Today is the latest Auckland Transport board meeting. As usual, I’ve been through the papers.
Closed Session Agenda
There are quite a few items on the closed session agenda this month and all are up for approval/decision. The most interesting ones are:
- AT Board Policies
- Contract Variation Agreement for the Provision of Manned Services
- Ferry PTOM Procurement Update
- Future Ferry Strategy
- Deed of Lease of KR Land at Takanini Park and Ride
- Lease of Units at Devonport Wharf
- AMETI EB1 Revised Forecast
- Procurement of ETCS equipment
- Review and Approval of AT Board Subcommittee Charters
Open Session Board Report
There’s quite a few interesting items in this report and I skipped some of it due to how long the post was already getting. As always, these are in the order they appear in the report.
RPTP Update
Of the myriad of plans that exist, the Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP) is the one that lays out specifically what AT intend to do with public transport, including what services they’ll run. The plan is due for an update and the paper says this about it
The review of the Regional Public Transport Plan has begun. The plan is being updated to reflect the significant progress since the current Regional Public Transport Plan was adopted in 2015 (including Simpler Fares implementation, and the roll-out of the New Network) and to signal “what’s next?” in terms of the ongoing transformation of the public transport system. Emerging focus areas include an emphasis on the customer experience; expansion of the Rapid Transit Network and Frequent Transit Network (and increased frequency of services) and signalling the potential for on-demand services to supplement or replace low-performing services where appropriate.
The review timelines have been extended to take into account the results of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project Refresh, and the Government Policy Statement and Regional Land Transport Plan processes. Public engagement is currently scheduled for September/October 2018. Formal adoption is targeted for December 2018.
Of course, this doesn’t mean AT will always follow it exactly, after all, we’re still waiting on the off-peak rail frequencies promised in previous versions.
Video Analytics
AT talked a bit about using CCTV in their last board report to analyse pedestrian movements and parking/cycleway enforcement. This time they’re talking about using it to help improve road safety.
Road safety outcomes in Auckland have been in decline over the past three years, with road fatalities and serious injuries each rising by over 70% between 2014 and 2017. As a result, safety has been identified as a priority by AT and in both the Government Policy Statement on Transport and in Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP 2.0). A workshop is being scheduled with various Road Safety teams to establish the feasibility of using CCTV Analytics capability to increase reporting on the number of incidents and thus the size of the problem.
During June a project was initiated to count red light runners at high-risk intersections. The first analytics were built at a Lake Road Pedestrian crossing. The data gathered will be used by the Traffic Systems team for statistical and decision-making purposes. Imagery and data will also be used as part of communications and safety messaging.
This seems like a good idea. Most, traffic light controlled intersections, and especially all major ones, will have CCTV installed and even if it’s not good enough to issue tickets for red light running, it would surely help more accurately assess the scale of the problem.
They’re also used it to identify stationary vehicles on the yellow hashed area of the Glen Eden level crossing based on how long they were stopped for, again to help improve safety. Presumably invaluable information in any future discussions on grade separation.
Journey Planner
The much maligned journey planner is finally getting some love
Earlier this year, customers rated the Journey Planner tool as unsatisfactory and noted that it lacked a robust list of place names or landmarks. Following work to improve data sources and speed capability the Journey Planner Public Beta (0.1) launched on Monday 25 June. This also incorporates a more intuitive interface along with high priority accessibility changes recommended by the Accessibility Audit (Completed May 2018).
Customer feedback will be processed and included in an iterative beta (0.2) release in July 2018.
Full launch of new Journey Planner – replacing current Journey Planner is expected in late July or early August.
Business Cases
A large number of business cases are currently or about to get underway for a variety of projects, many of them bus priority measures.
Business case development is underway for a number of initiatives to support Auckland’s growth. These include the Supporting Growth Planning Alliance, Airport – Botany Rapid Transit Corridor and the Puhinui bus/rail interchange.
A number of new business cases are expected to commence shortly to advance projects identified in the Regional Land Transport Plan. These include detailed business cases for upgrades to Lake Road; a park and ride in Papakura; improvements at Matiatia; and bus priority measures on Wellesley Street as well as whole of route priority measures on a further ten corridors. These include Sandringham Road, New North Road, Mount Eden Road, Remuera Road, Manukau Road, Great South Road, Pakuranga / Ellerslie Panmure Highways, Ponsonby Road, Parnell Road and Mangere – Otahuhu Sylvia Park.
The business cases will also be updated for the Mill Road and Penlink corridors as well as East Coast / Glenvar Intersection and Tapu Road / Station Road intersection.
Project updates
There are quite a few project updates. Here are just a few of them which I’ll try and summarise even more succinctly than in the report
- Victoria Street Cycleway (Beaumont to Hobson) – going through urban design review
- Tamaki Drive Cycle Route – Resource consent likely lodged this month and construction likely to start early 2019
- Parnell to Tamaki Cycle Route – outcomes of current analysis due this month
- New Lynn / Avondale Cycle Route – Still going through design again
- Westhaven to CBD Cycle Route – Previous option of bikes sharing with cars dropped on safety grounds, now looking at separated lanes
- Great North Road Cycle and Bus Priority – concept design project cost estimate will be completed in mid-July
- Herne Bay to Westhaven Cycle Route – Construction due to begin later this year
- Newmarket Crossing – The new bridge opens this Friday and the Sarawia St crossing will then close. During a rail shutdown this weekend, Kiwirail will implement signalling changes which are needed for the August timetable change
- Takanini and Te Mahia Station Upgrades – Work continues on the upgrade of these stations. At Te Mahia a property has been purchased which will allow the pedestrian entry to be improved.
- AMETI
- Panmure to Pakuranga – Two of the appeals have been resolved leaving only one which is due to be heard in August. The tender for construction is also due to be awarded then.
- Pakuranga to Botany – design work continues. On the Reeves Rd Flyover they say “Ongoing design work of sub-elements such as the flyover form and alignment is yielding notable improvements, especially in terms of safety, integration, risk mitigation and value.”
- Matakana Link Road – The NZTA have knocked back this hugely expensive project unless the total project design, land and construction costs are less than $55 million (currently about $89 million).
Flat Ferries
As part of the commentary into the performance of ferries, AT note:
Services in May suffered for a variety of reasons. Four days affected by fog, resulting in a large number of Inner Harbour and West Auckland services running late. Other impacts included three days low tides affecting the Half Moon Bay services. In addition breakdowns in the Fullers fleet affected about 1% of contracted trips.
Inner Harbour services to Bayswater and Birkenhead continue to be affected by journey time issues and berth congestion, and a proposal is being considered with Fullers to review timetable journey times to more accurately reflect actual journey times, that may include a review of the frequency for the Birkenhead service.
Patronage is flat for the year on year, where growth is being hampered by lack of capacity and overall service reliability. Hobsonville continued growth of 44% year on year from the March variation.
Making Stations and terminals more visible
AT are looking at some new totems to try and make stations more visible.
The visibility of AT Metro, particularly at train stations around Auckland is low, making it difficult for Aucklanders to realise where our stations are. An initial prototype is being developed to illustrate how we can elevate AT Metro’s brand presence at key locations (stations, ferry terminals, busway), through installation of new ‘totem’ illuminated signage. A number of different designs are being assessed to maximise our brand presence, prior to the development of a business case and procurement process.
Many stations already have totems and some even still have the old MAXX branding.
Devonport rideshare trial
It appears this trial is still going ahead
The Devonport on-demand rideshare service Request for Proposal (RFP) process is complete. VIA an international on-demand rideshare vendor has been appointed to the technology solution and GoBus appointed as the operator. The initiative moves into delivery phase, with the trial expected to commence in October 2018 for a 12 month period.
Forward Programme
AT occasionally publish what papers are likely to be coming up at future board meetings. Some of the items for the next closes session are expected to be:
- Road Gradients
- Low Emission Bus Road Map
- Regional Bus Terminal
- Cycling Programme Update
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Can AT not just pay Citymapper to add Auckland to their cities?
I was thinking the same: why is AT developing their own journey planner? I don’t want an auckland specific app, rather i want Auckland’s pt services available in all the awesome global apps that already exist and which i use elsewhere.
Nothing about making rail stations smokefree ?
Every station I’ve seen have stickers on the shelters saying ‘smokefree’ – enforcement of that on the other hand is tricky, most security guards I’ve seen inform people that they should smoke away from the shelter area.
The worst stations I’ve seen for smokers are Pukekohe and Puhinui, which almost never have security guards in sight.
Going back 15 to 20 years, the stations all had security cameras, which appeared to be
monitored at most times. An offender would light up and usually very quickly a loud voice
over the PA system would ask them to ‘butt’ out, which they normally did.
This doesn’t happen now – I guess to save money nobody watches the cameras, which
doesn’t exactly give me any confidence in safety on the stations which have no security
guards.
That doesn’t sound right. Going back 15 – 20 years most stations didn’t even have their loudspeakers plugged and maybe had one poor quality security camera.
Jezza, you are correct re the timeframe. Thinking back a bit harder one of the places I heard these PA calls was on the redeveloped Henderson station, which would have been about 2007.
I still wonder why this is not still used to chase up offenders.
I’ve heard announcements targeted at people smoking relatively recently at Ellerslie, I guess it just depends on what screens are being watched at a given time.
In terms of station visibility I’d start with Newmarket on Broadway. Even though I know it is there, I always struggle to see it walking up from the shops.
Agree, I’ve overshot it a few times even though I am looking for it!
Its nice to know when the train is coming.
I can take it easy or not before the long climb up and over at some stations
What are these “route priority measures”? I’m hoping that the answer is continuous bus lanes, but am expecting to be disappointed. The Ellerslie-Panmure Hwy could be so much better with a bus lane. Would disincentivise driving along it for a lot, who would then flow to Sylvia Park and get frustrated by the traffic there and perhaps consider PT.
One can only hope! Even better would be some bus priority on Main Highway, especially eastbound. The long delays getting through Ellerslie town centre in the evening peak has a real impact on the overall reliability and frequency of the 70 bus route, it is next to useless for train transfers.
The delays in the Ellerslie town centre in the morning peak are epic too. Traffic frequently backs up to the petrol station on the corner of Main Highway and Cawley St, and sometimes to the lights with the motorway feeder road, which naturally affects traffic westbound on Main Highway to the motorway.
Funnily enough, traffic at the moment is fine… school holiday effect. Conclusion: Likely too many SOVs trying to get through the town centre to the schools on the other side of the motorway. Strong case for bus lanes here, be they tidal direction (in the peak direction only) or both directions, as well as a strategic rethink of traffic/pedestrian access planning in the town centre to encourage more people out of their cars on the school run.
I think Ellerslie town traffic flow would be greatly increased by putting lights on the pedestrian crossing. I find this is usually the bottle neck and once you get past here its often free flowing. Until you get to the motorway bridge atleast..
At the moment every second vehicle has to stop for a pedestrian, With lights, on a one minute cycle you would get more cars through, with little disruption to pedestrian traffic.
I don’t think people using their own legs – in a town centre, perhaps to get to the bus stop – should be held up for a minute extra by the people in SOV’s! That’s an unreasonably long wait, and is opposite to the direction that AT has committed to going after the damning safety review.
Yes, the pedestrian crossing is the bottleneck but this a town centre that has it’s own bypass with the EP Highway, there is no reason for it to be a vehicle thoroughfare.
The pedestrian crossing is one of the best things about Ellerslie town centre as it means it is quick and easy to get to shops on both sides of the road and my walking journey to the station when I lived there always took the same time.
If people want to drive through there that’s their problem, the issue is that a frequent long distance bus route is severely impacted by this congestion.
If only every second vehicle has to stop for a pedestrian, then probably lights will make that congestion worse.
Another idea is to paint more zebra crossings. If people are crossing on a few places instead of one place, then there should be more gaps between pedestrians on each crossing.
Getting buses through town centres is a problem we have to solve. We have the same issue in Birkenhead. Buses get stuck in Highbury Shops, while cars are going flowing past via the bypass.
Geez, I thought we were talking about cutting 5 minutes out of the bus journey, and you’re moaning that a couple of pedestrians have to wait 30 seconds to cross a road 😛 A one minute minimum cycle on the lights would mean the average pedestrian would not wait more than 30s..
There are two options to get busses through Ellerslie faster, put in a bus lane which will be fought tooth and nail by the local residents and business community, or do something about the traffic bottle neck..
Either way, traffic will still back up the rest of main highway to the Great south intersection if you help at Ellerslie anyway.
While a bus lane might not be easy it is clearly the best solution for moving people in Ellerslie. It allows the high occupancy bus a clear run and pedestrians within the town centre a free run.
AT are arms length from the elected officials anyway, they really should be making use of this and making some bold calls.
I think that making the town centre area a shared zone even though sounds weird for a through kind of route would work. Would need big time visual and physical cues at each entry point. Coble brick the road. The other side of the coin is to make it better to cross over the motorway on the E-P Highway to great south Rd so the town center is not the rat run during peak times.
The partnership between GoBus and VIA for ondemand services already exists in Queenstown via the Savy app. I imagine a similar app will be used in Devonport. While I disagree with the Devonport trial, the app’s been well received in Queenstown.
I notice in the Open Session Board Report that there will be more money for Local Boards to spend on local transport improvements. In my area, this is a good thing, as the lb has a good handle on what the area needs. Not sure in other areas. I noted that “The money is now allocated on the basis of 90% by population, 5% based on land area and 5% based on the level of deprivation of each Local Board
area.” My gut feel is more than 5% should be based on the level of deprivation. Richer areas have more resources (time and money and kind) from community groups, and poorer areas also seem to have the worst instances of really bad pedestrian amenity.
Sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure it makes much difference. Poor people don’t vote much, and those who do, aren’t well informed and so you end up with random people from the Labour party who aren’t that much better, running the local board in poorer areas. I get the feeling most the people that get voted in are just strong car advocates by default even if they say the right words.
Not good for Devonport Takapuna where the Local Board still thinks its 1990.
Although to their credit they are strongly opposing selling of public spaces to private interests, and are proposing a rapid transit station instead of a high-rise car-parking building, Those are both 1990s ideas, I agree, but are at least fifty years ahead of what the Council is thinking.
I wonder whether in the review of the RPTP they will take notice of the need for better pedestrian connections between routes?
Nothing in the board report about the Transport Design Manual which the board was told would be online by end of November last year and is still not up. I think there are probably very valid reasons for this delay. I also think it would be nice to know what they are.
“Hobsonville continued growth of 44% year on year from the March variation.”
Go Hobsonville! Now is the time for AT to negotiate a more frequent service with Fullers
Yes, Hobsonville needs at least another service in each direction (Hobby-City at 7,8,9am would be good) and they need to start weekend services.
Might be good to have a smaller ferry service running as a shuttle between Greenhithe-Herald Island-Hobsonville-Beach Haven. Something with a shallow draft.
AT, I recently reported to you this Journey Planner direction to reach a bus stop in Greenlane:
https://i.imgur.com/7ENHAkk.png
Will this upgrade of Journey Planner take pedestrian safety seriously, and comprehensively eliminate dangerous pedestrian directions such as this?
Ouch! Not to mention under-cooking the time requirement, given cycle time on the intersections that you actually have to use.
Yes, and setting out to follow the instructions and then realising they have to backtrack to find a real route would make most people miss the bus. A few people who feel they just can’t miss the bus would make some stupid decisions around safety. And as for children, what decisions would they make?
Dangerous pedestrian directions is not the word, that’s a total death trap. The pedestrian infrastructure around Greenlane is a disgrace, but at least that app can be fixed quickly!
That roundabout really needs to go, it does no one any favours, not even motorists. A replacement bridge could include much better cycling and walking facilities and even better, a decent interchange for crosstown buses and Greenlane station.
Sounds good. I’ve never seen anyone suggest it before, Jezza. Has anyone ever done a preliminary design?
I doubt it unfortunately. I’ve always assumed NZTA have just accepted those roundabouts don’t work and have added extra slip lanes on the motorway to allow for the backlog of traffic.
Yes overpass upgraded interchanges should be done for this and Ellerslie at least. These old original type flat designs are cheap and nasty. They just keep adding lanes and slip lanes.
Good news about Sarawia street crossing.
I’m hoping that resolving the constraints in the rail network will increase reliability and spur on a program of maintenance for other issues and a continuation of grade separation/closing closures.
Urgh … The papakura park and ride proposal does my head in! There’s so much parking in that area already, building a multi-level building seems like such a waste of funding that could be funneled into more deserving projects.
According to AT’s parking strategy, Papakura needs 100 – 300 more park and ride spaces to meet the modelled demand by 2046. This modelling is based on the surveys of existing park and ride users. More parks there will deteriorate from the form of Papakura, and wastes the opportunity to improve feeder services.
The strategy does say: “In some cases, where the demand for Park and Ride facilities is excessive and is forecast to increase significantly, AT will review the public transport network feeder services to determine if new and improved services should be delivered rather than additional Park and Ride facilities. In these cases demand will be used as a trigger to reassess network requirements.”
I wonder what could be achieved if Papakura businesses and residents got organised and asked for this in preference to the induced traffic and landscape blot of extra parking spaces?
providing parknride there is ridiculous, prime real estate for transit oriented development surely. Itd be like air nz providing free seats then having to put a bigger aircraft on as it proved very popular.
I submitted against the park and ride as part of some recent submission thing for papakura.
I understand some park and ride is required for the rural areas from Papakura (Karaka / Drury / Hunua etc) however, surely ‘once’ the new stations at Drury and Paerata are constructed and in use, the demand for parking at papakura will reduce?
And surely a small fee for parking in the provided parking areas would help assess and address demand?
The parking strategy has a good section on trigger points for introducing pricing to other AT carparks (not that AT follows this strategy), but park and ride is treated as being undesireable to price. On this issue, the strategy most certainly needs challenging. They also say: “AT will also investigate options for establishing parking sites at the urban periphery where there may be greater availability of land and linking these sites to park and ride locations via a shuttle service.”
I come through from Paeroa and use Papakura park and ride. I like the idea of urban peripheral parking with a shuttle service. When you see the amount of on-street parking being used around the Station area you have to feel sorry for the local residents. Once the regional train from Hamilton starts up I’ll be looking to board that service at Te Kauwhata, Pokeno or Tuakau depending on where exactly stations get built.
Yes stupid. Upgrade the buses instead.
May as well build a Drury station and P&R there now.
+100! I don’t see how this isn’t a more urgent priority. No harm in having the pukekohe shuttle train stop at Drury. Although I imagine it would be ‘too popular’ and overload the old trains though, could possibly join them together?
I just don’t get the red light camera thing. Surely the ticket revenue would cover the costs of the cameras. So why not install a camera on every intersection? If it isn’t a funding problem then what is it?
I don’t think they get to keep the money from traffic fines. My understanding is that goes to the Government’s consolidated funds.
Then get NZTA to fund them out of their road safety budget. With a nod and a wink the minister can then increase NZTA funding by the amount of camera revenue forecast.
I’d like to see active enforcement of red lights for buses. I was on a NZ Bus bus the other day when it went straight through a well-red light at the corner of Khyber Pass and Grafton Roads. On alighting, I told the driver (in a voice designed to be heard by all the passengers) that I was extremely unimpressed by such safety breaches by bus drivers (well, by anyone, actually). The driver’s response: “Well, I got you here safely, didn’t I?”
And just yesterday I was on Mt Albert Road and a Pavlovich bus did the same thing (even though cars in the adjacent lane had already stopped).
How about a concerted campaign of calling out (LOUDLY) drivers who transgress like this? And reporting them every time it’s observed? It just makes me livid as a pedestrian and PT user that I cannot even trust the buses to behave properly.
It’s a new thing, I believe. I’m wondering what new pressures they’re under. Loudly telling them off will put their thinking into their reptilian brain and may make them more aggressive in their driving. Maybe quietly asking for safer driving, and if they are under pressure to meet unrealistic timetable pressures would have a better effect? And reporting them too, so they get to reflect on it later.
In the case of the Pavlovich bus, it was completely empty. No excuse whatsoever for being behind timetable.
And not sure that being “nice” about it is going to have any impact. What I’d like to see is a roar of disapproval from around the bus every time something like this happens (along with being reported). Of course it does depend on people noticing and reacting, but I reckon a bit of a campaign to get passengers motivated could be instrumental in “shaming” drivers into compliance.
Just saw there was a fatality ON BOARD a double decker bus at Silverdale yesterday when a passenger fell down the stairs. Have there ever been on-board fatalities of involving a fall before?
Buses have been running red lights at the corner of Anzac Ave and Beach Rd for years. Time pressure might have something to do with it, but habit and ignorance are probably the main reasons.
The left turn there gets two phases in each cycle so the wait isn’t very long, yet the drivers still go through and force pedestrians to wait. Some $150 fines coming out of their pay packets would soon bring compliance I suspect.
The real issue is the lack of bus priority, and crappy phasing. I enjoy my bus running reds and oranges, as it speeds up the plod through the morass of SOVs that we have to endure.
I’m thinking of buses turning left from the bottom of Anzac Ave into Beach Rd. They get two green arrows per cycle and have had bus priority pretty much all the way down Anzac Ave, I don’t think either of these excuses wash.
As a pedestrian crossing the road, I was almost run down by a bus running a red light quite recently. It really irks me that people might suggest that their bus running a red or orange light is something to “enjoy”. I actually think that a red light runner deserves to have their licence suspended (for perhaps 28 days) effective immediately, no ifs, no buts. We might see some behaviour change if that happened.
Another place I saw was yesterday afternoon/evening the lights at the Ferry buildings 3 cars went through the red lights only having to stop for the lights going east and they didn’t gain any extra time as they had to sit on the next ped Xing . And I see it happen everytime I leave the ferry buildings
Anyone else hear of buses not picking up people when they are running late? Seems more likely from what I’ve gathered. Could be inadvertently as they are under the mental mindset to make up time.
A properly calibrated red light enforcement camera costs about $120,000 (and one camera typically can’t see every leg of an intersection). So yeah, you won’t see such a camera at every intersection…
Still don’t understand why they are pouring public money into on-demand services when Uber plan to turn on UberPool in the near future.
Uber was supposed to be a ride share service, but ended up just an unregulated taxi service. Maybe they don’t think UberPool will successfully become a ride share service either? I believe there are studies in the US where attempts at reducing carbon emissions through ride share have been quite unsuccessful and the conclusion was that the effort should have been put into methods to reduce vkt.
Well if there are studies show ride share is unsuccessful, why is AT pursuing it at all? Or did those studies only look at fully commercial services like UberPool?
No, they included carpooling. Might add it to my bucket list of posts I intend to write… 🙂
I like the new Journey Planner, but it’s still got a few bugs.
Yeah theres also no filtering options i.e. by operator which is very handy when theres a strike or for those with family free travel as relative of driver (dunno if they still do this, nzbus used to.) Plus the other filters i.e. mode, route, max walking time were also handy.
Yes heaps better. I note they, other apps & even Google don’t allow for some tight transfers, which is annoying when u know the transfer from service is actually normally ahead of timetable. Would be good to show these as an option but perhaps highlight them as “tight” or have an option to exclude them. I’ve figured out routes manually by breaking them up into separate sections when it dawns on you that the transfer time is 12 mins when transferring to a 10 min frequency service!
The Journey Planner is better than the old one. But I do miss how the old one would suggest I walk for 31/2 hours to Ranui and ride the train.
I would often have to start my journey the night before, according to the Journey Planner, because it would take 2 goes for it to understand what time of day I was really wanting. Bizarre fault, that one. I guess time will tell if it’s been fixed. I used to like the really old one we used to have, in which I could choose my walking speed. Really useful with toddlers!
Yes walking speed is in the Wellington one & esp as they walk fast there for some unknown reason. I suspect due to all walking from he train station with lack of ticket integration with buses.
What are the August timetable changes?
Train. Extra frequency weekends (20 min?) and more span on Friday… even tho its Sun-Thu that needs the extra span… 22:00 finish on western line is NUTS!
The proposed train timetable, for introduction in August 2018, is being reviewed by KiwiRail. The submission includes:
? Improved journey times across the Southern, Eastern & Western Lines, including further reduced dwell times
? An increase to three trains per hour, from 0700-1900, across the Southern, Eastern & Western Lines at Weekends up from two trains per hour
? Afternoon and evening services will transition from the 10-minute frequency in the PM Peak to a 20-minute frequency from 7pm until 8pm, and to a 30-minute frequency thereafter
? Services to Parnell station increased to include all Western Line services, throughout the day. Currently, Western Line services only operate to Parnell after 7.00pm, and at weekends
? Pukekohe shuttle services continue to operate three trains per hour during the morning and afternoon peaks, with an increase to two trains per hour during inter-peak periods and at weekends, up from one train per hour
? Later night services on Friday evenings.
Future Train timetable planning
AT is also proposing to introduce a further January 2019 timetable, which is currently under discussion with Transdev and KiwiRail,
The ferries need to be taken off Fullers and nationalised. They are focused on running tour boats and do not have the right mind set to run public transport.
There needs to be 15 min ferries 7am to 7pm on the Devonport run with two dedicated proper ferries. Fullers is not spending enough on capital so the boats are slow and in poor condition.
+1. Bring Devonport and Waiheke within the ambit of PTOM, please!
Damn right.
Fullers use a collection of old and not so old tourist launches with differing gang planks kinda making do!
Purpose built definitely does not come to mind.
Oh well. Spend 8 million because opening a passage via Furneaux Way is too complicated. Triple cheers for still pretending to live in a low corruption country.
The new Lynn to Avondale cycleway follows the railway, it’s pretty straightforward. Can’t be much scope for redesign. Sounds like a delaying tactic.
As someone who has safety audited it, there are quite a few potential design issues with the earlier drafts; not least how it deals with the various road crossings along the way.
Fact of the matter with the ferries is that there is not enough berthing positions in the city, having experienced the long wait for a slot to come free.
There is plenty of room potentially for more but no one at AT or the Harbour Board has thought to add anymore jetty’s.
So there is no room for growth or reliability as it stands.
Hmmm yes slight delays etc and you have to wait for a slot. Just random thought of possibility of a case for a te atatu south ferry. Perhaps direct to CBD or perhaps Birkenhead timed for that one to CBD.
Regarding electric bus roadmap, the new city link electric bus has a few weaknesses around ride quality.
It has poor Harness/Noise/Vibrations performance.
The suspension is poorly damped, ac fan noise too loud, acceleration sound also too loud. Vibration noise is obvious when moving. Powertrain feels unsmooth(harshness) during acceleration and breaking.
It would be good if they can try a few different models before making a decision.
hmmm mine seemed fine yesterday, but wasn’t been too picky about it…and was quite empty – maybe a factor?
Major progress at Pukekohe Station today !
Half of our new overhead walkway is now open for public use (the Station Road side).
I understand the other half (the Manukau Road side) will open next Wednesday, all going well.
Good things take time.
Now for electrification !