Newton in 1959:
Newton today:
While spaghetti junction certainly is something of an engineering marvel, I really wish we had built the western ring route back in the 1960s instead of destroying what would have become a fantastic inner city area and turning our CBD into an island surrounded by motorways.
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I’d written but not posted a little comment in your post on land value of carparks to the same effect.
It’s a shame the port “needs” this junction so much, and a shame we spent masses of money on “upgrading” it, otherwise once the Western Ring Route was completed, you could redesignate SH1 along there instead and close half the junction. It would make for an awesome city park and unlock some very valuable land.
It is a huge shame, also that is a pretty good grid that we destroyed, buses/trams connectivity had been hurt massively by the CMJ…
Well now that we have it we need to start looking at capping parts of it and thereby releasing land, you posted on this before, but a good start would be the upper Queen street area.
An area where a former urban motorway was capped to great success just a few years ago is here in Zurich –
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?client=safari&q=Zurich&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Zurich,+Switzerland&gl=nz&ei=q6keTKHJEIe6ccLpteYM&ved=0CCMQ8gEwAA&ll=47.432602,8.570538&spn=0.004326,0.013143&t=k&z=17
Before and After
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm228/rytc1980/cap.jpg
Boston have done the same thing. Cost a lot but the land value is more.
Boston’s “Big Dig” was quite different though. It effectively removed the existing freeway and built a new one underneath it. Here we wouldn’t really be touching the existing roadway, just building a cap over it. Much cheaper, and surely at some point cost-neutral if you could build lots over it.
Here’s the link to Boston. While it is impressive it is not that great at street level as it still feels like it divides the city in two. I guess this is because the landscaping is non-existent. It just feels like a great big hole in the cityscape.
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?hl=en&q=boston&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts,+United+States&gl=nz&ei=gbYeTNbgL4GlnQfT6PT9DQ&ved=0CA0Q8gEwAA&ll=42.363348,-71.055579&spn=0.007975,0.019248&t=k&z=16
I don’t see why we couldn’t cut and cover the whole CMJ from Newmarket to the Bridge and the Port to Pt Chev progressively over a decade and build 1000s of terraced houses over it – if the price stacked up… Who knows, maybe peak oil will force our hand…
Boston is a really bad example – it cost billions and what you’re left with is hardly a pedestrian refuge, you still have 6 lanes of traffic! + the entire motorway underneath. Most Bostonians (?) I know were completely underwhelmbed by the outcome of the big dig.
The example I gave is one in which the merely capped over the top of a motorway that was in a trench of sorts, and returned the land all to a park, has made a huge different to the area.
The Zurich thing is cool, RTC. But CMJ isn’t the same as a bit of level junction-free motorway. I would think that a structure covering the multi-level CMJ is going to look more like a bridge than the roof of a trench. Can we make what would be, essentially, a kilometer wide bridge economically?
You’re right. It would have been a really nice little suburb though probably well out of my price range.
@Obi – I’d have thought areas such as that directly either side of the K’Rd overbridge and the area between Symonds Street and Upper Queen street would be quite feasible and the resulting land would be worth a packet.
I agree that the other areas would start getting pretty tricky and I doubt NZTA would be willing to let it happen either.
That said, there are many areas on motorways such as the Northwestern that could easily have the cap treatment and thereby reconnect currently isolated parts of town.
Wow the Boston big dig is a fairly poor outcome at the surface for the zillions of dollars spent on it. I will check it out in person in September when I’m there.
I think a good place to start with a “cap” would be between Symonds St and Upper Queen Street bridges.
I was in Boston 4 years ago during the construction before it was clear what it would look like at street level and again a couple of weeks ago, it certainly didn’t live up to its promise IMO. They now have a Hobson street at street level and a spaghetti junction underneath.
Wow! Did someone posting on this site just suggest the idea of the western ring route was a good one?
The idea of the WRR was good i.e. preferable to the CMJ in the 1960’s, that’s not to say it’s still a good idea in 2010 😉
Heh Tim, Auckland’s early transportation plans involved motorways bypassing the city, and the CBD rail tunnel equivalent plus electrification to serve the CBD. I think that mix would have worked quite well.
Instead we built motorways into the CBD, just about destroying it and surrounding it with a sea of motorways.
I think the WRR was a good idea if the harbour bridge had solely feed Jervois Rd and the CMJ hadn’t been built… It is an okay idea now except it will lock in some pretty poor results around the Upper Harbour and weaken PT for another 10 years…
The other issue that this doesnt show is that what once would have been a pleasnat walk from Newton to Ponsonby Road or to K Rd/Queen St is now rather miserable. This makes the whole place desolate as now one really likes walking over wide motorways on narrow, and very exposed footpaths.
At least with the K Rd shelter the motorway is hidden and results in much more pleasant streetscape than the other motorway crossings.
With the grid, mixed use and parks Newton Gully looks like it was a model for walkability…
That’s because it was a model for walkability Jeremy, everyone walked (or walked to the tram) for transport in Newton in those days!
Decking over the gap between Queen and Symonds would be a good start plus perhaps a row of shops on the outside of each street too, the motorway is already in a trench there. Likewise with the K Rd overbridge, we might even see the right conditions for that if a CBD tunnel station is built nearby as the value of land in the K Rd area will skyrocket.
An example of a great lid IMO over a motorway (which is also in Zurich sorry) is here
http://maps.google.ch/maps?hl=de&q=Zurich&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Z%C3%BCrich&gl=ch&ei=1wQgTLieLM-vcLSl4e0D&ved=0CB4Q8gEwAA&ll=47.397775,8.546462&spn=0.002164,0.006571&t=k&z=18
Walking across there you don’t even know a motorway is nearby as the building to one side and the planting on the other obscures the view and blocks pretty much all the sound. If something like that was built on the K’Rd overbridge it would be a transformation to the area.
What happened to the remaining houses? Did it get rezoned to industrial? For example Karaka street