The battle to get the Onehunga railway line up and running has been a fairly long one, and not too long ago I was a bit worried about whether it was ever going to happen – but finally now we’re starting to see some dates shore up, we should see construction work happening on the Onehunga Station in the near future. An opening date appear to have been set: September 19th, and progress is also being made to ensure that there is integration between buses and trains from day one.
Here’s some detail on what we’ll be seeing in the next few months:
Bus services
ARTA is planning to re-route buses to pass Onehunga station before passenger train services commence on 19 September 2010. This will affect the majority of bus routes in the area to provide the most useful rail connections. Some other bus routes in the area either run in parallel to the rail corridor, or run very close to the Te Papapa and Penrose stations which the Onehunga trains will serve and will not be rerouted as this will add running time without the rail connection benefits at Onehunga.
Bus stops
These service changes will require a pair of bus stops to be constructed on Onehunga Mall, opposite the main pedestrian access to the station. Auckland City Council is currently working through the scheme design for the crossing facility and the final bus stop locations. They hope to have finalised the scheme by mid-June. ARTA will also install electronic signs displaying real-time passenger information at the two stops.
What is useful about this plan is that it seems the public transport “hub” of Onehunga will shift away from its current location at Upper Municipal Place, to being next to the train station – something like this:
I’m not sure whether the existing bus “interchange” in Upper Municipal Place will be retained, and actually I hope it’s not as the whole place is pretty damn awful at the moment – hidden away behind the main shops. In any case, it’s certainly promising to know that there’s some progress going on here – even if a September opening day is around nine months after the line was originally supposed to be open by.
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My reading of this is that this will not become a depot at the train station but rather a set of stops. I assume some buses start and end their journeys in Onehunga so it would probably add a lot to the bill to provide this at the station – however, perhaps this will happen in the future and would be idea. I hope bus routes are also adjusted such that they act as feeders rather than duplicating the trip to the CBD.
RTC, unless we have integrated ticketing with free transfers in place I think turning bus routes into feeders could actually do more harm than good – as people may switch to driving because of the inconvenience.
My understanding was that the buses from south of the harbour would stop at the station and carry on, while a few that run parallel to the rail line or terminate at Onehunga would not i.e. the ones that wouldn’t be much of a feeder anyway won’t be modified.
I’ll follow up on that Nick. I agree that it would be useful for all bus routes that currently utilise the horrible bus interchange in Upper Municipal Place to switch to being near this site. There’s plenty of room on the site for some sort of off-street interchange should ARTA wish to create something like that.
Really looking forward to this station when it finally comes along. The existing Upper Municipal terminus is certainly cruddy, but it has the advantage of being located right next to the library. The new location, along with the station, is right down the end of the Mall, further from the shops and Dressmart. Might be further from Dressmart than some lazy people are willing to walk, but I hope not!
Once the SH20 Manukau Harbour Crossing & Onehunga Train Station is completed in August/September 2010. Will ARTA provide a Airport service from Onehunga Train Station, such as the 380 bus service ? This would benefit locals & tourists, especially with the 2011 RWC.