|
|
By admin, on October 24th, 2011 The Auckland Plan (submissions close October 31st) takes a fairly long-term viewpoint of Auckland’s future, looking to 2041 when the population may well be as high as 2.5 million. Here are the projected population numbers for Auckland over the next 30 years, and how they compare with cities throughout the rest of New Zealand: A population of 2-2.5 million in 2041, if the medium or high projections are what turns out to happen, would put us in a situation similar to that of Greater Vancouver (current population 2.2 million). Add in our limited capacity to expand the roading network, hopefully a greater focus on aligning land-use plans to encourage intensification around public transport corridors and the inevitability of much higher petrol prices and you have the recipe for significantly higher public transport patronage in 2041 than what we have now. As impressive as our increase in train patronage has been over the past 10 years (especially since 2003 when Britomart opened), if you compare Auckland with Perth and Vancouver, you can see that we’re really just scratching the surface: Realising this level of rail patronage in Auckland will obviously require massive changes in the structure of our public transport system. Vancouver’s Skytrain is so incredibly popular because it’s used for all kinds of trips – particularly trips to suburban centres and reverse-commuting trips for those living downtown but working elsewhere. More than half of Skytrain users arrive at their station on the bus, while continuously high frequencies (enabled by its driverless operation) make the system useful for far more than just peak-time commuting: The low proportion of Auckland’s public transport trips taken on the train is fairly unusual, as Ottawa and Honolulu aside (both cities are now expanding light-rail systems), we have one of the lowest proportions of our PT trips on the rail network – clearly a legacy of the rail network being so bad for so long. Comparing Auckland to Vancouver (which is also dominated by bus patronage, even considering the fact that the Skytrain carries around 120 million trips a year) highlights that a more long term ‘balanced’ network might have around three bus trips per rail trip, rather than Auckland’s six bus trips per rail trip. Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane all have much higher proportions of their PT patronage carried by rail. While in Melbourne and Sydney this is because they have huge historic rail networks, Perth had lower rail patronage in the early 1990s than Auckland does now but now has nearly as many rail trips per capita as Auckland has bus trips.
What does all this information actually mean though? I suppose the message I’m trying to get across in all of this is to look at Vancouver and Perth as giving us a view into Auckland’s future. Those cities have shown us that it is possible to have successful rail systems in cities with relatively low densities and without huge legacy rail systems (like you see in Sydney and Melbourne). In short, I think it’s perfectly feasible to expect our rail system to carry 50-100 million or more passengers a year in the medium-term future. But what kind of system might that require?
The obvious point to make is that we need to use our existing rail asset far more effectively. Electrification will enable that to an extent, but we’re still stuck at a train every 10 minutes – meaning a capacity of little more than 4000 passengers per hour per direction, a fraction of a railway line’s potential capacity. The City Rail Link is, of course, necessary to enable our existing railway lines to operate to their capacity. Beyond the City Rail Link, completing an Airport/Southwest Line would enable a pretty useful system based around two lines: 
If the maximum capacity of your railway line is around a train every 2 and a half minutes (24 tph), then theoretically a train could run every 5 minutes each way along both the red line and the green line. Obviously it will be a while before we need to run this level of service, even at peak times, but it effectively doubles the capacity of the line in each direction and quadruples the capacity of trains into the CBD because there are now two entrances (from Britomart and from Mt Eden).
A next line to put through, half of which seems to be progressing in the thinking of the powers to be (North Shore rail), half unfortunately not (a Southeast Line) could be this: Aside from the shared track between Glen Innes and town, this new line could theoretically be developed as a “Light Metro” along the lines of what Nick said recently in this post. The southeast portion of this line would probably be really useful in the next 20 years, although because we’re already building an AMETI busway chances are it’s probably quite a long way away from becoming a reality, if it ever happens.
Another possible future line, one which already has its route protected actually, is between Avondale and Southdown. This line would probably be of most use for freight – enabling freight trains to bypass Newmarket and the really high frequency passenger trains we’re likely to run on the inner part of the network in the future. Building that line enables an isthmus loop line though – which is quite an interesting idea for future service routings: Supplemented by a Northwest Busway (or a northwest rail line?) (perhaps linking through to Albany via SH18?), excellent quality feeder buses in the outer parts of the city, a high-frequency grid of bus routes on the Auckland isthmus, perhaps a few tram routes where they make sense and I think we might have found ourselves the public transport system to really support a city of 2.5 million people in a future where driving as much as we do now simply isn’t feasible.
By admin, on February 2nd, 2011 As I mentioned in a post a few days ago on how I think Auckland should integrate transport into its future spatial plan, probably the biggest planning mistake ever made in Auckland’s history is allowing so much development occur east of the Tamaki River: with such poor transport connections. In particular, the planning of this development area occurred at such a time (broadly the 1960s through to last decade) when Auckland really didn’t care much about public transport – so this whole swathe of Auckland ended up with no public transport infrastructure whatsoever – not even a bus lane more than a few metres long along Pakuranga Road.
I plan to do a series of blog posts over the next few days outlining my ultimate solution for solving what I call “the southeast problem”. Ultimately, as the title of the series indicates, I believe we need to build what would be a very expensive railway line out to serve this part of Auckland. While I recognise this seems rather unlikely any time soon (and therefore I have supported interim improvement options like median bus lanes along Ti Rakau Drive) ultimately I think the transport problem faced by this part of Auckland is so significant and the public transport offered is so poor that we will need a railway line out here sooner or later. Furthermore, I think it’s at least worth getting it “on the books” as a possible future project: particularly when it probably makes more sense than other big future projects bandied around: like North Shore Rail or (even worse) another road-based Waitemata Harbour Crossing.
So in this series of blog posts (I will break it into a series so that they’re not too lengthy) I hope to provide a thought-provoking argument for this potential future addition to Auckland’s rail network. The series is broken into three posts – with the next two coming in the next few days:
- This post will talk about the need for better public transport out in this part of Auckland and outline how bad things are at the moment.
- My next post will discuss a range of possible solutions, their pros and cons and why – eventually – I think it is a southeast railway line that’s needed.
- The last post will describe the route of the railway line is some detail. While it certainly requires some tunnelled sections (the extent of the tunnelling will be an interesting point of debate) what’s surprising – to me at least – is how possible the route is through a built up area of the city with demolishing hundreds of houses.
As regular readers of this blog would know, I have discussed the southeast railway line (sometimes referred to as the Howick-Botany Line) in some detail in the past. However, I think it’s useful to “put it all together” so that we can think about the merits of this possibly future project in a holistic sense, that we can compare it to other options and so that we can examine its route in detail.
So, if we start first with the problem. That can be pretty easily established simply by glancing at a map of Auckland’s southeast – a huge development area with very poor transport linkages with the rest of the city. In its broadest sense, I’m talking about the area shaded in red below – although probably not really the southwest corner of it as that’s close to the Southern Motorway, Great South Road and the existing southern railway line.
The Tamaki River forms a natural barrier separating this part of Auckland from the rest of the city. There are two crossings quite near each other around Panmure and Pakuranga, and a relatively new crossing from Highbrook Drive that connects to the Southern Motorway. Any other connections are way further south – around Otara or down near Manukau City: once the Tamaki River has run out effectively.
The limited number of crossings, particularly in the northern part of this area, create a number of significant bottlenecks. Most traffic tends to use the southeast arterial (the route with the number “10″ on it in the map to the left). This semi-grade-separated highway eventually joins in with the southern motorway just north of Mt Wellington – meaning that traffic from this whole corner of Auckland eventually merely has a merge lane onto Auckland’s main north-south motorway.
For public transport, the situation is even worse. There are no railway lines, no busway, no bus lanes (aside from the most pathetically short bus lanes you’ll ever see along Pakuranga Road). In short, there’s basically no public transport infrastructure at all. This means that the service is exceedingly slow.
The results of this transport situation can be seen in the statistical data for how people in this part of Auckland get to work. Data for the Howick ward of the Auckland Council (which covers the northern part of the area shown to the left) indicates that at the 2006 census there were 113,508 usual residents living in the ward (this has probably grown quite a bit since then as it’s a fast-growing corner of Auckland). Of those residents, 89,000 were over 15 years of age and of those 89,000 around 58,000 went to work on census day 2006. Yet out of those 58,000 the number who used public transport was minuscule: a mere 1,467 took the bus and 156 somehow took a train. Others may have taken the Half Moon Bay ferry, which would show up under “other”. Even for Auckland, which only has around a 7% modeshare for public transport getting people to work, this area is exceedingly low in terms of its public transport use. There probably were quite a few more than 1200 people a day using the buses out here – as Howick Ward alone contains around 11,000 students (of 15 years or older). This demographic are generally fairly strong PT users, often because they cannot yet afford to own a car.
So what effect does the lack of public transport infrastructure have on the quality of the public transport possible in this corner of Auckland? Well, looking at timetables for the two main routes that service this part of the city, it would seem the main effect is to make catching the bus exceedingly slow. The 50/51 route travels along Pakuranga Road and provides a link between downtown Auckland and Howick/Pakuranga. The 680/681 route travels along Ti Rakau Drive and provides the main link between downtown Auckland and newer developed areas like Botany, Dannemora and Flat Bush.
A trip on the 51 route from Cockle Bay School to Britomart takes around one hour and 15 minutes during peak times. Similarly, a trip from Mission Heights in Flat Bush to Britomart also takes an hour and a quarter. While some express buses exist, and go a rather weird way via Tamaki Drive, they still take at least an hour from start to finish. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these times are often quite optimistic, and can take a lot longer. That’s pretty hopeless really, as a train trip from Pukekohe or a bus trip from the Hibiscus Coast can often be faster than this.
Decades of very poor public transport in this part of Auckland has meant that it has become highly auto-dependent: as shown in the figures above. Considering that many of the people who live in southeast Auckland have come from overseas cities (the Howick Ward of Auckland Council has the highest proportion of its residents born overseas of anywhere in Auckland) which would have often had good public transport systems, it has been a huge missed opportunity to not provide public transport of sufficient quality to this corner of Auckland.
In the next post I’m going to look at possible options for improving PT to southeast Auckland. I’ll have a look at ways to better take advantage of the Half Moon Bay ferry and the merit of current AMETI proposals. Other possible ideas are very welcome!
By admin, on December 17th, 2010 When Auckland Transport released details of the latest concepts for a southeast busway: along Ti Rakau Drive between Botany and Pakuranga and eventually extending all the way into Panmure, I hesitated and had a pretty good think about whether this was a step in the right direction. On the negative side, if this busway is built to an RTN standard then I think the chances of us ever getting what I’ve called the “Howick/Botany Line” become pretty remote – at least any time in the next 30 years.
It’s a pretty darn awesome railway line in my opinion – improving access to the whole southeast part of Auckland, providing a Botany to Britomart connection in about 25 minutes, avoiding the “what to do at Panmure question”, the lot. Here’s a map of my preferred route: But if I’m realistic, I realise that there was no real hope in hell that this railway line would happen any time soon. To avoid massive environmental effects, most of the section between Glen Innes and Highland Park would probably need to be in a tunnel, while most of the section between Clover Park and Manukau City would also have to be in a tunnel. All up, a project like this would probably have a pricetag of around $3 billion. While I think it’s probably a better spend on $3 billion than a North Shore Line (and certainly a better spend than another road-based harbour crossing), it’s damn clear that we’re unlikely to have such amounts of money rolling around any time soon to embark on something like this.
If southeast Auckland currently had at least half-decent public transport, the lack of funding for a rail project like the one above might not be such a problem. We could just squeeze out small improvements to the current service while going about the task of designating, designing and eventually funding a rail project such as this. A pretty similar process to what might happen on the North Shore. But the problem is that public transport in southeast is nowhere near half-decent; in fact it is utterly terrible. It needs an improvement that is significant, relatively affordable and – perhaps most of all – can be done quickly. In terms of those matters, I think the AMETI busway idea makes a lot of sense.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t debate what the best solution is, taking an overall assessment of our options for the southeast – including both short-term and longer-term considerations. Engineer and public transport supporter Barry Palmer raised some interesting points in an email discussion and at Wednesday night’s Campaign for Better Transport meeting that I think are worth noting and discussing.
He says (with a bit of paraphrasing):
I was dismayed to read the Herald that there is to be provision for a busway in the AMETI development but not a word about any ultimate plan to convert this to light rail in due course.
I note particularly a recent EU report of research carried out in France, Austria and Switzerland on health hazards of traffic exhaust fumes found that: -
*Traffic induced Pollution costs the health system and therefore us about $700 per year per capita, (for NZ about $3 billion per year)
*Social and benefit costs for dependents of those killed or crippled by exhaust fumes is about $470 per year per capita, (for NZ about $2 billion per year).
These colossal amounts will merely be exacerbated along the corridors of the busways. Every new project that increases our exhaust fumes (diesel is 17 times more deadly than petrol which is bad enough) is another cost on our overloaded health budget increasing our rates of lung cancer, other cancers, bronchial and heart diseases.
I have often heard figures mentioning that air pollution in Auckland causes more deaths per year than the entire road toll across New Zealand. One only needs to walk up Victoria Street at around 5pm to smell the horrific fumes the are being emitted by the diesel buses. So I definitely agree with Barry that we should be concerns about emissions from diesel buses. He continues:
My second point is that apart from the above, light rail, although expensive in the beginning, will over time prove to be the less costly option. From the ATPA figures that I am consistently receive; light rail running and maintenance costs are regularly 20% and often 40% below that of a diesel bus operation. These cost comparisons are not immediately apparent either and ignorance of them amongst those who make critical decisions confer on us another substantial cost we could have saved. An LRV has two to three times the life of a bus, has less down time for maintenance and carries two to three times the number of passengers. When coupled a train of them can replace 10 buses (and 10 drivers).
This is an interesting point, and one that I’m interested in learning a bit more about. Undoubtedly light-rail is much more expensive to build than a busway, but if it’s cheaper to run (less staff per passenger, lower fuel costs, lower maintenance costs) at what point do the capital savings from the cheaper construction start to be a false economy? In the end, this may prove to be the telling matter which decides the point at which it is logical to turn the Northern Busway into a railway line: simply because continuing to operate it as a busway may become prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
I have a third point. Light Rail will always do a journey in 20 to 30% less time than a diesel bus. Because it doesn’t carry fuel and with electric motors with initial starting torques far superior to diesel engines and three independent braking systems (disc, regenerative and magnetic brakes on rails), it can accelerate and stop more than twice the rate of diesels and therefore maintain top speed for longer. In addition because of rail guidance its length can be as long as a street block so that its consequential multiple doors allow embarking and disembarking of passengers to be at least double that of a bus. It provides a smoother, quieter, fume-free ride.
Vehicle speed seems to be most dependent on issues like the level of priority given to the buses or trams, the speed they are boarded and the geometry of the route itself. Busways can theoretically offer many of the same measures – but for some reason they tend not to. You tend to need to validate your ticket in front of the driver, the lanes tend to be of a lower quality geometry and (at least until the median busway route was proposed) on-street bus lanes (as opposed to the Northern Busway) tend to be quite stop-start and are therefore greatly influenced by other traffic.
And now a fourth point. Light rail is independent of fossil fuels and would ensure that the eastern suburbs are protected in the inevitable event of an oil shortage. There are 18 main reasons I can supply that this will occur and electrification of public transport to that area is a must. Trolley bus would be a good interim measure and has a lot of the attributes of LRT including its less cost to run over its lifetime, but it does not equal LRT.
Peak oil really in the “elephant in the room” when it comes to future transport issues – something that I think will have a huge effect and will not be able to be mitigated through “lots of electric cars” as this government seems to think. That said, I’m not sure whether I would support trolley buses – as I think they can end up being the worst of both worlds in a tram/bus debate: they don’t offer the improved ride quality and enhanced capacity of a tram yet at the same time they don’t have the route flexibility and low capital costs of an independently powered bus.
Barry’s final point throws an interesting curve-ball into the whole debate: whether or not we should consider light-rail because of the ability to run ‘tram-trains’.
Now my final point is what I would describe as the king hit. Because of the development and outstanding success of a new vehicle now known as the tram-train we have a mode that can run on street-based tracks taking advantage of congestion-free narrow corridors wherever they are available and then access a rail corridor onto rail tracks (e.g. at Panmure through to Britomart and return) providing an unbroken congestion-free journey to the CBD.
I’m not sure how technically feasible these tram-trains (most famous in Karlsruhe) would be for our southeast RTN. I worry that the more “tram-like” they are, the more they would mess with regular trains on the Eastern Line between Panmure and Britomart; or the more ‘train like’ they are, the greater difficulties we would have actually running them on the street between Panmure and Botany.
Overall, I do think Barry makes some excellent points. But I wonder whether this is simply the wrong transport corridor to be focusing on for light-rail. As I’ve mentioned before, I think Dominion Road is probably the most suitable corridor for light-rail in Auckland: because of its existing high demand, because of its existing intensified corridor land-use patters, because of its enormous potential to further develop as a development corridor and so forth. Ti Rakau Drive really doesn’t have many of these qualities. Most of the passengers catching buses along Ti Rakau Drive would probably be coming from areas further south and further east than Botany, on a bunch of routes that would converge and then travel along the busway. Unless we could get the tram-trains to work, we would be forcing a bus-to-tram transfer at Botany and then a tram-to-train transfer at Panmure. While I’m all in favour of building a system around transfers I think that takes things one step too far! Furthermore, in terms of the pollution issues, most of the buses along this busway wouldn’t continue into the city, where pollution caused by diesel buses is probably worst. Once again, if we want to make an improvement to bus pollution and reduce its health effects, we would be better off focusing on a route like Dominion Road which does run into the heart of the city.
So while Barry does make good points and what he says does make sense, I still lean towards still supporting the busway model over light-rail: because of the particular characteristics of this transport corridor. At some point in the future we may wish to upgrade it (if fuel became exceedingly expensive perhaps), although if we reached that point we may actually be wanting to reconsider constructed the Howick/Botany Line after all. A busway can provide a lot of benefit quickly at a relatively low cost – so I think it’s my preferred option for now. As long as we put it down the middle, not to the side!
By admin, on December 9th, 2010 I have often been very scathing of the AMETI transport project in the past, accusing it of being a roadsfest and barely paying lip-service to improving public transport. Well, either my criticisms are starting to pay off – or I was being a bit harsh on the project all along. Because, it would seem, finally the transport planners for this project are getting serious about it having high-quality public transport.
First we had the concepts for a busway through Panmure released a month or two ago. While I suggested this was definitely a step in the right direction, I also noted that a busway through Panmure by itself wouldn’t really achieve much compared to my preferred alternative – a southeast railway line. But now we’re seeing that Auckland Transport is getting serious about this busway idea – with their latest information showing how it will extend for quite a lot further than previously indicated.
Here’s Auckland Transport’s media release:
Busway concepts open for feedback
Auckland Transport will present concepts for a busway to Pakuranga residents this Saturday as part of a project aimed at improving poor public transport in the area.
The dedicated bus lanes along Ti Rakau Drive and a section of Pakuranga Road will be part of a busway that will eventually run from Botany to Panmure train station. It is one of the Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) projects which Auckland Transport is now responsible for.
The Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) is a group of transport projects for the eastern suburbs. The aim is to provide more transport choice by improving public transport, providing better facilities for walking and cycling, reduce traffic congestion and unlock the economic potential of the area.
A community open day is being held in Pakuranga to get feedback on two concepts for the busway. Being proposed is a central busway, with lanes in both directions in the centre of the road, and a concept with bus lanes in both directions on one side of the road. Open days were held earlier this year in Panmure to discuss plans for that section of the busway.
Pakuranga AMETI open day
When: Saturday 11 December 10 – 4pm, presentation at 11am
Where: Te Tuhi Arts Centre, 13 Reeves Rd Pakuranga.
Auckland Transport Major Projects Manager Rick Walden says the area has the second lowest public transport use in the region after Whangaparaoa.
“The demand is already there for a rapid transit busway between Panmure and Pakuranga. The problem is that buses are delayed by the same congestion as other vehicles.
“Providing dedicated bus lanes will mean a reliable, high frequency service can be provided. It would allow for up to 60 buses an hour between Pakuranga and Pamure.
“Encouraging more people onto public transport is an important part of dealing with the congestion that is holding back economic growth in the area. It will also mean the planned roading improvements provide better results,” Mr Walden says.
Kerbside bus lanes wouldn’t allow an effective rapid transit as buses would need to slow for turning traffic. There would also be safety issues for residents getting in and out of driveways.
Both the central and one side of the road concepts have all bus stops at signalised intersections so pedestrians would always be able to get to a bus stop safely.
Signalised intersections would provide for right turns into side streets. Access to properties and side streets on one side of the road would continue as it is at present.
For the central busway, u-turns will also be permitted to access properties on the other side of the road. The one side of the road option would mean property access would change to be via signalised intersections and slip roads.
Dedicated cycle facilities would be provided either on-road, off-road or both.
The busway will be developed in stages, based on demand, with the first stages between Panmure and Pakuranga town centre. It will then be created in stages along Ti Rakau Drive towards Botany.
The open day will also provide an update on the overall AMETI project, including other improvements in the Pakuranga area.
As I can’t make it to the open day on Saturday I asked Auckland Transport to send me the information, and they have kindly obliged.
The slide below (which is from the document linked to directly above) gives an overview of what is planned between Pakuranga and Botany as part of AMETI: While I still have some concerns about parts of this project – like the Reeves Road flyover which is bound to completely destroy the urban fabric of the Pakuranga town centre – I’m exceptionally glad that all the proposals for public transport are now based around the main route being of a Rapid Transit quality – even if it’s only in the form of a busway, which of course leaves unresolved the question of “what to do at Panmure?”
The next slide provides a bit more detail on the specifics of this busway: I am very happy to see that Auckland Transport has come to the realisation that bus lanes are NOT rapid transit quality public transport. Interesting to see that two options for the busway are being considered: lanes in the centre of the road and a busway at one side. Let’s take a closer look at the two options:  I’m pretty sure that I prefer the idea of running the bus lanes down the middle of the road – to minimise the conflict between the buses and surrounding land uses. I also think that option would be more acceptable to residents – as otherwise there will be very complicated processes such as having to create slip-ways for local vehicles: which of course would add to the required road width and add to the cost.
Last, but certainly not least, it’s also encouraging to see that AMETI will deliver significant benefits for walking and cycling: Overall, this actually looks really promising. We might yet save AMETI from being a roadsfest! Certainly I still hope that we can plan for a Southeast Railway Line in the longer term – as no bus-based solution will come close to offering the “Botany to Britomart in 26 minutes” that a railway line could achieve. But I have to also be a realist. Any such railway line is very unlikely for a long time into the future, and this busway is certainly a heck of a lot better than what we have now, and a heck of a lot better than the bus lanes that were previously proposed.
Feedback on the latest designs is welcomed by the project team – you can email your feedback to AMETI_Pakuranga@ghd.com.
By admin, on October 18th, 2010 I like to play around with ideas for dream future rail systems for Auckland, and oddly enough sometimes my rail visions are embraced by those with some opportunity to make them into a reality. But aside from making for interesting discussion points, having a bit of a think about what we might want our public transport system to look like 20, 30 or even 40 years into the future is important for one simple reason.
Future proofing.
At the moment, or over the next few months, a lot of thought will be put into the detailed design of Auckland’s CBD rail tunnel. We might also have analysis undertaken for rail options to Auckland Airport and rail to the North Shore. The consenting process for the Waterview Connection may also raise questions over whether we should have a long-term vision for rapid transit to northwest Auckland, while questions are also likely to be asked over whether AMETI really provides for the southeast rapid transit line that is so desperately needed. As each of these projects are designed, planned or even studied in a highly preliminary way I think it’s important that we think about how future improvements to the system might tie into what we’re focusing on in the here and now.
For example, when the detailed design of the Midtown railway station is being undertaken, I sincerely hope that thought goes into how a future North Shore line might link in with the system. Would it bypass the tunnel completely – instead running as an east-west tunnel across the city (much like this option), or would it somehow link into the CBD tunnel? If it links in with the tunnel, should that link be at Britomart or up near Midtown? These are decisions that will need to be made incredibly soon (if not made already) and they will have a huge impact on how that future North Shore Line functions – when it eventually is constructed (which is likely to be decades away).
Furthermore, we must keep in mind that Auckland’s population is projected to keep growing at a pretty quick pace over the next 40 years. One of the most interesting graphs that I plucked from a recent ARTA presentation related to Auckland’s future population growth and how that stacks up against New Zealand’s growth as a whole:
 These graphs show what is a quite staggering observation: that between 2006 and 2051 Auckland’s population will grow by three times as much as the rest of New Zealand put together. In numbers terms, around 1 million extra people will live in Auckland, while the whole of the rest of the country will only experience population growth of around 330,000. If there was ever a good argument for Auckland getting a significantly larger slice of the “new infrastructure pie” than we get at the moment, then this data is that argument.
Added to the simple fact that Auckland’s population will grow hugely over the next 40 years are other long-term trends like dramatically higher petrol prices and the need to reduce CO2 emissions (both from transport and generally from our cities by making them more energy efficient). All of this points towards Auckland in 2050 needing a significantly more comprehensive public transport system than it has today.
So what might that system look like? Well I’ve had a bit of a crack at it – with the map below showing the heavy rail (coloured lines) and light-rail/busway (black lines) that could make up the backbone of Auckland’s public transport system in 2050 (obviously along with a lots of buses and ferries):
There are four main railway lines, seven light-rail lines and one busway. The major addition from past maps is the Westgate branch of what I’ve called the “Westgate-Botany Line”, the red one. This line could effectively run down one side of State Highway 16 fairly easily, and offer a very high speed commuting option for those living in parts of west and northwest Auckland that currently aren’t served by the western line. In the shorter term, it could be a busway.
Many of the light-rail lines follow routes that at the moment have high-frequency buses. It’s possible that other light-rail lines could be introduced – such as along Sandringham Road – but I would think these are the main ones to start with. They would often act as feeders to the core heavy rail routes, but could in other areas provide the capacity necessary to shift a big chunk of the 2.3 million Aucklanders that will inhabit the city by then.
Of course a system like this is just a dream for now. But if we do need these lines in the future then we need to start thinking about making sure we don’t stuff up alignments by not future-proofing in projects we complete in the nearer future. Plus, it’s always good to have a system with many parts that need ‘completing’. The motorway network has had billions spent on it in recent years in order to ‘complete it’. Why not think long term about rail too?
Updated: Map updated with some of the suggestions made incorporated. Still far from a finished product.
By admin, on October 16th, 2010 I didn’t get a chance to go to the open day on the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) today, but I have got hold of the information boards that were presented at the open day. So it is possible to see how things have come along a bit since the last design. The latest concept (more information here) has a few changes, the main one being that we now appear to actually have a busway (looks like someone finally got the message that bus lanes do not constitute an RTN). Here’s an overview of what’s now proposed for the Panmure section: A number of concerns were raised at previous public open days about the earlier design – mainly because it seemed to be recreating, by stealth, a smaller version of the old Eastern Motorway: which was supposed to be well and truly banished forever.
The diagram below shows point of concern raised during previous consultation, and how the new design responds to that: There seem to be two big changes to the design: both of them very positive in my opinion. The first is that the main intersection, where the current roundabout is, has been simplified greatly from what was previously proposed. The current proposal is shown below:
 The second major change, which is very noticeable in the map above, is that a two-way busway on the northern side of Ellerslie Panmure Highway and Lagoon Drive is now proposed. This is a huge step forwards from what we previously had – which were basically glorified bus lanes. While this is perhaps not yet true RTN, as the busway will have to stop at intersections, it’s a huge improvement compared to the previous proposal.
Some more detail of the busway is shown below: While this is definitely a vast improvement on what we had before, there are still some huge unanswered questions about how the project as a whole will adequately provide for the Southeast Rapid Transit Network: which should be its highest priority.
- What happens further east than the limits of the photo above? Will the busway continue across the Panmure bridge into Pakuranga? How will a busway be provided along Pakuranga Road and through the mess that exists around the Pakuranga shopping centre in order to get to Botany?
- How much time will this really save for someone trying to catch a bus from Botany to the CBD? If it only knocks a 60 minute trip down to 55 minutes – is it really worth the effort or should we be looking at something else entirely?
- What happens to all these bus users once they reach Panmure? Are they all expected to get on a train to make their way to the CBD or will we see some high quality bus priority along the Ellerslie Panmure Highway and then along Great South Road?
The drawing on the right in the image below suggests that the route will simply return to having standard bus lanes east of the Panmure area (which means it would really just be a QTN not an RTN):
 Ultimately, I still think that all of these bus priority measures miss the entire point of why we have such a huge traffic problem around this part of Auckland: because there is such incredibly poor public transport east of the Tamaki River. Because so many people are forced to use their cars, and want to skip through Panmure to miss congestion on the southern motorway, we end up with the current mess of a situation. And really, the only way to do something about that fundamental problem is to build a proper Southeast Railway Line.
All of this AMETI bus priority stuff is like papering over giant cracks. Lots of effort, but in the end ignoring the fundamental problem.
By admin, on October 13th, 2010 Out of the “big three” rail projects that Len Brown promotes as his rail vision, two make pretty obvious sense – the CBD Rail Tunnel and Rail to the Airport. The two projects work in synergy quite nicely actually – both expanding the capacity and the reach of the rail system. The third project – rail to the North Shore – is the most long-term project of the three, and also one that I have been most doubtful of in past blog posts.
My main reason for thinking that North Shore Rail isn’t a particularly high priority is due to the Northern Busway. The busway opened just a couple of years ago, cost around $400 million all up, so it would make sense that we squeeze the most out of the busway possible before embarking on replacing it. Added to that is the question in my mind that the current plans may be forgetting about what I consider to be a pretty critical rail project – the Southeast RTN. A Southeast railway line would follow approximately the alignment outlined in the map below – linking Glen Innes with Manukau via stations at Highland Park, Cascades Road, Botany, Flat Bush and Clover Park. The route would involve two big tunnels: one between Glen Innes and Highland Park (as I don’t think putting another bridge across the Tamaki River is that viable) and another being a tunnel between Clover Park – at the southern end of Te Irirangi Drive – and Manukau City Centre. So the route would be expensive, there’s no doubt about that, but think of the benefits it would bring:
- This is a big part of Auckland, and a part that continues to grow rapidly. Flat Bush is planned to be New Zealand’s biggest “new town”, with a population of about 40,000 by 2020. In total, there are probably at least 150,000 people living east of the Tamaki River.
- This area has terrible transport links with the rest of Auckland. There are no motorways, no bus lanes, no railway lines, pretty much nothing except giant four-lane highways such as Pakuranga Road, Ti Rakau Drive and Te Irirangi Drive. As a result of such poor public transport, the area is the most car dependent in the entire city.
- A railway line could offer a Botany to Britomart trip in around 26 minutes. You’d be lucky to drive that distance in twice that time at peak hours. So I think it would be very popular, even requiring a feeder bus and transfer onto the train.
- Bus-based solutions for this RTN suffer from a huge problem of “what to do at Panmure?” Either we find a way of getting a tonne of buses between Panmure and Britomart (nigh on impossible) or we transfer everyone onto trains at Panmure (the trains will probably already be full).
In short, this is an expensive project – but one that could bring huge benefits to a part of Auckland that’s growing rapidly, but which suffers from unbelievably poor transportation options. The project could completely revolutionise this part of Auckland.
In terms of the North Shore Line, this would follow the alignment of the Northern Busway between Akoranga and Constellation stations. North of Constellation, at some point the railway line would need to cross SH1 to access Albany town centre. Probably for now the line could end at Albany, although in the longer term it may be extended to Silverdale or Orewa. South of Akoranga, I imagine the line would largely be in tunnel all the way to the CBD. It could work something like this (although how it links in with the rail system at the CBD end is up for debate):
 Some of the benefits of this rail line are obvious. It would probably be much faster than the busway – particularly between Akoranga and the CBD. Further to that, a railway line offers significantly increased capacity compared to the busway -something that will certainly be essential in the longer term.
Looking at this, one would think that there would be little point in advancing North Shore rail for quite a number of decades in the future – at least until the busway is getting completely swamped with passengers. However, there are a couple of matters that require a bit of further consideration I think:
- It is not just the capacity of the busway that we need to think about, but also the capacity of the streets of Auckland’s CBD to cope with all these buses. In the not too distant future, it’s my understanding that Fanshawe Street and Customs Street are likely to be carrying more buses than they can really handle. Unless loading times around Britomart are significantly reduced, there will also become a time when we simply don’t have a big enough station area in the CBD to handle all these buses. If streets like Fanshawe Street become maxed out in terms of their capacity to carry buses, what do we do then to increase the number of buses that can get into the CBD?
- As the number of buses are increased, there’s also an increase in operating costs that needs to be considered. For a start, operating a lot of buses is very expensive as you need to pay a lot of drivers (in the future we may have one or two staff for up to 1000 passengers on a lengthy electric train). Furthermore, as the loadings for the North Shore Line are likely to be quite strongly “peaked” (very high during peak times compared to off-peak times), we will need a lot of buses that may only be used a few times a day at peak times. Does it make that much more sense to keep buying $400,000 buses to handle these high peak loads? Perhaps not.
I probably still lean towards preferring the Southeast Line as a priority, simply because people living in that part of the city have such extremely poor transport options at the moment. However, because of issues like capacity constraints for buses in Auckland’s CBD, I do wonder whether we might need to look at upgrading the busway to rail a bit earlier than was previously thought. I also wonder at what point the very high operating costs (plus the cost of buying so many new buses) of maintaining the busway start to offset the admittedly extremely expensive capital cost of a rail line.
By admin, on August 6th, 2010 An NZ Herald article today shines light on some growing worries that the “Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative”, known more commonly as “AMETI” may be a first step to reviving the dreaded “Eastern Motorway” – which Aucklanders resoundingly rejected in the 2004 local government elections. Here’s an extract from the article:
Panmure residents are wondering if a new road through their suburb is the first stage of a revived eastern highway across Hobson Bay to the city.
A $1.33 billion package of eastern suburbs transport works retains all the elements necessary for reviving the eastern highway, Panmure Community Action Group spokesman Keith Sharp said yesterday.
“We wonder if there is any good reason for retaining the hugely expensive trenched option for the north-south route through Panmure when the currently proposed road is supposed to go no further than Glen Innes,” he said.
Mr Sharp produced a 2007 plan for the Ameti (Auckland-Manukau eastern transport initiative) project showing the northern route continuing from Merton Rd in Glen Innes to St Johns Rd in Kohimarama.
“Once at St Johns it’s just over the hill and down the other side to Purewa Creek.”…
…Mr Sharp said too much of the Ameti planning had occurred without genuine public consultation, with all major decisions being made before the public were aware of the implications.
He said planners had been allowed to adapt old plans for the eastern highway to fit Ameti, which were two different projects.
“The eastern highway was designed to link Manukau City with the Auckland CBD. Ameti is intended to facilitate traffic movement into and out of the Tamaki areas of Panmure and Glen Innes.”
The new north-south road would come off the Mt Wellington Highway, go behind the back of the Harvey Norman Centre and through a trench under the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway.
There seems to have been relatively little public debate and involvement in discussions about what form AMETI should take, which is surprising considering its cost is around the same scale as that of the highly controversial and publicly debated Waterview Connection. From my various transport contacts I understand that there’s some pretty large areas of disagreement between the various agencies involved over the form that AMETI should take: whether it has too much of a roads focus, whether there should be a motorway component, whether the bus lanes are enough to justify being called “rapid transit”, whether building massive viaducts is appropriate in the urban environment and so forth.
But the problem is that most of these discussions have taken place behind closed doors – simply between Auckland City Council staff and Manukau City Council staff, with ARTA apparently involved but with there being little sign that public transport is really being taken that seriously by the project. Only very recently was there an open day to show people what was planned for the Panmure stage of the project, but effectively (somewhat typically I must add) it seems to be a case of “here’s what we are going to build, what do you think?” rather than “what do you think needs to happen here?”
The image below is from the open day, and includes a lot of “this road will be built here, this road will be built there”:  Perhaps there has been what I would call “micro-level consultation”, over things such as where a bus stop should go, whether a certain road should have two lanes in each direction or just the one lane and so forth. But there still seem to be some fundamental characteristics of AMETI that are truly bizarre.
As I have noted before, the number one utterly bizarre characteristic of AMETI is its complete ignorance of the “big picture” in terms of providing what must be the most glaring missing link in Auckland’s transport system – a rapid transit line to the southeast. The plans note that bus lanes will be provided along the Lagoon Drive and Ellserlie-Panmure Highway corridor, and pretend that constitutes what a Rapid Transit Network should be (which is absolute rubbish, but let’s leave that aside for the moment). However, it appears as though absolutely no thought is going into answering basic questions like the following:
- What happens to our Rapid Transit Network once the buses have passed through Panmure on their way to the CBD?
- How is the Rapid Transit Network provided on the eastern side of the Panmure Bridge?
- Since when did bus lanes constitute an RTN?
- Has any thought whatsoever gone into actually providing a decent standard Rapid Transit line to this huge, fast-growing swathe of southeast Auckland?
As I have said time and time again, I really think that the only solution for providing high-quality rapid transit to the southeast part of Auckland that will be of such a standard that people will actually use it, is through constructing a railway line that would actually branch off from the existing Eastern Line just south of Panmure, and approximately follows the route in the map below:
Everyone keeps saying to me “but this route would be horrifically expensive, it’s not on any of the plans at the moment, it’s the stuff of dreams” and justifiably so (it would be expensive and it’s not really planned for at the moment). However, I think that if this railway line was built then it would take enough traffic off the road to make pretty much the whole $1.33 billion AMETI project unnecessary. Furthermore, future projects that are likely to be required such as an upgrade of Te Irirangi Drive to motorway standard (or near it), plus further upgrades to Ti Rakau Drive would also become unnecessary in my opinion. Even if this project cost close to $3 billion to build, it might very well stack up economically because it would render other projects, such as the roadsfest that AMETI seems to be turning into, unnecessary.
It seems to me that AMETI is basically a giant excuse to say to people “hey, we’re trying to do something here” while actually completely ignoring the real problem, the “elephant in the room”, which is the lack of a southeast Rapid Transit route. It’s a depressingly typical Auckland situation where everyone knows what the real problem is, but because it is seen as too difficult, everyone’s just ignoring it and instead building other stuff that will inevitably do little to reduce congestion but most certainly will ruin a fair few local communities with massive roads being cut through their heart.
Perhaps the best thing we can do with AMETI is stall it for a few months and hope that the Auckland Transport CCO does a complete rethink of it, a rethink that stops ignoring the elephant in the room and gets around to providing a real southeast RTN for this part of Auckland.
By admin, on July 11th, 2010 With studies into the CBD Rail Tunnel seemingly progressing well, and studies into protecting a route for rail to the airport kicking off, I couldn’t help but get my thinking cap on again just a little bit in terms of what I think Auckland’s long-term rail system could look like. Here’s the current Auckland train system: Effectively there are two and a half lines (soon to be two lines, a half line and a bit of a line once Onehunga opens). As everything feeds into one Britomart station, via a two-track tunnel, once we have the Western, Eastern and Southern Lines operating at 10 minute frequencies, plus the Onehunge Line operating half-hourly, Britomart station will be at capacity. The only way to ease this capacity issue is to turn Britomart into a through station by constructing the CBD rail tunnel. Furthermore that tunnel will provide much better access to the CBD as there can be a Midtown Station, a K Road station and a Newton Station – as shown in the latest proposal for the project.
The other project that is likely to follow quite closely behind a CBD rail tunnel is an Airport Line. While the measurable benefits of the Airport Line may be somewhat more difficult to quantify than the CBD rail tunnel’s, this is a project that seems to capture the imagination of many – and would have big benefits in terms of “putting Auckland on the map” and also making life much easier for people arriving in the country – which is important for a country very dependent on tourism.
If we had both projects completed, the rail system could look something like this: Effectively we would now have four lines: Western, Southern, Eastern and Airport. Both the Eastern Line and the Airport Line would have Manukau City as their southern terminus. To make life a bit simpler, and to allow people to travel through the CBD on the train and not just to it, I have linked up the lines: the Eastern with the Airport (in green, as it’s linked at both ends it becomes something of a giant loop) and the Western with the Southern (in red).
I’m hoping that the system above is what we will have in Auckland by 2025. That’s not a completely unrealistic target – as it will be essential to have the CBD Rail Tunnel constructed by 2021, and after that we will have the capacity in the system for it to be possible to have an airport line. In the map below, the colours are a bit different, but it gives an idea about how the CBD would work: Helpfully, we’ve just managed to eliminate the “Newmarket reverse” too!
While these first two steps might last us a while, there are a couple of other railway lines that Auckland is going to need: one to the North Shore and one out to Botany/Flat Bush, to create a Southeast RTN that we so desperately need. But if we’re already running trains at 5 minute frequencies on our existing two main lines (which seems quite plausible by 2030ish), that means we’ll be having a train every 2 and a half minutes each way in the CBD tunnel already – so the capacity of that tunnel will be pretty maxed out. Which in my mind means that we should be considering building this new line with a separate tunnel across Auckland’s CBD. I know it’s a little long-term to be thinking about a second CBD rail tunnel when we are probably 10 years away from even getting the first tunnel – but the purpose of this post is to think long term! The resulting system could look something like this – with the blue line the one added: A one seat ride from Manukau to Albany via Flat Bush and the CBD – wow that seems pretty cool! Through the CBD the alignment would differ from the original CBD tunnel – and would probably have three CBD stations: one at Gaunt Street in Tank Farm/Wynyard Quarter, the second an interchange with the first CBD tunnel at Midtown and the third being at the old Auckland train station where it had popped out of its tunnel. This would give good access to the northeastern part of the CBD. The map below shows how it could traverse the CBD: But even that’s not necessarily the end of the story here. At some point in the future I do think that we will finally get around to using the designation for the Avondale-Southdown Line, probably primarily for freight so that it can bypass Newmarket. But once that line has been constructed, it will quite helpfully enable a full isthmus loop line to be created – which itself changes things quite dramatically.
So my final plan for Auckland’s rail system – perhaps something to be done by 2050, would look like the map below. I’ll work through the lines one by one.
- RED LINE – as per previous maps involves combining the existing Western and Southern lines. Enters CBD tunnel from west and travels via Newton, K Road, Midtown, Britomart, Parnell, Newmarket and then south to Papakura/Pukekohe.
- ORANGE LINE – called the “Isthmus Loop” line or something similar. Combines the inner parts of the existing Western and Eastern lines. Enters CBD tunnel from the west and travels via Newton, K Road, Midtown, Britomart, Oraekei then follows existing Eastern Line to Westfield Junction before passing over/under RED LINE tracks and going via Onehunga, Hillsborough, Mt Roskill, Stoddard Road stations back to Mt Albert.
- GREEN LINE – goes from Albany to Manukau via Botany and Flat Bush. Travels through CBD via Wynyard Quarter, Midtown, Strand (old Auckland) and Orakei stations, then east to Glen Innes, then branches off from Orange Line to serve Highland Park, Botany, Dannemore, Flat Bush areas before linking up at Manukau City.
- AQUA LINE – goes from Albany to Manukau via the Airport. From the north, travels through CBD via Wynyard Quarter, Midtown (links in with existing CBD tunnel there), K Road, Newton, Grafton, Newmarket and then south to Penrose and then onto Onehunga line out to Airport, then hooks back to Manukau City.
There are possibly further lines, like a northwest one along SH18 or even one along SH16 (northwest motorway). But I think this’ll do for now.
By admin, on May 31st, 2010 As I have mentioned in a couple of recent posts, I am extremely worried that a lot of the work going on at the moment in planning important transport projects (like AMETI) and large-scale land-use planning projects (like Flat Bush) is ignoring one of the most important pieces in the puzzle of sorting out land-use and transport planning in a huge swathe of Auckland: its southeast.
By southeast Auckland I am referring to the area east of the Tamaki River, and right down to where Te Irirangi Drive links in with Manukau City. This includes the suburbs of Howick, Pakuranga, Highland Park, Botany, Dannemora, Flat Bush and others. This area has experienced huge growth and development over the past 20-30 years, but has almost no public transport infrastructure (and pretty poor general roading linkages with the rest of Auckland). In response to the utterly unacceptable current situation, most of Auckland’s long term transport plans and strategies propose a “Rapid Transit Network” (RTN) corridor between Manukau City in the south and Panmure in the north – linking together with Flat Bush, Botany and Pakuranga. This is shown in ARTA’s Auckland Transport Plan:
As you can see it’s all spelled out pretty clearly in the Auckland Transport Plan, and basically the same route gets mention in the ARC’s 2010-2040 Regional Land Transport Strategy, although the RLTS does go one step further in its consideration of this RTN by stating this: I must say as soon as I hear the words “future proofed for light-rail” a huge red flag, flashing lights and a siren starts wailing inside my head that it’s complete and utter rubbish. Most of the things that have been future-proofed for light rail in Auckland have been done so to a vastly sub-standard level, and furthermore why the heck would we want light-rail out there? What would it link into? Would it be faster and of a higher capacity than buses? If not, why would we bother? If so, how much extra would it cost to go to heavy rail and actually link in with the existing rail system at Panmure and Manukau? I really do wonder whether any thought has gone into answering these questions.
In my mind, the huge problem with this RTN being ‘bus-based’ is the issue of “what the heck do we do at Panmure?” If we build a busway (which is what a bus-based RTN is, simple bus lanes do not constitute an RTN), then that’s going to be a pretty difficult and expensive project. There is no protected corridor anywhere near where that dotted line runs, so we’re going to have to get rid of quite a large number of houses to build this busway – so given its length we’re definitely looking at a $500 million+ project I think, if not double that (the final cost would depend largely on how we deal with Te Irirangi Drive). So we spend a huge amount of money to ship a lot of people to Panmure (and Manukau City, which is a bit more useful), but then what? We are effectively left with three options:
- We build a busway between Panmure and the CBD, right next to the existing railway line. This option is expensive and seems really stupid, given the railway line is right there, but would probably be the fastest bus option.
- We have bus lanes along Ellserlie-Panmure Highway and Great South Road and send all our buses that way into Newmarket and eventually into the CBD. This option is clearly cheaper than option one, but whereas it takes a train around 16 minutes to travel between Panmure and Britomart, at peak time it takes the 680/681 bus around 35 minutes to make that journey. So this option is around 20 minutes slower.
- We get everyone to transfer onto a train at Panmure. In the shorter term this seems like the most viable option, although it obviously depends on integrated ticketing being up and running, and the trains coming frequently enough for the transfer to be relatively painless. However, in the longer term – if this southeast RTN really comes off and is popular, we are going to end up with an awful lot of people transfering from the bus onto trains at Panmure. And there may well very much not be the available capacity on those trains (which would have already come all the way up from Manukau City) to cater for full bus-loads of passengers arriving every 2-3 minutes.
Option three clearly makes the most sense in the short-to-medium term, but in the longer term I really do think that you’re going to get problems capacity wise. One of the main reasons for this is that between Manukau and Westfield, the Southern Line and the Eastern Line share the same tracks (or will do so once Manukau is open). If we run trains on both lines at 10 minute frequencies, then that’s manageable as you have a train every 5 minutes on the combined stretch. However, if you need a lot more trains on the Eastern line to cater for passengers getting on the line at Panmure, then either you need to start “short running” quite a few trains between Panmure and Britomart (and all the scheduling havoc that would create) or you start to get trains at 2-3 minute frequencies on that Westfield to Manukau stretch of the line, which could be quite a problem.
So in the longer term I don’t think that’s going to work. Furthermore, while I am a big fan of designing a a public transport system around transfers rather than one which avoids transfer at all costs, there is certainly a limit to this being acceptable to PT users – and that limit is probably somewhere around the one transfer only level. This also becomes problematic if we stick with our “everyone change at Panmure” policy, because chances are many people would have already transferred onto the southeast busway (or whatever it’s called) at Pakuranga station, Botany station or Flat Bush station. Taking Flat Bush as an example, my recent post showed that the Flat Bush town centre is going to be at least a kilometre away from a future rapid transit station site, while most of the extra 40,000 people anticipated to live in Flat Bush will be further away again. That’s not walking distance, so it’s likely that feeder buses will be necessary to make the system work. The same for Botany Town Centre (which is surrounded by carparks more than anything else) and Pakuranga too. Even given the speed advantages of a busway between Panmure and Manukau, and utilising the very quick Eastern Line, I think that forcing potential passengers to transfer twice is probably one step too far.
Given this situation, my opinion is that there really is only one long-term solution to the “southeast Auckland RTN problem”, and that is a full heavy rail line. This is my preferred alignment for that line: A few things probably jump to mind immediately when looking at that alignment. I’ll work through them:
- But it goes to Glen Innes, not Panmure. This is my solution to the very vexed problem of how a railway corridor could be squeeze amongst the existing bridges that cross over the Tamaki River in the vicinity of Panmure, and also how it could fit in with the Eastern railway line at Panmure without wreaking havoc. This alignment also makes the line much more useful for people living in Howick, Bucklands Beach, Highland Park and other areas. Pakuranga misses out on a station, but I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Highland Park could become a useful transit-oriented development.
- How would you cross the Tamaki River? Well either by bridge or tunnel I think. A bridge would obviously be cheaper, although effects on the estuary’s visual amenity might make that a challenge (unless it was a very pretty bridge). The estuary is fairly shallow around there, so a tunnel might not be that problematic.
- Don’t you take out a lot of houses? Well interestingly enough, the answer is “no”. The line, with a couple of tunnels, manages to miss a lot of housing – although it would impact on green spaces to a greater extent. For a more detailed look at the route’s alignment, have a look here.
- Wouldn’t it be hugely expensive? Well of course, but at a guess I would say around 150,000 people live out in this part of Auckland, and another 40,000-50,000 are likely to live out here in the future. They need to get to other parts of Auckland, their current public transport options are extremely poor – whereas this proposal would provide a trip between Britomart and Botany Town centre of under half an hour. This compares with a peak hour car trip of perhaps around an hour – so I think it would be popular. Furthermore, any RTN route out here is going to be expensive because past planners were incredibly stupid and never protected a route, so even if this does cost twice what a busway would cost, if it attracts three times as many users – it’s probably worthwhile.
So that is my suggested solution to “the southeast RTN problem”. I know that the “powers to be” in ARTA and other organisations seem to have different ideas about how to implement this RTN, (or are just sticking their heads in the sand, dumping it in the “too hard basket” and ignoring the issue) but I really think this idea has merit, and is the only one that doesn’t potentially run into “fatal flaw” problems that I believe many of the alternatives suffer from.
|
Recent Comments