So we are now on the final stretch of our holiday, with just a few days to go before returning to NZ. Today we caught an Amtrak train from Washington DC to New York, which is a pretty pleasant 3 hour journey.
Washington DC is a pretty impressive place, with its grand museums, grand National Mall and grand pretty much everything else you could think of. Of course on a transport blog, how could I talk about DC and not mention its Metro. Of a similar vintage to the Montreal Metro, the DC Metro is basically everything that is right about late 20th century public transport projects (I will talk about it’s history and quality a bit more when I am not blogging via an iPad). One thing that really stands out about the DC metro is the architecture,with all the stations underground having a very similar design. It made for some fantastic photos that I will share when back in NZ.
With just a few days left in the holiday I am starting to think about the million posts I have to write when I get back. So I have a few questions/requests for you readers.
1) What bits of my holiday, particularly in terms of transport and urban issues observations, are you interested in hearing more about. Cities I can comment on include New York, Boston, Montreal, Quebec City and Washington DC.
2) What NZ stories have I really missed and should blog about ASAP?
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“What NZ stories have I really missed and should blog about ASAP?”
Fullers Ferries upping fares by more than double the Government mandated GST rise.
How about a reasonably simple guide about who is promising what as far as transport goes in the local election. Even if just for mayor. There is certainly quite a bit of confusion about who is promising what (and what they can actually deliver in any case).
I’m guessing this guy is not one of your preferred candidates: http://elections2010.co.nz/2010/candidates/david-willmott
doubt it’d be this guy either
http://www.votecolincraig.co.nz/public_transport.php
he’s a complete twonk
That shuttle maybe more suitable in a Jetsons setting where skyscrapers are built high into the sky. It also might suit the concept pyramid mega structure in Japan.
Disregarding this idea I still think this man is quite naive on how local government works.
Re Willmott, Judging from his photograph alone he is literally still living in the 1950s… perhaps he should go and make sweet sweet autoerotica with that muppet McShane somewhere outisde the MUL
And Josh enjoy your trip, nothing wildly different is happening down here: Banks is still lying, the media are still ignoring the PT changes that are happening, and decisions are still being made like AK doesn’t have a future that could be different from the past 50 years.
But quietly the momentum is moving in the right direction, I divine, and the ‘Super City’ is, I’m quietly confident, going to speed this up. Rodney + Steve may well rue the day….
Westfield’s have got the go ahead to double the size of the St. Luke’s mall – with zero requirement for any public transport.
There is this depressing quote from the Herald article about this: “Traffic was an issue because St Lukes would remain “a vehicle-oriented centre for two principal reasons: it is clearly not as well served by public transport as other large centres such as Newmarket and Sylvia Park, and the nature of shopping is such that public transport is not an ideal means of carrying more than a handful of small purchases home”.”
That bit about PT only being good for a small number of purchases really annoys me — I wonder how many people leave St Lukes with more stuff than they could comfortably carry on a bus or train. By this line of thinking, all retail centres should be car based.
Has anyone thought about improving PT access to St Lukes or is it just a case of it being a dumb place to build a good shopping centre? I do note that it is only 800m away from the Morningside train station.
I do think Council has a big role to play here in making sure there are bus lanes along past the mall meaning that bus passengers get quick journeys there and that the pedestrian relam is quickly improved around the mall – simply bulding bike lanes and providing better pedestrian crossing opportunities would go a long way to making people think twice about either driving elsewhere or walking/catching the bus etc.
The worse that could happen is if this mall development leads to the roading network being expanded in the area, esp. as this is actually a surburb.
Have you been on a bus that goes past st lukes? especially on from dominion road balmoral? it goes in massive loops. Even just having a bus terminal sitting there, with a redesigned system of lights would make the place so much more desireable for public transport
I miss living in Sydney.
http://alturl.com/9cuf4
Bondi Junction on the left, Bondi Junction bus terminal on the right, with train station underneath it.
An automated people mover would be ideal for that mall.
From the mall to the train station is almost the same distance as the one Doppelmayr built for Mandalay bay in Vegas.
There two independent systems and 5 stations cost $US16m. A single system would be around half of that i think.
Question is would a 1900pphpd connection with the rail network bring more revenue to the mall than $10m worth of car parks?
[edit] The system has 220 second headway and 85 second trip time. Much better than a traditional tram.
An interesting discussion going on at CBT is how Auckland will sustain any further growth in rail when no further new rail carriages will come on stream until the electrics in 2-3 years, also Joel Clayford’s discusson about how to deal with all the bus traffic in the CBD from the Northern busway over the upcoming years is an interesting problem as well.
800 metres is a lot of metres too many. The ideal thing would be to redirect the western line through the mall, but the cost of that is too great especially for a mall owner who thinks only cars buy things not people [and sees movies!?]. Still would be an interesting idea to make it a condition of expansion….!? Mad really, depending on how savagely peak oil bites this backward looking investment will become very hard to get a return on in years to come. Still, just up the line, New Lynn will be thankful as transit accessibility becomes more important in choosing where to shop.
Retailers are dumb; at Silvia Part, Manukau, even the new New Lynn, not enough effort has been made to integrate stations into their businesses and therefor help capture those dollars. Keeping dry, out of the wind and sun is not a small consideration in Auckland, and small design changes that make for easier, more convenient, and more comfortable use of a station can make huge differences in uptake.
Personally, I would demand as a condition of expansion an underground bus station and tram stop. The tram would service the 800m between St Lukes and Morningside – it could run every ten minutes at peak times, even on a single track.
I have looked again and again at St Lukes and ultimately I think you can’t get passed the fact that it’s simply in the wrong place for PT. The only solution would be to do a land swap between Warren Freer Park (I think that’s what it’s called) and the carpark land at the corner of Exeter St and Morningside Drive. Expand the mall onto Warren Freer, build a new park of the same size at Morningside Drive – then the mall would just about be touching Sandringham Road and that could become the primary bus route servicing the mall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeQC8TJ7gs0
Joyce takes credit for Onehunga lines reopening, sounds like he’s warming to the idea of trains in Auckland, then you see his dirty cheeky smile and you know it’s all for the camera
I’m sick of hearing all this cackling in parliament, IT’S NOOOO JOKE!, less porch smoking more rebuttals. God I think the flaunting of Winston Peters might keep the government honest.
“Re Willmott, Judging from his photograph alone he is literally still living in the 1950s…”
I know him personally, and he is as bad as you think he might be. True believer, true “cars are the first and only real means of transport” guy. Within the transport profession, he’s got a rather unflattering nickname too, which I won’t mention… he’s known for speaking up at just about any gathering and attacking PT.
“Personally, I would demand as a condition of expansion an underground bus station and tram stop. The tram would service the 800m between St Lukes and Morningside – it could run every ten minutes at peak times, even on a single track.”
Seriously, guys dream on and wish for some sky cabs while you are at it with being out of proportion – and why should mall operators have to build (and especially) run PT? They don’t make the university run any buses as far as I am aware. That’s what Council gets rates and development contributions in the many millions for.
Well then we should charge them additional development contributions so that we can build and run some transport in the area to service the mall. The problem I have is that Westfield is a bit like Willmott, they come across as very pro cars and anti PT. As an example they could easily have paid the Waitakere city council a little bit and have had the rail overbidge that is at the station extended over Railside Ave and straight into the mall which would make it very easy for customers using both the trains and buses however instead people have to cross the road (which has signs saying “Pedestrians give way to cars” and in past a carpark entrance. All in all it is a pretty hostile way to get into the mall that they could have made much easier. With the council development across the tracks they probably would have had a lot more use from those working there as well.
“Seriously, guys dream on and wish for some sky cabs while you are at it with being out of proportion – and why should mall operators have to build (and especially) run PT? They don’t make the university run any buses as far as I am aware. That’s what Council gets rates and development contributions in the many millions for.”
The University runs buses between the City campus and the Tamaki campus in fact, in part because PT between these areas is unacceptably poor. This is the only way they can manage to have classes at both sites. Furthermore, Unitec has a shuttle service around its campus and this connects up with the train station at Mt Albert. Unitec is extremely supportive of PT, in part, because the only way they can expand is through increased PT use, the roading network around them is currently at capacity.
So why do unis have to do this and malls don’t?
“They don’t make the university run any buses as far as I am aware.”
Or hospitals or the airport.
I’d guess that the mall would generate many more trips than the airport. Maybe a new rail line directly to the mall should be a higher priority than one to the airport?
Universties DO run PT, Auckland uni runs buses to Tamaki from the city campus and Unitec runs shuttles around their campus and out to the train station.
One thing you haven’t missed is any news on the CBD tunnel. At the rate it is going you will be back before we hear anything.
“The problem I have is that Westfield is a bit like Willmott, they come across as very pro cars and anti PT.”
From having worked with them, I would say that they are pro-car, and a bit dismissive about PT, not anti. And to be honest, they have reasons for it – even Silvia Park (which is brought up every time someone wants to bash Westfield) has a PT share that would be laughable if it wasn’t a retail destination – around 5% if I remember the material Kiwi Income Properties made public with the last Plan Change application earlier this year. Why does it surprise you that Westfield first and foremost wants to cater for the 70-80% who drive?
It would be nice if Westfield decided to be part of changing NZs transport mix to more PT. But they are a business first, which is why I don’t expect them to lead such things – the onus remains on the politicians (and users!) to lead.
As I said elsewhere, Westfield is getting much better at dealing with the 2nd biggest mode share of their customers (walking), but changing existing centres from the ground up takes years or decades.
Westfield will clearly do what they want to make as much cash as possible. You only need take one look at the place to see they don’t care about their local environment. But they do have to work within the rules and the problem here is that the local govt seem to be happy for them to turn a big shithole into a giant shithole.
That’s a disappointing number for Sylvia Park, The Eastern Line is tricky to get much life on, it largely connects industrial areas with each other and was really put in to get nice easy grades for freight to and from the port. The few residential zones it penetrates are served by inaccessible stations and without a more extensive network it’s hard to see the utility of many of the potential routes. Of course what would bring it to life be Josh’s SouthEastern line. But also I think some small tweeks like moving the Meadowbank Station so it could properly serve communities on both sides of the tracks and link them together would be good, but still won’t change much. It should go up the hill towards Selwyn College and get some well lit and agreeable connects going through the leafy open spaces there…. But still it’ll remain not much of a commuter line until it can go more places and have those places build proper integrated stations….
I don’t blame Westfield for going for the dominant mode their customers use, it’s just that I’d be a bit weary of investing heaps into a business that has less resilience to oil shocks. St Lukes is just such a killer transit wise, buses which are the only choice are still going to sit clogged in traffic so will remain underutilised…. the usual bad feedback loop.
This recent piece from Owen McShane, about telecommuting, had me thinking. Owen is notoriously no friend of public transport, but does have some quite thought-provoking things to say:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10674852
That said, I work fifty miles away from when I live (in the UK). Two days/week I work from one of our offices which is much closer to home, so I have some experience of telecommuting, or more precisely remote-office working. All I can say is that you do miss the personal contact of an office, even if you are as wired-up as my employer is.
McShane claims that telecommuting could make a huge difference to carbon emissions but a recent review from Newcastle university (full report here) suggests that, so far, the overall carbon reduction is probably small:
Working from home is often quoted as one way to reduce the environmental impact. Telecommuting has been found to
reduce the overall vehicle use by 50-70% Matthews and Williams, 2005). It allows the reduction of company office space
and cuts done on the daily commute, which also has got a positive impact on congestion. It does however require energy to
heat or cool the home office. It may also lead to people moving further from the workplace, which could stretch urban cities
further apart (this is often referred to as sprawl). Aebischer and Huser (2000) reported that there would be a 30% increase
in household energy use if one person in a household was working from home. It was also found that the number of non-
commuting trips increases slightly with telecommuting (Mokhtarian, 1998).
Mokhtarian (1997) estimated that 1-2% of vehicle travel could be reduced by telecommuting, and that long-term benefits
might be even smaller because of urban sprawl. In 2000 Mokhtarian reported that when taking all rebound effects into
account, a net reduction in vehicle miles travelled might be as low as 0.6% or even less. Matthews and Williams (2005)
found that for current estimated telecommuting populations and practices in the United States and Japan result in only
0.01–0.4% national energy savings in the United States and 0.03–0.36% national energy savings in Japan. Even if 50% of
information workers adopted telecommuting, 4 days per week, the potential energy savings are estimated to be only about
1%. Roth et al. (2008) estimated that 4 million telecommuters in the U.S. who work from home one or more days per week
reduce the primary energy consumption by about 0.13 – 0.18% and the net CO
2 emissions by 0.16% – 0.23%. Reduced
travel accounted for most of the reduction in the calculation and reduced floor space also made a large contribution. In
addition to that, about 0.8% of light-duty vehicle fuel consumption could be saved. However, the group warns that early
adoptors tend to have longer than average commutes, which might reduce the effect of telecommuting if it was used more.
On the other hand, companies might be able to further reduce their floor space, which would make telecommuting more
beneficial.
I read somewhere that simply updating your status on Facebook causes a massive CO2 emission from the gigantic server farm that Facebook needs to run.
Interesting article. I telecommute most of the time. I generally only walk down to the office when I have meetings with customers (the office is closer to them than home is) or when I’m worried about turning in to a hoodie-and-shorts-wearing troll. I do miss contact with colleagues, but then we all have Skype running so I can see who is available and talk to them as if we’re in the same room using voice or video. I feel a lot more a part of my local community, being able to pop out to the shops or for a haircut during the day rather than having to join the crowds in the evening or at the weekend. The time and money savings are obvious, but I hadn’t really considered energy savings. I have wondered why I still live in the CBD when I could afford a cheaper and larger place near a beach somewhere. But then I realise I quite like having shops and entertainment around me and I’d probably go nuts living out in the sticks.
I’ve certainly noticed the energy costs of telecommuting — I basically always have the option of staying at home or going into the office but staying at home in the winter means having at least one heater on all day that would be switched off otherwise. Seeing I bike the few km to work and I share an office with others at work, there aren’t really any energy costs of going to the office. Add in a few people like me and then those ones who decide to move miles away cos they don’t have to come in often and I can see where any transport savings get lost in the overall sum.
“You only need take one look at the place to see they don’t care about their local environment.”
And you’d only need to do some basic research to find out that:
a) They did not build the mall. It was constructed by a totally different company during 1970s the height of the world-wide “inward-facing” shopping centre design style.
b) Modern, 2000s-designed Westfield centres like Westfield Albany are much more open and pedestrian friendly (if still very car-centric, no question). I daresay they’re no shitholes.
c) After having bought what you consider a shithole, Westfield is now looking to redevelop it – but I believe they understand the deficiencies of the existing centre, and accept that the redevelopment has to be a lot better. More Westfield Albany, more Newmarket, less big box with closed outside. But no, they won’t invest 100s of millions without also angling for expansion space. Well, that’s capitalism – they aren’t a charity.
So what is your point? Thank Westfield for their relentless drive to make money? Let them off the hook because they are just trying to make money? I think they should be reined in and that new malls shouldnt be built without strongly integrated public transport. I don’t expect them to do it themselves (that was my point about their ugly current surrounds, which they’ve owned for a fair while now, and spreads far beyond their boundaries due to all the traffic the centre attracts) and was expressing my disappointment that the regulatory body seems happy for them to have a giant new mall there without any such integration.
Westfield did redevelop St Lukes after they bought it (they bought in 2001, redeveloped in 2002). That redevelopment shifted the foodcourt and added the theatres. In short, they built a bigger white box.
Westfield are quoted here as saying the want the Mall to become outward looking http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10675209
What is YOUR point? You’re the one making comments without knowing the context of the regulatory or commercial environment, and with some vague notion that either they or Council should make it all better out of the goodness of their hearts. And that they should spend lots of money on retrofitting a mall with PT when PT is very hard to make work at a mall.
I am telling you it doesn’t work that way. Companies don’t invest megabucks without the promise of future profits and the certainty of a planning permission. Council has the ability to steer the process, but not to prevent it, because Westfield own the land. They have chosen to steer lightly only. If you dislike those facts, you’d better start changing the system (government AND economics-wise), because that’s how it works. I do dislike it myself at times, but even a bigger bland shopping centre with extra traffic is not the end of the world (especially if they fix some of the mistakes of the past), so I lose my sleep over other things.
I’ve got a rather good idea of both environments, thanks, and my comments here don’t betray otherwise. I think it is significant that the largest shopping centre in a densely built environment will have very poor public transport connections and I haven’t seen any effort on either the regulatory or commercial side to fix that. I simply inquired here as to whether anyone here had any ideas about how PT much work in such a situation. If you have any, I’d like to hear them as you seem to be quite well informed on the matter, if somewhat fatalistic.
@David Josh has done a post previously on how we could improve PT running to St Lukes:
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2010/06/19/more-route-simplification-new-north-road/
“If you have any, I’d like to hear them as you seem to be quite well informed on the matter, if somewhat fatalistic.”
I just think that while PT to St Lukes can certainly be improved, improving PT to offices, schools, universities etc… is much more cost-effective than trying to achieve modal shift in one of the areas where it seems hardest to get any results, and which isn’t even all that massive in total trip share of all daily trips (especially seeing that many shopping trips are secondary trips shared with commutes).
A matter of where to best spend our limited PT funds. In that regard yes, I am fatalistic. I see even during peak oil most retail trips will stay in cars – people will just shop less often, I’d guess, buying more per trip, and maybe stick to shopping centres close by rather than drive all over the region (another reason St Lukes isn’t placed all that badly).
“A matter of where to best spend our limited PT funds. In that regard yes, I am fatalistic. I see even during peak oil most retail trips will stay in cars – people will just shop less often, I’d guess, buying more per trip”
Alternatively everyone will just move overseas to cities were they can ditch the car and make do with PT, if I was to be fatalistic I’d say Auckland is potentially condemning itself to a pretty bleak future if it doesn’t work to provide some flexibility in its transport infrastructure.
I don’t own a car and haven’t driven one in several years and that certainly doesn’t affect my ability to go shopping.
“Seriously, guys dream on and wish for some sky cabs while you are at it with being out of proportion – and why should mall operators have to build (and especially) run PT? They don’t make the university run any buses as far as I am aware. That’s what Council gets rates and development contributions in the many millions for.”
The University runs buses between the City campus and the Tamaki campus in fact, in part because PT between these areas is unacceptably poor. This is the only way they can manage to have classes at both sites. Furthermore, Unitec has a shuttle service around its campus and this connects up with the train station at Mt Albert. Unitec is extremely supportive of PT, in part, because the only way they can expand is through increased PT use, the roading network around them is currently at capacity.
So why do unis have to do this and malls don’t?
@Ingolfson, I pretty much agree that we shouldn’t be making a big effort to get PT to St Lukes. But we shouldn’t be encouraging St Lukes to get bigger and bigger while being removed from decent PT. I wonder what proportion of their visitors actually buy more stuff than they could comfortably carry home if they walked/biked or took PT. Certainly all the ones just going to the foodcourt or the movies and, I’m guessing, a large proportion of those doing something other than supermarket shopping.
As you pointed out, the mall has been there for years so we can expect a new one to be there for at least as long. It makes sense for the future to plan such a large complex to be on a main PT corridor.
Looks like the council finally got some guts: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10675717
The opposite actually, they are going to decide on it the day before the council goes out of existence and after the voting for the elections have been completed so they can’t really be held accountable. If they were forced to make a decision now then it could come back and bite them in that they won’t get re-elected. With the council about to end there isn’t likely to be much scrutiny about this so will likely be a rubber stamp job.
Yes looks like they want to save themselves politically. Reminds me of the period in the US between voting taking place and George Bush having to leave office, during this time Bush and the Republicans pushed through thousands of laws which would have killed them politically but by passing them after voting takes place there’s no issue with that affecting them.
Has anyone else noticed NZBus is installing the brackets to mount its ‘snapper’ RFID card readers?
All of the B-line buses have them now. two at the front, one at the back door.
And queue press release about how efficient and safe it is.
I wonder if they’re really planning on installing it prior to the specificiations of the integrated ticketing being released? Maybe they’re simply installing the bracketing as buses are serviced so as to be ready for the rollout next year.