There’s some good news and some not-so-good news in a NZ Herald article on the Dominion Road bus/T2 debacle that I have written a number of blog posts about in the last few months.
It seems as though the proposed changes to the road – including the removal of on-street parking, the creation of lengthy cycle lanes down both sides of the road and the bus versus T2 issue has created a lot of controversy and anger in the area. The article outlines this:
Auckland City leaders, including Mayor John Banks, are backing away from radical changes to Dominion Rd which have had the local community in an uproar.
Mr Banks has confirmed that he will today accept a Save Dominion Rd petition – which organisers say has been signed by more than 5000 people – and that he intends supporting the petitioners.
The petition calls for the city council to abandon plans to remove all street parking along 4.5km of Dominion Rd outside peak hours. Neither do the petitioners want the road widened for cycle-only lanes, nor the introduction of restrictions against right turns.
The changes have been listed in an $83 million package of proposals on which the council has received 1250 submissions in a consultation round due to close on Sunday.
While I don’t agree with many of the things the petitioners are asking for, I think it’s positive to see so many people getting involved in the issue. It would have been interesting to see if the opposition had been quite so overwhelming if the council had stuck with the initial idea of making the lanes for buses only, rather than T2 lanes. The idea of a four-lane highway with no on-street parking to slow vehicles down is pretty scary and I’m not surprised the community has risen up against that.
The article continues, with the organiser of the petition confirming that the biggest fear is that Dominion Road would be turned into a soulless highway:
Petition organiser Penny Hickey said yesterday that the community would be happy with some simple changes, such as a possible minor extension of hours for existing bus lanes, and running these through intersections where general traffic is allowed to occupy two lanes each way.
But she said local residents and business owners had been horrified by a council proposal to turn them into 24-hour lanes, and to open them to any vehicle with two or more occupants, while banning all parking.
“This road has been blighted for 20 years by designation and held back from investment,” said Ms Hickey, a resident of a side street off Dominion Rd who teaches English to migrants.
I think that Ms Hickey’s suggestion of extending (perhaps to 7-11am and 3-7pm?) the hours of bus lane operation would be a useful first step – encouraging more people to use the excellent bus service that is provided along Dominion Road. Extending bus lanes through intersections is also a great idea, as it is intersections where buses often experience the most significant delays.
But I also think it’s worth recognising that these measures are a bit of a “stop-gap” and delay – rather than resolve – finding a longer term public transport solution for Dominion Road. Personally, I think that solution should be the placement of a modern light-rail tram line down the middle of the street – providing a significant boost in capacity and also benefitting the local businesses and residents in the same ways that light-rail systems around the world have proven to be fantastic tools in encouraging intensification, redevelopment and greater economic activity along their routes. I think it must be recognised that removing street parking from Dominion Road will always be difficult – and rightly so in many respects as local shops depend on it (or at the very least think they depend on it). In order for the parking removal to be accepted I think there will need to be something pretty significant given in return that will help these people out.
Land-based public transport in Auckland is currently provided in two ways, through buses and trains (don’t let anyone tell you that taxis are public transport, they’re for-hire private transport that don’t offer any of the efficiency gains of real PT). Over the past 10-15 years there have been on-off arguments in Auckland about whether there’s a place for something to sit between trains and buses: in the form of light-rail. Initially, light-rail was probably seen as a potential replacement for the heavy rail system, and it seems for this reason that whenever someone suggests a tram/light-rail line Auckland City Council (who did most of the debating about light-rail) start talking about the CBD Rail Tunnel and that it means we won’t need light-rail.
The legacy of the light-rail debates that Auckland has had in the past have left us with some interesting results, like a Northern Busway that is supposedly “future proofed for light-rail”, and a wide median of Te Irirangi Drive that is similarly “future-proofed”. Not that I have anything against future-proofing (in fact I think we don’t do nearly enough of it in Auckland), but it seems as though the term “future proofed for light-rail” is a bit of a joke in Auckland, and generally means that it’s an alignment we’re going to need full heavy rail trains to run along at some point in the future. Rather than as a substitute for heavy rail, I do think that light-rail/modern trams have a place in Auckland’s transport future – as the best part of the Quality Transit Network.
First things first though, I do think it’s important to restate that the debate over whether buses, trams or trains provide the best solution is a stupid debate. Each different transport option has its strengths and weaknesses, and therefore works best in certain circumstances. We need buses, we need trains and we also potentially need trams to sit between the two, where the situation is right. The second thing I probably need to state is what I actually mean by tram/light-rail – and why I use the terms interchangeably. What I mean is something that runs on the existing road, but generally with its own lane to operate in. In some cases it might end up with a street to itself, but generally there would be other vehicles on the same street. Something like this: While it is true that there’s something of a convergence between the technologies emerging, in my opinion there is still a point where demand reaches a level that starts to be difficult to serve by buses (particularly if they’re operating at-grade rather than on a grade-separated busway), but isn’t high enough to justify spending billions of dollars on an underground railway line. There is also the issue of what kind of corridor we are trying to serve, and the technology that best suits that requirement: is it a widely spaced series of nodes that are well suited to being served by a train line that stops every kilometre or two, or do we have (or potentially have) a more even corridor of development where you would want more frequent stops?
If we’re being sensible about looking at the place of light-rail in Auckland (or any city for that matter), proper consideration must be given to the fact that it is expensive, particularly in terms of its capital costs, and that we want to make sure we’re measuring its benefits in the right way. As Jarrett at Humantransit loves to say, light-rail probably won’t provide you with any mobility benefits over and above what you could get out of good bus-priority (which would probably be a lot cheaper than a light-rail line). Light-rail is unlikely to be faster than what you could achieve from a bus, as what determines that is usually whether you have bus lanes, how good you are at boarding quickly, how much priority your buses/trams get at traffic lights and so forth. So it should be recognised that we’re not doing this for speed reasons, although the level of investment that would go into creating a tram line means that you probably would end up with better priority measures than you would for a bus lane.
There would be the capacity reason to do light-rail. As the picture above shows, the vehicles can be pretty long and therefore can carry a large number of people. This means that one tram every 5 minutes could carry as many people as a bus coming every 1-2 minutes. In the longer run, this is good for operating costs as you have fewer drivers – and I imagine electricity is cheaper (or certainly will be in the future) than diesel. It also means that if you do run trams every 2 minutes, your corridor capacity is much greater than what would realistically be possible with buses (once you start getting large numbers of buses they start blocking each other and slowing each other down, even given priority). Auckland’s CBD is starting to have problems with the number of buses heading in and out of it at peak times, particularly around Britomart. More people on fewer vehicles has some big advantages as the ability of the CBD to cope with more and more buses in the future is pretty limited.
The other main reason why I think light-rail could benefit Auckland is through those rather ephemeral things called “wider economic benefits”, or perhaps more specifically in the case of light-rail: the way in which providing such a line would result in intensification and economic development along the corridor being served. There are also potentially significant benefits in making it easier for tourists to get to the various places they want to go – and that becomes quite clear in the location of one of my lines. In terms of the secondary benefits to the economy, and to the achievement of our land-use plans and strategies, this has often been the main reason why North American cities have promoted light-rail lines over the past couple of decades. If we take Portland as an example, the light-rail system has played a huge part in the regeneration of ex-industrial areas and in helping Portland achieve their growth management strategies. Portland’s actual number of public transport riders isn’t particularly amazing, around a 12% modeshare – higher than Auckland’s but lower than Vancouver, Seattle and many other North American cities – but perhaps that’s not necessarily as important as the secondary effects of light-rail on the redevelopment of areas or the intensification of corridors.
Bringing things back to Auckland, as I said at the start of this post I think there is a place for light-rail in Auckland’s transport future. While in many respects it is a tragedy that Auckland ripped out its trams in the 1950s, the way the city has developed since then means that simply re-creating that system wouldn’t make too much sense today. The two lines that I would create are shown (approximately) in the map below (higher resolution here): As you can see, the system is not particularly extensive, at least not initially. I have also stuck to routes in the inner-isthmus area, as North American cities have also generally used light-rail along reasonably short inner-city routes (at least when it’s not grade-separated). I am hesitant to use light-rail further out, at least initially, because either you’re going to end up needing to operate very long routes (which are likely to be slow for travellers) or you’re going to be operating your routes as feeders to the heavy rail system, in which case I think it’s reasonably unlikely you’d need anything beyond a bus. Furthermore, the type of intensification that light-rail routes can generate is most suitable and desirable in the more inner parts of the city.
So we have a green line and an orange line. I will describe both lines and my reasoning behind them:
Green Line:
Effectively this is the Dominion Road corridor, which I have discussed as being suitable for light-rail in the future in a few earlier posts. The potential suitability for Dominion Road to have light-rail in the future is part of my thinking of why having median bus lanes may also be a good idea: as you’d be most of the way there towards creating a light-rail line in the future: just slap down some rails and up some wires when the capacity necessitates the upgrade.
At its southern end, the line would at some stage in the future connect with the Avondale-Southdown heavy-rail line, and in the meanwhile would be a hub for feeder buses serving the southwest part of the Auckland isthmus: suburbs from Hillsborough, through to Lynfield and Blockhouse Bay could all feed into the tram line, which would then offer a high-quality, high-capacity ride into the city and along the corridor.
At the city end, the route runs down Queen Street, then turns left and serves the Wynyard Quarter. The tram-loop that the ARC is currently planning would become a key part in turning the trams around before they headed back south on their journey out of the city.
In terms of satisfying my above criteria for light-rail, the Dominion Road bus route is already pretty damn popular, being close to capacity for the current bus lanes during peak times and busy enough to justify 5 minute frequencies during the weekday inter-peak period. With further development likely to happen along the corridor in the future and higher petrol prices likely to mean a general greater uptake of public transport, it’s not hard to see the current bus lanes being overwhelmed at some point in the not too distant future. So it ticks the capacity box. In terms of potential to stimulate land-use change, Dominion Road has masses of potential here, with much of the road (especially south of Balmoral) being bounded by low-rise 1950s housing of not particularly fantastic merit. The potential for that to be replaced with 3-4 level townhouses and terraced houses is immense, something just needs to help “make it happen” – and a light-rail line could be that catalyst. So the other box is ticked.
Orange Line:
The orange line is a longer, and more complex line – going from Unitec in the west to St Heliers Bay in the east. Effective it is two lines joined in the middle: one serving the inner-west part of Auckland and the other running along Tamaki Drive. Undoubtedly this line is a bit more questionable than the Dominion Road one, and would almost certainly be built later, but that’s not to say that it wouldn’t be a good idea: because I think it would.
Starting with the western section of the line, there are a very large number of buses that travel along Great North Road – so there may be some capacity issues along this road in the future. A lot of the buses come from a long way west, but that may change in the future as buses in the west get terminated at New Lynn for people to either transfer onto a train or onto some sort of high-frequency bus link between New Lynn and Britomart via Great North Road. There is also the potentially significant patronage generator of Unitec, some top tourist attractions in the Zoo, Western Springs Park and MOTAT, and huge intensification potential between Ponsonby and Grey Lynn along the Great North Road ridge.
I would then have the line duck down through Freemans Bay to emerge at Wynyard Quarter. Freemans Bay also has significant redevelopment potential: at least along the streets that aren’t full of lovely heritage housing. Wynyard Quarter is a massive potential trip generator in the future (and will have to be well served by public transport because there is so little road access), so it makes sense to link through to there, then onto Britomart.
With the western section, this would operate as quite a different types of line: largely for leisure travellers and tourists rather than commuters – along Tamaki Drive. While the capacity issues of the green line and the western section of the orange line may not apply here, and also it’s unlikely to generate much intensification – I think that there may well still be significant economic benefits of this line, achieved by linking together many of Auckland’s top tourist attractions on the one line, and also making the connection high-quality. Much of my enthusiasm for this part of the line is based on the enormously successful F & Market Line in San Francisco, which similarly operates along their waterfront.
I do think these two lines have the potential to transform Auckland in a way that simply wouldn’t quite be possible through a bus route. Now that’s not to say that many of their benefits wouldn’t also be enjoyed through the creating of a high-quality bus route – but when it comes to capacity, the ability to stimulate development and the ability to attract leisure and tourist trips that would almost certainly otherwise be made by cars, along certain corridors I do think there’s a place for light-rail in Auckland’s transport future.
While the recent announcement of the reintroduction of trams in Auckland, via a small heritage tramway in Wynyard Quarter, is in some ways the smallest possible step towards trams playing a large role in meeting Auckland’s future transportation needs, it’s interesting to see some of the plans being discussed in Perth, Western Australia at the moment about the role that modern trams may play in their public transport future.
Auckland can learn a lot from the renaissance of public transport in Perth over the past 20 years, as Perth’s an even lower density city than we are, so I’ll be following what comes of this.
It has been interesting to see the reaction to last week’s announcement that the ARC will be bringing trams back to Auckland’s waterfront, through a 1.5 km loop around Wynyard Quarter.
Statements supporting the tram circuit invariably mention its potential to be part of the region’s wider public transport network, with a route wending around the southern and eastern edges of the Viaduct Harbour to Britomart.
This, however, raises separate issues. It is true that at some stage, when the apartment market recovers and the residential sector of the development takes shape, there will probably have to be a direct connection to Britomart.
Buses have been suggested. But they would be a blot on the landscape, undermining the views from the bars and restaurants and introducing an unpleasant aspect to the public places where people like to stroll.
Trams or light rail might be preferable, but the whole question warrants reappraisal and should be set to one side.
Fortunately, that must be the case anyway because any public transport will have to await the replacement, in 2016, of the temporary foot bridge that will link the Viaduct Harbour with the Wynyard Quarter during the cup.
Set in isolation, the tram circuit is a reasonable idea provided the cost is in keeping with the inherent risks. One way of mitigating these would be to use Motat’s technical expertise as far as possible.
Heritage trams have been a big drawcard elsewhere. There is no reason, with the correct back-up, a similar popularity cannot be achieved in Auckland.
Auckland regional councillors are rushing through plans for their little Tank Farm heritage tramway, claiming it’s all about the Rugby World Cup. But the haste has much more to do with the desire of light rail enthusiasts like chairman Mike Lee, to scrawl “Kilroy was here” before the waterfront falls into the clutches of the new waterfront CCO in a few months.
There’s an almost evangelical hope that once built, this 1.5km circuit around the boundaries of the Wynyard Quarter development site will prove so popular, that the inheritors of the ARC dream will have no option but to extend the tranway into the CBD and onwards along the waterfront, up Queen St, down Dominion Rd and who knows where else.
As a fan of a waterfront light rail, I’d love them to be right. But I fear it’s just as likely to become a little-used, out-of-the-way clanger that puts the cause back another 50 years…
…The big appeal of the ARC’s little tramway proposal is that it’s cheap, at around $7 million, can be funded through ARC’s proxy development company, Sea+City, and be locked into place before the November 1, Super City takeover. But in the haste to leave a legacy, the risk is it will become a legacy of the wrong sort, a reminder of why the November revolution was needed. I hope not.
Mayoral candidate Len Brown seems to be a fan though:
Trams on the right track says Len Brown
Mayor Len Brown has praised the return of electric trams as a being on the right track for the future of Auckland’s public transport.
“This is the most exciting development for inner-city transport seen in many years,” says Len Brown.
“These innovative ideas show that with consensus driven leadership and vision progress can be made towards an efficient world-class transport system.
“I can see future options for the development of electric trams across Te Wero Bridge to further down the waterfront or up into the inner city streets.
“I am delighted that tram travel will, once again, be a reality for Aucklanders, in a way that contributes to the development of the waterfront and the success of the Rugby World Cup.
“Congratulations to Mike Lee and the Auckland Regional Council for their success in bringing back transport options for Aucklanders..
What I find particularly interesting out of all these reactions is that people are now talking about “where could this go next?” and thinking about the role that trams – whether in their heritage form, or in the form of modern light-rail vehicles, or perhaps a mixture of the two – has in the future of Auckland’s city centre. That’s pretty exciting I reckon. As an example of how this announcement has really got people thinking, there was an interesting extract in an otherwise unrelated story on a possible convention centre being located around where the old train station is in Friday’s NZ Herald. Here it is:
“We see it as a golden mile. The vision should be that it leads to the development of the whole of Quay Street. We’re an anchor site. The two points of the bottom of the anchor are the Viaduct and us, with Queen Street as the middle.”
With the Auckland Regional Council bringing back trams to the Tank Farm in time for the Rugby World Cup, there was also no reason a line connecting the two couldn’t be paid for by the developers.
That would move tourists around the city sharing out economic benefits, he said.
So just one day after the announcement we have a completely separate organisation thinking about how having a tram line could help their project. In many ways, I feel as though that is half the point of the first little loop – to get the ball rolling.
So where could things go next? I guess that depends on how we want to think about the future of trams in Auckland. Do we want a future tram system to be mainly for the benefit of tourists and other recreational visitors – or do we want it to be a serious commuting alternative along certain routes? What kind of mix between heritage trams and modern light-rail vehicles would we want?
Looking at it first from a tourism/recreational perspective, there are two obvious future extensions (in addition to the obvious link to Britomart) – and they involve an extension along Tamaki Drive to Mission Bay or perhaps even St Heliers – and at the western end an extension to Ponsonby and perhaps even a link back through K Road to Queen Street and Britomart, creating some sort of a loop.
Here’s the possible Tamaki Drive extension – with the link to Britomart in green and the blue line showing an extension along Quay Street and Tamaki Drive out to Mission Bay. I don’t think this would be too problematic to build as the road is fairly wide for the majority of the way, although perhaps some on-street parking would need to be removed at some pinch points. Linking the city with Kelly Tarltons, Okahu Bay and Mission Bay via a tram would be really popular both with tourists and locals I reckon. And here’s the possible Ponsonby extension. The planned Wynyard loop is in red, the Britomart extension in green and the remaining extension in blue. In some areas the tram would need to share space with buses (such as along Ponsonby Road and also on K Road and Queen Street) but I don’t see that as too problematic. I think this route would be popular as a link between many of Auckland’s entertainment hubs:
The F-Line and Market in San Francisco shows us that heritage trams can be immensely popular as tourist attractions, but also often very useful for locals if the route is right. I think both these routes potentially offer benefits to both, although I would promote both of them mainly as tourist/recreational projects. If we wanted light-rail for predominantly commuters, then I think we’d start with Dominion Road.
Even with just the link to Britomart I think the tram line would be pretty popular, as in the future there will be a lot of people working/living/shopping/visiting the Wynyard Quarter area – and very limited road/parking capacity available for them to drive there. Maybe it would take quite a while to extend the system in one of the ways I have mentioned above, but I think it’s good for us to have a think about longer-term possibilities.
Some great news today from the Auckland Regional Council:
Trams to make a comeback on Auckland’s streets Thursday, 3 June 2010, 12:04 pm Press Release: Auckland Regional Council
All aboard the downtown tram! Trams to make a comeback on Auckland’s streets
Auckland Regional Council (ARC) sees waterfront tramway as part of its legacy to Auckland.
After an absence of more than 50 years electric trams are coming back to Auckland.
The ARC has given its formal support to a heritage tram project along Auckland’s waterfront, to be managed by Sea+City Projects Limited (Sea+City), an ARC Group subsidiary.
The project’s first phase will see heritage trams circuiting the 30 hectare redeveloped Wynyard Quarter linking it with the Britomart Transport Centre.
The proposal was first brought to the ARC’s Transport and Urban Development Committee last year by the Campaign for Better Transport and Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). Feasibility studies have been carried out by the ARC and Sea+City who developed a two phased proposal for the tramway.
Phase one will focus on Wynyard Quarter with a single track loop circuiting Gateway Plaza, Jellicoe Street, Halsey Street, Gaunt Street and Beaumont Street. This is planned to be ready in time for the Rugby World Cup.
Sidings at the western end of Jellicoe Street would house the trams in buildings beside the proposed Silo Park which is being designed to attract people to the western end of Jellicoe Street.
“The return of trams to Auckland’s streets will make a real point of difference for the Wynyard Quarter,” says ARC Chairman, Michael Lee.
“This is a modest beginning, but the longest journey starts with one small step.”
Phase two will see the trams linking to the CBD and connecting with existing public transport at Britomart and on Queen Street.
In approving the project the ARC has recommended Sea+City to work with MOTAT on the technical aspects of tramway construction and management.
John Dalzell, Chief Executive and Project Director for Sea+City, says the concept of running trams around Wynyard Quarter will further activate the area for public use and enjoyment.
The ARC has signalled it would like to see Auckland heritage trams from MOTAT on the waterfront and has also been in discussions with officials of the Victorian government seeking some Melbourne trams on long term loan.
“Auckland’s popular electric trams were removed from the city streets in 1956 which was a terrible mistake in my opinion.”
“The ARC would like to see the return of some of those same trams to Auckland’s waterfront as part of the council’s legacy to the people of Auckland,” says Mr Lee.
No decisions have been made on who will operate the tramway which is being designed as an attraction for the public and visitors to Auckland while providing convenient access around the whole Wynyard Quarter. The tramway will eventually link the future Wynyard Headland Park, North Wharf and the Viaduct Events Centre with Britomart and Queens Wharf.
Here’s where the tram route will go (in red):
As I have outlined before, ideally the line would link into Britomart right from the start – and if it was to do so it would be really really useful to help get workers to the area (which is growing as an area of office developments). However, as the Te Wero Bridge (which is the part of the green line above that goes over the water) is quite a few years away from being constructed to a quality that can handle trams. However, it is a start and the first step in a process of getting trams back to central Auckland is always going to be the hardest step – and it seems that we have now made that difficult first step.
Jon C at Auckland Trains reports that Auckland City Council’s transport committee have approved the suggested changes to the bus upgrade project I talked about in Monday’s post. The main changes are that the bus lanes will no longer meander around the back of the shops at Valley Road and Balmoral, and also that on-street parking along Dominion Road will be removed to enable the bus lanes to operate for longer hours (hopefully) and to allow a high quality cycle lane to be constructed. I will scour the meeting minutes once they come out to finalise the details on whether there’s a risk of Dominion Road’s bus lanes becoming T2 “managed lanes”, but let’s put that issue to one side for now.
My post on Monday suggested that perhaps there should be rethink over the most appropriate public transport solution to the Dominion Road corridor, and in particular whether bus lanes will provide sufficient capacity for the passenger demand along that route in the longer run – particularly if the Dominion Road corridor intensifies along the lines of Auckland City Council’s plans for it. I still think that we will eventually need light-rail along this corridor, but unless the Auckland Transport CCO completely reverses the plans Auckland City is slowly in the process of implementing, it seems that at least for now the Dominion Road upgrade will be bus-based.
So, for me the question now becomes “how can we best do that?” The comments thread of my previous post threw up some interesting ideas – particularly surrounding the concept of putting the bus lanes down the middle of the road. This is an idea used in many overseas cities, particularly Seoul in South Korea, as can be seen in the video below:
There are a number of advantages that arise from putting the bus lanes down the middle of the road. These include less conflicting movements between cars and buses (people pulling out of driveways go straight into the traffic lane) as well as some safety improvements for vehicles (the clogged up general traffic lane often blocks sight of buses barrelling down the bus lane for vehicles on the road trying to turn right into a side-street). Of course there is the disadvantage that the bus stop needs to be in the middle of the road, which means that either you have a tonne of pedestrian crossings or you somewhat limit the number of stops you have (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
A comparison of cross-sections from the two options is shown below, firstly with the typical mid-block cross section in the design currently being proposed by Auckland City Council: If we shift the bus lanes to the centre, we end up with something like this: At stops you could get rid of the median, which would create and 800mm wide “island” on each side. Clearly that wouldn’t be enough, so you would need to squeeze out a bit more width at each stop to accommodate people waiting for the bus somehow. But this is going to be problematic in mixing with the cyclelanes at each stop, so I’m sure it would be possible to figure out a way of doing this – perhaps by narrowing the footpath and cyclelanes for a bit.
From the air, the new layout might look a bit like this (green is cyclelane, grey is road lane, red is bus lane): As well as the benefits of putting the bus lanes in the centre of the road that I have already mentioned, an obvious long term benefit is that typically trams run in the middle of the road (to make crossovers easier and so that you only need one set of power-supply poles), which means that it would be far far easier to upgrade this kind of road layout to being suitable for trams – just slap down some tracks and put up the wires – than it would be for more traditional bus lanes.
This is just an idea I should emphasise, and I still have some level of uncertainty regarding pedestrian safety. But it certainly is an interesting idea, and could be a very useful first step towards eventually running light-rail along Dominion Road.
A key public transport project that sat just outside the construction timeline phase for my “Transport in the next five years” plan, was about Dominion Road – and how we go about actually implementing a high-quality QTN (quality transport network) along that road. Dominion Road is an unusually good bus route in Auckland, because of its straightness, because of the level of development along it, and because of how extensive its bus lanes are.
Buses now run along Dominion Road at 5 minute intervals, even during inter-peak times on weekdays. Higher frequencies (around 40 buses per hour) travel along it during peak times. Anecdotally (fellow blogger Jeremy is a daily bus user along that route) I have heard that even though we have a huge number of buses servicing this route, at busy times they are still often running close to capacity. Because of this approaching capacity issue, and because there are some pretty tricky bottlenecks along the Dominion Road bus route, over the past few years Auckland City Council has been developing a plan to provide a better quality public transport route – something that can truly meet the standards of a Quality Transport Network.
A number of years ago the plan was for light-rail, although in more recent times the plans have switched back to generally being what could be called “enhanced bus lanes”. At a couple of particular pinch-points (the Valley Road and Balmoral shops), the buses (or trams, theoretically) divert behind the shopping centres so that wholesale demolition of the historic fabric of those town centres could be avoided.
I had thought that the whole project was essentially delayed until around 2016, because of Auckland City Council budget cuts, but a most recent paper in the Council’s transport committee agenda reveals that things are actually chugging along fairly quickly. The paper also offers a few handy maps and drawings to show us what we might expect from the project.Now that looks pretty similar to what we have now, but apparently it isn’t. As well as slightly widened bus lanes, it seems that we will now get the bus lanes somehow physically separated off from the adjacent cycle lane.
I have no problem with the removal of on-street parking along this route (although it’s fairly inevitable that will be controversial), and I suppose if this enables both a cycle lane to be put in, plus the bus lanes to potentially operate at all times, then this will be a significant gain. It does make me wonder what the original design actually achieved compared to what we already have (peak hour bus lanes, parking in those lanes at other times). The other big change proposed in this latest paper is for the lanes around the back of Balmoral and Valley Road shops to not actually be used, and to keep the buses on Dominion Road – hopefully in a dedicated lane I might add! I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, although (as I will explain shortly) I’m always loathe to give up a designation when you might need it in the future.
While I like the change that removes parking, and potentially the idea to keep the public transport on Dominion Road could have its merits (dipping around the back of shops never really leads to nice environments for those catching public transport – just look at the Onehunga bus ‘interchange’) I still have this fundamental question about whether “enhanced bus lanes” is really going to be sufficient for Dominion Road’s future level of demand, and whether in fact it is the best option – or whether we need to look at light-rail. From past posts I hope people have realised that I am not “anti-bus”, or indeed “anti” or “pro” any particular technology. In my opinion, different corridors have different needs, and on some corridors buses and bus lanes will be most appropriate, on others we will need heavy rail, and on others again we probably need something that sits in between – like a light-rail line (and by light-rail I mean modern trams/streetcars).
In my opinion the situations where we might choose light-rail are fairly limited, because a lot can be achieved through high-quality bus lanes, at a fraction of the capital cost (although operating costs are likely to be higher for buses). Light-rail is unlikely to be faster than a bus – as the speed will usually depend upon the level of priority given, boarding times, spacing between stops and so forth – which can equally apply for both light-rail and buses. However, there are some advantages that light-rail has which only apply to it. They are:
Higher capacity. Along a route like Dominion Road it’s unlikely that the bus lanes will easily cope with more than 60 buses per hour, or around a bus a minute – this is not because of a lack of capacity on the road itself, but rather problems that will arise around stops, because they are ‘online’, and also because of problems arising from the non grade-separated nature of the road. With 60 people per bus, that’s around 3600 people shifted per hour. In contrast, as far as I know modern articulated trams can hold up to 200 passengers each, meaning that running one of those every two minutes could shift up to 6000 people per hour along the corridor in each direction.
Smoother ride. The very nature of how trams drive is smoother than a bus, and internationally that seems to show a greater ‘capture’ of potential passengers compared to what you see on a bus route. It’s hard to calculate the extent of this though.
Effects on land-use patterns. The existence of light-rail wires and tracks provides legibility about where the route goes, and shows a significant capital investment in that particular route. It means that services are likely to be provided at fairly high frequencies, and that where the route goes is fairly obvious. Internationally, this has tended to stimulate intensification around new light-rail lines more than would have happened for simple bus lanes. Portland is the classic example of this, and actually measures the success of its light-rail projects on the level of intensification stimulated – rather than by any particularly transport focused outcomes.
For largely points 1 and 3 above, I think Dominion Road is unusually suitable for a light-rail line, and if we don’t go down that path, we may very well regret in the future if the bus lanes become overwhelmed. This is what the council paper says about the bus lanes/light-rail discussion:
I have some really serious issues with this paragraph above. The first is that improving public transport is not about making a choice between heavy rail and light rail. They both serve very different purposes, particularly if we’re talking about the kind of “on street, modern trams” type of light-rail I’m proposing should be investigated for Dominion Road. It seems as though Auckland City Council (or perhaps ARTA, if this is actually what they said) has fallen into the “technology trap” of thinking that if you choose light-rail you can’t do heavy rail, or the vice-versa. Different corridors, different technologies.
The other seriously scary thing about the above paragraph is that Dominion Road’s bus lanes are even being vaguely considered for ‘opening up’ to T2 transit lanes, which would allow cars with two or more passengers to use them, as well as buses. This is the most stupid idea I think I have ever come across. Dominion Road will, if we go with the bus lane concept, be pushing the capacity of a bus lane – let alone if we allow a whole pile of cars to also use the lane! T2 lanes are marginally acceptable along routes where the number of buses is fairly low, such as Tamaki Drive where I think there are only 8 buses per hour in the peak direction at peak times. Making Dominion Road a T2 lane would be completely, incredibly, utterly and irresponsibly stupid (I think I might have got across how strongly I feel about that issue).
I must say, that while I have railed against the creation of the Auckland Transport CCO, and I still have some serious misgivings about it, some of the transport decisions being made at the moment by current councils, such as this project and AMETI, are incredibly ad hoc and short-sighted. Hopefully the new transport agency will at the very least be able to kill off some of the stupid decisions being made at the moment, view these projects in a more region-wide and long-term manner, and then go about implementing a coherent transport plan for Auckland. Let’s just hope the current councils can’t do too much damage in the meanwhile.
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.
The Dominion Road corridor is probably the most well-served bus corridor in Auckland (except for ones like Great South Road where you have a tonne of disparate routes converging) with over 30 buses along that route reaching the CBD between 8am and 9am during the week. That’s over a bus every 2 minutes, which means that at peak times the existing bus lanes are getting pretty close to capacity. Auckland City Council have plans to widen Dominion Road so that improved bus lanes can be constructed, but not until 2016. The project generally involves the following aspects:
Widening parts of Dominion Road
Sections of Dominion Road, between View Road and Lowery Avenue, will be widened by around one to two metres. This will accommodate four metre wide bus lanes, and more and better bus stopping facilities. The width of the new lanes is sufficient to allow cyclists to share the lane with buses.
Bus route deviations at Valley Road and Balmoral shops
Two features of the original Dominion Road passenger transport improvements were the proposed route deviations off Dominion Road near the Valley Road and Balmoral Road intersections and shopping centres. These were developed to avoid demolishing character buildings in the two shopping centres, and will each offer improved bus trip times and reliability if they are introduced.
Since the original scheme was developed 2003-2004 the need for better urban design features around the shopping centres and along the length of Dominion Road has been recognised. Consultation undertaken in 2005 also revealed that many people were also keen to see an improvement in the design of the paving, planting and seating facilities for example. To incorporate many of these urban design features, the original scheme for the deviations behind the shopping centres is currently under review. The review will enable Council to consider other ways of using the space behind the shopping areas and take international best practice into account while still delivering a sound solution for improving passenger transport along Dominion Road.
The table below shows the timing of the various parts of this project: While this is certainly a good project, it does make me wonder whether simply widening the bus lanes and threading them behind the shops at Valley Road and Balmoral Road is going to achieve what we need out of this corridor – and in particular whether it will interact with the land-use plans for the Dominion Road corridor and provide for the significantly higher capacity that is likely to be needed in the future.
The diagram to the left shows the Dominion Road corridor, broadly outlined. Dominion Road does stretch further south than this, all the way to Hillsborough Road actually, but I think the main focus is on the area north of Mt Albert Road, as that’s where the current squeeze on the road is most acutely felt.
The three red crosses indicate that three shopping centres along Dominion Road – Valley Road shops, Balmoral shops and Mt Roskill shops (heading north to south). Although there are these three distinct centres, I tend to think of the Dominion Road corridor as quite a continuous stretch of fairly intensive development. In particular, north of Balmoral Road there are shops which line Dominion Road for most of the distance from there to its northern end. This is no surprise as development stretched out along this route when it was a tram route.
There are three options I suppose when it comes to improving public transport along this route – the improved bus lanes as proposed, a light-rail/tram line and a (underground) heavy rail route. These options are detailed below:
1) The current bus-based proposal, as shown above, includes wider bus lanes and dedicated bus lanes behind the two shopping centres. Its cost is about $50-60 million I think. The wider bus lanes and especially the bypassed shopping centres would offer some improvements in capacity of the road, but I suspect that if we had significant intensification along this route we might eventually see it becoming fairly overcrowded. An advantage of a “bus based” system is that the buses can run with varying ‘stopping patterns’, some being express services, some only stopping in a couple of locations and others starting their run fairly close to the city but stopping everywhere.
2) A tram route would possibly run along the same route as the bus lanes, or alternatively down the middle of the road. I know that internationally there is a preference to run trams down the centre of roads, and perhaps that might be prefered. I would suspect that this option would be much more expensive – perhaps twice the price for infrastructure works as well as a decent amount of money to purchase trams/light-rail vehicles. In terms of capacity though, generally light-rail can carry around double the number of people per hour as a bus based system – as modern trams are often triple-articulated making each vehicle able to carry a couple of hundred people at capacity. I suspect that constructing a tram line along this route would also stimulate quite a lot of intensive redevelopment – which once again is something that Council’s plans seem to want.
3) The third option is a fully underground railway line, probably with stations at Valley Road, Balmoral Road and Mt Roskill, before linking up with a future Avondale-Southdown railway line next to the Mt Roskill Motorway. This line would obviously be incredibly expensive – perhaps in the region of a few billion dollars – but would offer a massive capacity increase compared to both bus-based and light-rail systems. One problem with it though is that having only three stations means that there would be a lot of people living between stations who wouldn’t be particularly close to the line – and we would probably have to provide a bus service along the route still – potentially not the most efficient outcome. If this option was ever chosen I imagine that massive intensification around the three stations would be needed to provide the number of required people within walking distance of the stations .
I probably lean towards option 2 as my preferred choice. The linear type of development that exists along Dominion Road makes on-street light-rail more suitable than heavy rail in my opinion. In terms of comparing a tram and bus-based system, I do think that a tram line is more likely to encourage intensification along the corridor than simply improving the current bus lanes. The additional capacity offered by light-rail also suggests that this might be a smarter option in the long term.
I’m keen to hear what others think though. This project is likely to be one of the next major public transport projects in Auckland (excluding rail improvements), so it’ll be interesting to see what happens there. The changes in local government arrangements in Auckland will make it possible to readdress whether the current option is the best one.
Waterfront trams are being tipped as key Auckland tourist attractions, with a possible later benefit for public transport.
Although the Auckland Regional Council has no plans for a modern light rail network to serve commuters, its transport committee voted yesterday to press on with an investigation of potential tram routes through the Tank Farm to Britomart.
A staff feasibility report prepared after an approach by the Campaign for Better Transport and the Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) said Auckland’s waterfront was a major destination and attraction for residents and visitors alike, and should be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
It suggested that tram routes be developed in stages, starting in Daldy and Jellicoe Sts – which are in the frontline of ambitious land development plans of the regional council and Auckland City.
Electric tram lines along Gaunt and Halsey Sts could later close an initial loop, to be followed by a route wending around the southern and eastern edges of the Viaduct Harbour to Britomart.
Developing a final direct link across the harbour from Quay St to Jellicoe St would have to wait for the proposed $47.3 million Te Wero bridge to be built in 2016.
The transport committee stopped short of adding a Rugby World Cup deadline for developing a partial tram route in Daldy and Jellicoe Sts, which the staff report said would be technically feasible but would carry a “significant risk.”
But regional chairman Mike Lee said that, with his organisation set to be supplanted in 11 months by the new Auckland Council, it was time to redouble efforts “to leave a legacy for the benefit of the people of the region”.
“To some extent we are like a cricket team down to the last 10 overs – we may be near the end of the game but it is time to start the big hitting,” he said.
Council urban development group manager Martin White said the entire network apart from the final Te Wero bridge link could be built for $30.2 million.
That would include $3 million for six “heritage” trams held in storage in Melbourne, similar to most of those used by Motat, which carries almost 200,000 passengers a year on its 1.9km network at Western Springs.
Mr White suggested that the waterfront trams could run every 20 minutes in each direction, using passing loops on a single track around the Tank Farm and duplicate tracks around Quay St and Britomart.
But Mr Lee was unimpressed that the budget estimate included $3.5 million for a “tramshed” to accommodate the fleet.
“I don’t want this to be gold-plated by consultants – that is a ludicrous sum,” he said, suggesting the council take frugality lessons from Motat in developing a tramway.
Finance committee chairman Bill Burrill was a lone dissenter, saying trams were not included in the council’s 10-year financial plan and that three buses could provide an adequate service around the same area for capital spending of less than $3 million.
Mr Lee said a tramway had been a feature of planning for the Tank Farm from the outset, and he couldn’t envisage tourists lining up to be carried by bus around the precinct.
Motat tramway manager Colin Zeff said Christchurch’s heritage tourist trams had done wonders for that city, although they were initially opposed by almost every business owner along their route.
A map is included in the print edition, and I have a rather crude version of that below, with the possible separate stages of the proposal.
I think that the idea in general is a very good one. This part of Auckland will be a very high quality urban development and deserves a primary transportation network that matches its quality – and trams is the obvious one in that respect. It could also be an excellent first step in a larger tram network for Auckland in the future – hopefully up Queen Street then along Dominion Road, as well as a Tamaki Drive line that I think could be really successful. However, I think that the “staging” of the proposal is slightly wrong – in that I think stage one has to link from Britomart station – otherwise I really don’t think it will be of much use to people living and working in the area. I doubt people are likely to pay for a ride on the tram instead of walking 750m if only stage 1 was complete. So perhaps stages 1 and 3 to start with – with stage 4 happening when the the Te Wero bridge is completed, and stage 2 being optional in my opinion.
In any case, the broad idea is a good one and I really hope it happens.
If we shift the bus lanes to the centre, we end up with something like this:
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