One of the issues this year that got talked about quite a bit was the old Auckland Councils plans for Dominion Rd. It started out well and the plan had two main designs, in the mid-block sections (between the town centres) the plan was to widen the road to 22.6m, have a permanent cycle lanes, bus lanes as seen in the image below.
In the town centres where the road can’t be widened the plan was to effectively merge the bus and cycle lanes into one slightly bigger bus lane and to remove the median. This would have to fit into a space of roughly 20m. Interestingly these proposals removed any on street parking from the road and also removed some right turns into side streets.
Then the politicians got involved and stupidly thought it might be better to allow cars back into the bus lane and decided on turning it into a T2 lane. The community were also upset at the loss of car parks and right turns fearing it would harm businesses and let traffic travel on the road faster and therefore damage the area, something admin posted about recently. Admin had also suggested we should put the buses in the centre of the road which even got some coverage. In the end the council put it in the too hard basket and left it to Auckland Transport to sort out.
Since then things have gone pretty quiet and we are waiting on AT to sift through all of the feedback and come up with some ideas to get a better solution (something like this would be nice but I would settle for just centre bus lanes). Skip ahead to the release the other day of the busway concept for Ti Rakau Dr using bus lanes in the centre of the road and it gave me some hope that we could eventually see something similar along Dominion Rd albeit on a scaled down version. Here is the Ti Rakau concept.
This made me think and pull out the measurements to see if we could get things to fit and here is what I came up with (sorry no fancy pictures):
Mid-block:
Effectively this just puts the buses in the centre and removes the median strip so uses less space which would save money although it might be good idea to use the extra proposed width for things like raised kerbs between the bus and general traffic lanes and perhaps the cycle lane as well and space would also be needed for any mid-block bus stations. I think it would be easier to cross the road with this layout and at stops the cycle lane doesn’t need to duck behind the shelter through any waiting passengers.
It would still prevent right turns but they could perhaps it could be accommodated another way, like by having signalised places where u turns across the bus lanes are allowed. Mid-block parking would still be removed and could be compensated for by improved parking on side streets nearby.
In the town centres it is a bit trickier but perhaps the solution is easier than we think:
By narrowing down the lanes it gives us space for bus stops but also it will have the effect of slowing traffic down preventing the road from becoming a highway like some other arterials are. I would also go further by putting down paving instead of asphalt in the town centres and using raised tables to further slow traffic down and make it easy for pedestrians to get to the bus stops, the bus stops themselves could have some nice looking bollards on the traffic edge to protect passengers and add to the traffic calming effect. Outside of the bus stops the space I have suggested for them could either be used for widening the foot path further and/or providing parking (on the footpath side). Cyclists would have to share the general traffic lane but if the speed of that traffic is reduced it should help to minimise accidents. Further I think the paving and slow speed would actually help to tie the town centres together and give them some identity to help them stand out.
So to me this option could tick most of the boxes that people want. It provides a much better PT service, it still allows some parking in the town centres, it slows down traffic in those town centres avoiding the road just becoming another highway and it could also give those centres a unique feel to them. In fact the only thing my idea doesn’t easily provide for is right turns to all streets but with a little work we could minimise the impact of that.
Edit: centre bus stops could look something like this, notice how it narrows the traffic lane and forces cars to slow down making it safer for pedestrians. 
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Excellent first post as a “full-time” contributor Matt. One interesting thing about the whole crossover between AMETI’s busway and a solution for Dominion Road is that we will see over the next six months to a year a whole pile of detailed designs for the AMETI busway. This will enable us to learn about the necessary infrastructure improvements to make centre bus lanes work, and could turn into a very useful information goldmine for when it comes to cracking the harder nut of Dominion Road.
Yes the Centre bus stop could look like that,
But I suspect that you might end up with something closer to this:
(From the Richmond B-line busway in Vancouver- now replaced by the Canada line )
http://www.flickr.com/photos/madskier/2055717998/in/set-72157625068499839/
Except the image you have shown is a 6 lane road so has two lanes on either side of the bus lanes, Dominion Rd is 4 lanes so if two are taken up by buses that only leaves one on each side. In the end it comes down to how it is designed and based on what we are starting to see with things like shared spaces I think there is a good chance we can make it good for pedestrians.
It was more in comparison to the Ti Rakau Dr image posted, yes of course it will be 4 lanes not 6 , but I think the hope of essentially bus lanes + local feeder traffic only is not going to happen, it will still be a major through route,more akin to North America than Europe.
Is 3.0m wide enough for light-rail? One thing that is important for this upgrade is to ensure it enables light-rail to occur in the longer term, but gets many of the short term benefits of light-rail for buses in the mean time.
I guess bus-stops would need to be located at intersections or have proper pedestrian crossing facilities.
This is not so essential with the Ti Rakau drive lanes as these are focussed largely on through, while on Dominion Road much of the patronage comes from the corridor itself.
It would be essential that traffic-light timing was integrated with the new bus lanes.
My understanding is that light rail “lanes” would take up less space than bus lanes as the trams will always be a fixed distance apart from each other where as with buses and cars you have to build in a bit of fat as the driver can’t keep the vehicle in the exact same spot in the lane, also when approaching other traffic without something like a median strip there is a tendency to slow down a little to be safe where as that isn’t an issue with rail.
I suppose central bus lanes would work, provided that cars turning right could pull into the bus lane – but that could really block the buses behind and would render the lanes pointless. So back to square one.
The elephant in the room is the kerb-side parking. I don’t think your new measurements allow for those, and they really mess everything up – reduces total space, creates a headache about cycle-lanes etc. And unfortunately I can’t see them going given the previous uproar.
Its a shame monorails are such blights on the landscape, as going up above the problem (think the Skytrain in Bangkok) might be the easiest solution……
My idea is a kind of compromise between removing all parking and retaining some, the argument from the local businesses is that it is important for people stopping to get something, this idea keeps some parking in the town centres but removes it from the mid block sections. As for the right turns, I imagine it would have to be at set locations rather than just using the bus lane as a median because as you say that could hold up buses and also be dangerous, it is probably the one part of my idea where there isn’t an ‘easy’ solution, one thing is the space for the median could be used on one side to create a bit of a turning bay.
Its a shame tunnels are so expensive……the busway could be put underground and future-proofed for heavy rail, with an interchange at Grafton….
Matt L – where’s the 20m for the town centres from? I thought they were narrower?
Also, I am a bit worried that your mid-block bus lanes are way too close together (and narrow, real narrow). I think some of the space you gave to the peds and cyclists has to go back…
Narrow lanes are GREAT though 🙂
Narrow lanes for buses too, admin? Also, they can suck for cyclists too, especially if parking is retained after all.
By the way, admin, Matt L – would you consider (in the town centres only) a tidal bus lane as a lesser evil, or just as an evil? Having only one bus lane in one direction might give that space that is needed. Admittedly I do not know how busy the flows in the off-peak direction are. Would it be likely to impede bus circulation seriously if for the town centre they have to use the single general lane?
I certainly thought about the tidal bus lane idea through the town centres when I was considering options. I wouldn’t think that congestion and bus flows in the counter-peak congestion would be high enough to require a full bus lane.
While maybe not appropriate in this situation where the bus frequencies are too high, in Zurich there are several roads which are 2 lanes in parts and 3 lanes elsewhere, with the 2 lane parts having one general traffic lane going in one direction and a bus lane that goes in both directions as bus enter when it is clear and exit it allowing the bus in the opposite direction to enter it – this is all controlled through traffic lights and works really well. The road could never be widened to allow for a bus lane in both directions, the cars provide for people to travel through so it’s not dead at nights and buses never get stuck in the car traffic.
For the mid block sections I used the same sizes for lanes as in the council image at the top of the page, the only thing I did was change the layout and removed the median strip. My understanding is that 3.2m is bigger than what we have now and one solution to the issue of having buses heading towards each other would be to have a centre raised median of about 200mm wide down the middle, that would also stop cars from using the bus lanes as a median strip. As admin said, it will be interesting to see the info that comes out of the AMETI works to get a good indication of what is needed.
There was also a diagram for the town centres that said the average width was 20m (from the edge of the buildings) and some rough measurements using some online maps shows that to be about right.
“one solution to the issue of having buses heading towards each other would be to have a centre raised median of about 200mm wide down the middle”
If you’re going to all the trouble of building bus “kerbs”, raised medians, and center-of-the-street stop platforms, then why not go the whole hog and build the route for trams right from the start? If you expect to upgrade to trams anytime in the next 20 years then you’d be saving yourself the expense of re-modeling the road layout for the upgrade. The cost of trams, rail, and electricity supply is probably quite predictable. Is there any part of the route too steep for trams? Is the road surface thick enough to support trams, or could it be made thick enough easily? Assuming you’re not going to run both trams and buses down the tram corridor, then is there an issue making this a tram-only route?
Yes please Obi, i agree and take ’em all the way down Queen St…. only problem being there is no money, because of motorway mania etc
Obi, based on Melbourne construction figures it would cost about an extra $12 million a kilometre to build tramway into an existing road. The thickness of the road doesn’t matter, as it would be dug up, sleepers and track laid in a shallow trench, and a topping slab of concrete poured over. See here for one under construction: http://tdu.to/a24271/New_rail_Docklands_25Jul2010.jpg
So from Mt Roskill to Britomart that would add about $90 million to the infrastructure cost of the project. Then there would be the need to buy about 12 trams to give a five minute service. At $6 million each thats $72 million for rolling stock. There would also need to be a stabling facility, although this could perhaps be shared with whatever they use on the waterfront.
Therefore building the route for trams would cost about an extra $160 million above uprgading the road with a high quality busway and simply using the existing bus fleet. There would however be significant operational savings as a result, as the labour and maintenance costs of tram operation would be around a quarter of shifting the same amount of people in buses. Furthermore there may be some level of saving on the capital expenditure, if the narrower width requirements of trams vs. buses allowed some widening or service relocations to be avoided, or if it allowed parking to be retained in some places. (It is sad that spending $160 million to save a few dozen car parks is more realistic in Auckland than spending the same to get a rapid transit tramway!).
The question is would this extra expenditure be worthwhile? In my opinion yes, I think we would see patronage on the route double or triple as a result. And if they build a busway there is the risk it would never be upgraded. However is it realistic to get this out of the new Auckland Council or as a grant from the central government? Probably not.
Thanks for that Nick. I always wondered why trams could have tracks embedded into concrete and trains couldn’t. Now I know it’s a bit of an illusion.
A tram down Dominion would be so cool. It would certainly transform the area into one of the most desirable in Auckland. You could potentially make back some of the money by changing the designation along the route to medium density mixed commercial and residential and adding a tram development levy.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply Nick. My main point is avoiding the disruption to traffic, public transport, and residents of re-arranging the street twice if you can do it just once instead.
You mentioned labour savings from running trams instead of buses, but didn’t note that we’d need less buses if they were delivering passengers to tram stops rather than running all the way in to the city. That would offset the expenditure on trams.
I think this is a no brainer. It makes a LOT more sense than running a loop around the tank farm.
Overall it would mean less buses, or rather buses being relocated elsewhere. However currently the cost of owning and operating buses is met by the private sector, with trams I assume the ownership would be with the council or perhaps a wing of kiwirail or a CCO… so the initial full cost would need to be met.
You mention the cost of trams at $6mill. Is that the total cost, or the difference in cost vs a bus?
Remember a busway requires busses, if you want to increase capacities or frequencies, you need to buy more busses. And even without increasing it, busses don’t last very long and even the existing busses will need replacing.
I quite like the idea of being able to have both buses or trams run down the route as it gives more flexibility and given the costs Nick has quoted, it would make the project trams would make the project about 3 times as expensive as currently planned. If however we just went with trams and buses were only feeders like we should be doing with the rail network then that would give us more space to play with which would be really usefuly in the town centres.
Looking at this: http://transportation.siemens.com/en/data/pdf/ts_internet/ts_tr/avenio_a19100-v520-b452-x-7600.pdf on pages 8 & 9 it shows the different lengths and width options and how many passengers it can hold. The widths are 2.3m, 2.4m & 2.65m so even allowing some extra space for between the units it is less that what is needed for a bus. Having that extra space could be enough to make parking more viable to include.
Central bus lanes yes. Replacing connecting cycle lanes for an occasional bus stop no. In Melbourne I note mid-placed tramstops for either direction, so this concept could apply on the concrete median strip to accommodate shared two-way bus stops. This would leave the width of the other bus stop which could be used for a separated two-way cycle lane; maybe not idea but certainly a great deal safer, and better design than asking cyclists to share with cars and buses. Healthier as well as cyclists would not be forced to follow behind and in traffic exhaust.
Yes split stops would help to provide a bit more space and is definitely something that should be considered. As for the cycle lanes, looking at some of the feedback presented to the council they were one of the most contentious issues, especially seeing as it meant the removal of parking. The shop owners will fight tooth and nail to prevent parking being removed, especially if it was for a cycle lane so I think there needs to be a bit of a compromise which is why I suggested really slowing down the traffic in the centres through a variety of traffic calming measures similar to what is being done in streets where shared spaces are being introduced.
The ideas look good, and having the bus-stops between the bus lanes and general traffic would keep the stray cars out. You would need to slow the cars and calm drivers though, as the shopping area would be horrible with cars racing at 50-60km/h right up against the footpath. Is Auckland ready for 30km/h for cars on this route? At peak times it probably never exceeds this, but I can imagine a vocal minority upset by the removal of their ‘right’ to 50+.
After what must have been one of the most contentious consultations of recent years, I would love to see the results of the public submissions released. It would be interesting to see the split of those against the council’s last plan; because of the removal of dedicated bus lanes, the removal of parking, the conversion of several towns and communities into a near-motorway environment, etc. The old council suddenly lost interest once it didn’t go their car-obsessed way, but has anyone heard of any plans to release them now?
Thanks, as noted slowing the cars right down shouldn’t make it to horrible on pedestrians nearby. I don’t know about all of the submissions but you can get an idea of some of them from minutes of the old council transport committee, you can see them in the attachments
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/members/committeemeetings2008/transport/m20100902.asp
Regarding the stops – here is one solution I experienced recently. Central shared tram & bus, flanked by two lanes that curved around and are often cobbled at stations to slow traffic. The road retained its carparking which meant cyclist had to share the road. This kinda worked there as people are used to sharing but would be a lot better with a dedicated cycle lane on the outside.
Here are some pics:
http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/34420472.jpg
http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/34420474.jpg
http://ww2.heidelberg.de/stadtblatt-alt/stbl3100/bergheim.jpg
Yes that solution is used frequently in Germany and Switzerland and works really well, makes the street pedestrian friendly, slows traffic and put PT front and centre.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was thinking of, traffic is slowed by the presence of the stop which makes the area nicer for pedestrians. I wonder how wide those roads are compared to Dominion Rd though?
where is the parking though?
http://www.insideretailing.com.au/Latest/tabid/53/ID/9720/Shopping-centre-launches-home-delivery-service.aspx
Congrats to Lynmall and Urgent Couriers- a great initiative.
+1. Faster vehicles whether they are cars or buses should be in the central lanes. This is based on natural instinct- much like how a river is slower at its edges. This would provide a better environment especially for the neighborhoods and street life, but also for cyclists.
As a cyclist I would prefer bike lanes. This is not a deal breaker though. I need to get to the CBD and I can also take Sandringham Rd. (assuming of course facilities are provided along K rd., Ponsonby, etc.
As a resident who lives on Dominion Road near Balmoral Road i want to make it clear that the median’s are critical for pedestrians crossing the road. There is so much traffic on Dominion Rd that a haven in the center is required. I foresee having buses running down the center lanes as a recipe for disaster. Pedestrians crossing the road will be totally intimidated and perhaps even killed. For similar reasons I think having faster vehicles traveling down the center is not a good idea.
With regards Dominion Road between view road and mt albert i think the major considerations regards a redesign should be to make it more pedestrian friendly, slow down vehicles and dissuade travelers heading into the city from using Dominion Road as an arterial route. Dominion Road should be recognised as retail and restaurant precinct and developed as such.
So you would rather faster vehicles right next to the footpath? I would rather cross a road that had two platforms I could use as refuges rather than a road that only has a median strip. I have seen people hit waiting in a median strip as drivers often don’t expect them to be there and often travel along them at speed. Of course this depends on station spacing but it would be easy to put a few small refuges in between that.
I agree that the town centres should be restaurant and retail hubs which is why I have suggested narrowing the lanes, using speed tables and different surface treatments to slow traffic down and make the place more enjoyable and attractive. Also the space I suggested for stations is also big enough to put some artwork or trees in which would enhance the urban landscape.
I think whatever happens a ‘refuge’ in the middle is necessary. I would even go so far as to impose a 40kmph speed restriction a la Ponsonby Road on certain lengths of Dominion Road. Narrowing the road at town centers would be a great move also.
Median’s are a substandard solution. There should be controlled intersections every 100m with pedestrian crosswalks. Time the lights at 35kph and post this time. See Granville Street in vancouver as a precedent.
Er, I sorta agree but every 100m would be tad excessive. That would equate to 48 pedestrian crosswalks between Mt Roskill and New North Rd!
Between the existing traffic lights and a signal controlled crossing at each midblock bus stop, there would be plenty of opportunities to cross on foot… especially if the road is remade with raised medians.
Haha it probably is overkill. I just want to challenge the concept of the road as an arterial that’s main function is to deliver more and more cars to the cbd. By having multiple crosswalks and streetlights, the result would be to stitch together the fragmented neighbourhoods on opposite sides of the street, and concentrate activities and housing at nodes along the corridor.