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By Matt L, on February 15th, 2012 This is a reminder for what looks to be an excellent event happening this Sunday. It will be really interesting to see Queen St converted for pedestrian use and something I hope we continue to see much more of.
For the first time ever, from Customs Street to Wyndham Street, we’re kicking out the cars and turning Queen Street into one big sports park!
Come and have a go at football, cricket, cycling, squash, zumba and more. Experts will be on hand to give you a few tips and there will be heaps of competitions.
All the Queen Street shops and eateries will be open and there will be picnic spots on the street. You’re only a stone’s throw from Auckland’s new world-class art gallery and the waterfront, so there’s heaps to do in town for a day.
Check Newstalk ZB from 8am on the day in case of rain.
Getting there
Visit the MAXX website to check the bus, ferry and train timetables.
If you’re driving, leave the car a little way from the city and walk in, or make use ofAuckland Council’s $2.50/hr parking at Victoria Street and the Downtown car parks.
| When |
Sunday 19 February, 10am-4pm
Rain date: Sunday 26 February |
| Where |
Queen Street - from Customs Street to Wyndham Street, central Auckland |
| Cost |
Free |
One thing to note though is that due to some pretty poor planning, all trains on the weekend will be replaced by buses for electrification upgrade works.
By Matt L, on February 15th, 2012 Auckland Transport has it’s first board meeting of the year this morning so I have gone through the business report to see what interesting info it contains. First up hidden under the road corridor operations we have:
The Remuera Road Bus Lane has been assessed using the methodology contained in “Bus and Transit Lane Review Report” (July Board report). RCO met with the Orakei Local Board to discuss the outcome of the assessment and the recommendation for the TCC to approve T3 Transit Lane trial. The Local Board has requested additional information to be supplied before this can be included in the agenda for the next Local Board meeting.
This is an interesting outcome as information provided in the past suggested that the bus lanes were the most efficient way to move people down this important corridor, I guess the constant nagging of the local board finally got to someone at AT. Moving on we have this:
Mainline Howick & Eastern bus services are being retimetabled to provide enhanced services from March, the key elements being:
- More service from Botany Town Centre and surrounding suburbs to the central city.
- An integrated timetable from Howick and Botany to the central city so that there will be a bus at least every 15 minutes, all day, seven days a week between Pakuranga, Panmure, Ellerslie and the city centre, and vice versa.
- Improved service levels on two crosstown routes which will be extended to the Manukau Station.
- Some route number changes to make services easier to explain to customers.
Now to me that service between Pakuranga and the city sounds a lot like the frequency requirement of a B Line.
From the report we also learn that the new 7 story parking building in Manukau will open in May, I wonder if the station will be open by then as since my post the other day I have heard that the opening date has been pushed back to at least after Easter which is partly due to AT not getting their paper work complete on time. Interestingly there is no word on what is happening with the Manukau station itself in this report
On the issue of cycling and walking there are a few interesting points.
- Pedestrian monitoring on the Auckland isthmus was completed, showing an 11% increase on last year.
- Continued progress on the development of cycleways including: -
- a preferred alignment for the extension of the Waterview Cycle and walkway connection between Great North Road and Hendon Avenue in Mt Albert. Draft Feasibility report completed and discussions with land owners initiated.
- the development of a NZ Cycle Trail application for a route between the CBD and the Airport.
An 11% increase in pedestrians is quite a big jump, I wonder how much of that is from within the CBD as a result of improvements like shared spaces?
Integrated ticketing is ticking along, AT says they are still on track to roll out the core system in the middle of the year. They also mention the number of active HOP cards has passed 100,000 however what is concerning is that at this critical phase the project director overseeing the whole thing has recently left.
Next up is the current planned or out to tender bits of work that have caught my eye.
Federal Street Shared Space: The traffic assessment has been completed and this indicates that Federal Street is able to function as a shared space. In mid-December, SkyCity advised that they would not proceed with the proposed overbuild, but have indicated a desire to continue with the shared space proposal.
Victoria Street West / Elliott Street pedestrian mid-block crossing: Currently working through detailed design
Neilson Street: A major project to consider an east-west link has been established to respond to growth and freight requirements along the corridor
Really interesting to see that Sky City have dropped their plans for an over bridge, I had mixed feelings about it but I know many people strongly objected to it. Not far away it seems we will get a new pedestrian crossing at the end of Elliot St which should make it much easier to cross the road there. Lastly a Neilson St upgrade is something that I feel is definitely and is probably something that if done right could remove or push out the need for one of the major motorway projects in the Auckland plan, a east – west link saving potentially over $1b
Lastly moving on to the special projects section we learn that CAF has submitted its concept design, something I thought would have happened as part of the tender process. AT says that both the EMU and depot projects are proceeding to their plan. On the issue of the City Rail Link (CRL) they say work is still progressing towards being able to issue the Notice of Requirement which is needed to get the designation. The winner of a tender will be announced this month on what is called the City Centre Future Access Study, my understanding is that this study is to determine exactly how much capacity is in the city centre for buses and cars and other vehicles and will eventually be used as part of an updated future business case for the CRL.
Here is an indication of all of the large projects that AT is working on at the moment (click on it to see a larger view)
By Matt L, on February 10th, 2012 This post isn’t about the Taniwha in the way of the City Rail Link but those projects and services that have been talked about or promised by various agencies for years but never seem to come to fruition. Some may even be able to be crossed off the list shortly but until they officially happen I will leave them on there.
Seeing as I already mentioned it I will start with the CRL which is probably the most prominent of all of them having been suggested and investigated at various times since at least the 1920’s but there are plenty of others on the list. Things seem to have gotten fairly quiet on this from both the council and Auckland Transport in the last few months
 Manukau Station with Campus
Manukau Rail Link – This was originally meant to open in late 2010 but has yet to see a paying passenger after it quietly slipped to 2011 and was then put off till 2012 to avoid clashing with the RWC. It was then meant to open this month and was again quietly pushed back until March but there are rumours it has slipped yet again.
Those following the project will probably know that the Manukau Instutite of Technology is building a campus above the station, the eye on Auckland blog has some pictures of what this is meant to look like but here is one of the building that will eventually rise above the station
Integrated Ticketing – This has been wanted for possibly decades yet we are still waiting for it. It has had so many false starts that it would have been disqualified had it been a sport in the Olympics and still it plods on with only vague dates as to when it might eventually see the light of day for real
 This was from during the Christmas closure
Real time Displays for trains – Another long time coming project and something that has continually been promised but has yet to be delivered. It is made even stranger by the fact we have had the technology (sort of) for buses for ages yet trains which one would think was easier to implement still can’t be done. Electronic displays have now be installed at a quite a few stations and the format of the messages have now been updated to make them easier to read but still no sign of real time information which AT promised would be live by the RWC.
 Recently extended Henderson Stabling Yard
Strand Stabling Facility – This might not sound that glamorous but could be quite important in helping to reduce our operating costs. The intention is to build a stabling facility on the rail land near the strand where trains not being used could be stored during the day and night. The advantage of this is it saves them having to travel all the way back empty to Westfield and in a few years Wiri. It means less fuel used, less driver time needed and better use of our assets. I have found references to designs for this from the earliest ARTA reports I can find (around July 2007)
Extenstion of the NW Cycleway – In early 2010 the latest extension of the NW cycleway was opened which extended over 1km which provides an almost continuous path all the way from Bond St to Te Atatu. At the time of opening this the NZTA proclaimed:
With the Kingsland section nearing completion, the NZTA is now focussing on extending the Northwestern Cycleway further into central Auckland.
An investigation is underway to find a suitable route through Upper Queen Street, the Central Motorway Junction and along Grafton Gully to the Auckland University of Technology and Auckland University. The NZTA plans to have the 3 kilometre long-extension completed in 2011.
Well 2011 has been and gone and there has not been a squeak out of the NZTA about any plans to extend it further.
Extension of B Line services / high frequency services– B Line services are meant to be high frequency corridors with a guaranteed level of service and while this it was just a trial and not something that was never actually promised to be rolled out further I still think it should be on here. It was trialled on Dominion Rd and Mt Eden Rd and from some of evidence that came out it had quite a positive impact on patronage numbers but since then we haven’t heard anything.
There are probably heaps of other projects out there that have either disappeared into the either never to be heard from again or have seen their timeframe continually slip so what are they. Also I think it we should give a name for these projects so in the comments please suggest some names of mythical creatures to associate with these mythical projects.
By Patrick Reynolds, on January 30th, 2012 A plainly daft piece on the proposed Auckland Plan by Bill Ralston recently appeared in the NZ Listener. In it he claims, completely without any reason, that the plan sets out to demolish where he lives, as well as every other desirable part of Auckland in the name of instensification. This is simply untrue. It is true that the Plan hopes to encourage Auckland to continue to become a more intensive city, but not by demolishing the very best bits, or even very much of it at all. In fact it is decidedly half-hearted about containing the spread outwards, even proposing 140,000 new detached houses be built in the next 30 years under one scenario. All on what is currently productive and attractive distant countryside, and all to be served by endlessly and expensively rolling out new services: From the current 385,000 detached houses to 526,000! Did you actually read the thing, Bill?
In any case, intensification is clearly a matter of degree and the areas proposed for the kind of high density high rise growth that so alarms dear old Bill [but of course not everyone], is all carefully allotted to currently empty or underused commercial ‘brownfields’ sites on transport corridors in areas like the CBD, Glen Innes, and New Lynn. Not Bill’s neck of the woods. Other areas are intended to be encouraged to move from low to medium density. Bill’s place isn’t on this list either.
Ironically, in light of this reaction, the type of intensification that would go a long way to both accommodating Auckland’s growth and greatly improving our quality of life is about trying to help more of Auckland more closely resemble Bill’s very own suburb. His suburb is, in fact, a role model for how much of Auckland ideally could be. But that isn’t by repeating the thing that Bill thinks his ‘burb is all about, the appearance of the buildings, but rather about how they are organised. Not architectural design, but urban design. Really, how?
Freemans Bay is, along with St Mary’s Bay, Herne Bay, Parnell, Devonport, Northcote, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, and Mt Eden, a highly sought after and therefore expensive bit of old Auckland. So it is worth asking what is so good about it?
Well most of the buildings are old. That’s it isn’t it? Most people love old houses, with their mature trees, and in Auckland that means Victorian and Edwardian houses, usually detached wooden dwellings. Unlike Sydney, Auckland isn’t old enough to have Georgian buildings and also unlike Sydney or Dunedin there wasn’t the resource of stone or even much brick to compete with the pillage of the native forests that our forebears felt so entitled to use so completely. Furthermore, in a reversal of the trend of the second half of the last century we have recently been rediscovering the advantages of these close-in old suburbs. So instead of looking on these areas as slums and bulldozing them wholesale in order to build motorways as we did from the 1960s we have recently been turning houses like this one: More and more into houses like this one:
But that isn’t the whole story is it? Properly understood three factors make Freemans Bay such a great place to live, and only one of them is the irreplaceable age of the structures. And this is important because while we can’t time-travel and build real Victorian houses again we can take the best urban design features from these areas to improve what we build next, and even fix other parts of the existing city with these ideas too. The three essential features, in no particular order, that make Freemans Bay so desirable are:
1. Physical Heritage
2. Proximity to the centre
3. Population density
All the things that you may like about Freemans Bay flow from these; for example, great cafés and shops? They are a function of the quantity of people around and the desirability of the place, which in turn is because of the density of the housing and the proximity to the centre of town. Retail businesses need enough customers, and specialised ones need an even higher number going by because their appeal is, by definition, narrow.
But hang on, waddaymean population density?, this is just a suburb with detached houses and some shops isn’t it?, same as Dannemora or Botany? Well it isn’t high density but it is medium density and is considerably higher than most more recent suburbs. And here’s how: As this post by Admin shows, when looked at in detail you can see that the narrow streets and painted shiplap conceal a clever spatial order that maximises private space yet retains public charm. It is in fact this spatial order, and its resultant density of population that sustains the local businesses and other amenities all at close proximity.
Of course old buildings add texture and charm, but it is important urban design features and not architectural ones that make the real structural differences. Let’s look at Bill’s favourite café, mentioned in his article: Agnes Curran. Yes it is in a building pleasingly made of plastered brick and the door to the rooms above are surrounded by Georgian style decoration, lovely. But let’s look at everything else that makes this a really successful streetscape and business. The café occupies a tiny space about the size of two car parks, it is right up to the generous footpath, a footpath separated from the traffic by mature Plane trees [with a new one recently added on the right], the trees also accommodate a limited number of on-street car parks. A small apartment building to the left of the shot is smack up the boundary with the cafe and the footpath, and there are other levels of accommodation above retail spaces on the main road. Thus there is an extremely tight integration of the residential and commercial functions of this neighbourhood; so everyone walks, no need to drive when your destination is already right there. Here it is from above: The cafe is in the alley between the grey and reddish rooves at bottom left. Occupying the space that would have to be given over to off-street parking were this a new building- by current council regulation. Note that the houses are closer than is currently allowed in new subdivisions, and that their garden space is all together in one piece at the rear of each house. Small, but all usable, and private. And Ponsonby Rd is, by Auckland standards, relatively well served by public transport, especially in the form of the frequent new Inner Link bus service, connecting this place to the CBD, the universities, the hospital, everything really. It is easy to see that this is quite an intensely built place, but also pleasantly leafy, and is in fact at the intersection of two pretty busy roads; Ponsonby and Franklin. How can it be of such density but still be so pleasant, it must be the design of the buildings? Well that is of course important, but how much they appeal to you is really a matter of personal taste, no, it has much more to do with what is not visible in this picture. To show what that is lets have a look at a cafe in a more recent part of town: Dunkin Donuts at Botany Downs courtesy of Google [sorry but I'm not going there]. And from above: Well in fact there’s a whole lot of food outlets on in this image, a KFC, a seafood place, as well as Dunkin Donuts. And yup they are all pretty nasty new buildings, built to a price and without any conviction that they mean to stay. But also note there are no houses or apartments of any kind here and no one walking. But there is the one amenity that is almost entirely absent from the earlier scene. This is a place rich in carparking. Viewed from above or from street level it is clear that this is a place entirely made for the movement and storage of cars. Yes you can argue that that what most distinguishes the natures of these two places is the age and design of the structures, but it is also clear that the spatial organisation is at least as important a difference. Put simply the first is designed for people and the second for cars. The first has a higher density of humans and the second of machines. The first, of course, commands much higher values and is where Bill wants to live. And the first, while more expensive to buy into, is actually cheaper to live in, because the intensity of the place means the costs of movement are much lower. It is a place that you can easily function without a car at all for example [As local resident, Bill, says in this article].
But of course the people living Freemans Bay do still use cars, but unlike those that live in the these new areas, they don’t have to use them just to get to their local café or other common local amenity, like schools, workplaces, or bars. They walk more and they use public transport more. Why? not because they are cleverer than the people in Dannemora but because their area was designed for those choices to be the most obvious, most productive, and most enjoyable things to do. And we can spread more of this simple genius to other parts of our city, even Botany, if can just reverse the insane auto-centric planning priorities of the last fifty years. This means putting people at the centre of the spatial organisation of places. It means repealing the rules that insist that the car must be catered for first. And it means for many of our primarily residential areas mixing the living and working and playing in the kind of intense proximity that Bill enjoys in Freemans Bay.
And it also means that we must provide systems of movement that do not devalue the very places they are meant to serve. Which of course means fast, frequent, smart, public transit. Something lacking in the newer suburb.
Furthermore, if we can get those planning settings right and are able to encourage the kind of spatial organisation that Bill enjoys so unconsciously in Freemans Bay, it is highly likely that we will see the design of the individual buildings in these places improve significantly, because increased intensity of humans also means increased intensity of economic activity. And, of course, because it involves unlocking the land and the resources currently tied up so unproductively in providing so much amenity for vehicles.
We can have Freemans Bay’s qualities of urban design in other places with contemporary design and technologies, after all Freemans Bay isn’t all old buildings and is all the better for it. It isn’t a museum. Here are two quite different and award winning recent detached houses there, The first by Marsh Cook: And the second by Malcolm Walker: Freemans Bay also has contemporary buildings by Mitchell + Stout, Stevens Lawson, Fearon Hay, Andrew Patterson, and more. Along with council pensioner flats, town houses, and apartment buildings.
And remember, while The Plan doesn’t envisage the core of Freemans Bay changing much at all, it does for some other underperforming areas of Auckland. And as the picture below of Freemans Bay in 1877 shows change is always possible, and can be a very good thing indeed……… Anyway, why shouldn’t more Aucklanders get the chance to enjoy their neighbourhood as much as our friend Bill Ralston enjoys his?
By Matt L, on January 29th, 2012 A pleasing trial is starting on Waiheke Island which involves adding bike racks to buses to make it easier for cyclists to get around. The Waiheke Bus Company which is owned by Fullers has installed the racks on three buses and each rack can hold up to 3 bikes at one time. Here’s the press release”
The Waiheke Bus Company has become the first public service bus operator in Auckland to offer bike racks on its buses as a trial and as part of its initiative to help promote cycling as a mode of transport.
Waiheke ferry customers can already take their bikes for free on the ferries and now this is extended to the service buses as well.
Bike racks have been installed on three separate buses, each capable of carrying 3 bikes each. The racks have been imported from the USA where they have been successfully deployed on public services buses.
The aim is to improve the options for cyclists and many commuters who choose to ride to and from the ferry terminal or who want to explore the island’s many cycle tracks, whilst giving them the flexibility of being able to hop on a bus with their bike in order to venture further, get home after dark when cycling can be hazardous, or in the case of cycling visitors, link up with the 360 Discovery ferry service that calls in at Orapiu Wharf and connects to The Coromandel on a regular basis. The Coromandel shuttle bus service from Hannaford’s Wharf to Coromandel Town now also provides bike rack options meaning cyclists can take their bikes even further.
At the launch at Matiatia today, attended by representatives of Auckland Transport, NZTA, Cycle Action and the Local Board, Fullers CEO Douglas Hudson said “Fullers has been committed to carrying passengers and their bikes on their ferry services for a long time and were awarded for being a cycle friendly business by NZTA at the CAN (Cycling Advocates’ Network)Awards in 2009.
We are very pleased to be able to extend this to the buses on Waiheke Island for the benefit of commuters and tourists who visit the island. This may only be a small step but it has taken a lot of effort to find and import the right racks that are sturdy enough to work effectively on the Waiheke roads. We hope that people will see this as an opportunity to explore more of the island and also connect with the 360 Discovery service that carries passengers from Orapiu at the Eastern end of the island to Coromandel, where the shuttle service from Hannaford’s Wharf to Coromandel town now also has bike racks on board.”
The trial, which will run until the end of Easter, will allow the Fullers owned Waiheke Bus Company to gather data and opinion from users before deciding how to adapt the service and how to develop it further.
Last summer the company worked with Cycle Action Waiheke and Auckland to produce a map of Waiheke cycle touring routes. Publicity about the map has encouraged increasing numbers of cyclists to tour the island, enjoying its cafes, vineyards, beaches and accommodation.
The bike racks are expected to be welcomed by local commuter cyclists and visitors alike. Touring cyclists may be encouraged to ride to the vineyards on the Onetangi Straight or even further afield, rather than stopping at Palm Beach, if they know the bus will help return them and their bike to the ferry or accommodation in Oneroa.
Cycle Action Waiheke supports the trial as an important local transport and tourism initiative for Waiheke. Chair Tony King Turner said “We thank Fullers for taking this step and see it as just the beginning of what could be very exciting developments for cycling on Waiheke. It will also be very important as we work towards our goal of getting Waiheke included in the National Cycle Way program.”
Barbara Cuthbert of Cycle Action Auckland is also impressed with the trial. “..having seen the positive impact that cycling initiatives can have on communities and how it can boost tourism, I am confident that when we look back at this moment in 10 years’ time, we will understand how important this launch and trial is.”
Auckland Transport also strongly supports this initiative and sees it as a good example of the private sector delivering outcomes that encourage integration between cycling and public transport. Such projects link very strongly to the work of Auckland Transport across the region in improving safety for cyclists and encouraging more sustainable travel
The bike racks will be used mostly on the Onetangi bus routes and feedback forms will be available at the Fullers ticket office at Matiatia as well as on the Fullers website.
This is obviously quite good for tourists who want to get around the island but don’t want to pedal the whole way but the thing I like about this is that it can really help to extend the reach of the bus system for residents. Instead of a bus only having a catchment of people who can walk to the bus stop it enables a far wider catchment of potential users which should help to make the buses more attractive. Hopefully after the trial is finished we will be see these racks installed by other bus companies in other parts of the region as I think it has the potential to help both boost bus patronage and the number of people cycling around the city and can be done without needing new vehicles or infrastructure to support it.
By Patrick Reynolds, on January 26th, 2012 As there’s been a lot of discussion about population density here I figure this post from good ol’ Cap’nTransit is on the money. Yes this is my view too, you think more density is needed? Well build the transit and the density will follow [all else being equal], foolish to try to wait for some ideal density then meet that demand with infrastructure. Transit supply is causative. Or as the Cap’n says: ‘The population density to support my ass’
Here are two interesting posts on Twitter and Transit. One beautiful the other more for the quants. Both instructive.
The second is via Atlantic Cities where there is also this argument for High Speed Rail in the Union’s most populous State, California. Newt of the GOP has been banging on about the US heading back to the moon in some kind of pissing contest with China, but frankly if they can’t even get a train to run from SF to LA and any decent speed I think he’ed better dodge that race. *Note for Geoff: These arguments here for HSR are intended as a metaphor for local arguments for urban transit, not as a literal argument for HSR in NZ. Same things apply, land use transformations, economic return not a financial one etc, but at a vastly different scale.
More from the States on gas prices [as they call them] and what to do, and for once this doesn’t involve bombing somewhere else or other wise frackin’ it all up.
Closer to home; no round up from me will be complete without at least a passing note on resource supply issues. As we head to the exciting singularity of peak damn near everything it’s good to see some people have their heads up. Here’s an introductory note from across the ditch, what I especially like about this is that it states a view that I also have, namely that it could just be that a world with less freely available oil may well be a lot better in a number of ways; once we’ve made the adjustment. Like London after the peasoup smog and mountains of horse-shit. I’m also guessing less isolation, more localiasation, more human interaction, less alienation. Perhaps more meaningful lives. Perhaps.
There’s also this guy, Denis Tegg, I know nothing about him but he has been manfully plugging away on this issue in NZ for a while and here he is bringing an important shelved report to the surface. I say manfully because there is a really creepy silence on this issue and Climate Change in the mainstream media and in government in NZ. It’s like if we don’t mention these problems they’ll just go away.
Look away Actoids! Here’s a well reasoned piece on the attractions and limitations of neoliberalism. It’s short too. Relevant how? Transit like our cities need long term planning, by elected bodies. The market is a great tool, but a lousy master, and an even worse god. As I think we’ve just seen.
Those interested in the strange ways that change can happen will like this. Why the US Marine Corp may well lead the US into a solar future.
Back to transit, and more personally; I have new wheels, yay! and loving it, but won’t be going to these extremes to protect them. No.
By Matt L, on January 22nd, 2012 This news seemed to slip through in December unnoticed. Auckland Transport and the NZTA are planning on building a bridge over SH16 near Westgate to help improve accessibility and safety. As it is at the moment there are very limited options for people in the area to get to the Westgate shopping area other than driving due to the motorway cutting between the two areas (and Hobsonville Rd over the motorway isn’t the most friendly place to be walking). The safety aspect is to stop kids running across the motorway due to their not being any real other options and from memory one was killed doing just that some years ago. Here’s what AT have to say:
To improve access and safety, the New Zealand Transport Agency and Auckland Transport are building a fully-accessible walking and cycling bridge across SH16 near the Westgate shopping centre.
The bridge will connect Oreil Avenue at Manutewhau Walk reserve to Westgate Drive near the Westgate Shopping Centre. Work is expected to begin early in January 2012 and will take approximately one year to complete.
The Northwestern Motorway currently divides east and west Massey, meaning those on the eastern side have limited access to the new town centre, shopping, schools and community resources. The bridge will remedy this and provide a safer, more accessible connection across the motorway for pedestrians and cyclists.
As part of the project, the Manutewhau Walk reserve will also be revitalised. Whilst some of the trees in the area are in poor condition and will need to be removed, significant new planting will take place. A decision on the location of the bridge took into account the vicinity to housing, technical factors such as gradient and the existing creek.
In order to gain the required length, it was necessary to design a curved or ‘wave’ bridge which will connect onto the embankment leading to Oriel Avenue. A steel framework will support the bridge and allow for unobstructed views in the reserve.
Community consultation was undertaken in 2007 on a range of options by the former Waitakere City Council. In 2009 the New Zealand Transport Authority together with the former Waitakere City Council jointly commissioned preliminary designs. Three options were investigated and assessed but wave bridge option was identified as the preferred option.
And here an idea of what it should eventually look like.
 Where it joins Oreil Ave No word on how much this is costing but hopefully we see a few more of these types of projects helping to fix communities that are severed by motorways.
By Matt L, on January 12th, 2012 I love the shared spaces and have absolutely no problems walking down the middle of them even when cars are around but I can understand why others don’t feel that way and get nervous about the interaction between cars and pedestrians. This is especially the case when there are too many cars using the space, even if those numbers have reduced significantly from before the upgrades and admins post the other day about needing to ensure we get the right balance made me decide to post my thoughts on how we could solve the problem.
I do think that that the long term solution is to pedestrianise Queen St with perhaps the exception of using it for some form of PT however it is going to be a number of years before we can get to that stage so my solution focuses on what we can do today to further reduce traffic which will help to make pedestrians feel safer in these areas.
My main concern with traffic is the ability of the streets to be used as rat runs due to how they were traditionally used and both the Elliott /Darby St and Fort St suffer from this as the diagrams below show. The solution is to simply change the direction through which traffic travels, this would would negate these streets as rat runs while still preserving vehicle access for vehicles that really need to use them i.e. delivery vehicles.
In the case of Elliott/Darby St traffic wanting to get from Wellesley St to Victoria St or even just wanting to bypass the Queen St and Victoria St intersection, which has a lot of pedestrian phases, can use these streets to do so. Elliot St is also the only way to access the car park in the currently empty site at the northern end and vehicles have to travel use it and possibly Darby St to access that car park (of course ideally that site would be developed but who knows when that will happen).
 Elliott St Before  Elliott St After Simply changing the direction of these streets and only allowing left turns on and off of them would remove that rat run and mean that anyone using them will result in a vehicle going around in a circle which means that only cars that had to use it would do so. In this case it would also mean that cars accessing the car park wouldn’t need to travel the length of the road but only one end of it.
The second example is Fort St which is probably even more of a rat run based on the number of vehicles I see using it. For anyone coming from Beech Rd and wanting to get to Queen St it is probably far easier to use Fort St than get through the three intersections along Customs St East. I think what makes it even worse is the straight section between Gore St and Commerce St allows people to accelerate and they don’t slow down as much which means they travel faster through the shared space section.
 Fort St Before  Fort St After Again changing the direction of the traffic would remove that rat run, also as cars would need to turn off Queen St to access the shared space they would be more likely to travel slower through the area. It is also worth noting that the section between Gore St and Beech Rd is also eventually meant to be a shared space, I am undecided about the best direction for this but have opted to leave it the same to avoid creating more confusion/phasing at the intersection. Commerce St, Gore St and the middle part of Fort St will remain a normal road but the footpaths are being upgraded and widened as well.
The thing I think is best about these changes are they are simple ones that could be done fairly quickly and easily as they only require a few changes to signs and a bit of education but they have the ability to remove a lot of traffic from these areas in which pedestrians have been given far more priority.
By admin, on January 10th, 2012 As regular readers will know, I’m a huge fan of the shared spaces we’ve seen rolled out around Auckland’s city centre (and in New Lynn) over the past year or so. It’s fantastic to see pedestrian freely milling around streets that were once the sole property of vehicles, but also to see a regular “eyes on the street” value that traffic can provide, if you compare shared streets to pedestrian malls. In terms of practical implementation, shared streets also seem to be simpler (if more expensive) to make happen, as property access, deliveries and so forth can still be retained. Elliott Street has been a particular success in my opinion (although this photo is taken on a day when the street was closed to cars, generally Elliott Street seems to work the best of the lot):  A key part of the shared space philosophy is to reduce the amount of signage and general “road clutter” that normal streets have in spades. Obviously, the distinction between the footpath and the street is also removed, so that all users of the street are put much more on a “level pegging”, having to think and negotiate their way through the space.
An interesting blog post from the UK “As Easy as Riding a Bike” blog, analyses shared streets in Britain (which are really taking off in popularity), looking at the question of what makes some shared streets work really well, but others work not quite so well. The blog post makes the argument (and I haven’t followed the issue close enough to really know whether it’s a completely fair accusation) that shared space proponents say the biggest problem with our existing road environments (in terms of their friendliness to pedestrians and cyclists) is all the signage and separation between different users:
What is causing the real ‘impact’ on the urban environment is, apparently, the engineering measures – not the dozens of motor vehicles clogging up the space.
The problem I have here is that a symptom – the clutter, the rules and the control – is being treated as if it is the problem itself, the root cause of the decay of our urban environment.
Now while I accept that excess clutter and demarcation can be an issue, per se, Hamilton- Baillie is missing the point. There is a correlation between street clutter, rules and control, and the decline of the quality of our urban environment – this much is true. But fundamentally, it is the emergence of the motor car, and its gradual dominance of our street environment, that is responsible both for the declining quality, and the increase in rules and regulations. It has also eroded the natural sharing of spaces that we see in historical pictures, or today in places where the motor car does not exist, or is only present in low volume.
So we have to be very careful not to assume that simply stripping away the clutter, rules and signage of our present-day streets – returning them, essentially, to a nineteenth-century street – will result in a civilized environment, because that clutter did not arise spontaneously. It emerged, as I have said, in response to the motor vehicle, and it is quite clear, to me at least, that if you don’t take action to tame the motor vehicle – not to get rid of it, but to tame it – then you won’t see a civilized street, the kind in which vulnerable users are genuinely happy to mingle, which is surely a prerequisite of a street being shared.
I think this is a fair and well made point. It is the volume and speed of vehicles which determines the pedestrian friendliness of a street as much as the physical design of the place. We are seeing this with the different shared streets around Auckland’s city centre: Elliott Street has very low traffic volumes and high pedestrian counts so therefore pedestrians dominate and the place feels like a “proper” shared space. Fort Street has much higher traffic volumes and pedestrians tend to stick to the sides of the street, meaning you don’t really see the interaction and pedestrian domination of Elliott Street. Fort Street is still a million times nicer than it was before its upgrade, but it hasn’t quite succeeded (yet) to the same degree as Elliott Street has.
East Street in Horsham is shown as a successful example of a shared street – because of its low traffic volumes:
 Crucial to the success of this shared street are the restrictions placed on motor vehicles entering it. Only vehicles delivering disabled passengers/drivers to a couple of dedicated parking spaces, and loading vehicles, are allowed down East Street – severely limiting the number of vehicles it has to cope with.
New Road in Brighton similarly discourages traffic – not through outright bans, but through clever design making it an impractical and “silly” through-route for any prospective vehicles: One issue I’ve had with the Darby Street shared space is that it’s actually a really attractive ‘rat-run’ for vehicles travelling from Queen Street to Victoria Street as they can zip down Darby Street and avoid the traffic lights. So you see quite a lot more vehicles using Darby Street as a through route than you would if, say, it was one-way in the other direction and therefore not any use as a rat-run (I can’t really see vehicles from Wellesley to Queen bothering to use Elliott and Darby instead of just Queen Street as the rat-run is much longer).
The blog post goes on to talk about how the ‘balance of power’ between pedestrians and cars in their ‘unregulated interaction’ on a shared street is very important:
Moving on from how rules – or their absence – affect the way in which streets are shared spatially, we can consider how streets are shared in a kinetic sense; how its users, of whatever mode, interact with each other.
Shared space advocates are, again, fans of a lack of regulation. The analogy Ben Hamilton-Baillie often gives is of an ice rink, or a camp site…
…These are environments with no formal rules or regulations, yet with people (and in the latter case, vehicles) moving around and interacting with each other quite happily, and in reasonable safety. Surely we could apply the logic of the campsite, or the ice rink, to our streets? Why can’t we interact freely with each other on our streets the way we do in these other unregulated environments, by getting rid of the rules and regulations that differentiate a street from a campsite?
There is a superficially attractive logic in operation here, but it rapidly falls apart when we start to consider the details. A campsite is, typically, a field with lots of pedestrians in, with perhaps one or two cars actually driving around at any one time. Shared space advocates argue that despite the absence of a regulatory framework, these environments are quite safe. This is obviously true. But they go one step further, and argue that it is the absence of the regulatory framework itself that makes the environment safe. Add more rules about how to drive, they say – treat drivers like idiots – and they will behave like idiots. Putting up lines about where to drive in the campsite might a good example – drivers would probably drive faster, and perhaps with less caution, within those lines, for instance.
So far as it goes, this is plausible. But let’s imagine a parallel example – exactly the same field, but this time, instead of it being full of people on foot, milling about unpredictably, this field is now full of cars being driven about, in just as unpredictable a way. And instead of just the one or two cars you might find being driven in a typical campsite, we now just have one or two pedestrians, inching their way through this field full of unpredictable cars.
Is this field just as safe for pedestrians as a ‘typical’ campsite? If safety was only about the absence of regulation, then it must be – but I don’t think that is true. You wouldn’t feel as comfortable letting your child run around in a field full of cars driving around unpredictably as you would be for them to do so in a field that was like a genuine campsite; likewise an ordinary ice rink is very different from, say, an ice hockey game. There are seven foot Kazahks wearing body armour, whizzing about. Even if they’re being careful, that, again, is a very different environment to introduce your child into.
My point is that power relations are an important component of safety; even if we assume that all those drivers moving their vehicles around the field are experts, or the giant ice hockey players will be more than capable of avoiding your offspring, there is an unequal distribution of risk, that will quite obviously affect how the more vulnerable parties will behave in that environment.
So once again we see the point that numbers (of both pedestrians and vehicles) really does matter here. For the space to feel like it’s properly giving pedestrians equal status to vehicles, we need to ensure the number of vehicles does not dwarf the number of pedestrians. Some analysis done to inform the development of the Exhibition Road shared space in London highlighted the importance of keeping traffic volumes low – saying the following:
…if vehicle flows are greater than 100 per hour, pedestrians will not use the vehicle zone as a shared space
Another study, by Transport for London, made a similar conclusion:
A study undertaken by TRL in 2003 for TfL’s Bus Priority Team indicated the limits to which pedestrians in London may be prepared to share a surface with traffic. This study found that below flows of 90 vehicles per hour pedestrians were prepared to mingle with traffic. When flows reached 110 vehicles per hour pedestrians used the width between frontages as if it were a traditional road, that is the majority of pedestrians remained on the equivalent of the footway and left the carriageway clear for vehicles.
The blog post probably takes a more negative view of shared spaces generally than I do (perhaps because of a fear they’re being introduced in inappropriate places) but overall I think the point is very well made. An extremely important part of making shared spaces work is to limit traffic volumes – so that the ‘balance of power’ between pedestrians and motorists gets tipped further towards the pedestrian. I don’t necessarily think that the vehicle per hour numbers are a fixed rule though, as surely that depends on the concentration of pedestrians. If you have an extremely busy pedestrian street (like Queen Street, for example) then pedestrians are still going to dominate the space, even if you had more vehicles than the seemingly magic “100 per hour”. As we see more shared streets rolled out across Auckland in future years, I’m hopeful that these issues are taken into account – to ensure that all shared streets can be as successful as Elliott Street is.
The blog post goes on to talk about how the ‘balance of power’ between pedestrians and cars in their ‘unregulated interaction’ on a shared street is very important:
By admin, on December 24th, 2011 This looks awesome:
Playing in the Streets clears Queen Street of traffic for a day and opens the road up for kids, young people and families. Aucklanders will be free to populate the roadway, creating a space of joy and amazement in the heart of the city.
This unique event will turn Queen Street into a sports park, with five-a side-football, cricket, squash, netball, badminton, gym sports, Zumba and aerobics taking place between the kerbs. Kids will be able to have a go at a range of sports, and meet some of their sporting heroes.
Cafes and shops will be open and picnic spots will be provided, so families are invited to come along and make a day of it. When
Sunday 19 February, 11am-4pm
Where
Queen Street between Customs and Wyndham streets, central Auckland
Events like these are a great first step towards permanently pedestrianising Queen Street. I can’t wait.
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