A lot of emphasis is put on improving Auckland’s rail system, and quite rightly so as it offers enormous potential to shift people long distances around Auckland completely independently of the road network. The more people who catch trains in Auckland the fewer people there are clogging up the city’s streets at peak time – meaning that without the rail system becoming increasingly popular, who knows how bad traffic would be from the west, south and inner-east to the CBD. The money saved by not having to build additional road capacity is likely to more than make up for the amount currently being spent on upgrading the rail system – which shows at least part of the value of Auckland having a rail system – not that the message seems to be getting through to Steven Joyce and his narrow-minded concept of “paying one’s way”.
But I digress. Even though so much emphasis in Auckland is on improving the rail system, should we hit 100 million public transport trips a year in the Auckland region by 2016 (as is ARTA’s goal), around 80 million of those trips are likely to be by bus. So we cannot ignore finding ways to significantly improve our bus network too – making buses more popular and finding way to use our increasingly scarce road-space most efficiently. Compared to upgrading the rail system, huge gains could be made relatively easily and for pretty low cost. Basically, in addition to simplifying route structure and improving frequencies, you need to do two things:
- Speed up boarding times.
- Build more bus lanes
The first of these is being accomplished through Auckland’s integrated ticketing system, where instead of having to wait at least 5-8 seconds each for the driver to push three buttons and issue you a ticket (and that’s if you have a pass to start with, cash takes even longer), riders with smart-cards will just wave them over a machine and jump on. Gone will be the days when it takes 5-10 minutes to load a bus – and bus travel should be much much faster.
The second task, expanding the bus lane network, is also unlikely to be particularly expensive, except in the case of situations like Mt Albert Road (which ARTA have designated as a QTN – meaning it should eventually have bus lanes along it) where the existing road is only 2 lanes wide. As the recent Grafton Bridge saga shows, it can be difficult taking roadspace away from cars and reallocating it to buses, but fitting 50 people on a bus is far more space efficient than having 50 cars with one person in each of them – so even though bus lanes have fewer vehicles going along them (hence they avoid congestion and have faster travel times) they can often carry as many people, or more people, than general traffic lanes.
While the bus lane network within Auckland City has grown a bit in the past few years, most notably through the Central Connector, it is still relatively limited in its extent – as shown in the map below:
I would think that over the next 5 years if we’re really serious about getting 80 million trips per year on our bus network we are going to have to seriously expand the number of, and length of, bus lanes throughout Auckland. The red lines in the map below constitute what I consider to be the necessary network of bus lanes to be in place by 2016 so that we have a hope in hell of carrying 80 million (up from around 40-50 million) bus passengers a year:
There are a few major additions, which I will explain and detail below:
- Queen Street. As I explained a few days ago, I think that it is now entirely possible to introduce bus lanes to Queen Street, because traffic flows seem to have reduced in recent times, whereas it would seem as though bus travel times are increasing dramatically because of the additional traffic lights. Having bus lanes could help reflect these changes, and hopefully make the bus trips up Queen Street a bit faster.
- Link Bus route. Auckland’s Link Bus is highly successful and popular, however I think one of the main things putting off even more people from using it is how incredibly slow the buses travel around Auckland’s central area. The buses come very frequently and therefore I think having a vision to have bus lanes along the whole length of this route in the longer term would be excellent. For first steps, Ponsonby Road, College Hill, Karangahape Road, Queen Street and parts of Victoria Street would be great places to start. The Link Bus is critical in bringing together Auckland’s inner suburbs.
- Manukau Road: To me it seems odd that Sandringham Road, Dominion Road and Mt Eden Road all have extensive bus lanes, but generally Manukau Road does not. Large numbers of buses travel along this arterial at peak hour, and the current trip can take an awfully long length of time. Perhaps the Onehunga Line will take some pressure of this route, but I still think that people living along the route provide sufficient demand for this to also be a priority for bus-laning.
- New North Road: For much the same reason as Manukau Road lanes, there are very frequent buses that travel along here. Furthermore, I know from experience that New North road buses suffer terribly from a lack of reliability – partly due to their long routes (some come all the way from Henderson) but probably mostly due to a lack of bus lanes.
- Mt Albert Road: While putting bus lanes along this road is probably one of the more challenging parts of this plan – because the road is generally only two lanes wide so therefore would obviously need widening – at the same time it is crucial that Auckland has a high-quality cross-town service to link up all the “CBD-to-suburb” routes that we have at the moment. ARTA have Mt Albert Road as a “Quality Transit Network” route in their plans, so it’ll be interesting to see how they make that happen.
- Ellerslie-Panmure-Pakuranga: Until such a time that we build the Howick/Botany Line, steps must be taken to improve the lot of people catching public transport from areas out in the far eastern part of Auckland – Howick/Pakuranga/Botany etc. Creating bus lanes along Ellserlie-Panmure Highway and then along Pakuranga Road wouldn’t fix the problem faced by that part of the city (realistically only the aforementioned railway line can do that) but it would certainly make things better.
- Great South Road: While this route is probably a bit less of a priority, given the proximity of the Southern Line, enough services use it to certainly justify creating bus lanes at least along certain portions.
Somewhat ironically, in implementing this plan there may be some advantages of having the highly undemocratic Auckland Transport CCO, in that the main problems are likely to be political acceptability rather than cost. A silver lining at last!
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“He pointed out that in Wellington and Auckland the commuter trains were not paying their full costs and he did not see why one sector of transport should be treated as a charity for ratepayers and taxpayers with a built-in assumption that they deserve to be subsidised.” and it was starting out as such as nice day as well.
In addition to your list I think a bus lane along Greenlane/Balmoral Road/St Lukes Road would be useful as well. For one thing it’s already two or more lanes wide. It also goes past Ellerslie Racecourse and Alexandra Park, Cornwall Park, the ASB Events Centre, the Greenlane surgical centre, St Lukes shopping mall and would end at the Western Springs park/Motat/Zoo complex.
James I have wondered whether that route would be more appropriate for a QTN than Mt Albert Road would. For a start it has at least four lanes along its whole length so bus lanes are more possible, secondly it already has a half-decent cross-town bus (the 007) whereas Mt Albert Road’s 008 seems a bit less successful.
However, ARTA have identified Mt Albert Road and not Balmoral/St Lukes/Greenlane as the QTN, so really my plan works in with theirs.
I wonder what reasoning ARTA used to determine what would be the best crosstown route as it seems to me that the Greenlane/Balmoral/St Lukes route seems to make far more sense. I wonder if it could be to do with the fact that most of the landmarks on the streets that I named have already invested a lot of money in carparks and therefore would object too much to losing a lane of traffic to buses.
It might be because that St Lukes/Balmoral/Greenlane arterial is incredibly busy and the idea of trying to take two lanes off it for bus lanes freaks ARTA out too much.
Not the best criteria for choosing QTNs though.
Yeah, that’s probably right and as you said not a good criteria for choosing a QTN.
How many of these bus lanes cover both sides of the road? A better map would have one colour for roads with bus lanes both sides and another for a bus lane on only one side of the road.
Also any under construction/planned?
other than that great network. All that is needed is a bus every 10 minutes peak time operating along these routes.
Nicholas, I think that generally there are bus lanes on both sides of the road in most circumstances. Sandringham Road is a bit of an anomaly there (Onewa Road on the North Shore would be another if that was on the map) but Sandringham is getting its bus lanes extended as part of the Eden Park upgrades.
The immediate observation is of course that the existing and proposed bus lanes are more or less the identical routes of the old tram network. So much for the oft spouted idea that we need flexibility and market-responsiveness in public transport, the city’s busiest routes haven’t changed in 100 years!
I think Manukau Rd will have to wait for the Waterview connection, it is currently posted as the main CBD to airport route for road traffic so getting buslanes on there is going to be second fiddle to airport access in the near future. Would it not be better to route this via Royal Oak to Onehunga though?
And Mr Joyce, all road, motorway and public transport networks are ‘public goods’, i.e. it’s not possible to restrict their use to a particular group (i.e. legally anyone meeting a few basic conditions can drive or take public transport), and the benefits and costs of their use extend far beyond the direct users. For that reason it is simply impossible to pay ones own way, as you cannot establish who uses what and who benefits from the transaction. Joyce needs to give up on his neo-con view of transport provision and realise that the whole lot is a ‘charity’, or rather that all transport works with a form of state subsidy/payment because it is the state as a whole that reaps the benefits. We do pay our own way of course, but a the regional/national level.
Either that or cabinet should hand every road, rail and waterway over to the private sector so we can trial the ‘pay your own way system’. It would be complete hell and might bankrupt the economy and cause the government to be rolled, but if we came out the other side we’d never hear calls for user pays in a natural monopoly again.
also all bus lanes should be 24/7 as this then prevents people who drive using them as a free parking area ie Khyber Pass Road beside Lion Brewery, is only a designated bus lane in the morning peak (i think, it could be in the afternoon peak as well) the rest of the time it is used for on street parking.
In addition to these lanes we need to look at more lanes beyond the Auckland City boundary. I think having bus lanes and priority signals around the major interchanges at Manukau, Henderson, Takapuna and New Lynn is a must, as well as around the bus- way stations.
Will be interesting to see how the New Lynn interchange turns out, if buses are stuck waiting several minutes to turn out then it will be wasteful.
Here’s what the Auckland City Council wrote to me when in December last year I asked about the prospect of bus/bike lanes on Manukau Road:
“The work done to date on introducing bus lanes and/or high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes along the Gillies Avenue– Manukau Route has identified some congestion benefits. However, a number of significant traffic flow, operational, and safety issues also arose which require further analysis. Therefore, the route is considered unsuitable for bus or HOV lanes until the Western Ring route completion allows for a decrease in traffic flows.
You may be reassured to know that the Auckland CBD to airport link will contribute to the package of improvements associated with the Rugby World Cup 2011. This project builds on the previous work completed by Auckland International Airport Limited to develop clear routes along arterial roads in Auckland City between the airport, State Highway 1, State Highway 20, and the CBD. Auckland City Council has reviewed this work and in turn developed a broader travel route study. This will incorporate short-term actions to implement prior to the Rugby World Cup 2011, and a medium to longer-term view on CBD to airport connections.
To summarise, our investigation has concluded that the volume of traffic carried by Manukau Road (around 37,000 vehicles per day) cannot be accommodated if one of the two lanes in each direction is dedicated to a bus lane. However, this traffic volume is expected to drop significantly when the State Highway 1, State Highway 20, and the CBD are connected by a faster motorway route. At this future stage, we may then be in a position to consider a bus lane on Manukau Road.”
I have no idea what the reference to the “Auckland CBD to airport link” in the second paragraph means in practice.
The reasoning for not having a bus lane now seems hard to justify – is this how all bus lane decisions are made? Ie, until the traffic reduces we won’t put one in? Surely providing more, faster, reliable buses along Manukau Rd (and other routes) would reduce traffic flows and thus balance the reduced lane space for cars?
I used to catch the Manukau Rd busses for 4 years. However the lack of a dedicated bus lane and far too closely spaced bus stops (within 200m of each other in some instances) has meant that it is much easier/quicker to drive to Mt Eden road and use those busses.
Luke, I certainly agree there. Manukau City and Waitakere City are particularly disappointing in the lack of bus lanes they have.
Susan, as Nick says I think we’ll have to wait for SH20 to be completed before Manukau Road bus lanes. The “Auckland CBD to airport link” is basically just parking restrictions and right-turn restrictions for the world cup. Once again assuming that everyone will drive to the airport in the cars they’ve brought with them on the plane.
I wonder if there will be more Airport Express buses in service for that event? Oh, nobody’s thought about that I bet. Too busy building roads for all these tourists and their supposed cars.
I agree with your general ideas. I wonder whether we should start with shorter lanes near to busy intersections. For example your suggestion of a bus lane in College Hill would be great, but the only real bottleneck (heading west) is near the top at the lights at Ponsonby Rd. A bus lane from say the Cav would bypass this. Small steps are better than no steps.
I think the major problem with Queen St is not the cars or new lights but the fact that the major intersections now have two pedestrian cycles per complete light cycle. I think this is great but certainly slows the trip down Queen St. Maybe buses should be focussed on Albert St and have this bus only or at least very constrained for cars. After all cars have the option of the Hobson/Nelson combo for North/South travel.
Arnie, yes I agree that the focus should be on intersections. Unfortunately it seems that bus lanes often run out at intersections – when they’re actually most essential.
I catch the Link to work, clockwise from Ponsonby Rd to Parnell Rd. It takes 35min in the morning, which is far too slow given the distance involved. Bus lanes would be a very useful for the Link, as it would be easier to maintain the service frequencies and thus reduce the annoying wait at Victoria Park.
There are also too many stops placed too closely together in the CBD, especially on the approach along Victoria St and along Queen Street. Rationalising the stops and introducing bus lanes along these streets would really help the speed of the service. Once the bus clears Britomart, it is quite speedy along to Parnell.
The traffic lights are annoyingly slow along Queen St. I can understand having two pedestrian cycles per traffic cycle at the larger crossroads (Victoria, Wellesley, etc), but there is no need at Shortland or Fort Streets.
Also I find the existing bus stops are abused by loading vehicles and buses idling. Often at the stops at the corner of Victoria & Queen St there are a number of idling Birkenhead Transport (worst bus livery) buses taking up valuable space. The bus often just has to stop in the traffic lane to let people off. Not sure how you can enforce this though.
Raffe – I think the pedestrian cycles at places like Shortland and Fort Streets are great and shouldn’t be changed. The city is slowly starting to get more pedestrian friendly and should be encouraged, especially that area of the CBD as it one of the flatter sections.
The tension between making Queen Street both more pedestrian friendly, yet at the same time recognising the large number of buses that run along it, is quite tricky to resolve.
On the one hand you could look to shift more bus routes to Albert Street, with its bus lanes, but on the other hand I think it’s good that Queen Street has buses going along it regularly – people are more likely to “turn up and go” for a bus on Queen Street rather than climbing up the hill to Albert Street.
If Queen Street had two lanes of traffic, for buses only, then you could eliminate all the turning phases at various intersections (ie. cars at Customs, Wellesley & Victoria Street would have to go straight ahead while buses would also generally have to do the same along Queen Street) meaning that you could achieve both speedier bus times and more green phases for pedestrians.
Susan, the argument is, in my opinion, relatively valid. We cannot go from A to B in one stop – a road which is already struggling cannot really deal with losing almost half of its peak time capacity. Bus lanes will not suddenly make most of those people go by bus. Neither will bus lanes (which by necessity disappear at most intersections) suddenly make buses run as freely as they do on the Northern Busway.
Further – lets face it, in our little bubble of pro-PT people here – this would be political suicide for any Council. The backlash would be enormous. Do we really want politicians voted out of office because they did big things for PT? What message would that send?
No, I am afraid, in most cases, we will be stuck with gradual improvements for a lot longer. And that would even be fine IF we had enough funding to constantly keep at it, step by step. But yeah – ask your transport minister where the GPS funding goes these days…
Max I think the key is actually tying in public transport improvements with other roading improvements in a real sense (not just a PT-wash sense). For example, if Auckland City are saying that Manukau Road bus lanes aren’t feasible until the Waterview Connection is completed there should actually be a commitment to install the bus lanes at exactly the same time the Waterview Connection does open. This way one can take immediate advantage in the reduction of traffic, rather than waiting for it to build up again and then finding it’s just as hard to get the project off the ground as it was in the first place.
It’s the same process for many sustainable transport improvements (somewhat sadly). We should be demanding at the very least high quality bus shoulders on all new motorways as well as cycleways along their full length. It’s the best chance they have of happening.
Josh – The problem is that most people forget about it being promised, after it is forgotten a new council comes in and as it isn’t set in stone they then shift it off the budget and the money is used elsewhere.
That’s true Matt. I guess hopefully it can be written into some sort of resource consent decision – although that is difficult without more integration between NZTA and local transport organisations/councils.
I honestly don’t believe the majority of traffic on Manukau road is actually traffic heading to the airport. Perhaps a few %, however, I would be surprised if traffic volumes dropped much when the WRR opens. For this reason I agree that if the council uses this as an excuse not to do them then they should committ to installing them once it opens. The same goes for roads like Gt North Rd, which for much of its length runs alongside the NW motorway, yet was never upgraded to encourage people to use the motorway – I would guess it now has traffic volumes higher than before the motorway opened. Admittedly it does have buslanes, but these are not 24/7 and the street lacks crossing opportunities.
As Joshua has blogged on before, Queen street traffic volumes are dropping due to the new traffic phasing. Added to the fact that it is a shopping street with no vehicle entrances there really is no reason to be driving down the street. Losing one lane each will not affect anyone’s commute as they will never be exiting a parking building on Queen street, and therefore can simply take a different route that doesn’t use Queen street. In fact, they can stick to their route as we haven’t mentioned removing all traffic lanes (although I do advocate removing car lanes, and leaving bus lanes, from several sections of Queen street).
Bus lanes were actually on the agenda and would have been in place now if Banks and the cit rats hadn’t won the election, ironically, they won it on the back of bad publicity over the Queen street upgarde which they themselves planned in their term before Hubbard. They also lost the last election because of their roads-roads focus, which is the only reason Banks has started trumpeting the PT horn, he know he has to pretend to love buses and trains if he has any chance of winning.
@max, making massive improvements to PT is the opposite of political suicide, Aucklanders have been electing pro-PT politicians for a 100 years, who for the last 60 years have had to battle the Transport Minister and City Transport Planners (read: Road Engineers)…
My personal opinion is we should finish all the Bus Lanes in the RPTP in 5 years, Soviet crash style, I’d also consolidate routes into 100 citywide (numbered 1 to 100) and run them at as high a frequency as possible, through route as many as possible, eliminate as many that duplicate rail services as possible and gross contract every route…
Jeremy, I am not so convinced of that. Yes, various mayors have been elected on promises of PT improvements. But when it comes to local residents, and car drivers affected by the works and lane reductions, you get a lot of local flak – just witness how overblown and negative (for Council) something ridiculous like Grafton bridge tickets were.
It is that time disconnect between the downsides of new PT infrastructure (construction troubles, reduction in car convenience, costs) and the benefits (which don’t necessarily accrue to the people who get the disbenefits) which is dangerous for politicians in such projects. I know you like the Curitiba approach (lets do as much as possible in one go, quickly), but it is a lot to stake one’s political career on (especially with a PT hostile central government), trying to get so much done in barely three years so that the benefits are significant enough so you get re-elected. I don’t support it, but I understand cautiousness in that regard.
I am also a bit dubious about that “Auckland politicians = traditionally PT friendly” claim. Divesting ourselves of the trams and building motorways and motorway-like transport all throughout the city wasn’t just evil Wellington doing its thing – Auckland enthusiastically went for that. The fact that a couple of high-profile mayors and others through the years tried to reverse that process doesn’t mean that Auckland politics automatically are pro-PT.
It will be interesting to see transport’s role in this year’s local government election campaign actually. It may be a case of each mayoral candidate trying to outdo each other on how much they support public transport – which would be pretty fantastic.
Jeremy, when are you going to run for council so we can vote for your policies?
I trust you have read Tim Selwyn’s horrific account of the Gonzo bus ride in Auckland (http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-i-never-talk-about-my-day.html).
It certainly disabuses you of the notion that car drivers are just itching to get on a bus.
@max, yes many of the politicians in 1955 went for the MTP over the Halcrow plan (I would point out that some pretty big lengths where gone to eliminate the say of the mainly public transport using public by releasing the 1955 MTP a few weeks after the 1954 election) but I certainly don’t doubt that the politicians thought they had the best interests of the public at heart and the majority of the public thought that the difference between a rail and bus based transport system and a car based one was negligble…
I covered a little bit of this history in my recent post about Auckland and LA’s shared histories…
I also don’t think bus laning is such a huge issue, I would reseal bus lanes with the red chip along their entire lengths to reduce the hassle to the public of getting a ticket when you didn’t know a lane was a bus lane but basically you are only asking fo the use of a single lane for 3 out of the 24 hours in the day…
@dan carter, I have no current plans to but I certainly want to get invloved in helping those with similar ideas to in 2013 after the Supercity chips fall where they may…
It seems like it will be a mayoral election about out doing each other over PT plans – I really hope they somehow manage to get Transport Auckland to listen to them. Joyce has been telling them not to go down this road, which suggests he knows that they will have no chance of making good on their election promises. If we end up with Banks I don’t think he’ll really care, as he sees PT as merely a buzzword to help him get elected.
I think the Auckland Council will raise hell if it turns out that our suspicions are right and they have very little control over how Auckland Transport (SJTA?) operates. Expect the mayor to fire the initial board immediately to show who’s in charge.
@Admin, Phil Goff went through the contracts for the new board members and says that nowhere does it allow them to be sacked without due cause – basically unless they don’t do their job they can’t be fired. Seeing as their contract doesn’t say they have to follow what the mayor nor council says I don’t see what grounds the Mayor would have for firing them.
Phil Goff has an incentive to say that politically… Basically Hide has said they can, so the Mayor should and it they sue successfully it would create huge pressure for immeadite reform…
The Council’s liability would only be a few hundred K, out of a $1.3B dollar budget it is worth it…
It’s not that I like disagreeing with you especially on something like this, however, a contract is a legal document and it doesn’t matter what Hide has said, if there’s no legal basis to fire them, the council can’t do it. They’d have no standing in court, and the fired individual would simply use SJTA funds to pursue a catch of unfair dismissal. I honestly can’t see it happening.
Has anyone with a law background actually seen a copy of these contracts and could comment on whether they really could be fired.
It’d be interesting to see what would happen. If it became a very public spat (which I imagine it would) then I would say that it would be difficult for that board member to stay.
Yes the shit could get stuck to a lot of people the mayor included, let’s face it Banks will not go down this road, he’s only interested in promoting PT projects that someone else pays for like integrated ticketing, and rail electrification, so he wouldn’t put his head on the line, or piss off Joyce/Hide.
I would ask however, how can the mayor sack these people when he won’t actually even know what they’re doing? Can the mayor see the transport planning documents.
Will be interesting, if worrying, times ahead.
“I would ask however, how can the mayor sack these people when he won’t actually even know what they’re doing? Can the mayor see the transport planning documents.”
Ha! Yes excellent question that. It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes are made to the wording of the 3rd Super City Bill when it comes back from select committee on May 4th.
@rtc, from my understanding what Hide has said is that the CEO (and board) serves at the pleasure of the shareholders, as is the case with all NZ companies, the shareholders can fire the CEO (and board) at anytime with a majority vote, given that the Auckland Council is the sole shareholder they can theoretically fire the entire AT board from day 1…
That is what Hide is saying, as I understand it…
Whether that is true or not (or would hold up in court which is a different matter) I don’t know but wouldn’t think so…
From the Herald:
Appointments
* CLAIMS
Local Government Minister Rodney Hide and Transport Minister Steven Joyce:
The Auckland Council will be able to appoint or dismiss CCO directors at any time.
* COUNTER-CLAIM
Phil Twyford:
The Auckland Council will not be able to sack directors without justification and due process.
* FACT
Rodney Hide and Steven Joyce will appoint the initial directors of the seven Super City CCOs for up to three years. Thereafter, the Auckland Council will appoint the directors. Auckland councillors are prohibited from being directors, except for two seats on the Auckland Transport CCO. Neither the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill – the third and final piece of Super City legislation – or the Local Government Act 2002, both of which contain provisions for CCOs, spell out the process for dismissing directors.
The Companies Act is the legislation that will govern dismissals from CCOs… Pretty murky stuff…
To the best of my knowledge directors can be dismissed at the shareholders will, If Auckland Council is the true Shareholder then there should be no problem in dismissing the CCO. Plus as Jeremy puts it, the fine for firing a road building director will be less than the organisations budget, therefore losing 100k is better than spending another 1.3b on roads.
Having another look at the existing bus lane map those small obvious gaps would be great to get done in the next year…