Last year the NZ Herald did immeasurable damage to Auckland’s chances of improving public transport quickly and cheaply, by undertaking a concerted campaign against Auckland’s bus lanes. While Auckland City Council certainly were pretty dumb in their response to concerns about the clarity of where bus lanes began and ended, it was a pretty nasty campaign from the Herald: after all, if you don’t want a ticket then don’t drive in the bus lanes!
A story in today’s Herald on Sunday suggests that we’re up for round two of this war: this time with North Shore’s transit lanes in the firing line:
Officials are set to review the future of controversial transit lanes blamed for increasing peak-hour jams on Auckland’s North Shore.
The lanes are on key routes to and from the Northern Motorway and were introduced to encourage car pooling and ensure buses aren’t caught in queues.
Most require vehicles to have at least three people in them (T3 lanes), although some need only two (T2).
The North Shore network was extended in December to include Lake Rd and a longer section of Onewa Rd. Both are T3 lanes.
This week it emerged that Auckland Transport has no idea if the new lanes are working – a survey comparing traffic flows before and after their introduction won’t be finished for a month.
Or maybe the reason why Auckland Transport hasn’t yet undertaken a review of the lanes yet is because we haven’t yet reached March, when university students are back. It would be crazy to review the effectiveness of a project like this when one of the major users of the road corridor – university students – are still on holiday. Furthermore, many schools are not back until next week either – and I’ve found my occasional peak time commutes along Onewa Road incredibly fast ever since the T3 lane went in late last year.
Auckland Transport parking and enforcement manager Eunan Cleary said the review would address driver frustration and concerns about dangerous driving.
“If something’s not working we can reverse it. If the behaviour’s erratic there’s a chance that safety issues would come up.”
That’s welcome news for those affected by the Lake Rd lane, which has caused tailbacks of several hundred metres for traffic queuing to get on to Onewa Rd.
Motorists have reported seeing other drivers doing U-turns and driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid being stuck in the queues.
Worried mum Kelly Wilson walks her 7-year-old daughter Mackenzie to Northcote Primary, beside the intersection, and said dangerous driving would cost a child’s life.
“A kid will die here. [Some drivers are] just oblivious to the fact that there’s a school there.”
Lake Road has always had pretty terrible traffic tailing back from its intersection with Onewa Road. Perhaps the really daft thing about the Lake Road lane is that there aren’t actually any scheduled buses that travel up Lake Road before turning left onto Onewa Road – so a much potential user of the lane (buses) doesn’t actually exist. If people want the faster ride they can always carpool though.
Motorists say transit lanes can cut journey times by two-thirds, and that’s left some drivers determined to use them…
…Brenda Cerqueria, 21, from Birkenhead, said she’d been asked to make up the numbers while waiting at a bus stop, but didn’t want to travel with a stranger.
“I used to drive but they extended the [Onewa Rd] T3 lane all the way down to the motorway. It makes it 50 times worse. If you want to get to work early you have to leave at 6am. After 6.30am it’s chaos.”
I got a couple of free rides into town a few years back so that the driver could use the T3 lanes. I figured if there was me and another person waiting for the bus in the car with the driver things would be pretty safe. In terms of the Lake Road lane, I haven’t had a good look yet but it seems (as seen from Onewa Road) as though the T3 lane was added to the road, rather than constructed by removing a lane of traffic.
Motorists this week voiced their outrage at the huge jams caused by the transit lanes on Auckland’s North Shore.
Mark Woods, who carpools with friend Tim Sommerville, said people often drove on the wrong side of the road to turn right on to side streets to escape the queues.
“I’ve seen it so many times. It’s an accident waiting to happen,” said the 43-year-old broadcaster.
He described the situation as “hopeless” and said a friend took two hours to get to the city from Birkenhead this week.
Maybe he’ll catch the bus next time? It’s generally less than 20 minutes from Onewa Road to the city by bus – at any time of day.
The frustrating thing about the war on bus & transit lanes is that they’re our best tool in improving public transport quickly and cheaply around Auckland. If you want to improve public transport you really have two options: quick and cheap bus improvements by implementing bus priority; and slow (to construct) and expensive rail improvements. Clearly Auckland needs both these types of improvement, but our low-hanging fruit will have to come at the expense of some general traffic roadspace. If the NZ Herald continually runs articles disparaging bus and transit lanes, I really worry about our likelihood of achieving quick and cheap improvements to public transport. It would also be nice to see a couple of the local councillors sticking up for improving public transport.
On a brighter note, I find it unlikely that Auckland Transport will look to cut back bus and transit lanes. In fact, considering Auckland Transport has a vested financial interest in making bus travel faster and more reliable (as they do subsidise the bus service) I would be incredibly surprised to see any cutbacks in bus priority. Perhaps they could look at running a citybound bus service along Lake Road though – to make use of the great new T3 lane.
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I didn’t realise no buses run down lake road – that seems a bit strange. I would have thought buses from Northcote could run down there. Perhaps now the transit lane is in place this could be looked at. But with Lake Rd is that it can only be the configuration it is now as it feeds into Onewa Rd (i.e. one transit lane and one general traffic lane).
Anyway, totally agree this attack is unfortunate. The reporting is pretty ridiculous – apparently the network is unpopular, however we know two thirds of road users use the Onewa Rd transit lane. Likewise the comment on effectiveness. One wouldn’t rationally expect the full benefits of a transit lane to be felt for months or even years after its introduction. Some people can just switch modes, but others will take time to rearrange car pools, and still others will take more time to make choices on car ownership, living/work location etc. Even the quote they got from a bus user was made to imply she was forced onto a bus because driving is too terrible.
As a resident of Birkenhead, I would say the transit lane together with the pretty good bus service is one of the good things about the area.
There are buses along Lake Road that link Beach Haven/Birkenhead with Takapuna (975/976) but I think that’s it.
Personally I would send all the buses that currently use Sylvan Ave along Lake Road instead. Sylvan Ave gets terribly congested in morning peak times and is useless for buses.
OMG, you are under SOV (single occupant vehicle) attack!!!
Those buses probably carry more people than the car lanes next to them.
And the other thing- is there congestion on other streets without bus lanes? Is it really true that the lanes “cause congestion”.
We have a major arterial road in Brisbane called coronation drive, and it came under SOV attack, I estimate there must have been a bus a minute, now they are all caught in traffic and the congestion is just as bad as ever!
. One day, Puff, and then our T2/Bus lane was gone!!
Even the Eleanor Schonell Green Bridge came under SOV attack, people wanted to think about running cars on it, despite it being busway.
All the anti-SOV attack features built into the bridge (no through access, legal binding to not run through buses or cars, cul-de-sac bus terminal at the end, bridge cannot be expanded in lanes, no turn lanes at
intersection leading into the bridge) really helped fend them off!
If congestion is the problem, why not suggest what the Auckland University Economist suggested- congestion tolling. I think, and the way the money collected is refunded, is a genius idea worth discussing.
As I know a person interviewed in this story I can tell you one thing – they could easily have caught a bus to the city and walked 5 mins from the Birkenhead Transport bus stop on Victoria Street to the radio station he works in. They work classic 8am to 5pm shift as well.
He is anti PT… and perfect cannon fodder for this Herald story.
Send an email to the editor, for publication, pointing this out. If they’re going to interview biased subjects, they need to be called on it.
Previously there were two lanes at the Lake Road intersection. One lane went left and the other went both left and right. The two lanes eventually had to merge anyway on Onewa just past Queen St. So in effect the transit lane has just moved the congestion further back to Lake Road. This is great as it frees up the Onewa Rd traffic lights where congestion often caused cars to be stuck in the middle of intersections,creating havoc.
T3 lanes without buses seem pointless to me. I’m not convinced mass car pooling is going to do much to help improve transport. most of the stories you seem to hear are cars picking people up at bus stops. Maybe OK with chronic overcrowding on buses, but more buses is a better answer.
Know of any studies in Auckland or comparable areas about effectiveness of carpooling?
The only good reason for T2/T3 lanes seems to be a political compromise.
Yes, T3 lanes to encourage car pooling don’t work IMHO. That’s asking too much- just put the buses on!
I spoke to someone yesterday who suggested that if we get 1.7 people to every vehicle then we will eliminate traffic jams. A part of me died inside. Mind you he was your typical East Coast Bays, National Party, PT is for poor people type. He actually said that PT can never work in Auckland because of its shape.
I hope you corrected him 😀
Decided not to waste my breath. It became pretty clear early on that he thought PT was a big white elephant.
I posted a link a while ago, can’t remember if it was here or AKT blog, which looked at passenger numbers for car usage in AKL, WLG and CHC. The highest usage for cars was the 0700-0900 peak, and in Auckland it got up to, IIRC, 1.6pax/car. Which is very close to his 1.7, and still waaaaaaay short of resolving traffic jams entirely.
Let me get this straight, putting 1.7 persons in a car will eliminate traffic jams.
So then, by extension, what would happen if we put 65 people in a bus, or 350 people on a tram or 1000 people on a train?
(for the record I don’t believe increases in capacity of roads, be they by lane expansion, increased vehicle occupancy or public transport do anything to stop congestion. Paris has a metro and they still have congestion!)
As for the shape argument, that is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. And historically, in the 1950’s,
Auckland had a per-capita use of public transport that was very very high. So that blows the shape argument out of the water.
It begs the question- what is the ‘ideal shape’ for public transport?
Triangle? Square? Rectangle? Circle? ballot paper shape??? 🙂
Putting 1.7 persons per car will simply mean more people get to be stuck in the same traffic jam at the same time.
The whole precis of ‘eliminating’ congestion boils down to this: Finding a way to stop people from driving on roads that are already under capacity and freeflowing so that they stay under capacity and freeflowing.
If anyone can do that by building more roads they deserve the Nobel prize for physics!
Wow and today we have a Herald editorial that is suggesting that people are more important in the CBD than cars
Editorial: Inner-city rejig must focus on pedestrians
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10704580
I read that as well and was wondering if someone at the Herald got a sudden rush of blood to the head.
I think T2 and T3 lanes are weak policy. For instance Mana’s T2 lane (in Porirua near Wellington) do not work. They don’t encourage carpooling (carpooling is of a pretty dubious advantage anyway IMO). They just cause congestion, and cost money to enforce. Indeed the NZTA has a project on its books to get rid of them. The Porirua City Council wants them gone. Increasing the frequency of the suburban trains from 30 to 15 minutes would be more useful. Decent bike lockers (like Parketeer cages) at the Kapiti, Plimmerton, Mana and Paremata stations would be better policy. The extension of the train service to Waikanae will have a better effect. I don’t necessarily think that congestion should result in road widening projects, but to artificially create congestion just seems really, really dumb.
Carpooling is pretty insignificant in my opinion, it is asking car drivers to go against the very thing that cars excel at (getting one from dispersed origin to dispersed destination on their own terms). If people are willing to share trips from common origins to common destinations, they why not do that on the public transport system?
I don’t really care if they have T3 lanes because at the end of the day there will be 95% bus lane and if the 5% of carpoolers are doing their thing then so be it, at least it keeps the bleating masses quiet.
And off all these shortsighted car drivers: do they honestly think opening up a second lane of general traffic leading to the same single on-ramp is going to make things any easier for them?!
“And off all these shortsighted car drivers: do they honestly think opening up a second lane of general traffic leading to the same single on-ramp is going to make things any easier for them?!”
Yes they do, and once that fails, they will ask for better motorway on-ramps/motorways/more roads elsewhere.
Agree that making the “this lane carries X, this lane carries Y” people argument is the KEY of defending such lanes, and needs to be heavily publicised. I’d stick up a bloody neon sign counting the numbers up!
“The really curious thing is that any car carrying two people is 50% loaded for the whole commute trip both ways.
No bus or train can match that performance in terms of energy efficiency, pollution, or carbon footprint or whatever you chose to measure. When did you last see a bus fifty percent loaded from start to end of its journey?
Therefore this gesture actually “makes things worse”.”
Teehee… Some interesting logic from another blog.
Where’s that from?
Did you respond that three cars 50% loaded take up more road space than a bus that’s at 10% load and produce a similar quantity of pollution? Or that even if those three cars were all 100% loaded they’d still take up more road space than a bus that’s less than a third loaded and could carry more people than another eight cars with 100% load without taking up any more road space?
It was from Kiwiblog. It would have taken too long to write a reply and I try to limit how much time I spend over there for fear my brain will rot. Besides you needed to register.
Ick. KiwiBlergh. I salute you for daring to brave that foetid cesspool.
Actually foetid cesspools are far more charming.
More buslane wars – this time from Sideswipe.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sideswipe/news/article.cfm?c_id=702&objectid=10704762
My reply to Mr John Shaw – What about the huge red sign saying “NO ENTRY”. I’d have thought that it would be a good indication that using the bridge is NOT a good idea, let alone the large gantry signs on both Symond St and K Rd.
Even the picutre in the paper has a ‘NO ENTRY’ sign and a second sign outlining the buslane times… IN FRONT OF THE APPARENTLY OBSCURED SIGN! Is he complaining that the signage is obscured by even more signage?!
ACC staff are retards… So don’t get me started