the results into the work starting. We’ll also be watching our impact carefully while the work is underway to further minimise our effect.
To be honest, a trial in December is a far cry from doing the work in March.
They’re not going to dig up anything – they just have to lift the covers on the cable joint bays (they’re around 700m apart) and thread the cables through to the next bay. Only ~200m will have to be closed at a time, generally around the joint bays.
Ah, I’ll stand corrected (apologies Phillipa – its not quite the muppet decision I thought it was – still not smart, but not as disruptive as other things we’ve seen in the past). I thought it was the usual wholesale dig.
In saying that, the question still has to be asked on why it was not possible to do this during a quiet period instead of the busiest month of the year?
Hi Phillipa
Why is it though that the council and transit all seem to have their act together and can get their work done around Christmas/New Year when the system and large parts of the city shut down, but Telecom, Transpower, WaterCare, Vector and other utilities cannot?
Instead of just saying ‘this is not possible’ perhaps a WHY this isn’t possible would be nice. Surely in researching a time your organisation would have known that March happens to be the busiest time of year for both PT and road based transport.
To say its a muppet decision would be a little unfair to Jim Henson’s little furry friends.
hi Trickster
Where possible we have planned work over the holiday periods. For example over the last Christmas/New Year we installed ducts under the railway crossing in Mt Wellington, which is also part of this project ,to work in with KiwiRail’s line closure, and next Christmas we will be installing cable in Fanshawe Street to minimise the disturbance on this major arterial route into the CBD. In this case we couldn’t start cable installation any earlier because the specially made cable could not be delivered into the country prior to March
Hi Phillippa, the issue you haven’t address is why in March? Why not wait another month to avoid this peak period? Thanks
Also, in case you aren’t aware of how strong the March peak is, take a look at the graph in this post http://transportblog.co.nz/2012/02/05/are-we-ready-for-the-march-madness/
Hi Phillipa
Fair enough, although again the question has to go back to ‘why March’. Would a further delay of a month (say to do a large portion of the install over Easter weekend) have dramatically affected the whole project and drastically extended timelines?
Still, I have to say thanks for actually coming in and commenting – we can be a rather tetchy bunch when we want to be, however its nice to see Transpower is bothering to have the conversation with those of us who care passionately about this stuff.
I agree – thanks Phillipa. Forums like this should be used more often as an official communication channel.
Obscure fringe forums read by whiny totalitarian transport freaks? Let’s make that an official communication channel. Rather than, say, the firm’s website.
Typically 2000-2500 daily views on a weekday. FYI.
AT doesnt have a forum, presumably because they don’t like open feedback from informed commenters?! ARTA did have the original transport forum, but didn’t see any value in continuing with it and so abandoned it for the CBT.
Excuse me, but who are you calling totalitarian eh? Please explain.
I think the key point is not so much why not in the holidays, agree that’s not always possible. The better question is why in March: the busiest month of the year for public transport by miles. There will probably be more PT trips in March than either of the months the RWC happened , by way of comparison.
Typically, it seems that nobody planning this gave a damn about public transport users. Guarantee they drive to work.
Everyone knows only a few poor people use buses, so it doesn’t matter if you screw up the buses in March…
Interesitingly enough the delayss have not been that noticeable as a user of the buses through here.
The delays are much less than
1) Getting from Anzac starret to Neslon Street in the evenings
2) Getting from Albert Street to Britomart pallace in morning
3) Getting thru Greveille Road onramp in the mornings (can take 2-3minutes for a bus to get thru here using all ways it can to spped this part up)
Inother words having a lane dug up not nearly as good way of slowing an express bus than having to get it through a cramped lot of cars!!