The NZ Herald today has reported on the laying of the first tracks around Wynyard Quarter and while those who keep an eye on transport related sites like this one will have known about it there were some interesting aspects in the article that I think are worth mentioning but first, here is a photo of the current works, more can be found on the CBT forum or on AKT
As well as securing a lease of two heritage trams from a museum in Bendigo, Victoria, the Auckland Waterfront Development Agency also hopes to borrow an electric light-railcar for demonstration purposes during the Rugby World Cup.
But development agency chief executive John Dalzell said yesterday that the council-controlled organisation also wanted to use the circuit as a demonstration pilot for a possible light-rail extension across Viaduct Harbour to the Downtown ferry terminal, Queens Wharf, or even further along the waterfront.
“We want to gauge the public’s appetite for this form of transport.”
He said a $3.5 million pedestrian and cycling drawbridge reaching across the mouth of the harbour to Te Wero Island would have strong enough foundations to carry light-railcars.
Off-site prefabrication work had already begun and pile-driving was likely to start by the end of this month.
Its great to see that they are thinking ahead about this and have at least made the piles, if not the temporary bridge deck strong enough to support trams in the future allowing the loop to be extended to hopefully Britomart and then further on. Also it is pleasing to hear that they are also thinking about extending this further and having a modern tram (light-railcar) would be great to see in Auckland and really help to show the public what we could have in the future.
Perhaps we could have some trams like one of these:
Also Admin has done some posts in the past looking at possible routes that we could extend trams on initially which I agree with, the first two lines we should consider extending one along Tamaki Dr to St Heliers in one direction and through Ponsonby to Motat and the Zoo in the other, this would link in together much of Aucklands main tourist attractions. The other line is one down Dominion Rd which I is one of the busiest bus routes in the city and could also help to improve the amenity of the town centres along the way, something I have posted about in the past.
It would look something like this.
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The advantages of the Dominion Rd route go without saying.
But I really like that Unitec-St Heliers line. Along with all the potential daily commuters, just imagine how many tourists would use it, given all the places of interest it would link.
I just had an idea rather than running the trams along Ian McKinnon Drive why not run them to the end of Upper Queen Street, through Basque Road Reserve, possibly through a cut and cover or along a viduct and then out through Rendall Place and along New North Road to Dominion Road. This route has several advantages as it cuts right through Newton, it could thus connect nicely with the proposed Newton station, it would also provide another boost to intensification of the area. Ian Mckinnon Drive has such poor connections to the surrounding suburbs I see no benefit in running a route along it.
Or another route would be along Exmouth Street.
Along Tamaki drive is a great idea, but is there sufficient space east of the ngapipi turnoff?
That’s a good question. It may be necessary to remove some parking (cue howls of protest!!!)
I was thinking about this the other day, and if parking at Mission Bay was time limited to four hours with tow-away it would do wonders for the traffic jams in summer. Most of the congestion is from people crawling along looking for a parking space, after all.
Couple that with the removal of most of the street-side parking spaces and the installation of a quality tram service and you’d have the makings of a very nice destination that actively discouraged driving. It’s not like one has to drive to Mission Bay, except that the options for public transport are limited to buses that get stuck in the same traffic jams as everyone else and if it’s your whole family going it’s considerably more expensive to bus than to drive.
If you want to go to Mission Bay from Botany, then you “have” to drive. In the meantime lets get all the pieces built and then in a few years we can say that we “just need to complete the tracks”. 😉
No, you don’t “have” to drive at all. Change buses at Panmure. It’ll cost you over $10, but it’s possible to do it by public transport.
That eye-watering fare is a perfect demonstration of how thoroughly broken our public transport system is. It’s marginally cheaper at $10.10 to do a bus-bus (as opposed to the bus-train-bus option offered by Maxx, at $12) than it is to do the 14.8km drive from Botany Town Centre to Mission Bay at the IRD’s $0.70/km mileage rate. That’s just wrong!
Matt, hence why I said “have” 🙂
I also need to look at the Frequency of the service, i.e. if I want to be in Mission bay at 10:00 on a Saturday morning what time do I need to leave home.
Secondly it will take me almost the same time to walk to a bus stop, that it will take me to drive to Panmure.
At least we are in a better space than what we were 5-10 years ago.
I think the biggest problem is the Botany/Howick buses having inconsistent service frequencies. When I lived in Pakuranga last year I had to check MAXX every time I used the bus since their schedules was all over the place. If they had a consistent 15min frequency schedule (which is possible given the resources they have) then it would be possible for these buses to meet the 74- and 75- services at Panmure with reasonable transfer times — since the 74- and 75- buses leave Panmure at around the same minutes past the hour all day.
James, it would also make it easier to deal with train transfers, since you know that it’s going to be half an hour, or less, until the next train comes along (unless it’s a Sunday). Once train service frequencies on the Eastern Line increase, that’ll drop further.
Now all we need is to deal to the transfer penalty.
I was thinking about this as well, perhaps in the thiner areas around the cliffs you could have just a single track down the middle and then have it open back up to double track in the bays. My thoughts were single track from Ngapipi Rd to Okahu St, Kelly Tarltons to Mission bay, Selwyn Ave to Kohimarama Rd and Sage St to Long Dr.
Because the longest section of single track is only about 1km it would only take 1-2 minutes to travel over so could still allow high frequencies and combined with the idea of building a boardwalk for pedestrians and possibly cyclists we should be able to fit it all in. Retaining parking is definitely something that would be hard but perhaps that could be sorted another way.
The biggest concern I have about the St Heliers Bay route, is what to do with passengers travelling east of Mission Bay.
Solutions I have come with with are (1) continue running buses in parallel with the trams at current frequencies and on current routes (2) same as solution #1 but with reduced frequencies (3) have feeder buses starting at Mission Bay and/or St Heliers Bay.
(1) is no good due to duplicates resources which will affect tram patronage. (2) is no good since it reduces service frequencies on routes which already only have 30-60min frequencies off-peak east of Mission Bay. (3) is no good since it requires a transfer when perviously none was required which will affect PT patronage.
While I love the idea of trams, I’m concerned that the current proposal will have an negative impact on PT services east of the current tram terminus.
For a bays tram I great solution would be further reclamation, this could include a foot path. Bikes could then use the already existing footpath. Some area’s the tram would have to share the road (where the beaches are) and there could be issues with trams crossing the bike path (and waves crashing into trams???) just a thought. As for the tram going to Unitech, great idea I would like to see it going a little further connecting to Mt Albert station.
Waves very rarely break over the top of the sea wall, maybe a couple of times a year during storms that coincide with very high tides. It’s not a huge risk, certainly far less of one than the sea exposure of the Hutt Line at Petone which gets inundated to the point of closure at least once a year.
Trams love the sea. The greatest tram ride in the world is the 68km Belgian coast tram. It goes through dunes, hugs the sea shore and is enormously popular. I have spent many happy childhood holidays riding it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Tram_%28Belgium%29
i was just around at the end of the trams so my memory is limited but i do remember getting of the Onehunga tram at Cormwall Park at the Royal Oak entrance. Just before Christmas, i was looking trough a book that my cousin had recently found about the history of Auckland trams. It was very interesting to see just how extensive the network actually was. Trams to Pt Chev as well as through Mt Albert through to Avondale. Trams down Manukau Rd also ending in Onehunga. From memory also up to Ponsomby and i can’t remember but also along K Road. Would it not be great to see an extensive Auckland network in-compassing the modern trams as pictured above as well as the vintage trams that are coming for the loop. I think it would be great to see as the next stage, a loop around to Customs St to Vector stadium and then back along Quay St and then crossing the Viaduct basin to link up with the first stage.
when i was a kid in the 70s, we could tell where the trams used to run because there was still a big concrete slab down the middle of the road. i think they only got rid of them in the 80s. the tram and ferry network moved a lot of people around the isthmus and inner harbour bays. the destruction of the housing in grafton and newton for motorways was criminal.
Here’s a map of the old system, with construction dates etc.
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/4033440723a11289201132o.jpg
Tamaki Drive is all well in good. I would like to see it extended to Britomart first!
Good item from Colin Zeff on TV1 news this evening. Given the news followed on from some excellent tennis it should have reached good coverage.
The map shows glaringly large tracts of Auckland with no rail option;
out to St Heliers would be great for freeing up Tamaki Drive. And Dominion Rd being narrow and high volume, is crying out for light rail. From Mt Roskill the route could continue to Three Kings and/or Hillsborough.
It’s here for people who missed the news.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/trams-return-auckland-3994646/video
For people who weren’t around in the 50s, where were all the trams based. The video shows some kond of depot, thanks.
I like the fact that the trams along the Qynyard Quarter will have overhead lines after all. They were thinking of some battery-conversion trams initially, which sounded like worst of both worlds to me.
Love the idea of having a modern tram as a showpiece. Too bad it can’t sit in QEII square at Britomart to be shown!
100% for this but one major problem the viaduct lines are laid along the kerb. Two reasons why this is not a great plan in Ponsonby and Dominion Road one is retail and parking – never going to do the car in and no need to do in suburban shopping. The second is that centre road trams – as in most cities which have them – is a traffic calming mechanism and in most civilized cities double for bus and taxi lanes.
Hi Hamish,
I would very much guess that any future tram line along Ponsonby Road and/or Dominion Road would be down the middle. I understand that Auckland Transport is looking at options for putting bus lanes down the middle of Dominion Road as an interim measure – although there are obvious competing demands for space due to the desire to retain on-street parking.
Centre road trams are clearly the easiest; passengers can get off safely to either the median strip or (with the pop out flag) across one lane to the footpath. They also have the advantage of crucifix poles in the median strip and none of the cobweb of wires prevalent in Wellington.
I don’t have a lot of experience with trams, but the last ones I used in Hiroshima was really brilliant, runs in the centre of the road, and seemed to be a really great way to get around. So quick and easy.
The overhead lines really are very unattractive though, some of Wellington’s intersections are pretty horrific thanks to the trolley bus lines.
A waterfront tram would be pretty spectacular, there are a few fiddly bits that might be tricky to sort out though. How light are trams? Could a line be run on stilts over the seawall that’s currently pretty unusable for recreational stuff (except a bit of fishing, which could be catered for), all around Tamaki Drive from the container terminal to Orakei Marina? That could be really lovely for tourists. Then along the middle of a (widened?) road for the rest of the route.
It seems trams match our cheap-arse nature better than a subway, though I still want that as well.
I’m not really a train spotter by nature, so can someone say what the chances of the gauges all matching is? It’d be pretty hot to be able to go down some stairs in Ponsonby and take a subway that then went through Britomart before running, without a change, to overground rail around the waterfront to (or past) Mission Bay. Being able to go point-to-point without a lot of transfers makes for a much more graceful system — at least without having to do stupid changes, going from one subway line to another in Tokyo is nice because you don’t need to mess around, and usually don’t have to go far between platforms, but having to go from a nice clean modern subway to a ratty piss-smelling Auckland train would be a failure, in my opinion.
Another key thing that we’ll probably do our best to get wrong is having lots of entry-points into the system. If it takes as long to walk to a station as it takes to drive all the way to your destination, that’s another failure.
Morgan- the current tram tracks along Great North Rd (and presumably Wynyard) are 1435mm Standard Gauge. The rail system should theoretically be the same.
And we would love to have an underground station in Ponsonby- so much so that we’ve already excavated a giant pit just off Ponsonby Rd to help 😉
The rail system has a narrower gauge than the tram tracks. That’s fine though, mixing the two is a pretty bad idea as different speeds and operating abilities of the two would result in huge inefficiencies and reduced capacity of CBD Rail Tunnel and other busy parts of the future rail network.
Morgan, I’m picky about about things visual, but given the choice would plumb for having to look at overhead lines over having to breathe vile diesel fumes….. Also this country is rich in renewable electricity and the current fuel bill is already killing us. Extending public transit and running it on our own resource is a policy no-brianer…. except to the car crazed Luddites bullying us from WGTN
ratty piss-smelling Auckland train
Woopsy, meant to say ratty piss-smelling Auckland bus, but then I was stuffed into a “rail bus” the last time I took a train, so Maxx would probably quite like me to call it a train anyway. And it definitely was piss-smelling.