There are plenty of obnoxious pedestrian crossings out there but thankfully we can cross one off the list. The train station at Henderson always seems to be a fairly busy place these days, even off peak there always seems to be people waiting to get on a train (e.g. early this afternoon I witnessed around 40 people getting on a two car train to head towards town). There are also a lot of people that get to the town centre by way of bus and there are a number of bus stops alongside the station. Many of the people from the trains and buses are heading towards the Henderson town centre and to do so many use the crossing in the image below.
Now at first glance the crossing is quite good, it is at the base of the entrance to the station, there is even a speed table that is designed to slow cars down and is high enough that it means there is no kerb. All of these things are designed to make it easier for pedestrians but what made this crossing so obnoxious is that despite getting 95% of the things right to become a great pedestrian crossing but it failed on perhaps the most basic hurdle. For some reason the designers of the crossing decided to put these signs on it.
These signs just help to reinforce that as a PT user or walker you are considered a second class citizen. Thankfully though, this has now changed and this is the appearance of the crossing today.
Such a simple, cheap and easy change has made this pedestrian crossing into what it always should have been and all it took was a the removal of the signs and a bit of white paint. I suspect that a large part of the reason this particular crossing was upgraded has a lot to do with the new occupants of the building in the background of the above picture. It is the former site of the Waitakere City Council and is now the home of Auckland Transport and I would guess a decent number of the staff there would use this crossing regularly for things like getting lunch from the Westfield mall which is located right behind where I was standing.
This wasn’t the only crossing in Henderson to have signs telling pedestrians they need to wait and there were a few others installed nearby along Gt North Rd. Unfortunately the signs explaining that cars come first still exist so come on AT, why not give them a similar quick and cheap upgrade and help to make Henderson more pedestrian friendly.
Its time for some sign removal and white paint
Great upgrade. Unfortunately for every one removed the roading ‘upgrades’ around the place add in several more slip lanes or even narrower footpaths. It’s a Sisyphus situation.
That suggests a great new strategy, though: move Auckland Transport to a new, randomly selected headquarters every fortnight.
Next stop Botany!
You could have so much fun picking them all out. The sad thing is there’d be a decade worth of material.
As mentioned there are still a couple in Henderson that could quickly and easily have the same treatment but that have been left as is which reinforces my suspicion that this was done to make it easier for staff to get to the mall.
Right on with the post Matt.
Unfortunately it seems to be reasonably widespread out west still. I was pretty much appalled to se AT remodel Glenmall within the last 6-12 months and do this again. Not only did they reinstate the old signs at two crossings at the same time as increasing the size of the speed calming bumps, they added a whole new crossing with the same combo. Aaaaarggggh! What’s the point in investing in pedestrian amenity and safety, then sticking two proverbial fingers up?!
Photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29226893@N06/8076299181/in/set-72157631743300817/
Replacing “courtesy crossings” with the real deal is always a step up in busy places like this but it is still a halfa$$ed solution,
Ideally the overbridge should span railside ave and also link include a like directly to Westcity on the other side of the road,
Not so sure Greenwelly, grade separation isn’t always the best idea, but is always the most expensive. This great AT, hopefully they’ve got someone with a clipboard going around and working their way through all of these crazy hang overs from Autopia.
Yes, shared spaces work well,
But in this case you already have a grade seperation enforced because of the existingrailway overbridge,
There is a large multistory shopping mall within a single roadcrossing, surely it makes more sense to allow disembarking rail passengers to continue at the grade they are on to get over the tracks, rather than having them descend to cross a small lane heavily used as a bus route.
Its not the bus route that is the problem (its not that heavy), the main issue with the mall is it treats pedestrians as some sort of disease. The pedestrian entrance forces people across a loading bay then around the edge of a car park before getting to the doors. An overbridge in this situation would be quite useful for that. Have a look at the streetview image of the route you have to take to get inside, pedestrians walk down that narrow footpath between the loading bay and the stairs and once inside that part, around the edge of a block wall, its pretty horrible
https://maps.google.co.nz/maps?hl=en&ll=-36.880753,174.631188&spn=120.648847,307.96875&t=w&z=3&layer=c&panoid=PPE7QM7qHdQAIELMzCpdbg&cbll=-36.880753,174.631188&cbp=13,-249.0444711325451,,0,4.755549699585828
Not arguing for shared spaces everywhere, just more simple at grade ped crossing like this one is often best.
In places like Japan that understand pedestrian flow and it’s importance, the overbridge from the station to the mall would have been built as a matter of course, because they benefit everyone.
It provides an attractive, all-weather entrance to the mall of course, bringing in more shoppers, but as it does so it provides a channel that the mall can use for advertising etc. to catch people’s attention, increasing their likelihood of spending money. It also raises sales and hence rents at the new entrance, enlivening another part of the mall.
Facilities like this provide passenger amenity, they build value of place, they provide profit. There is no reason not to build them. Why haven’t they been built?
About time this happened. A very busy road with pedestrians traffic. Surprising it took so long with AT around the corner.
Yes next step a more pedestrian friendly entrance to West City.
”Peds give way to Vehicles” Jesus……
For Gods Sake AT, this is basic stuff surely!
We need more pedestrian crossings all over Auckland. With more of them (not less) drivers would become more aware that they need to slow down. This is the case in Continental Europe. NZ is follow some retarded idea that ped X´s should be removed.
On a personal note, one thing that drove me mad growing up in Central AKL is there has only ever been 1 pedestrian crossing on Pah Rd between MT Albert Road intersection and Greenwoods Cnr. According to google map that is 1.2 kms. 1.2 kms on a massively busy road and only one crossing. I had to run from one side to the other pretty much every day of my life, ridiculous.
We need more pukekos…
Table crossings work so well for pedestrians – and remove the need for kerb cuts/pram crossings that are often hard to fit into constrained legacy spaces. However, traffic engineers seem to hate em for some reason.
No, we don’t.
I think they are the best thing since sliced bread, and have been including them in my designs whenever I have the chance.
Wow, I almost have mixed feelings about this. It has a special place in my heart as one of the intersections that sparked my photographic adventure through Auckland — picture #2, http://bythemotorway.tumblr.com/post/21880430207 — taken during the public RLTP hearings, of all occasions.
Oh well. One down, plenty more to go.
I’m sure that the driver in the picture approves of the pedestrian crossing
She sure does.
I’ve been thinking for awhile that the best thing you could do to Henderson is grass the entire centre section. Make it all a pedestrian/garden area. Have to change a few roads but I figure it’ll actually get a lot more people into the main street. Especially if there was more good restaurants and family stores.
Henderson needs alot more than a garden area. While it sounds appealing my fear is it would just be another area for the unemployed to loiter. Unfortuntely it appears the people who shop there can only afford $2 shops shown by the proliferation of them. Maybe more higher quality terraced housing close by that isn’t filled by people on social welfare? Needs more of a balance to attract better stores and maybe entice more night trade in the restaurants.
I think a better idea would be to provide more well-paying jobs (rather than “beginner’s wages”), and get people off the benefit. Your proposal seems to think one just needs the “wrong people” to go away for a city to be nicer. Should the unemployed maybe do their shopping and “loitering” online until they are employed, and thus stop being lesser creatures than you and me? Also, what’s that whole slant to do with transport and urban design?
Encouraging/enabling more people to live around Henderson will also probably help in its revitalisation. Also getting the mall to “open up” to its surrounding area – especially to the railway station – will help.
What everybody has overlooked is that a speed platform is not a pedestrian crossing unless it has the correct road markings. AT had two options to avoid corporate manslaughter charges, apply the correct road markings or use a simple sign to warn pedestrians of the dangerous situation created by having a speed platform installed in a manner that can erroneously be percieved to be a pedestrain crossing. In slow streets such as the centre of many country centres you can get away with confusing speed platforms because the entire street environment is designed to tell drivers to treat pedestrians as equals. But Henderson Valley Rd has always been a major arterial rather than a shopping street so it was never a smart place to install a speed platform masquerading as a pedestrian crossing. Surely turning them into legal pedestrians crossings would have added only a tiny bit to the cost of installing the speed platforms.