A few weeks ago I put together a quick map of what I thought Auckland’s rail system in 2030 should look like. Now unless something crazy happens like all our transport dollars going to rail instead of roads, it’s probably a bit unrealistic to hope that such a system would be complete by 2030. Nevertheless, apart from some parts (like the line that runs along SH16 which would replace the busway that I think should be built in the next few years) I actually do think it’s a system that we will largely need by 2030.
To ‘bring it to life’ a bit more, I have decided to turn the previous ‘map with lines on it‘ into a system diagram – the type that we see most overseas cities with half-decent rail systems have. All the stations are listed, and while I think it’s likely the service patterns wouldn’t exactly follow what I have suggested (for example some trains would probably run from Henderson to Manukau City via the airport) it gives us a pretty good idea about what could happen, what could be possible with a bit of vision:
One change to the diagram above that would make sense is extending the southern end of the “red line” from Manukau City to Puhinui, so it can interchange with the “green line”. In terms of staging the development of such a system, I think the following steps would make most sense.
1) CBD Rail Tunnel
2) Airport Line (developed in two stages – first being from the airport to Onehunga and second being from the airport to Puhinui)
3) Howick/Botany Line (potentially in two stages, with the first being from Botany to Glen Innes and the second from Botany to Manukau City).
4) Avondale-Southdown Line – to complete the Isthmus Circle Line
5) North Shore Line (firstly to Albany, then potentially to Orewa in the longer term)
6) Westgate Line (although this should become a busway ASAP).
While it’s easy to ‘write off’ such a diagram as a “dream” or a “fantasy”, most of the routes shown above have been identified by ARTA as ‘future rapid transit corridors’. This is simply showing a way to actually give effect to the broad arrows that seem to show up on every public transport plan that ARTA comes up with.
There’s obviously also a good debate over whether busways or railway lines are the best option for these routes. I have gone with a complete rail solution, but I agree that for the western part of the red line a busway would suit things just fine for quite a few more decades (hence that’s the last to be developed), while for the North Shore Line I also think that the Northern Busway should be fine for a few more decades, hence that’s the second-to-last one that I would propose. The reason I don’t think that a busway would work for the Howick/Botany Line is the issue of “what the heck do you do once the bus is at Panmure or Glen Innes?” With a rail solution we have the Eastern Line for them to join, but with a bus solution are we looking at having to build a busway along the route of the old Eastern Highway? That seems a bit silly to me.
Processing...
I agree 100%…
That would actually be a damn good system, even by international standards I reckon.
I like it. I would like it even more, if there were the following light rail lines; Dominion Road, Akoranga/Takapuna – North Shore Bays, Akoranga/Takapuna – Devonport, and an Upper Harbour Drive line linking West with North. Too much to aim for?
In all of these we should remember that Auckland is predicted to have 50% more population by mid century, and be near or over 2 million people. Decisions now will have impacts for a long long time. Scary, but empowering if we get people with imagination and willingness to deal with evidence.
I meant to say, that the Devonport light rail line would link up with ferries.
Maybe I should do a separate map for light-rail lines. I think a Devonport-Takapuna-Wairau-Albany light rail line would work well on the Shore. So might a Glenfield Road-Onewa Road line.
No, please don’t do a separate map for light rail – incorporate it into the existing schematic. If only your fantasy system was reality already!
OK – incorporating light-rail onto the current diagram might take a bit of doing in terms of ensuring everything fits, but I’ll give it a go.
I have a fantasy about supersonic wide body airliners, and I can understand why it all seems great.
Without being a party pooper, the reason most of this doesn’t happen is that you have to force people who don’t use it to pay for it. Dare I suggest that it will seriously encourage sprawl to extend anything like this to Helensville or Hamilton. Wellington’s Kapiti Coast wouldn’t have grown as it did without the electrified rail link. I don’t have a problem with sprawl, except when it is subsidised by other people – you’re effectively giving some property owners in Auckland an uplift unless you do some serious targeted rates adjacent to the stations.
I get more convinced that to offset the windfall for the CBD, a CBD congestion charge would work wonders, help relieve the road approaches (help buses too), make all public transport more competitive, there would be no excuse of no alternatives, and allow peak public transport fares to be high enough to recover opex fully. It could also raise enough money to do seriously cut rates funding for local roads in Auckland city.
So if I chose to not use automobiles and live a completely pedestrian or railway-based lifestyle: Why the bloody hell should my taxes pay for the maintenance of roads across New Zealand? Hey; let’s make every single road in NZ a turnpike that’s entirely user-pays.
See how that works? But of course; not everyone thinks along the self-centered libertarian lines you do and many people are focussed on the bigger picture of the community as a whole.
See: Your metaphor of supersonic side body airliners only shows up your typical libertarian lack in critical thinking. Supersonic wide-body airliners do not actually exist and are highly unlikely to ever happen, but a decent PT system for Auckland is entirely possible.
And actually no you’re entirely wrong about the Kapiti rail electrification having any effect on sprawl. That was entirely due to the centennial highway. The electrified EMU service was commissioned as a response to that sprawl.
Why don’t councils put rail designations into place earlier around Auckland? This would make building a rail line more simple and better planned! (if they will ever get built)
The Wairarapa Service is a classic example of urban sprawl from rail. But at least those people are moving by rail and not clogging up the hill road. I believe that it goes down to good planning practices in towns to stop urban sprawl getting out of hand, yet at the same time developing and advertising their town as a place people want to live. Rail plays a key role in increasing accessibility, which makes a town more attractive to development and appearance.
“The Wairarapa Service is a classic example of urban sprawl from rail.”
What Urban sprawl where in the Wairarapa? None of those towns have seen much if any growth since the early 1980s.
All it’s done; is help those Wairarapa towns avoid economic oblivion.
If you’re building heavy rail to Westgate why not extend it to Albany? Would be alot cheaper than a harbour rail crossing.
Quote: “I don’t have a problem with sprawl, except when it is subsidised by other people.”
The Joyce Highway north springs to mind: holiday bach sprawl for rich Aucklanders sustained and subsidised by all taxpayers.
A while back I was working in Southland and on my days off toured the area. This was deep winter and on many of the roads I drove for miles without seeing another vehicle. It never occurred to me that that as the sole user of the road I should be forking over some exorbitant fee in order to “pay” for the road. As much as Liberty would have each and every one of us paying our share to the nth degree (can you imagine the bureaucracy to run a true user pays system?), we live our lives in such a way and are distributed around the country in such a way that subsidies of some areas by others are inevitable and desirable. I live in Wellington and don’t care one bit that I am probably helping pay for the road north from Tuatapere to Manapouri.
Well, that’s the problem with propertarians. They know the private price of everything but deny the social value of anything.
The difference between fantasy aircraft and comprehensive public transport systems, Mr Libertarian, is that such public transport systems exist in real life elsewhere, and work well.
Liberty only looks at each piece of a transport system rather than the whole picture, I agree with him that if each piece was the best value for money we’d get the best system but those decision haven’t been made in the past (and if Puhoi is anything to go by won’t be made in the future) so some poor projects go ahead to complete less than optimal networks started decades ago…
I personally don’t see much point in rail to Orewa or Helensville, I guess I just put them on as ‘possibilities’ – because they’re only likely to be viable if those places grow like topsy. That would mean a lot more sprawl, which certainly isn’t a good thing in my opinion.
If we had a rail system like this (particularly the isthmus parts) then I think some sort of congestion pricing system might be viable. I think the worry is that if we had a CBD based system, it would kill off the CBD at the moment, although perhaps if the CBD Rail Tunnel was built this wouldn’t happen. I’m more of a fan of subtle congestion pricing, like not building roads to cater for peak times and charging higher public transport fares at peak times than off-peak times. The added congestion would effectively act like a peak hour price (discourage peak hour travel) while the higher public transport fares during peak time would encourage people to travel off-peak when fares were significantly lower.
Higher peak public transport prices would strongly shift people back into their cars, even if the public transport was still considerably cheaper. People aren’t completely rational in that way.
I’d lower the price of public transport in peak hour if I wanted to reduce congestion. You can fit 60 or so people into a bus, which is over 40 cars off the road. We’re going to need a lot more railway carriages and units than Joyce has on order.
Propertarians, I like that word.
A very bold plan. Would it be helpful to show the existing rail network in the same form, so that those of use who aren’t 100% familiar with the existing network can see what is proposed, and what is already existing? Or maybe show it on one map, with lighter colours for the route extensions.
Nice effort! A point you & LibertyScott raise is ‘urban sprawl’ (in both Auckland & Wellington), but as Brent C notes – at least these people are travelling by the rail line they ‘sprawled’ along.
In fact, I would suggest that is a major planning fallacy – the belief that urban development outside some arbitrary radius of a city’s CBD is ‘bad’. Given the major urban sprawl concerns are use of greenfields land and transport costs, we can tackle at least one of these instantly and at nearly no cost.
Change our planning model to allow greenfields expansion to maximum reasonable walking & cycling radius around potential stations on existing rail lines. That is, old stations (and potential new ones in the gaps between old stations) on existing rail lines can be refurbished and housing built round them. Minor villages like Huapai & Mercer can take 10,000 extra people (roughly 3,000 houses at current occupancy rate of 3 people per household) and bigger towns like Tuakau & Helensville could take up to 30,000 people more. Extra transport costs are limited to revamped rail stations, and local roads within that expanded town.
Make it a clear condition of buying in that area – no motorways or arterial road expansion will be built. Add bus routes to areas the existing rail line does not link to easily, such as Helensville – Albany bus route.
And even the greenfields concern is not as bad as people might think – after all, very little of the current housing expansion on the outer limits of Auckland’s Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) is high density – apartments are mostly built in the inner Auckland City suburbs. So which do you prefer – greenfields housing in Flat Bush (in Manukau East) or Westgate (in Waitakere) or clustered round existing rail stations outside the current MUL?
Rail ‘cluster’ towns could improve marginal viability of trial Helensville rail services, and they still give fast travel across town (1 hour to CBD by rail is far faster than Papakura-CBD or Takapuna-Ellerslie by SH1 at peak times!!!).
Such ‘cluster town’ expansion would also improve the viability of other services (pools, libraries, shops, schools, etc) in these small villages & towns, so locals may welcome the idea…
I like the visual: it makes the plan almost tangible!
Check out the Green party’s Auckland Transport Plan: http://www.greens.org.nz/transport/auckland/plan
The southern rail loop should probably connect at Panmure rather than Glen Innes, and linking Albany to Henderson via Westgate might be useful too.
I just spent a week in Melbourne: trams and trains were a sheer delight. Could you sketch in a tram/light rail network to provide local connectivity?
Good points bob, there’s a huge difference between “satellite centers” linked by rail, and simple urban sprawl. The key is auto-dependency, whether it exists or not.
David, yeah the Greens plan did somewhat inspire my system – particularly the idea of an “Isthmus Circle Line”. Regarding the Howick/Botany Line, I think that should link up via Glen Innes because I would have the line much further to the north than the current Ti Rakau Drive route. For the reasons check out the following couple of links:
1) http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2009/02/25/the-howickbotany-line/
2) http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2009/07/13/the-howickbotany-line-ii/
Simply put, if you push it further to the north your residential catchment grows hugely. It also means you can probably get a train from Britomart to Botany in less than half an hour.
Regarding an Albany to Henderson route – I think a busway would probably be fine there.
Axel – the existing system is basically just the green line (minus the Midtown station bit) and the eastern half of the Isthmus Circle Line.
I’ve seen many many imaginary maps for the ideal rail services for Auckland dreamed up by people such as yourself on the various blogs/forums etc. Which is great. But not once have I seen anyone put a railway station in Epsom or Royal Oak, which is where I live. I feel left out, not even a tramway for Epsom??
I’m a novice in analysing these planning matters, is a dedicated Public Transport corridor just impossible for Epsom? Just about every other suburb surrounding Epsom has got something 🙂
Manukau Road tramway perhaps?
AC I posted a thread on the better transport forum when light rail down Manukau road would be third after Dom Rd and the Waterfront…
only third?? 😉 i’d love to see trams on Manukau Rd one day. I reckon Manukau Rd must be the busiest arterial in Auckland. it seems to be congested pretty much from 8am-6pm. with only a few quiet spots in between. I fear the transport powers that be would make excuses about how its impossible because its so busy, and it will never happen.
Still your map is great, maybe with sympathetic GOVT one day it might happen!
I’m incredibly surprised that Manukau Road does not have lengthy bus lanes along it. It seems like such an obvious candidate.
Pah Rd and much of Manukau Rd could easily fit buslanes. It is a total no brainer. If Dominion Rds got em, and Remuera Rds got em, so should Manukau Rd.
Love the map…but liberty makes some great points too about just tolling cars.
why is it no one talks about tolls? Cut off roads (only 4 links linking isthmus to rest of nz) and toll people for using these roads. I just feel toll discussion is being left out. toll the bridge exhorbitant, cut off roads at avondale and toll. use this money
to built the rail network above. If you complain this isn’t democracy, let I remind
everyone about the recent “h” in wanganui saga where that was democratic right?
My other idea is about another harbour crossing. why? leave the beautiful harbour like it is. big park and ride spots at beachhaven and constellation drive (bout 1km south of
takapuna near the water) would be brilliant using FERRIES… ala seattle style! thus
no need for blue line north.
I’m just very happy if no more roads are built in the city. even happier if some investment in PT
I think the thing with tolling or congestion charging is that you need a good alternative, and politically (and practically) you need those alternatives first. If rhis system existed then it may well be feasible to introduce congestion charging.
Jono the harbour will be left as it is… The new crossing is planned as four tunnels…
Good point admin,
I’m a newcomer here to I’m barging in on this one. There is a busway from the northshore
across the bridge right now..that..from what I’ve been reading from you guys…is getting
decent patronage….so there alternative ..thus start tolling now?
My main reason for barging in here is I’m a great believer in park n ride situations
based on my short imt living in half moon bay.
will reply again
Sorry for my “i’m a believer in” comment…all options should always be studied
and nutted out without bias…as libertyscott outlines with regards to not only
different transport options but also people and living commuter behaviour changing
over time.
a good example is the westview motorway debate…it “needs” to be built..
complaints that auckland motorway system sat unfinished is a respectable chorus.
guess the chorus that wasn’t getting heard was the same could be said about rail.
back on topic…how about a spider(not a ring) of trams serving the inner isthmus?
eg pt chev to remuera areas…dominion road…to the south.tamaki drive east
simliar to melbourne in this way. Thus this way you may not need to red line out
to westgate(would need to purchase properties for that line, no identified corridor at this stage?)actually..more like portland or sf. I remember driving around epsom one
day and stumbling on a block of buildings that was a teachers college! the trams could
serve the following motat, EDEN PARK, teachers college, greenlane, ponsonby precinct ,krd
you get the picture…
thanks jarbury for your forum
jono
I’ve alway thought lines to serve tourists to be a good idea, A Tourist Tramway with lines to the Museums (War Memorial, Maritime, MOTAT) to the Zoo, Kelly Tarlton’s etc would be a great idea…
Your map looks a lot like the old motorway plans from the 50’s (that were supposed to take 20 years or so). Over 50 years on we’re still not even close to finishing it.
So, based on past experience, about half of your map should be a reality by about 2080. 🙂 I can’t wait!
Brilliant! The CRL is a step closer to ur model!
Auckland Future Economic growth for Public Transport
This map has a future hypothetical train line using the northern busway alignment then going up the CRL.
HUH?!
What’s the point of that? The CRL will have to cope with enough traffic as it is!
For this to happen, then either:
1) Instead of converting the northern busway to an optimised and customised non-mainline standard light rail: The Northern Busway would instead have to be (expensively) converted to a railway of mainline standards. Because any rolling stock using the CRL will have to conform to mainline standards.
And are they expecting it to use the harbour bridge? It will have to use the central section if it does (and if that’s even possible with the bridge’s inclines). Hohoho with those Nippon Clip-on’s coming off in the future; that will leave two whole lanes for automobiles.
2) This future rail replacement for the Northern Busway will (for no good reason at all) go up either Queen St or brand new dedicated light rail/light metro tunnels that run parallel to the CRL, replace (or run parallel to) the section between Mt Eden and Newmarket & the Onehunga branch, and run parallel to the NIMT between Newmarket and Penrose.
And we have the north-western busway (unfortunately still yet to begin construction) converted to a train line. I can only assume that this will be an expensive mainline standard given that it’s going to share the CRL and eastern line corridor
See: It’s stuff like this very article on here which makes me act like an arrogant prick (which many of you seem to think I am). Does the “admin” who posted this article have a bloody clue what he/she’s even talking about?! Does he/she even understand the fundamental fact that the current Auckland network uses the Mainline and is thus working within mainline standards? And that Light rail will NOT be able to use this current network? Only rolling stock that meets mainline standards can use this (which means it’s by definition NOT light rail).
If the Northern busway is to be upgraded to rail (inevitable in my opinion): To me, it is unthinkable to not make it a light rail system, where rather than shoehorning the mainline standards; the system and its standards are customised to what fits best for that line. And there is no reason whatsoever for it to run parallel to the CRL; it can intersect/interchange with the CRL at a station (I would pick the future Aotea Station). It’s actually a blessing; as it allows the light rail replacement to provide access to rail-based public transit to areas previously not so well-served.
LOL I didn’t realise that this article was from over a decade ago.
Sunday morning 😉 …
This is what Auckland should have been progressing towards instead of getting diverted by all the light rail and busway nonsense.
Amusing to read the comments above supporting this rail network especially from those who are now poopooing heavy rail and cheering for light rail and busways.
Let’s hope light rail is dead and buried and busways are temporary aberrations until the real rail system network gets done before 2050
This article has been brought from the dead. I doubt that many of the people who agreed with it over ten years ago were very informed at the time.