After much discussion over the past few days, I think I’ve settled on the “City Rail Link” as being my favourite name for what I have previously (and am bound to continue to do so in the future) called the CBD Rail Tunnel. It has the benefit of not being too different to the official name for the project: the CBD Rail Link, just supplementing the word “city” instead of “CBD” – something that Auckland Council is pretty keen on doing more generally.
I was in Morningside first thing this morning so decided to catch the train in and out of town, instead of my normal 004/005 bus. With the aid of Stopwatch software on my cellphone, I had the opportunity to analyse the time it takes to do various bits of the Britomart to Morningside rail trip: importantly including the walk between my office and the train station. So here is a breakdown of the time it took to complete various sections of my rail trip back to Morningside station in the evening peak:
- Walk from work to Britomart station (I work very near the intersection of Queen St and Victoria St): 7 minutes, 54 seconds.
- Time between arriving at Britomart and train leaving: 3 minutes, 11 seconds
- Britomart to Newmarket: 7 minutes, 32 seconds
- The tedious wait at Newmarket while the driver changes ends: 2 minutes, 34 seconds
- Newmarket to Mt Eden Station (roughly where the City Rail Link will emerge): 4 minutes, 41 seconds
- Mt Eden Station to Morningside Station: 5 minutes, 14 seconds
The total trip length (from leaving my office until arriving at Morningside Station) was 31 minutes and 7 seconds. Quite a long time for a trip that’s only four kilometres as the crow flies. Of course that’s the problem with the current rail system – it’s incredibly indirect, taking about 8.5 kilometres by train plus around a 450 metre walk from my office to Britomart station.
The red line in the map below indicates my trip today: with the thick line showing the rail portion and the thin part showing the walk. The blue lines similarly show the trip I would have made with the “City Rail Link” completed.
Now let’s compare the times. Google maps reckons it would take me around a 5 minute walk to get from my workplace to Aotea Station. So I already save around two minutes compared to my current walk. Then let’s say my wait for the train is the same as what it was today (when I was actually pretty lucky) – at just over three minutes. Next up the train journey itself – which the City Rail Link business case suggested would take eight minutes from Aotea Station to Morningside:
So a four minute walk, a three minute wait and an eight minute train trip. I’ve just cut my existing 31 minute train trip down to 15 minutes! Now that’s what I call a “time savings benefit!” I suspect if I worked around the proposed K Road station the savings would be even bigger, because of the vastly reduced walk to the nearest train station.
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There is one thing I will say – on my visit to Auckland I found it very walkable (except where that spaghetti junction blocked my path).
Much more walkable than many other places actually, and that was very surprising to me.
All the ingredients (except maybe government) are there for the perfect PT system. Really.
For those with time pressures and with a fixed commute, a 15 minute saving will be very attractive.
I do contracting work so can find myself working all over the place – Manukau, Albany, Queen Street, East Tamaki etc. Having done this for many years I have developed a fairly good sense of PT options. I am also accustomed to allowing approx 30 minutes for a typical commute.
I prefer train travel for its consistency. Whether a journey takes 10 minutes or 25 minutes is less important to me than having certainty the train will start and finish at the *expected* time. Buses have significantly less certainty especially in the commute duration. Bus in the morning is fine and I have a good local bus service. Bus end of the day can be less – er – savoury.
I live in Grey Lynn, off Richmond Rd, at the Western Springs end. My “local” station is Kingsland a couple of kms away.
Let’s look at my last few contracts.
1. Currently I am based at Telecom Place, opposite Les Mills.
Train – no station close enough to Victoria Park so no go.
Bus – no bus route from Richmond Rd. The Link bus stops outside but I need to get up to Ponsonby Rd to catch it, and sometimes the Link stops at Victoria Park for 5 minutes before proceeding up Victoria Street. I catch the Link bus if it’s raining.
My best bet is to drive up to Ponsonby Rd, park and walk. All up it takes around the same time as using the Link bus.
Result: PT is really not useful, I have come to enjoy the walk through Freemans Bay.
2) Prior to that I was working at 80 Queen St.
My local bus was perfect (024, 028) – Richmond Rd and Queen St stops, approx 25 minutes.
I could drive to Kingsland and take the train – commute time a little longer but had the advantage of more reliable services end of day if after 6pm.
3) Prior to that I had a contract at William Pickering Drive in Albany.
Well, you can get the busway up to Constellation Drive but beyond that there’s nothing. I could drive the distance in 20-25 minutes and park outside and wouldn’t dream of attempting PT – impossible.
4) And before that I worked for 2 years in Carlton Gore Rd.
There are no cross town buses (Great North Rd to Khyber Pass or Newmarket).
But the train was wonderful, just a few minutes to go from Kingsland to Newmarket and 3-4 minutes walk. Very quick and reliable. Drive and park is also easy. If the rail service wasn’t so good I would most likely go by car.
So of four contracting roles, two had a straightfoward PT option.
2) Bus to Queen St,
4) Train across town to Newmarket
Oh, I also cycle when I am feeling brave enough to dodge the toxic diesel fumes and occasional manic driver. 3 of the 4 roles are accessible by bike, but none of these has a reasonable cycle lane.
Looking ahead, I expect bus routes will extend to cover emerging business areas extending beyond the immediate Queen St area such as where I am now. I am hoping more cycle lanes will be added. Potentially the direct rail connection to Grafton will go.
Integrated fares will make transfers more acceptable, eg if working out in East Tamaki say, but a transfer in the middle of a short commuting distance would be a hassle and I would probably revert to my own wheels.
ahh, William Pickering drive, terrible urban planning, combined with majorly lacking PT.
An idea I had was to running some Northern expresses going north in morninig peak to Constellation, and then turning up upper harbour highway, then go via William Pickering drive to Albany. This would largely be aimed at commuters from the north shore, and could be a good way of back-load Northern expresses.
However, overall areas like william pickering drive are difficult to serve well with PT, and planning should ensure these areas are kept for low employment density such as warehouses, manufacturing.
Offices and retail should be kept in town centers.