Last night I went to an interesting workshop, run by Auckland City Council, to help discuss important matters that should be included in a future District Plan for the Mt Albert area. This is all part of the Future Planning Framework that was supposed to inform the next generation District Plan for the isthmus area of Auckland City – until the whole Super City thing killed off that idea. Nevertheless, Auckland City Council continue to plough forwards with their work on this, I suppose hoping that the new council will pick up on the work that has been done and carry it forward into the new District Plan for the whole region that will need to be prepared eventually.
Anyway, the workshop was quite interesting, broken into three tables: transport, housing and main street. I tended to flit between the transport group and the housing group, as I was there for work reasons so couldn’t solely focus on my transport interests – although it was tempting given the number of ARTA staff there! Focusing on transport matters (as, after all, this is a transport blog) I tried to point out to a number of people that Mt Albert actually has a heck of a lot going for it: there’s a railway station in the middle of the town centre, there’s a strong CBD-focused bus route along New North Road and there’s also a pretty strong cross-town route – in the form of Carrington Road and Mt Albert Road. Sure, the bus frequencies on the cross-town route aren’t particularly flash, but hopefully over time that will be improved as ARTA (and their undemocratic successor) get around to putting bus lanes along Mt Albert Road and Carrington Road and creating a property “Quality Transit Network” along that route.
As shown in the map below, in terms of transport accessibility, you can’t do much better than Mt Albert:
Yet something doesn’t work here. The Mt Albert shops are a place one tends to avoid, rather than be particularly drawn to. The general quality of the shops seems surprisingly low when you consider that the residential areas surrounding them are quite highly gentrified, particularly to the east. The train station is reasonably well used, with around 1,500 passengers a day boarding and alighting (making it the fourth busiest Western Line station after New Lynn, Henderson and Newmarket), but considering Unitec is located fairly nearby, I would think that the patronage is slightly disappointing.
In the future, as our cross-town routes (hopefully) get better supported, and as integrated ticketing encourages people to make multi-leg journeys a bit more, Mt Albert could become a critically important transfer point in the Auckland transport network. However, I don’t think that’s going to happen unless significant improvements are made to the finer details of how this transport interchange will work, and also vast improvements to the Mt Albert train station and its site surrounds are made. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of the station, but trust me it’s pretty dire – possibly the ugliest station left in Auckland at the moment. ARTA have some plans for a quick-fix upgrade, but really in the longer term I think that Mt Albert’s strategic location means that something extra is needed. If we get the train station upgrade right then hopefully it will have significant wider benefits for the whole town centre too.
An idea that I had, along with a number of other people at the workshop, was that we really need something that will help link the railway station with New North Road better, will help stitch together the two-sides of Mt Albert (split by the railway line) and will help “open up” the rear of the shops along New North Road to the train station. Another matter to consider was the need for the Woodward Ave level crossing (to the southwest of the map above) to be grade separated for safety reasons at some point in the future. This is likely to mean that the railway track will be lowered. If the tracks are to be lowered, then there’s the potential to do something similar to what is happening at New Lynn at the moment, with the line being put into a trench. On top of the trench, at least as it passes through what would be Mt Albert station, you could could a big public square – which would act as the heart of Mt Albert and have shops opening out onto it. There would be plenty of links between the square and the surrounding street network (so that it doesn’t end up hidden like the Newmarket Station Square). Possibly something like this:
An upgrade like this would clearly link together the two sides of Mt Albert to a far greater extent. The new roading link would provide better access to the shopping area for those who live on the northwestern side of the tracks, and would probably make that area more suitable to the kind of intensification Auckland City Council envisages for the area (up to 3-4 level townhouses and apartments). Opening up the back of the shops that are squeezed between the railway line and New North Road would also improve their economic viability and performance, while the public square itself would provide a great focal point for the community – and would be reasonably safe and secure because of the proximity of the new road link, Carrington Road and the various other access points.
Of course this is all just a bit of a dream, but what it shows me is that it’s stupid trying to plan transport upgrades (like the Mt Albert station) without co-ordinating them with other land-use improvements or townscape upgrades. As I have said many times before, we need closer co-operation and integration between land-use and transport planning. It seems pretty crazy that instead we will be splitting them into two completely separate agencies.
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As for the ugliest station stakes – Mt Albert has a way to crumble yet. Take a spin on the Southern Line sometime – where Otahuhu would compare (dis)favourably – and ‘blighted’ would compliment Takanini, Te Mahia, Westfield and Penrose. How embarassing – if it weren’t such a joke.
Mt Albert train station well used? – I’m going to guess (based on riding the Western Line on a regular basis) that a half of the users are children going to/from Mt Albert Grammar School. Factor them out and the station is seriously under-used.
And I have often wondered why Mt Albert “high street” is so scruffy and at odds with the surrounding community – I assume most local residents don’t use it much. Which suggests that the generally successful businesses are patronised by people driving there from elsewhere. I would suggest that poor urban design is deterring suitable commercial use of the area.
The School of Planning at the University of Auckland has for a few years used this area as a site for investigations regarding knitting transport and land use planning together. Some of the students work is vey good.
Good post Joshua. Pretty well all of Auckland’s town centers are in desperate need of design upgrades and the future for them looks bleak, with Auckland Council supporting stand alone big box developments as well as car based new centers like Albany, Sylvia Park (which ironically is trying to become a town cente itself). Have a look at the sorry state of places like Avondale, Panmure, Papatoetoe, Henderson- which should be thriving employment and service centres.
Which begs the question- who is going to defend our town centers and promote positive design in the new setup? You’d think Local Boards would be the ideal organisations though I really can’t see them being able to stand to Auckland Transport- given that their raison d’etre will be efficiency (which I sure will involve more asphalt).
Expect to see more mega- multilaned intersections and pedestrian unfriendly construction- do you think the Local Boards wil be able to stop the bulldozers- fat chance!
“that a half of the users are children going to/from Mt Albert Grammar School. Factor them out and the station is seriously under-used.”
Umm, why are school children suddenly some type of second-class PT users? And do you want their parents drive them to school instead? In Auckland, that’s a serious option for most. So don’t knock it.
Don’t most MAGS students use Baldwin Ave anyway?
Firstly I completely agree that something needs to be done to Mt Albert, I think the only station that is worse would be Baldwin Ave. As you suggest patronage is pretty low considering how much is around the area, I notice that a large amount of the passengers are school kids (no they don’t use Baldwin Ave) Also a number of Auckalnd grammer kids get on here.
For Woodward Rd I also agree that grade separation is sorely needed, out of all level crossings that still exist I think it should probably be one of the highest priorities to remove. I don’t actually think the tracks would need to be lowered much here, if at all. From the intersection with New North Rd the road actually drops down a bit to the tracks so building the road up to be level with the intersection would almost be high enough to clear the tracks. This would also be much cheaper than putting it in a full trench under the road. Further to this it is quite far from the intersection to the station.
The track from Woodward Ave to the Station is on a bit of an embankment so could probably be lowered a bit in conjunction with station changes providing it doesn’t slow the trains down at all
For the station itself it is already located much lower than the shops and New North Rd although is almost level with the houses on the other side. The station and the back of the shops definitely need some improvement but I don’t know if a trench could be justified. It was only done for New Lynn due to the chaos caused by level crossings, something that doesn’t exist in Mt Albert. Add to this the time it would take to build and the additional disruption it would cause Western line operation of having to go back to a single track while it is built mean it is unlikely to be popular for commuters.
There seems to be enough space to squeeze one more track in on the Northern side. Perhaps the tracks and station could be moved over a bit and use the space freed up to create an bus interchange.
I went to school at Avondale College but lived just down from the Mount Albert shops, this was back in the late 90s when you were lucky if your empty, 30 minute frequency, peak hour train showed up…
It funny as soon as I saw what the article was about I thought the problem with Mt Albert is the dominance of roads, the sunken nature of the rail corridor and most importantly the lack of public space..!
Mt Albert could make a great hub in the future as a connection between the Western line and the future SAL (and isthmus circle line) and for the New North Road buses and the crosstown buses
hi
I think there are a few things that contribute to low amenity value in Mt Albert but the most important is probably that it sits around a very busy road. Air quality always seem appalling to me when I am there which may also be because it’s quite a busy bus route. As a pedestrian it takes AGES to cross from one side of Mt Albert shops to the other. A square would be fantastic but even some pedestrian priority would be a start.
I think to increase the number of people from Unitec using the train you would need to a) provide some kind of very regular shuttle to the campus as the campus is HUGE and parts of it are a good 30 minute walk from train station and b) get rid of some of the free parking on Unitec campus.
There was an old precinct plan for Mt Albert that took into account the fact that station was effectively already in a trench relative to the shops.
IIRC it involved building over the rail line either side of Carrington Rd, while an new station plaza/square would be constructed behind the old library cafe building to access a revamped station, plus opening up the rear of all the shops.
Lucy, Unitec are very keen to improve PT because Auckland City Council have said that Carrington Rd is at capacity and no further development can happen if it adds traffic. I think free parking is slowly being reduced.
don’t Unitec provide a shuttle for students from the train station?
Yeah they do. Not sure how effective it is.
@Nick R – yest what happened to the proposed Mt Albert Upgrade, it involved linkig into the carpark next to the video store – looked good, but haven’t seen anything on this for a while and the details on ACC’s site seem to have disappeared.
I hear the new Mt Albert station plans are ready to go. Does anyone have a sneak peak? Would be interested to see how they might try incorporate the town centre better. I have a feeling they aren’t spending enough money to do it properly.
I have heard a little bit about what is being proposed but haven’t seen anything yet. I am trying to get some info from AT but as yet they haven’t provided any.