An article in today’s NZ Herald notes that Mayor Len Brown reckons Manukau City needs more carparks – and the council is going to help fund them:
Mr Brown, who has put public transport at the top of his to-do list, yesterday expressed enthusiasm for investing ratepayers’ money in more carparks.
“An effective, integrated transport system is about giving people options.
“The new Manukau rail link project does just that as an integrated park-and-ride facility for those choosing to use public transport and as parking for the new Manukau Institute of Technology campus and workers in the area,” Mr Brown said.
He said the majority of parking at Manukau was held by the shopping centre and was time restricted, which did not help in combining driving and public transport.
The mayor’s emphasis on the public transport benefits of the Manukau carpark could not be confirmed by Auckland Transport.
Auckland Transport are probably pretty horrified by the prospect of spending millions of dollars on a carpark that will potentially undermine demand for their public transport services. One of the key potential markets for the Manukau Rail Link will be people transferring from buses – and while they may be supplemented by park and ride users, this is a town centre we’re talking about.
Furthermore, looking at an aerial photograph of Manukau City suggests that the place has more than enough parking as is:
At a rough guess I’d say that around 70% of the land in Manukau is set aside either for parking or for roads. If that’s not enough, I wonder what would be? 80%? 90%? It would be easy to find a carpark at 90% – but there wouldn’t be anything else – which is the inherent problem with being so dependent on providing masses of parking: you severely restrict your ability to do anything with your land because most of it needs to be set aside for storing vehicles.
But at least the parking in Manukau might assist public transport in some ways – as a possible park and ride location. A parking building at Britomart that the council is looking at directly competes with public transport:
Mr Brown declined to comment on the Britomart carpark until the Auckland Council Property council-controlled body had examined options for buying a half share at a discounted price or receiving a cash sum from the Britomart developer, Cooper and Company
Mr Rankin said part of the 2004 Britomart above-ground development was to build a carpark.
Now that the carpark was nearly complete, Auckland Property was deciding whether to exercise a development right to take an ownership stake or the money.
The final decision would be made by council, he said.
Mr Rankin said the carpark was “obviously going to be a business that will run at a profit.”
A third of the 1230 parking space were available for casual use under the terms of the resource consent, although more would be available, at least in the short-term, he said.
Yeah sure the carpark might make you some money, but how much more in public transport subsidies are you having to pay because you’re carrying less passengers than might have otherwise been the case? Could you put the site to a better and more commercial use than a storage area for cars (particularly as it’s right on the waterfront).
Fortunately at least someone at the Council has their head screwed on right, with Transport Committee Chair Mike Lee making an excellent suggestion: turn the parking building into decent sized apartments:
Auckland Council transport committee chairman Mike Lee said he supported carparks that served public transport, and opposed carparks that competed with public transport.
Mr Lee, who is also on the Auckland Transport board, did not know of plans for the Manukau carpark.
He said the Britomart carpark appeared to be competing with the Britomart transport terminal, and supported the council taking up the ownership option so the “high-rise building” could be converted into family-sized apartments.
Best idea I’ve heard in ages. Certainly smarter than having a big carpark next to our main public transport hub, or turning the last few bits of Manukau City not already paved in asphalt into yet more parking spaces.
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That’s a shocking photograph!
Car parks can be a bit contentious. I think that anti-car doesn’t always automatically make good PT. With the Perth rail examples, half the patronage comes from park and ride at stations; and this is a good way to circumvent the access problem / last mile problem when feeder buses would be difficult or density really is rock bottom.
However in the inner cities / denser areas buses are viable and I would think that you certainly DON’T need a car park at Britomart which is right in the CBD! TransLink in Brisbane has a rule of thumb that they won’t build park and rides generally within say 10km or so within the CBD unless there is some really really good reason to as it encourages people to drive and then people who miss out on a park spill over into neighbouring streets which causes havoc.
If you look at google maps for instance at our South East Busway, you’ll see that there is no parking at most busway stations until you get out to Eight Mile Plains where the busway ends.
Was I the only person who had something of a WTF moment on reading the original Herald article?
The honest truth is that people like their cars, for all sorts of reasons; some good, some bad. If we are wanting to promote public transport use, shooting ourselves in the foot by then promoting parking which acts in competition to public transport, is completely silly.
You were definitely not the only person thinking that Ross.
Maybe Len Brown’s worried about annoying the petrol-heads so feels that he needs to promote a few car oriented transport policies once in a while?
Car parking buildings are at least a bit better than surface carparks like exist in Manukau however I think the major issue here is one that was discussed on here just the other day. By the council owning the car parks they then come under political pressure to keep parking costs down which is at odds with the purpose of buying the car park to make money. It is of course also at odds with the idea of getting more people into main centres like the city and Manukau by means other than cars.
Have a googlemaps of the Albany park ‘n’ ride and you will see that it is:
a. completely cut off from its dormitory suburb by SH1 and
b. completely full
Given that it seems impossible to get some, any decent planning for the PT infrastructure in this town I guess we are left with building more carparks in places like these.
Anyone know if there is any kind of reasonable feeder bus system for this station?
For some reason feeder buses seem to have failed in Auckland. I’m not quite sure why that’s the case – a fear of transfering, even though on the North Shore it’s relatively straightforward with the Northern Pass.
Perhaps we could have a lot of bus routes on the North Shore serving the local area before turning onto the busway at some point. Like a lot of “L” shaped routes. At the moment the North Shore has two completely separate bus networks: one that uses the busway and one that doesn’t. That’s pretty inefficient.
For some reason feeder buses seem to have failed in Auckland. I’m not quite sure why that’s the case – a fear of transfering, even though on the North Shore it’s relatively straightforward with the Northern Pass
I think the fundamental issue is one of service convenience, in that transfer-based systems really only work well with very high frequencies, and Auckland is not yet at that point. Ticketing, by comparison, may be a second-order issue.
One thing which BRT proponents make much of is BRT’s ability to offer a one-seat journey – thus avoiding the transfer penalty that rail can incur, because people have to take a bus to the station. However, one thing which intrigued me about the Busway, once I had had a chance to look round it, was the massive use made of the parking at the Constellation and Albany stations.
It seems that people would still rather drive to a station, rather than take a bus; because it takes far less time, once waiting time and bus journey time are taken into account. This is still true even if no transfer is necessary. Case in point: from Browns Bay to the Constellation station, half an hour is allowed in the bus timetable; you can drive that in fifteen minutes, if not less.
This is also an issue for rail projects, which can face a bus-to-rail transfer penality, and it means that railway station parking may matter a lot more than we realise.
It also depends on the ticketing- are you paying twice?
Interchange design and walking distances also matter.
Ticketing, in a bus-to-rail context, might be an issue, yes; but I had noticed the preference for both rail and bus users to access the station by driving instead of getting a connecting service – even when, at least in the case of bus users, there was no need to then physically transfer onto the ‘trunk’ service, and certainly no need to get another ticket.
It’s a bit of a stretch to think of good reasons for a car parking building at Britomart, if there is a shortage of parking, land would be cheaper outside the CBD.
At Manakau it would allow some of the existing land that is currently being used for carparks to be redeveloped.
I can kind of see what Brown is saying, at least as far as Manakau station being a “park and ride” facility. If you live in the area and want to travel into the CBD, don’t drive – park at the station and use rail.
Yeah I agree KLK. What I don’t understand though is how on earth there can’t already be enough parking spaces in Manukau for that? I mean look at the image above – surely a chunk of the existing spaces (by the way, council owns most of the land at Manukau) could be dedicated for park and ride.
I interpret this situation rather differently – I see it is AT and AC trying to consolidate car-parking in centrally located parking structures, so that other parking areas (which you have highlighted in the aerial photo) can be redeveloped. In doing so, the physical footprint occupied by parking will be reduced, and also it will be easier to charge for it.
That’s quite a positive spin Stu. I’m not sure how much development pressure there is around Manukau at the moment though, so I’m worried that it will just result in more parking spaces, plus also worried that it won’t be an economic investment.
I guess we shall see.
A large chunk of that parking is owned by Westfield not the City.
Owned or leased? I always thought the council owned the land underneath – although the lease might be so long term as to mean there’s no real difference.
Aside from Westfields, which probably wants to manage its own parking, there are a number of large public and private activities that could benefit from a public parking facility, as mentioned in the article. Rainbows End, for example, really only needs much of its parking on the weekends – when there will not be so much demand from MIT and P&R.
The new facility can overlay these different peak parking demands and greatly reduce the amount of parking that needs to be provided. So one new public car-park could probably replace two individual, car-parks. And that’s before charging for parking, which it sounds like they are going to do.
I think this is a good strategy for encouraging more intensive development in Manukau, along with the rail link. It might also open the way for the removal of minimum parking requirements, because there will be a public parking facility available.
I actually agree with the Manukau parking as a Park and Ride type facility to assist travelling on rail. There is not enough parking in Papatoetoe or other stations around Manukau. There are a fair amount of buses leading to the front of the shopping centre, the only problem being is the 800m walk to the new rail station. Most of the existing street parking is taken up by all the office workers in the surrounding buildings or is leased by the office workers. Plus lots of space taken up by the council workers as well. Then there is the huge chunk of Westfield car parks where you can only park for 120-240 minutes then you get clamped. The Manukau courts attract lots of demand during the day and they park at Rainbows end or at other private paid car parks. Having said that during the week half of westfields carparks aren’t even used, so there is some untapped potential there that could be used instead.
How much should ratepayers be paying for a park n ride? It represents a fairly big subsidy to those in the area if it is free like other park n rides and will open demands to more free parking buildings in other regional centres, if Manukau gets parking building, then why not New Lynn, Henderson, Takapuna, Newmarket etc.
What happens if the park n ride takes up half the spaces in the building and gets completely filled? Next we will hear calls saying the council should open the whole thing to the park n ride as it isn’t fair there is a free park only for those who get in early, which of course would completely undermine the original purpose of being a money making asset. I think it is a slippery slope to be getting on.
Huge shame that the station isn’t that extra 300 metres closer to all the amenity and therefore under the existing carpark and bus stops, nearer the mall, the offices, the courts, Rainbows End…. and a multi story park’n’ride would make perfect sense too…. I know the current site will have an MIT campus on top of it but it still would be close to that but central to more destinations. Instead it’s going to be perfect for the students and just a little too far for everyone else….
I hope there is a plan to make a direct and pleasant walking route for the Events Centre too… a bit of a schlep but we should encourage all the walking we can…. have to get over the motorway somehow, I’m sure NZTA haven’t provided anything real for that… or even imagine it’s desirable…..
Ari how about putting a plan together for southern park’n’rides….. maybe there’s even a business case to be made. I figure that aspect of the PT journey should also be priced, as it could provide the amenity and encourage bus feeder use instead…
I agree. There’s not enough available carparking in Manukau. The retail stores are very precious of their carparks. Cars have been clamped in Westfield if customers are seen crossing the road to shop at other non-Westfield stores (and vice-versa). Many of the large carpark areas are reserved for workers within the Manukau CBD. And road parking has only in the last few years now been made into pay and displays. For anyone contemplating parking and catching the new trains, it’s a bit of a trek to find free parking, let alone general parking (ie not specifically for customers of stores or workers).
A little bird told me that that carpark in Britomart is going to be something different. Some people in high levels at the council find it an abomination to have a carpark in a great location in the waterfront. I’ve got hope.
But Johnny it already exists… it’s not a new one, Mike Lee’s proposal is to build something useful on top of it as was originally proposed but didn’t happen because of some developer games by Cooper and co and some issues of *unbelievable* view shafts from the vile Scene apartments. How the * does that work. These are the foul buildings that block the views of the harbour from Princess St, but have some kind of rights to their own views wtf?!
@Patrick – actually the building was designed such that large portions could be converted to apartment. The original deign was that the apartments would envelope around 400 carparks, not the 1200 we now have. It would therefore be turning most of the floors into apartments. It should be noted that the Scenes behind this building have a covenant on their views, therefore, it is at its maximum height already.
Yes, it already exists. And while I think the idea of taking it and converting it to apartments (not building on top) has some merits, I suspect it won’t be cheap to fix it so it could become apartments (plumbing is missing, just for a start, and lightwells in the middle).
No apparently it is engineered to be able to have additional floors… a much better solution, but in general I think there will come a time when we are repurposing carparking buildings…. nasty low stud things that they are….
That’s not my understanding of the situation – the height from what I understand is basically at its max (due to the (ob)secenes have a covenant over their views, and the floors have high enough studs to be converted back to apartments (this was originally designed as apartments). Unless they’ve gone and majorly changed the design in terms of floor heights it can be reconverted.
Whatever happens, the carparks will remain.
Assuming you can build on top, that’s exactly what they’ll do. The carparks will just revert from being accessible to the public, to being sold in conjunction with the apartments built.
I guess the advantage is that they are not likely to get as frequent use (cars entering/exiting I mean). Those living in the apartments would perhaps work in the city (therefore not needing to drive out) or will be able to access work (and other places) by rail/bus. The cars may be for weekend/special uses only.
Funnily enough I do see one thing about this particular parking building: it happens to be right at the point that I think Quay St should shift down to a shared space and therefore at a good place to stop those who still insist on driving into the city from the eastern bays…. Charge them mightily for the privilege and make them walk from there I say….
I am very supportive of the idea of park n ride in the outlying suburbs. If people only travel 3 – 4km, rather than all the way into the CBD that has got to be a good thing. The literature I have read states people aren’t prepared to wait for more than 10 minutes for a transfer, which means at most services to and from train stations have to run at 20 minute frequencies, or better. Hardly any of our services meet that target.
I live in Drury. It takes 12 minutes to drive to my nearest station, Papakura Station, and it takes 13 minutes to drive to Manurewa Station. If Drury had its own station I could be there in a 6 minute drive.
I take the train from Papakura to school, but otherwise why would I take PT? If I want to go to Westfield Manukau I could be there in 18 minutes. Dont take me negatively, PT is good but it will never beat the car. The only thing PT has is ability to get there for a little cheaper.
@Andrew – cars only beat PT because in Auckland that’s all we’ve ever spent our transport money on. Personally, sitting on a train reading the paper for 40minutes beats spending 30 mins in a car getting stressed. However, that 30 mins could be 1hr30 some days depending on traffic, whereas with a reliable PT system that 40 minutes is generally always 40 mins. Being able to plan based on exact arrival and departure times is something a car can never beat (unless you only drive at 2am where there’s never any traffic 😉 )
I’m sure you’re right if you live in the country nothing will beat the covenience of a car. If you were commenting to the city then a handy park’n’ride and a good fast train would be good too. Will get tough as oil keeps going up as well.
@rtc – “Personally, sitting on a train reading the paper for 40 minutes beats spending 30 mins in a car getting stressed.” I agree, it depends on your style – I personally get more stressed in trains because I dislike sitting in a carriage with noisy school kids playing music out loud, and having people sitting next too me for a good half an hour, etc. In the car, I dont have annoying noises around me, I can make the temperature suit, and overall sit quite comfortably. And to be honest, I like traffic jams. But that might just be me.
“And to be honest, I like traffic jams. But that might just be me.”
Yes that would just be you I suspect 😉
I work in downtown Manukau and can assure you there is not enough parking for workers now let alone when the train station opens. That Google photo must have been taken at 8am on a Sunday morning judging by the lack of cars. All the area around the mall is mall owned not council owned and has 2hr to 4hr parking. Try to get a mall car park on a wet weekend day. The mall owners patrol, clamp and tow away vigorously. (same as amny other parking areas for the shops around the mall) Street parking at $3 for the day is full by 8:30am on a week day now the gravel area (soon to be a hotel?) has shut down as a parking lot. Pity the poor working mothers who start work at 9am after dropping their kids at school. There is no parking for the courts. I try to catch a bus from home, but I have to walk for 8mins then stand in the rain and wait for up to 20min because the timetable is so unpredictable. Catching a bus home from Manukau is OK as there is a bus shelter and its a scheduled stop so the bus does not leave before the schedule says. But the bus costs $1.80 each way and parking is only $3 (plus <$2 petrol for the day). In winter I mostly drive. Someone should build a multi-storey car park ASAP.
Or we should sort out the buses and trains so we don’t all need to drive?
With HOP the fare would only be about $1.60 each way! Not sure why you have to drive anyway especially with increasing petrol prices.
If parking gets that full then the parking charge needs to increase. People cannot expect to pay $3 for parking.
Who should pay for the multi story carpark just so that you can drive?
Seems that the market for parking is distorted by the large amount of “free” parking linked to specific premises and extremely cheap street parking distorting the market, making it uneconomic for a private parking provider to compete.
We really need to get rid of minimum parking requirements.
$3 per day is really cheap for parking in a city center. Why are there even daily rates in a town center, street parking should be for short term users, and should be priced to ensure maximum occupancy of 80-90%, I think 50c- $1.5 an hour with no time limit would be appropriate, with all day parking being provided off street at market rate.
I think it is appropriate the council does step in and provide this off street parking. Something needs to break the cycle where there is insufficient public parking, so businesses/residents must build there own, then there is so much “free” parking for specific premises that a privately provided public car-park would be un-profitable. I also think the council owning off street parking makes it easier to change street parking policy without public backlash.