Northwest Busway – no future-proofing

The responses to a couple of parliamentary questions for written answer provide some rather depressing insight into the lack of forethought going into the currently planned upgrades to State Highway 16 by NZTA. Remember that $860 million will be spent over the next decade on widening this motorway – and not only does this upgrade not include provision for anything more than lame bus shoulder lanes (which inevitably will end just before any onramp, offramp or bridge overpass), but the design of the interchange between SH16 and the Waterview Connection will not even be future proofed for putting through a future busway.

As I explained a few months back, I think that the upgrades being planned for SH16 provide an excellent opportunity to dramatically improve public transport provision to the part of West Auckland that really is not well served by the Western Railway Line, as well as having a couple of key station in the western part of Auckland City. Places like Western Springs, Pt Chevalier, Te Atatu, Lincoln Road, Massey and Westgate do not have good access at all to Auckland’s rail system, and generally find themselves stuck with a relatively frequent (in Auckland City) but incredibly complicated (in terms of a mixture of different routes, different bus companies etc.) bus service. NZTA are planning to have shoulder lanes along the motorway as part of this upgrade, but in my opinion that’s highly inferior to the kind of fully grade separated busway that is being enjoyed by people on the North Shore these days.

I think a lot of the reason why the busway isn’t part of these plans is because in all ARC/ARTA’s plans and strategies for transport, this route only comes up as a “Quality Transit Network” rather than a “Rapid Transit Network”. As a result of this, NZTA have been left with relatively little choice but provide basic shoulder lanes – whereas if the route had been classified as an RTN, quite a lot more pressure would have been put on NZTA to do better than this. So perhaps the first step in getting this possible project to become a reality is making sure the Regional Land Transport Strategy (still open for submissions by the way) changes its identification of SH16 to being a Rapid Transit Network, so that we can build something like this in the future:

One thing that NZTA could definitely do better though is make sure that their design of the future interchange between State Highway 16 and the Waterview Connection is “future proofed” for a future busway – when we get around to building it. Unfortunately it seems as though this is not the case:

David Shearer to the Minister of Transport (23 Nov 2009): Is the SH20/SH16 interchange at Waterview being designed in such a way that would future-proof it for the construction of a busway along State Highway 16 in the future?
Hon Steven Joyce (Minister of Transport) replied: I am advised that the SH20/SH16 interchange has been designed to accommodate bus shoulders. This meets the Auckland Regional Transport Authority’s identified standard for a Quality Transit Network along SH16. The interchange has not been designed to accommodate a busway along SH16. The Rapid Transit Network to the west is provided by rail.

Come on NZTA, at least don’t make it impossible for this busway to be built in the future.

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