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By Stu Donovan, on May 26th, 2013 Every now and then I receive external confirmation of just how rapidly Auckland is transforming itself into a much better city. The latest and perhaps greatest – at least in terms of its global reach – reminder has come courtesy of the New York Times, which recently published this article titled “36 hours in Auckland“.
The introduction to the article is worth quoting in full:
Admittedly, few fly all the way to New Zealand just to visit Auckland, the country’s largest city. Most aim to explore the otherworldly landscapes with which, thanks to the silver screen, this remote nation has become associated. But before delving into the cinematic beauty of the North Island countryside, discover the San Francisco-steep streets and regenerated neighborhoods of newly vibrant Auckland. This multicultural city, home to a third of all Kiwis, has recently welcomed a raft of bars, boutiques and restaurants that highlight locally made products, from excellent craft beer and wine to fashion and art. And none of it has anything to do with orcs or rings.
I think there are several interesting aspects to the introduction. The first is the reference to San Francisco, after which the article goes on to mention Seattle. Indeed, on my last trip to Seattle I was struck but how it felt like a bigger, bolder American version of Auckland. I think Seattle is a city Auckland should compare itself too, and try to emulate in some respects (perhaps not weather wise).
Another interesting aspect of the introduction is the mention of Auckland’s multi-cultural society. Speaking as an employer, I can say that Auckland’s cultural plurality is quite an important attribute when trying to attract skilled staff from overseas, which is something that I’ve recently had to do. In Auckland you can be comfortably “different”.
But the more interesting aspect of the introduction, I think, is the length to which it goes to challenge what it believes is the common understanding of New Zealand as a destination that does not normally include Auckland. I think this common definition of “destination NZ, but not Auckland” is real, understandable, and yet rapidly changing.
Its “real” because our tourism marketing has often emphasised our natural areas. It’s also ”understandable” because NZ does have outstanding natural features and landscapes. While I’m an ardent advocate for more liveable urban areas, I am equally passionate about NZ’s wild side. There are few things I enjoy more than travelling around NZ, and I suspect many other NZers feel similarly.
The focus on NZ’s natural qualities is also understandable, however, because NZ’s generally not done very well at creating pleasant cities and towns. Auckland has, historically at least, sat proudly on top of NZ’s dung heap of urban shame. But it seems that Auckland’s reputation is (finally) rapidly changing, and deservedly so.
A variety of decisions made by a variety of councils has resulted in urban places that are both good for people and fun for visitors. Streets are cleaner and many have been upgraded; public transport is much better; and we invested in civic facilities, such as Britomart, the Museum, and the Art Gallery (pictured below). This has not only created places to go and things to do, but in turn helped to stimulate private sector development in the surrounding areas.
And I suspect Auckland is only going to get better.
Right now we’re staring down the barrel of 5 years of transformative PT improvements, spearheaded by integrated ticketing, electrification, and the New Network. Meanwhile, Wynyard Quarter should gradually become a waterfront precinct of international quality. And in the background a steady programme of streetscape improvements should create more places where people want to stop, pause, and take a photo (thanks Auckland Council!).
Anyway, for now let’s just enjoy some external confirmation that the Auckland we know, and generally love, is headed in the right direction. Who knows – if we keep working hard and focus on being decent Aucklanders, then perhaps in a few years time the New York times will feel compelled to spend more than 36 hours in Auckland? Let’s hope so.
By Matt L, on May 14th, 2013 We have been a huge fan of the development of shared spaces and we aren’t the only ones with them being incredibly successful. Back in April I asked what was happening with the development of more of them as they seemed to have disappeared off the radar. In particular I was interested in the outcome of both the O’Connell St and Federal St upgrades which had been through a consultation period. Well now we have an answer thanks to an update in the latest Waitemata Local Board meeting agenda.
O’Connell St – Back in April I wrote:
First up we had O’Connell St in September last year however oddly that wasn’t a shared space. The proposal talked about making footpaths wider by removing car parking. Yet car parking was pretty much the only reason that cars would ever need to be in O’Connell St and with that gone, so to would probably most of the cars (not that there are that many in the first place). Those cars that did still use the street would no longer have to worry about someone opening their door or pulling out of a parking spot so are likely to travel down the road faster, not a desirable outcome in an area where we want lots of pedestrians. Overall it seemed like a poorly thought out design and we encouraged readers to make submissions saying so. The thing is despite the consultation closing back in the middle of September, we are yet to even hear what the outcome of that consultation was. I heard informally a while ago that the project went back to the drawing board but it would be nice to have an official update about where the project is at.
Well the great news is that thanks to the strong feedback against the proposal, the street is now to become a shared space. Sure it isn’t quite full pedestrian only street like I, and many others hoped for but I’m ok with that, at least with a shared street that can still happen easily later if need be. Here is the executive summary of the update (page 157 of the link above)
2. The upgrade of O’Connell Street is part of a 10-year programme of city centre streetscape and open space upgrades, which are funded by the CBD Targeted Rate. The O’Connell Street project budget is $4.367m.
3. The objectives of the upgrade are to improve pedestrian amenity, create more space for people and to promote O’Connell Street as part of the city centre ‘laneway’ circuit, as identified in the Auckland Council City Centre Master Plan. The upgrade will also create space for outdoor activities, including outdoor dining.
4. The shared space concept design (Attachment A) delivers on these objectives and has support from key stakeholders including the CBD Advisory Board, O’Connell Street businesses and property owners, as well as disability groups and the Royal New Zealand Institute for the Blind. Auckland Transport also support the shared space design.
5. In addition to the O’Connell Street upgrade, a range of other projects are proposed in the High Street Precinct area, including O’Connell Street, Freyberg Square, High Street and the Pioneer Women’s Building improvements. Officers are working to ensure that the design outcomes and construction schedules for each of these projects are co-ordinated.
6. The next step for the O’Connell Street upgrade is to commence detailed design. The construction is currently scheduled to begin in early 2014 lasting for approximately six months.
Here is what the new proposal composes of:
- A shared space where vehicles must give way to pedestrians.
- The same design principles and materials used in other city centre shared spaces to ensure a consistent standard and legibility for users.
- Fully paved road reserve i.e. a flush, kerb-less surface using the granite stone modules used in all other city centre shared spaces.
- Clutter-free, accessible routes for pedestrians and disabled users down both sides of the street, tactile delineators to enable safe navigation by disabled users, activity zones on both the eastern and western sides of the street which provide space for outdoor dining, street furniture and vegetation, plus a 3m carriage down the middle of the street.
- Cobbled threshold treatments that provide flush pedestrian crossing tables at either end of the street and widened footpath build outs at the Chancery Lane and Shortland Street corners, creating greater pedestrian amenity at the thresholds.
- New street furniture and façade mounted lighting
- Removal of an existing tree (Tulip tree) and inclusion of nikau palms (up to 9) along the western side.
- Removal of all (20) on-street car parks to provide space for pedestrian movement, greater public amenity and better activation of the street edges, which is consistent with parking restrictions in all other city centre shared spaces
- Removal of the existing loading zones with loading instead provided along the length of the street at permitted times (6am-11am daily) which is consistent with loading permissions in all other city centre shared spaces.
- Retention of existing traffic flow (via one northbound lane)
- Possible provision for a public artwork (mid-block)
- Possible provision of informal/perchable seating elements that feature text referencing the rich history of the street.
Federal St
Unlike O’Connell, Federal St (between Wellesley and Victoria St) was proposed to be a shared space. The report (page 163) says that the proposal had very strong support with 84% of the feedback supporting the idea. The detailed design will now be done and construction is due to start in August. Here is the proposed design.
Its good to see positive progress on these two projects.
By Stu Donovan, on April 23rd, 2013 “Movement and place”: A simple concept that underpins many of the debates on this blog.
For those who have not heard of the “movement and place” concept before, let me briefly re-cap. “Movement” describes how cities need to accommodate flows of people and products. “Place”, on the other hand, describes how cities need to provide locations in which socio-economic activity can thrive.
In my mind, “movement and place” describe extreme ends of a mobility/accessibility spectrum, between which there are many nuanced variations. Train stations, for example, are “places” that facilitate “movement”, as is on-street car-parking. There is of course a need to distinguish between the functions of public and private “places”. Notwithstanding all these nuances, I think “movement and place” is a useful concept because it highlights a key trade-off that emerges within almost every urban transport planning project: How can we enable movement while sustaining place?
Finding an optimal balance is rarely easy. The first reason is that movement and place are often competing for the same physical space. Think of bus lanes on Symonds Street. The second issue is that movement itself tends to generate negative effects, such as noise and air pollution, which undermine the quality of a place. Again, think of Symonds Street.
In this post I wanted to try and provide some historical perspective on “movement and place”. I have been pondering for a while now whether the optimal balance between movement and place is shifting over time and, if so, what the implications of such a shift might be. And when I say “over time” I don’t mean in the last few years. I’m actually talking about experiences of the last hundred years, as examined through the life of my grandmother.
Violet Donovan was born in West Ham, London in 1920 (shown below). Post-WWI Europe was not a particularly happy place, so her family soon migrated from to the U.S. They promptly settled in the booming industrial town of Buffalo. As a child Violet went to sleep listening to the echoes of gun shots resonating across Lake Erie, where the U.S. Navy was engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent bootleggers from spiriting moonshine into the U.S.
They were hard times.
Like many “poor” children my grandmother was sent to summer camp. While there Violet befriended another young girl called Alice. Years later my grandmother discovered that Alice’s father had ended up in jail after he was caught stealing bread to feed his family. She also discovered that at the time social welfare assistance was not extended to the immediate families of criminals and that Alice had died of starvation.
As an adult Violet would later pen this poem about Alice, which was titled “Inside”:
You never met Alice, – I wish you had,
She is a very good friend of mine,
One I have known for a long, long time,
Her skin is black, and mine is white
And yet, I think we look alike
Inside, if you know what I mean.
You never met Alice, – I wish you had,
I called her Lily, – it sounded right,
She called me ‘Tiny’, – I wasn’t quite,
Each read the other like a book
Saw ourselves as we thought we’d look
Inside, if you know what I mean.
You’ll never meet Alice, – that’s too bad,
Alice went away, – she had to go
A ‘Lily’ doesn’t last long, you know
Now, it isn’t that she hides,
But rather that she always bides,
Inside, if you know what I mean.
Eventually the lingering Great Depression caused Violet’s father James – my great grandfather – to lose his job. With limited few opportunities in the U.S., Violet’s family promptly decided to migrate again, this time to New Zealand, where James had landed a job at the Devonport Naval Base. Violet celebrated her 16th birthday on the voyage to New Zealand.
Violet’s family arrived in Wellington after sunset and promptly boarded an overnight train bound for Auckland. Then, upon arriving in Auckland, the entire family finally boarded the ferry to Devonport (like the one shown below) – just as the sun was rising over Rangitoto. Apparently the spring sunlight lit the waters of the Waitemata in sparkling hues of blue that Violet would never forget, even as she grew old.
After the industrial drudgery of Buffalo and London Auckland must have seemed like a verdant oasis. Not that life in Auckland was necessarily easy: Violet would later raise three children on her own, at a time when women were paid approximately half a man’s wage for the same job. At one point she was working three jobs, seven days a week, just to get by. She never had sufficient time or money to learn to drive, let alone buy a vehicle; Violet depended on public transport her entire life.
I suspect that few people today, myself including, can fully comprehend the degree to which my grandmother relied on public transport. For example, as a keen carpenter Violet would transport lengths of timber home from the hardware store by laying them down the aisle of the bus. And when in the 1980s Auckland’s bus services were cut in response to declining demand, the bus stop closest to Violet’s unit was no longer served. She immediately went out and purchased some roller skates, which she used to skate to the bus stop that was now closest to her hours.
Yes that’s correct – at the grand old age of 60 my grandmother invented “roll and ride” (R&R).
Violet so loved Auckland that – once settled here – she rarely left, except perhaps for the occasional day trip to Waiheke or Waiuku to visit her increasingly spoilt and precocious grandchildren.
I think Violet’s life is remarkable not just for what she endured; indeed hardship was not uncommon to the generation born immediately after WWI. The causes of socio-economic troubles were many and varied, such as the global influenza epidemic, the Great Depression, WWII, and finally the Cold War, among a number of other trials and tribulations. Instead I think Violet’s life is remarkable because of the historical perspective it provides on the relative importance of movement and place. The reasons why people really need to be able to move and what they do when they eventually find somewhere that they life.
International travel was a life-raft that enabled Violet’s family to escape first from the U.K. to the U.S. and then again from the U.S. to N.Z. It was the ability to travel that enabled Violet’s family to access a better life in N.Z. While the waves of international migration that dominated our early European history have gradually receded, we are now in the grip of other, more local, migratory trends – such as rural to urban drift. Here the role of push and pull factors, plus transport’s enabling function, seems to be very much the same as it was in Violet’s day. Transport enables people to access opportunities that don’t exist where they currently live.
We now live, however, in a vastly different global environment. From what I can tell much of the world has got its act together. New Zealand, in general, and Auckland, in particular, no longer has the inherent competitive advantages we once had as an affluent safe-haven in a war-ravaged and uncertain world. Global competition for labour is more intense, while the real costs of long-distance travel have declined – making it easy for people to come here, but also making it easier for people to leave – both locals and immigrants – when they don’t find what they are looking for.
I think this post is already long enough so I’m now going to just say what I think, even if I’m the first to admit that the supporting arguments are not fully formed: I think New Zealand’s urban areas need to place a greater emphasis on place. I can understand New Zealand’s historical emphasis on movement, because there were a lot of people moving around. But the benefits of movement seem to be diminishing by the day, whereas the benefits of place, insofar as it provides us with a competitive advantage in the great global competition for skilled talent, seems to be increasing.
New Zealand truly needs, but doesn’t yet have, cities and towns in which people can live, work, and play – all without the need to travel very far. We need to start making places that provide joy and intrigue to our urban areas.
I want to wrap up by listing a few final questions for you good people to chew over:
- As New Zealand’s cities and towns become more settled, would you not expect the relative importance of “place” to increase?
- If so are similar trends emerging in countries overseas? Is there evidence to suggest countries with similar histories, such as Australia, are experiencing a similar shift, i.e. away from movement and towards place?
- If there has been an increased emphasis on place, what are the different ways in which it surfaces ? For example, are we now more willing to pay for quality public spaces?
- Does an increased emphasis on place need to be reflected in our political institutions and governance arrangements? Should we consider:
- Develop a new place-based agency, e.g. the “New Zealand Place-making Agency” (NZPA) to sit within the MfE as a counter-balance to movement-based agencies, such as the MoT and NZTA? Or
- Delegate the place-making function to local councils, albeit empowered with a new mandate to reinvigorate “life between buildings”?
These are the sorts of (complex) questions that arise when one takes a historical perspective on “movement and place”; I’d appreciate your help in answering them!
*** This post is dedicated to the loving memory of Violet Donovan. May your words, cheekiness, and spirit live on. ***
By Matt L, on April 10th, 2013 I had a couple of meetings in town yesterday with a bit of a gap in between them in the middle of the day, so took the opportunity to enjoy the nice autumn sun that we have been having by relaxing outside. I was sitting in Elliot St, having some lunch and catching up on a few emails when I happened to notice just how many people were actually walking past me. Put simply there were a lot of people either walking through, or hanging around Elliot St. As we know, the shared spaces have been a huge success, businesses located on them have seen huge increases in activity and in the case of Fort St with hospitality alone is up 400%. The shared space makeovers have helped to kick start the transformation of some of the city’s street’s from grotty areas to be avoided, into some of best areas in the city which is extremely impressive since none of them even existed 3 years ago.
Anyway enough about the existing shared spaces, the point is sitting down in Elliot St yesterday had me wondering what is happening to the other street upgrades. I know that the other end of Fort St is currently undergoing a shared space makeover, and there are some photos of this below, however it is really just the last stage in the Fort St project that came about from the old Auckland City Council. In fact it took until September last year, almost 2 years since Auckland Transport came into existence, that we finally heard anything about more street upgrades in the CBD.
First up we had O’Connell St in September last year however oddly that wasn’t a shared space. The proposal talked about making footpaths wider by removing car parking. Yet car parking was pretty much the only reason that cars would ever need to be in O’Connell St and with that gone, so to would probably most of the cars (not that there are that many in the first place). Those cars that did still use the street would no longer have to worry about someone opening their door or pulling out of a parking spot so are likely to travel down the road faster, not a desirable outcome in an area where we want lots of pedestrians. Overall it seemed like a poorly thought out design and we encouraged readers to make submissions saying so. The thing is despite the consultation closing back in the middle of September, we are yet to even hear what the outcome of that consultation was. I heard informally a while ago that the project went back to the drawing board but it would be nice to have an official update about where the project is at.
 O’Connell St as it is now, devoted to cars Late last year we then heard about plans to turn Federal St, between Wellesley and Victoria St, in to a shared space. Once again consultation took place but since that time we haven’t heard anything about it. The upgrade had been proposed for some time and originally was going to be paid for by SkyCity and built in time for the RWC in return for getting the right to build another larger skybridge across the road however the council is now paying for it and the plans for an extra skybridge have been dropped.
So come one Auckland Transport and Auckland Council, what is going on with these projects? To me they have been instrumental in revitalising parts of the city simply by giving pedestrians much greater priority. I know some people don’t like them because the definitions between road and foot path disappear but to me at least, them seem much more civilised.
As mentioned above, here are some pics of the Eastern end of Fort St which is in progress right now.
 Large parts of the street have already been finished  The connection out to Customs St still has a long way to go
 Businesses already taking advantage of the upgrade  Gore Lane
By Patrick Reynolds, on March 20th, 2013 We get a lot of conversations in our comments that boil down to expressions of preference for particular Transit modes depending on people’s experiences and values. Those who are most concerned about the cost of infrastructure tend to favour buses, and those who value the qualities that rail offers feel the generally higher capital costs are justified. Often these exchanges do little to shift people from their starting positions because it’s a matter of two different issues talking passed each other; it’s all: ‘but look at the savings’ versus ‘but look at the quality’.
And as it is generally agreed that Auckland needs to upgrade its Transit capabilities substantially I thought it might be a good time to pull back from the ‘mode wars’ with a little cool headed analysis. Because, as we shall see, it really isn’t that simple. It is possible to achieve almost all of what rail fans value with a bus, but only if you are willing to spend a rail-sized amount on building the route. Or alternatively you can build a system that has many of the disadvantages of buses in traffic but with a vehicle that runs on rails.
It’s all about the corridor. Let’s see how….
Above is a chart from chapter 8 of Jarret Walker’s book Human Transit and illustrates Professor Vukan Vuchic’s classification of Transit ‘Running Ways’ or Right Of Way [ROW].
Class A ROW means that the vehicles are separate from any interruptions in their movement so are only delayed when stopping at their own stations as part of their service. In Auckland this is type of infrastructure is classified as the Rapid Transit Network [RTN], and currently is only available to the rail system plus the Northern Busway. So the speed of this service is only limited by the spacing and number of the stops, the dwell time at each stop, and the performance capabilities of the vehicle and system [especially acceleration].
Class B is a system where the vehicle is not strictly on its own ROW but does have forms of privilege compared to the other traffic, such as special lanes and priority at signals. Buses in buslanes are our local example. AT are currently building an ambitious city wide Class B network called the Frequent Transit Network FTN.
Class C is just any Transit vehicle in general traffic. In Auckland that means most buses and the Wynyard Quarter Tram. The buses on the Local Transit Network LTN are our Class C service.
And of course in terms of cost to build these classes it also goes bottom to top; lower to higher cost. And in general it costs more to lay track and buy trains than not, so also left to right, lower to higher. There can be an exception to these rules as with regard to Class A, especially if tunnels and bridges are required as rail uses a narrower corridor and require less ventilation than buses in these environments. Also it should be noted that a bigger electric vehicles on high volume routes are cheaper to operate too, so rail at higher volumes can be cheaper to run than buses over time because of lower fuel costs and fewer staff.
There are also subtleties within these classifications, some of the things that slow down Class C services provide advantages that the greater speed of Class A design doesn’t. Class C typically offers more coverage, stopping more frequently taking riders right to the front door of their destinations. Class B often tries to achieve something in between the convenience of C while still getting closer to the speed of A. Sometimes however, especially if the priority is intermittent or the route planning poor, Class B can simply achieve the worst of both worlds!
There are other considerations too, frequency is really a great asset to a service, as is provides real flexibility and freedom for the customer to arrange their affairs without ever having to fit in with the Transit provider’s plans. And as a rule the closer the classification is to the beginning of the alphabet the higher the frequency should be. Essentially a service isn’t really Class A if it doesn’t have a high frequency.
Then there are other issues of comfort, design, and culture as expressed in the vehicles but also in the whole network that are not insignificant, although will generally do little to make up for poor service design no mater how high these values may be. And these can be fairly subjective too. For example I have a preference for museum pieces to be in, well, museums, but there are plenty of others who like their trams for example to be 50 years old. Design anyway is a holistic discipline, it is not just about appearance; a brilliantly efficient and well performing system is a beautiful thing.
Other concerns include environmental factors, especially emissions and propulsion systems. On these counts currently in Auckland the trains and the buses are generally as bad as each other, both being largely old and worn out carcinogen producing diesel units. This is the one point that the little heritage tourist tram at Wynyard is a head of the pack. The newer buses are an improvement, I’m sure this fact has much to do with the success of the Link services, despite them remaining fairly poor Class C services.
 We are only getting new Double Deckers because better corridors for existing buses grew the demand So in summary the extent to which a Transit service is free from other traffic has a huge influence on its appeal whatever the kit. A highly separated service is likely to be faster than alternatives, is more able to keep to its schedule reliably, and offer a smoother ride. These factors in turn lead to higher demand so the route will be able able to justify higher frequency, upgraded stations, newer vehicles and so on. This one factor, all else being equal, will lead to positive feedbacks for the service and network as a whole.
Currently Auckland has a core RTN service of the Rail Network and the Northern Busway forming our only Class A services. So how do they stack up? The trains only run at RTN frequency on the week day peaks, and even then aspects of the route, especially on the Western Line undermine this classification. The Newmarket deviation and the closeness of the stations out West make this route a very dubious candidate for Class A. At least like all rail services is doesn’t ever give way to other traffic. The Onehunga line needs doubling or at least a passing section to improve frequencies.
Unlike the Northern Busway services, which are as we know only on Class A ROW 41% of the time. So while the frequency is much better on the busway than the trains they drop right down to Class C on the bridge and in the city.
Of course over the next couple of years the trains are going to improve in an enormous leap and importantly not just in appearance, comfort, noise and fumes [plus lower running cost], but importantly in frequency and reliability. A real Class A service pattern of 10 min frequencies all day all week is planned [except the O-Line].
 Hand won improvements to the network and service were built on the back of the brave plan to run second hand old trains on the existing network and have led directly to AK getting these beauties soon. But how about the rest of the RTN; the Northern Busway? Shouldn’t it be a matter of urgency to extend Class A properties to the rest of this already highly successful service?
-permanent buslanes on Fanshaw and Customs Streets- this is being worked on I believe
-permanent buslanes on the bridge- NZTA won’t consider this
-extend the busway north with new stations- that’s planned.
-improve the vehicles in order to up the capacity, appeal, and efficiency- that’s happening too with double deckers.
I will turn to looking at where we can most effectively expand the Class A RTN network to in a following post.
But now I just want to return briefly to look at what these classifications help us understand about other things we may want for our city. Below is an image produced by the Council of a possible future for Queen St. Much reaction to this image, positive and negative, has been focussed on the vehicle in the middle. The Tram, or Light Rail Transit. Beautiful thing or frightening cost; either way the improvement to the place is not dependant on this bit of kit.
My view is that we should focus on the corridor instead, work towards making Queen St work first as a dedicated Transit and pedestrian place with our existing technology, buses, which will then build the need, or desirability, of upgrading the machines to something better. Why? because it is the quality of the corridor that provides the greater movement benefit, and with that benefit banked we will then have the demand to focus more urgently on other choices for this route. Furthermore, because of the significantly higher cost of adding a new transit system by postponing that option we able be able to get the first part done sooner or at all.
And because we are now getting auto-dependency proponents claiming to support more investment in buses [yes Cameron Brewer* that's you] we have an opportunity to call their bluff and get funding for some great Transit corridors by using their disingenuous mode focus. And thereby greatly improve the city.
So it is best that we don’t focus so much on the number of humps on the beast, but rather on the route it will use. The flasher animal will follow.
* These types don’t really support buses at all; they just pretend to support buses because when they say bus they mean road and when they mean road they mean car. How can we know this? Because they attack bus priority measures. But it is very encouraging that they now find themselves having to even pretend to see the need for Transit in Auckland. This is new.
By Mr Anderson, on February 2nd, 2013 All our shared spaces so far have been on relatively quiet local roads: Elliott Street, Fort Street and Lorne Street in the city centre and the newly bypassed Totara Ave in New Lynn. In the UK things are a little more ambitious, as highlighted in a recent Better Cities & Towns article:
It’s been nearly a year since a major traffic light was removed at an intersection with 26,000 vehicles per day, heavily used by truck traffic in Poynton, Cheshire, England. A section of the town’s High Street was also renovated so that pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles all mix. The volume of vehicles is nearly double the upper limit for “shared space” intersections according to industry standards.
“This was the most ambitious shared space project — certainly in the UK — any anywhere else that I am aware of,” says Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a British urban designer who led the project.
Accidents have gone down so far, although Hamilton-Baillie cautions that it is too early to draw conclusions on safety. Traffic queues have been drastically reduced, despite an increase in pedestrian space of more than 100 percent.
Here’s what the intersection looked like previously (H/T Gordon Price): Compared to now: Perhaps what is most interesting is that traffic flow has actually improved, as well as safety improvements and a vastly nicer pedestrian environment.
The corner of Quay Street and Hobson Street, outside the entrance to the viaduct and a place where huge volumes of pedestrians are treated like scum, would be a great place for something like this.
View Larger Map
The possibilities are endless…
By Patrick Reynolds, on November 29th, 2012 This post is about the other critical break at the heart of Auckland’s RTN network: the Waitemata Harbour. The one that needs to be addressed after the City Rail Link mends the first one. Some may think that I’m getting ahead of myself here but I think it is important to look ahead so that near term projects are future-proofed and so that our thinking is kept open to all sorts of possibilities.
The power of the CRL is also in some ways its limitation, well certainly in the minds of its detractors, because much of what it achieves occurs on the already existing rail network. It is after all primarily just what it is called: A Link; outside of the Centre City it doesn’t expand the reach of the network directly but rather joins the currently separated ends of two long systems together to allow the true capacity and frequency of the whole network to be realised. This is what is so powerful about the project but is also so easily overlooked.
Don’t get me wrong, the CRL is clearly the urgent transformative move for Auckland; the ‘killer app’ if you like, because it will provide the necessary core to the Rapid Transit Network that will, with the new bus network it supports, transform Auckland into being a viable Transit City as well as a driving one. A transformation, already underway, that will enable more people in more of Auckland to function effectively without having to always drive. At once improving their efficiency and that of the whole city. It is a step change; the key to Auckland’s new urban future, enabling high quality growth and is the best way take pressure off the existing sunk investment in the road network so it keeps working well as the city grows.
But also let’s not forget that by solving the constraints of the current rail network it also invites its expansion to whole new areas, and that there is still another ‘Link’ that the system needs.
Clearly the relatively simple and obvious extension of the Onehunga line through Mangere to the Airport should follow swiftly after the CRL. But it is the next opportunity that I want to discuss here and one that the representatives for the North Shore really ought to have their sights set on too: A North Shore Line; converting some or all of the Northern Busway to rail and crossing the harbour with rail tunnels to connect this part of the RTN via a new station at Wynyard Quarter to the existing network.
We have shown that the growth in demand across the harbour is not in traffic but in Transit. But also any addition to traffic volumes entering the city would contradict everything the Council is working towards to improve the quality of life and place in the city as well as its economic intensity. So the next expansion in capacity across the Harbour needs to connect the break in the RTN between the southern end of Northern Busway and the Isthmus-only rail network. And this would be as shape changing as the CRL itself as it would bring much closer together currently separated parts of Auckland. It is also the other major move to make Auckland into a true Multi-Modal City.
Discussions of cost, funding, and even the route on the Shore are outside of the scope of this post, have been addressed elsewhere on this site and will be again in the future. This is an exploration of future possibilities. I am also assuming that electric rail is clearly the technology to take in tunnels under the Harbour not the more expensive, more dangerous, and lower capacity of buses. Argue if you must but it looks like a slam dunk to me, and I’m sure that will be even more certain post-CRL.
I have in the past written about the possibility of the elegant and efficient Cross patterned two line network [below]: The Southern Line heading to town would after the new Parnell Station cross Grafton Gully above the traffic on a viaduct then enter a tunnel into Constitution Hill and head under Albert Park to connect with the CRL at Aotea Station before heading to a new station at Wynyard Quarter and across the harbour to the Shore. Albany to the Airport, with Wynyard Quarter, the heart of the city, and Newmarket in between.
 ‘The Cross’ possible North-South and West-East network model Here’s a full city wide Rapid Transit Network adding future Busways to a pretty complete rail system, by Matt:
 Matt’s Future RTN Network There are a number of options for staging this line, especially at the Shore end, and even at the city side where the connection to the line at Parnell could be put off and the line run as a self contained Shore/City route at very high frequencies. And there is even a fairly lively debate among the editorial team here at the blog about the competing merits of a cheaper Light Metro system or continuing with the same kit we are about to get in order to integrate the Shore Line with the existing network. What I’m about to look at doesn’t depend on either system although the connection to the line at Parnell would require compatibility one way or the other. That’s a debate for another time. But here is another version based on Matt’s plan above:
 Version of Matt’s future map What I want to look at here is the future City connection for a Shore Line because the opportunities and the constraints are considerable. In this post I outlined how the midtown CRL station Aotea will replace Britomart as the most popular on the whole network and how the station design in a constrained footprint will have to be able to handle much much higher numbers of people than we see at our busiest station today.
Here is a detail of the CRL alignment map showing the Aotea Station footprint:
 AOTEA STATION In recent discussions with the Council’s head of Urban Design Ludo Campbell-Reid he mentioned that the new owner of the empty site between Elliot and Albert St is keen to integrate the station exits into the retail floors his proposed tower which will bring people onto the new shared space of Elliot and Darby Streets and level with Queen St at the Station’s northern end. There will of course be exits further west for those heading up hill [maybe even up to the coming Federal St shared space and Sky City] and at the southern end on Wellesley Street where the Council owns property on two sides of that intersection.
Here is a rough schematic of ‘The Cross’ that I did for that earlier post:
 CITY CENTRE ‘The Cross’ A closer look at this idea and it is pretty clear that inserting a station somewhere under the University or Albert Park would not only be almost impossible and very expensive but also unnecessary [it is the stations that are really expensive on underground lines rather than the tunnelling]. Not least of which because the distances between the stations are too short but also because the balance of the demand is really further south than the point indicated above. There is no doubt that the Universities are a huge generator of Transit traffic and it is important for the city that we meet that demand as efficiently as possible, but the key word in that sentence is Universities, plural; the growing AUT campus is much closer to Aotea Station than it is to the northern end of the University of Auckland. And if we can inch some Aotea Station exits across Queen St we can not only help serve this market well but also help deal better with the likely pedestrian flows at the peak hours. And not only will it have to cater for transfers between the lines but as it is also clear that Wellesley St will continue to be the main crosstown bus route so this placement is well placed for connections between modes too.
Here’s my suggestion for alignment of the North Shore Line platforms at Aotea:
 Wellesley Station As you can see I have biased the overlap between the two lines by bringing the Shore Line platforms east under Queen St. They are offset enough that you could give it its own identity; say Wellesley St or Queen St Station. Or Horotiu, after the Taniwha and his stream the Waihorotiu that runs under Queen St. Or just call them platforms 3 + 4 at Aotea. No matter, the point is that there are some really good reasons to orient the station like this. Because to add another busy line to this station some serious people management is going to have to take place.
Happily here the Council has also already done a great job with another of its shared spaces:
 Lorne St Shared Space Not only is there already a big pedestrian plaza here that can absorb those Transit riders but it is really close to a lot of attractors. The tower at the end of the street is an AUT building with the rest of the campus up behind, the always busy Library is on the left, and of course the surely-to-be-restored St James on the right. Also there’s the wonderful new Art Gallery, the Civic back across Queen, and of of course the other University also just a little up the hill. Add the Town Hall, Q-Theatre, and the Aotea Centre and at last we really have the cultural amenity for a true and vibrant Civic Centre. Just not yet the transport amenity.
But not only that impressive list of destinations but also there are some underperforming sites ripe for revitalising. Chief among those being the St James. But there’s also the building you can see a corner of in the shot above just behind the guy taking a photo with his phone:
 300 Queen St_ northeast The 1965 head office of the ASB by the wonderfully named Beatson Rix-Trott Carter & Co architects. The Queen St frontage still houses a branch of the ASB and a kebab shop, but the other sides are lifeless and unused except as access to some 58 car parks [10 more than the limit- a variation granted in 1996] that have been rammed into 3 ex-office floors above the shops and accessed through those rollers doors opening onto Lorne St. I can only assume that the basement is currently unused.
Here’s the thing: The back end of this building is the perfect location for the eastern entrance to a busy cross town underground Rail Station. The removal of that parking inside this building would greatly enhance the shared space as they are the only traffic generator on this street outside of deliveries. The building itself could do with an upgrade and I’m sure the owner would make the calculation that having tens of thousands of people everyday right in their building is much more valuable than the return on 58 car parks.
 300 Queen St_east elevation It’s actually a pretty nicely detailed building if you look past the abuses, bronze windows and they took the granite all the way round to the back. Well except where those nasty rollers are now. This could scrub up well at street level, and then would certainly be able to accommodate development above too, a cafe on that podium and all sorts of retail opportunities on the currently car violated mezzanine and 1st and 2nd floors and either upgraded offices or apartments above. Just no parking. This is a good solid example of midcentury boxy corporate modernism awaiting rediscovery and a new life.
 300 Queen St_Plaza Its unactivated Lorne St side already faces a lively plaza especially since the upgrade and traffic de-privileging. There is in fact lots of unusually wide pedestrian amenity on both sides of Wellesley St at this point:
 Wellesley St heritage loos So not only is there also space for a station exit on the northern side of Wellesley but arguably it’s already there! I’m reliably informed that the now unused underground women’s loos are pretty flash inside. Surely there’s a way they could be incorporated into another exit?
The building on the left in the shot above, the ex-Contemporary Art Gallery, is about to be developed into highend retail and an article discussing its prospects bragged about a one day pedestrian count around here of 16,526 people [Wednesday Oct 17]. I think we can send that number a great deal higher in ways that can only be good for the commercial and cultural vitality of this end of town. And make the old ASB building more useful as well as more valuable, and wouldn’t it be great to see this whole block including the wonderful St James sparked back into life?
 300 Queen St And interestingly in that Library on the shared space I found this plan for an inner city underground rail system. It’s from the 1965 De Leuw Cather Report, the famous one that proposed both a Rapid Transit system and expanded motorways for Auckland but that has suffered from half of it being ignored ever since. And look where that station is, close:
 De Leuw Cather Report 1965, detail. Interesting that they named that station ‘Civic-Centre’ because despite all the millions spent by various Councils on driving amenity in this area to try to make a Civic Centre around the Town Hall [Mayoral Drive, the twice built underground car park] it has really only had any kind of success since Auckland’s recent Transit and pedestrian revolution started to take off this century. People, on the streets, and in quantity, are key to vibrant and successful urban places.
And here’s the whole region in that same report, look at that North Shore Line, not bad:
 De Leuw Cather Report 1965: Rapid Transit plan for Auckland And since we will soon have finished building all the motorways we’ll ever need it’s clearly time to get on with fixing the missing complementary Rapid Transit network.
By Matt L, on October 30th, 2012 The council has finally released plans to create a shared space on part Federal St in conjunction with SkyCity. The upgrade has been proposed for some time and originally was going to be paid for by SkyCity and built in time for the RWC in return for getting the right to build another larger skybridge across the road. A number of people didn’t like the idea of the air bridge so the plan got delayed and the casino eventually gave up on that plan and have worked with the council on just the street upgrade. This will see Federal St between Wellesley St and Victoria St upgraded along with the plaza around the base of the Sky Tower. The objectives are that it:
- integrates with other city centre upgrade and transport projects
- provides an intimate, high quality pedestrian-focused street that encourages pedestrian activity
- supports local businesses and attracts investment by providing an appropriate level of vehicular movement and servicing activity
- is a distinctive destination entertainment precinct with a unique mix of retail, cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues
- provides a high quality, attractive, safe and durable streetscape.
The plan is being jointly funded by the council and SkyCity at a total cost of $10m however it hasn’t been mentioned how much is coming from each party. The plans include:
- a shared space streetscape environment be introduced between Wellesley Street and Victoria Street
- maintenance of the current one-way direction of traffic flow (south to north)
- long-term bus/coach parking areas be removed
- introduction of a signalised pedestrian crossing at the intersection of Wellesley and Federal Streets.
Consultation is now open till 5pm November 16. Its good to see this project moving forward and I’m pleased that a shared space has been proposed, unlike what was done with O’Connell St. It would however be nice to also see some upgrade love being shared to other parts of Federal St, the section between Victoria and Wyndham St is particularly horrible while the section to the north of St Patricks Square, including the side streets of Swanson St and Wolfe St could also be vastly improved into quite a nice corner of town.
By Matt L, on October 26th, 2012 We talk a lot about trying to improve our city and on of the most common things is about making things better for pedestrians. Invariably that tends to involve doing things that reduce or even remove the vast amount of priority that we have given to vehicles, particularly parking, through improvements like shared spaces and street upgrades. The latest upgrades to be announced were a few days ago for Dominion Rd. One thing that really frustrates me when we talk about street upgrades though is the reaction that comes from business owners to theses suggestions.
Dominion Rd is one of those places that has planned to be upgraded for years, the previous incarnation of the plan came out in 2010 and one of the main reasons it never went forward as suggested was that it proposed to remove all on street car parks. The local businesses in particular were incensed about this and even though more parking was going to be added to some of the nearby side streets to make up for it, they claimed it would kill their businesses. Of course they are happy with the current proposal that retains on street parking, the Herald reports today:
Dominion Road Business Association chairman Chris Hammonds says at the moment buses have to merge back into traffic because the lanes are not continuous.
He says the upgrade is good news for both bus passengers and motorists.
Chris Hammonds says bus lanes that run 24 hours per day, seven days per week, would cripple business along the road.
He says keeping the lanes only operating at peaks times will ensure customers are still able to park near the shops they want to go to.
What these people continually fail to realise is that it is not cars that go shopping, it is people. I don’t know a single person who would expect to go to a shop on Dominion Rd, or pretty much any road for that matter, who expects to be able to get a car park right outside of the shop they are going to. The key for these people to improve their businesses is to not only provide things that people want but to get more people going past their doors. More people will equal more sales and that has been proved today by the release of a study on the impact the shared spaces have had on Auckland. I reported back in May that Fort St had been a success on a number of levels however at that time some of the economic impacts were still being assessed. Here are the key findings of the study and while it refers to shared spaces, I am fairly confident that there would be similar results for other street upgrades:
- Spending has increased by 65 percent and hospitality spend in the area has increased by over 400 percent
- 91 percent of surveyed users and stakeholders were highly complimentary about the new shared space environment, compared to only 17 percent pre-upgrade
- Vehicle volumes have dropped by over 30 percent.
- Vehicle speeds have reduced by more than 25 percent.
- 75 percent of delivery services found it ‘much easier’ to make their deliveries
A 65% increase in spending is a massive increase, especially in the current climate and is largely down there being more pedestrians. So the next question is how we get more people to Dominion Rd. The reality is that to get significantly more people to the area the only practical way to do so is by improving public transport which means not just upgrading the lanes for use in peak times but also by making public transport more attractive off peak as well. Having buses have to merge in and out of traffic only serves to make them slower than cars and therefore unattractive. That probably might be as much of an issue on some streets but Dominion Rd is perhaps the premier bus route in the city (aside from the busway) and it has a lot of buses. To get an idea of how many buses are expected to be travelling down there in the future during the day we can have a look at the draft RPTP.
Thats 18 buses an hour in the peak and 12-14 buses and hour off peak so there is the potential for a lot more people to get to and through the area. Add to that likely school bus routes, private tour buses, motorcycles and bicycles and that lane is going to be fairly busy while also transporting a lot of people. Instead of fighting to destroy the bus lanes outside of the peak hours, perhaps these retailers instead should be pushing AT to introduce the proposed fare zones faster that would allow people to get off a bus, quickly do some shopping and get back on another bus without being penalised. That would help encourage more people to stop off and shop and what’s more it would do so without using up a single car park but its seems some of these retailers are going to have to be dragged into reality kicking and screaming.
Interestingly on the topic of retailing and cars, Patrick found this letter from 1976 from a shop owner who when talking about the city centre notes that is being strangled with cars and that it will die without more people being able to easily access the city and he notes the only way for this to happen without adding more cars is by developing the mayor Robbies version of the CRL.
 The last line:
‘Let’s face the real issue- Either BRING THE PEOPLE INTO THE CITY WITHOUT CARS or LET THE CITY DIE’.
Is the really important point, the city very nearly did die, in fact for a whole lot of businesses it did die, but now has thankfully come very much back to life. Which is what is so frustrating when we hear of retailers fighting to keep car parking or streets dominated by driving, the evidence just doesn’t support this view. As Patrick observed in this post:
This may seem counterintuitive to shopkeepers but there is a clear inverse corelation between car numbers in the central city and its vitality.
And by ‘vitality’ he means commercial vitality; business. Only people buy things, and people will be in retail areas if they are good places to be and easy to get to. Sure some things are hard to take home without a car, but this can be dealt with either by offering delivery or by the fact that there is still a huge amount of parking around Dominion Rd. But the bigger issue for a traditional strip like Dominion Rd is the same as for the central city, retailers there have to offer something other than what is offered at the big malls, which is largely a bland and predictable experience of near identical chain stores with lots of parking. Dominion Rd has developed its own character and enhancing this is surely the best way to entice more and more of those people on those buses to hop off and spend some money there than to try to replicate the suburban mall experience. Being unmall-like is a key competitive advantage of Dominion Rd, and another is having an incredibly high- and rising- number of people on those buses just waiting to be enticed off and into the shops.
Check those figures for the shared spaces in the city above and remember that not that long ago retailing in the CBD was consider all but over.
By Patrick Reynolds, on October 15th, 2012 It’s Spring! And in many places the city is looking its best, especially some of the recently upgraded places. Also some of our old friends are coming back to life too. I love city streets, and buildings, and the spaces between, but often the most wonderful things in a city are the trees. Of course there are the great city parks, and in Albert Park Auckland has a fine example of this kind of Victorian public mindedness, especially glorious now the trees are mature. But areas set aside for nature are not what today’s post is about.
My favourite city trees are the survivors on the streets, those tough or lucky examples that somehow have braved all the insults of the urban environment to offer us their shade, shelter, and oxygen, but above all their beauty. So I thought I would share my favourites. I started with very tough criteria; no parks, no groups, just the exceptional loners, but I only ended up with six! And one isn’t even a tree [you'll see]. So I broadened it out to include some of the recent planting by the Council that I really like.
 Oak, Khartoum Pl Just to be clear what I love in a city tree is its relationship with the built environment, its urbanity if you like, not how less built it can make a place, but more the juxtaposition that emphasises both the treeness of the tree and the builtness of the buildings. I see them as an intersection of culture and nature where human construction has the upper hand. In parks and of out of the city we look more for this relationship to be reversed.
 London Plane, Freemans Bay First up a stunning example of arguably the best suited street tree: The London Plane. Especially good in those Victorian avenues like Franklin Rd, Greys Ave, and in remnants on Symonds St and Grafton Rd. This one is a member of one of the most vulnerable typologies, the Traffic Island survivor. It just made it through the Vic Park Tunnel project but it lost its partner. While the land hungry road is the biggest treat to these trees it also can give them light and air to spread out away from buildings, so if they can survive the automobile’s endless urge for lebensraum Traffic Island Trees can become stately and symmetrical.
Planes hold off their Spring growth allowing that welcome early Spring sunlight through. Below; a little more recently and here it is getting on its Summer look even if the weather wasn’t:
A little further into the city is another Traffic Islander, not sure what the variety it is as it too was still in its winter garb when I was there [please comment if you know the varieties I've missed]:
 Victoria St West It’s not only deciduous trees that work in the city, although I do love that combination of sun and shade at just the right times of the year. Here is a wonderful Pohutukawa at the top of St Paul St looking out on the that poorly designed intersection between the city centre’s two universities on Symonds St. Almost certainly a wilding tree, that is to say not planted deliberately into the little herbaceous border of the elegant brick town house, but a natural interloper. So even more respect. And just goes to show that we can be a little too prissy when it comes to where we think we can fit a substantial tree.
 Pohutukawa, St Paul St There are more Pohutukawas now down on the vastly improved shared space of Fort St, which does, amazingly, bring a sense of the plage to this former beach front place:
 Pohutukawa Fort St These will grow into fantastic specimens. The Nikau is our only native palm and rightfully is the one for the difficult habitat of the Queen St gully [Here's a plan: Let's get the cars out of this place and daylight the Waihorotiu stream, and why not? It's little use as a transport corridor, and could really do with something dramatic going on]:
 Nikau Queen St Planes are being tried here too and they are not working out well, all leggy, no room to become their umbrageous selves. It is a strange environment, gloomy but also never dark; lots of artificial light pollution: the Nikau can handle it, used as they are to a tricky niche in the wild. They are also the right form; narrow, vertical, yet expressive.
 Nikau, Queen St They’re very successfully up some of the side streets too, like Vulcan Lane and Darby St. Big feather dusters.
 Nikau, Vulcan Lane Here’s another Queen St survivor: A venerable Cabbage Tree or Ti Kouka, in front of the Guardian Trust building; wispy, on the shaded side of the street, but been there for years. Wonderful.
 Cabbage Tree, Queen St More recent Cabbage Trees down near the harbour. I love the humble Ti Kouka, we take them for granted but I remember returning from a few years overseas and being surprised by seeing them afresh; ubiquitous yet idiosyncratic; as if designed by Dr Zeus.
 Ti Kouka, Britomart Thinking about my favourite city trees there are three singular specimens around the Art Gallery that were among the first that came to mind:
 Art Gallery Again I’m not sure exactly what the varieties are of either of these, but they’re both survivors, and both make their places.
 Wellesley St
And boom!
 Oak, Khartoum Place This tree is all the better for being solitary. I prefer them when paved right up to their trunks and not walled off with the suburban tidiness that this now suffers, but it’s still magnificent.
 Oak, Khartoum Place And look at that, the moment you extend the pavement; out come the cafe tables; civilisation advances with each parking space removed.
On opposite sides of the eastern end of Customs St are a young Oak and an older deciduous specimen that will one day, if we let them be, become gateposts to this important entry point to the city proper.
 Customs St Both these trees do a great job of anchoring their sites and helping to diminish the less than spectacular surrounding buildings.
 Towards Customs St Almost the only other trees on Customs St are these two Titoki, surviving pretty well in a tough environment. And as we work to improve the quality of pedestrian life on Quay St and the connection to the harbour there this street is bound to become an even busier environment.
Not that the seven traffic lanes were being over-worked when I was there [nearly 5pm on a Friday!]
 Titioki Customs St But now we come to arguably everybody’s favourite tree in Auckland City: The Northern Club. It is a Virginia Creeper, our city’s Vertical Garden avant la lettre. A botanical event of such scale and theatre that to my mind at least means it qualifies for this list, even in a Spring shower.
 The Northern Club, Virginia Creeper.
 The Northern Club, with foreground London Plane Spring growth Its great that we are at last getting more of the city streetscape back from total domination by cars. And using this rediscovered space to thoughtfully add to the built environment by planting great trees for future generations is one of the most important tasks ahead of us. This is something that we have not been nearly as good at as our forebears.
We really ought to work at becoming better ancestors.
 Art Gallery And we so easily can.
 Young Oak on the corner of Emily Pl and Customs St
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