It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that as the number of public transport users increases in Auckland there’s a growing need to sort out how we handle buses in the CBD. The Auckland city centre contains approximately 81,000 employees, 21,000 residents and 50,000 students. Around 71,000 people enter Auckland’s city centre between 7am and 9am each weekday morning. Over 23,000 of those do so on the bus. By 2026, approximately 100,000 people are anticipated to enter the city centre during the weekday peak. Those are all pretty big numbers.
Over the past few years there has been a pretty dramatic increase in the number of people using public transport to access the city centre during peak times – meaning that the number of private vehicles (which is effectively capped due to road capacity constraints) has held steady or even declined – as shown in the graph below:
It’s reasonable to assume that these trends have continued over the past couple of years, with more people using public transport to get into the CBD than there are vehicles entering during peak times. But with significant growth for the city centre likely over the next 10-20 years, and our road capacity pretty impossible to increase, even with the CBD rail tunnel built I think it will be necessary to significantly increase the number of buses the city can handle. In the short term, as Britomart’s capacity is maxed out it will be essential to get more out of the bus system to support and enable the CBD to grow.
Auckland City Council looked at a number of ideas for improving CBD buses not long before the Super City came along, but aside from Auckland Transport’s current proposal to change around the Link route, introduce an “Outer Loop” and shift many Western Bays bus routes from Queen Street onto Albert Street it seems that little has come from the work they did. This is a huge opportunity as buses in central Auckland are currently highly inefficient, very slow, damaging to the image of the CBD through their noise and pollution and are generally confusing for people trying to use them. The changes currently underway will improve things to an extent – although in other ways they may just make things worse. An example of where the changes are likely to make things worse is by putting more buses onto Albert Street, which already has bus lanes that can’t cope with what’s being asked of them (largely because they’re pathetically incomplete).
A few weeks back I talked a bit about one of the main ways in which I think we can operate buses in the CBD better: by re-routing many of the North Shore buses (in fact, all of them except for the Northern Express) away from Albert and Fanshawe streets (which handle far too many buses at the moment) and onto Wellesley Street. Combined with having buses from the west using Albert Street and Vincent Street, and buses from the south (including the isthmus) using the Central Connector corridor along Symonds Street, the fundamental structure of the bus network could look a bit like this:
Obviously there will be additional services like the Link bus, buses from the Western Bays, buses from Tamaki Drive and so forth – but at least theoretically the majority of buses in Auckland could run along the routes highlighted above in the city. This removes the conflict between North Shore and West Auckland buses along Albert Street, it provides direct university (and potentially onto the Hospital and Newmarket for some services) access for almost all North Shore buses and it creates a legible bus network that’s relatively easy to understand.
What it does involve is the concentration of buses in the city centre onto fewer roads than we see at the moment – which obviously means there’s increased potential for bus congestion. Furthermore, I don’t know where we will find room for all the stops around Britomart. So there would obviously be greater complexity when it comes to the exact details of where to turn around many of the buses. One thing that the above plan would clearly require is the complete bus laning of all the roads highlighted as bus routes above, and the systematic changing of traffic signals to give greater priority to buses (for example at the corner of Pitt Street and Vincent Street). Particularly important would be putting bus lanes along Halsey Street, Customs Street, Wellesley Street and Vincent Street (outbound).
If we look a bit further into the future, we could easily overlay onto this map a light-rail line running from Dominion Road, through Upper Queen Street, then down Queen Street and out to Wynyard Quarter:
Once the CBD Rail Tunnel is in place then we have the opportunity to fundamentally rethink the operation of the bus network through the city centre. Would we still really want all our buses to travel right down to Britomart from the west and south, or could we transfer them onto the rail system at the K Road station? Could we link up our North Shore buses with those serving the southern isthmus area, while giving people the opportunity to transfer onto the rail system at Aotea/Midtown station? The opportunities are pretty endless:
Those are obviously longer term ideas, but what’s outlined in the first map could be achieved pretty quickly: just re-route some buses, paint in some bus lanes, change around a few stop locations and you’d be done. A massive improvement for public transport users in the CBD at next to no cost.
Processing...
I don’t think they are bad ideas what you are proposing, but one thing that I think should be focussed on first is the fanshawe st to central connector corridor. The quality of bus priority through there is appalling for such important routes. It can take fifteen minutes to get from the bottom of Anzac ave to britomart at times, which is ridiculous.
Yeah definitely getting bus lanes along Customs Street should be a priority. I would probably have that as my number one thing to do to improve buses in the city centre actually.
That and bus priority through traffic lights from Britomart to Anzac Ave. I’ve had it take fully 10 minutes from the bus stop at Britomart to getting to the first bus stop on Anzac Ave, after the bus got caught by every. single. set. of. traffic. lights. along the way.
I would argue that buses from the South, East and West Auckland should have no place in the CBD. Feed buses from the west to Henderson and New Lynn and buses from the East and South to Panmure and Manukau and transfer to trains. Of course this is a post CBD plan.
You’re right to an extent James – buses from further out than Panmure, Manukau, Henderson & New Lynn shouldn’t run all the way into town. However there will always be buses running along Great North Road and Great South Road into the CBD along the more inner corridors – as there’s plenty of demand there.
Don’t forget about places out west like Te Atatu, Massey and Westgate, they all would still be much faster going via the motorway than going to Henderson and making people transfer so there will always be some buses from West Auckland.
James – I disagree.
The bus services which are run from New Lynn and Papakura actually serve a complementary function to the rail service and would continue to do so even with a CBD rail tunnel. They go to locations along the corridor, often allowing more direct journeys to final destinations which might not be that convenient to a railway station.
The thing in modal choice is that the end-to-end journey time is minimised, including waiting time:
* If you are going from near a railway station to near a railway station, you’ll take the train.
* If you are going from near a railway station to between two stations, you might take the train – or it might be easier to get a bus, especially if you can avoid a transfer.
* If you are going from between two stations, to between two stations, then the bus might well do it best. This is because you’ll be saving the time taken to get to the departure station and the time to get from the destination station to the final destination. And this could well be more than the time saved in-vehicle by getting a train over a bus.
If you look at how Sydney’s system works (not that it’s necessarily a model) most of the buses in the CBD come from the Eastern Suburbs, the Inner West and parts of the North Shore not served by rail. As far as I know there are no buses from the far northwest or southwest that go all the way into town: they probably feed the train stations.
That’s basically what I think Auckland should do post CBD Tunnel (or even before it to some extent). Get the buses serving the outer areas to feed into train stations and have buses complement the rail system in the more inner areas (plus the Shore obviously).
I like the idea of buses from the North Shore going directly to the universities. It would make life a lot easier for me right now, at least.
I hope Auckland Transport are reading with interest!
I think the main issue with what you have proposed is the conflict between buses heading from Symonds Street to Queen Street via Wellesley and car traffic heading from the motorways at Grafton to Mayoral Drive the same way. It’s not hard to imagine a solid line of buses backed up from the Mayoral/Kitchener/Wellesley intersection all the way to the Symonds/Wellesley ramp in the peaks if as many buses as you are proposing use that route. I think what needs to be done is to close Princes Street between Wellesley and Alfred to general traffic (apart from vehicles accessing the University loading docks in that area, which would use the counter-clockwise lane not being used by buses), and designate two seperated bus only lanes along the western side of Wellesley Street, and widen the current Western ramp from Symonds Street to carry them. I don’t think this would be too expensive to implement, just requiring the extra ramp (the land for which already exists), some extra kerb and reconfiguring the intersections slightly, but would remove the conflict and give buses a speedy run in this area.
Add through-routing buses between Albert and Symonds Streets, and I think you have the perfect plan!
I think it’ll be clearer if I offer a map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=203855444229349889213.0004a403c5a74763eb155
Would also need some provision for buses to make a hook turn off Symonds Street, but shouldn’t be difficult to arrange.
We discussed this once before on a previous post, but I think it’s safe to say I would completely oppose what you’re suggesting – funneling all those buses from the North Shore through the heart of Auckland Uni would be a disaster and would completely destroy Alfred Street. Once the Link stops running through that street later this year then it will be closed to all traffic aside from delivery vehicles – and that’s the way it should stay. There’s too much foot traffic to have 1 diesel bus every 3 minutes driving through – they’d also act to cut off the park from the Quad. A better solution would be to funnel them via the Grafton Gully or something and in doing so perhaps take back some of all that road space devoted entirely to cars.
I do share those concerns about effects on Alfred St. Off peak there are actually (and stupidly) surprisingly few buses to the North Shore that would use this: say around 6-8 an hour.
At peak times it may be necessary to do what you suggest.
I don’t know where you have heard that the Link will not go via Alfred St. That was in the draft changes to its route.
Ooops my bad, it does indeed still go via the uni, for some reason I had thought it was going. Anyways, the ideas you present are good, one potential benefit of the North Shore buses going via the uni and Grafton Gully is that they could use some of that unused land by the motorway as a depot rather than parking them all around Britomart. One perfect spot would be the area directly below the Business school.
it’s very interesting that the new Auckland Council wants to waste $14m on a stupid pointless carparking building. like they didn’t even want to spend an extra $10m for extending Manukau railway trench another 50m to the east, which would have made it slightly closer to the mall and it would have been more accessible, but hopefully as the area around the station develops the CBD will be forcused around their instead. The carpark building represents a failed attempt to underdue the mistakes made in the past. Stupid backwards thinking NZ planners are. It cost like $200m+ to build the SH20 to SH1 connection which infact made congestion a lot worse. Manukau railway station barely cost 25% of the that price and its predicted to be the 2nd busiest station in Auckland after Britomart, its amazing how a small amount of money on PT can have such a huge impact whereas a large amount of money on roading projects barely change anything and you are just back to square one again.
I am actually warming to the Manukau hub not being under the mall as original planned – having it away from there will allow a New Lynn style transport hub to be built, acting as a depot for all the buses in the area to connect with trains, and will link in nicely with the new MIT campus which will be a big trip generator. If the mall set-up a shuttle bus between the train station or some bus routes that currently terminate were altered to go via the train station it will allow people to easily get to the mall.
I find it quite revealing that whilst ~7000 more people either cyle, walk or catch PT into the city now than drive – pretty much all roads in the city are optimised for cars. I tend to think we’re reaching a tipping point in Auckland where it’s starting to become politically advantageous to pursue the votes of what is now the majority of voters, of course Joyce ignores this all by quoting national stats which paint a different picture but I tend to think people like him can’t remain in such powerful roles for much longer – even in National.
rtc, properly understood National is the country party, and as such will always favour cars and trucks over anything else, PT is largely an urban issue, they just don’t see it and largely don’t care. Demographic change means that the urban vote is growing so the need is to show how much better our lives could be by using urban solutions instead of the provincial ones that are being built now. National will always want the NLTF spent on country highways. Joyce is just an extreme expression of this.
Yesterday I went to Hamilton and it is spreading rapidly without any evident thought other than highways and malls…. one of the people I was meeting casually mentioned she has a 45 min commute! In Hamilton, next place same mistake… And another moaned about how the centre is deserted as everyone is driving to the peripheral malls… and these things just came up, no questioning from me. What an obviously great potential Hamilton has as a cycling city…. no signs of buslanes where I was.
Sure, and this is getting off topic, National is a rural party and that’s also the reason why they’re so opposed to MMP because of the fact that FPP favours rural voters in their sparsely populated seats. Regardless, Auckland makes up 1/3rd of the country so National will need keep it pleased if it hopes to remain in power.
Hamiltona nd Tauranga are both examples of poor planning being replicated again and again, the Tauranga Eastern Motorway will simply act to sprawl that city further and further, much as Hamilton is slowly sprawling outwards, in both cases with little or no attempt made for PT.
Traditionally yes, but the idea that somehow urban areas favor PT and rural areas cars and trucks is a bit simplistic. Apart from the success with the CBD most people (including those in the CBD) travel to work in cars in Auckland. They simply don’t have any choice. I live in a central suburb on the west and work in a central suburb in the east and there is no way I can get to work in under 45min on public transport (which is also how long it takes to walk). So driving is the only real option at this stage. And like it or not but the things that are happening in Hamilton are happening here too. Just go visit Flat Bush or the areas north of Albany. They were farmland 10 years ago.
Tauranga is also sad for the same reason I think…although I haven’t lived there but do visit on ocassion. It has a really stunning natural landscape and (comparatively) a small population and small urban area so it could be great for cycling and walking. But instead it’s badly congested, it has very little good public transport and it is growing in a sprawling fashion around motorway corridors (as far as I can see). At least Hamilton is enjoying rapid growth in bus patronage.
I also think taking buses off fanshawe would be a mistake. The best way to free up capacity at Brit mart and to provide a direct connection from north shore to uni would be to run buses through Britomart and onto Newmarket via central connector. Wellesley alfred simply could not handle the bus volumes ur talking about.
If capacity is an issue then why not build a median busway along fanshawe past Britomart and onto central connector? There’s plenty of space so long as u manage intersections ok. I think these two changes (ie thru buses and median busway) would provide all the capacity u need.
Maybe also simplify some of intersections cos they are torturous for everyone, esp pedestrians and pt users.
The direct connection from the North Shore to uni is just a bonus really. The main gains are improving legibility of North Shore buses and reducing pressure on Albert St, Customs St and around Britomart.
The details of how to turn around these buses obviously needs sorting out but I reckon Wellesley could handle them as long as it’s equipped with full time bus lanes and good bus priority at intersections.
I agree direct connection to uni is a bonus. But i don’t see how taking buses off fanshawe and onto Wellesley helps improve legibility or capacity. If capacity at Britomart is an issue then thru buses would fix this. If capacity on customs is the issue then median bus lanes would fix it. Fanshawe is much more suited to buses than wellesley, because the latter is steeper narrower etc. So while i think the problems are real, but not really addressed by this solution.
P.s. I can’t really understand why the focus is on the north shore buses if the main problems are with customs street.
P.p.s. http://Www.human transit.org has a good post on the benefits of thru buses in central locations, especially for freeing up capacity at downtown stations. The idea would be that buses heading north on central connector could stop a Britomart and then continue to takapna before turning around, and vice versa for north shore buses, which could terminate at Newmarket. Both free up Britomart and both have the added bonus of providing more direct service between north and south.
Obviously through busses are the answer, but can AT compel the private companies to divvy up their nice little earners to turn, say a NS route into a NS and south or west route? It’s hardy impossible but will the empire builders allow it? Does AT have the power?
While in some respects I am a big fan of through-routing I do worry that it could create some very long routes. The longer the route is the less reliable it generally becomes.
I like the Fanshawe median busway idea but “to provide a direct connection from north shore to uni”, I’d revitalise the idea of using the SH1-SH16 ports link capacity will be freed up once Vic park is opened.
This would bypass of the CBD and go directly to the Uni, hospital and Newmarket. Currently buses are timtabled to take 35minutes between Akoranga and Newmarket, surely this could be reduced.
(Also it would be interesting to see a future post on the effects of opening Vic Park. What will that extra traffic do to the rest of the network and how can we utilise the new capacity, such as the idea above.)
I doubt Vic Park Tunnel will make the world of difference. If it did then we wouldn’t need to build the Waterview Connection project right? 😉
More seriously, VPT will probably encourage more use of the Port & Sh16 connections to the Northern Motorway which will free up some capacity in the city (hopefully for buses) but I can imagine the motorway will clog up pretty quickly again.
Also these services are not only for students, stops at Tank Farm and the city are vital too
I’m referring to the 881 and 891X to a lesser extent,
Other NS services such as NEX etc cater for tank farm.
One thing we dont do well in Auckland is real express services, there is more then enough demand From the Shore to the uni, hospital and Newmarket to justify a route that bypasses town congestion.
It would also require allocation of space in CMJ to get past queues (dreaming).
Simon – the reason we don’t do peak buses “well” is because peak buses are generally “bad.” While peak only services end up running fairly full in one direction, they run empty in the other direction. You’re much better off focussing your resources on building a high, frequency connective network that runs all-day, every-day. Peak only services also reduce legibility because you end up with routes that only run at specific times – which is really hard to timetable.
Hi Stu. Thanks but I think you mis-understand, I never said “Peak”, I said “Express”.
The Northern Express isn’t peak only!
And in fact I totally agree with you that peak only is generally “bad”. However I have seen the demands to Uni, Hospital and Newmarket and now beleive that they provide a significant trip attraction from the North Shore. Also soon Albany will grow creating a need for contra-flow demand on the Busway requireing these peak services to all operate in both directions.
The 881 does currenting runs peak only one way, but by reducing the travel time to Newmarket by bypassing the CBD via SH16 port connection, total bus-km can be saved which can be reallocatted to the off-peak increasing the span of its service. Unless I’m mistaken Universities and Hospitals don’t “operate” classes and shifts at standard commuter times.
Apologies simon, you are quite right -I misunderstood where u were coming from. If the hospital is sufficiently important in terms of trips then it could justify it’s own direct service. Although it’s important to note that a direct service could not service both uni and hospital via sh16 unless it turned left up altern street and then travelled via synods to grafton. I’m not sure the travel time savings would be worth it – especially in offpeak periods.
Also, I think that graph of mode share for people accessing the city centre is slightly misleading because it does not (as far as I can see) include trips between origins and destinations within the city centre. This will vastly underestimate the contribution of walking and cycling trips, which account for about 60 per cent of journey to work trips in some of these area units.
I don’t completely agree with your approach to Shore services, as Wellesley St option only caters for midtown customers, but neglects downtown catchment (25-35% maybe?). It would however be more direct. Good to see you looping around AUT and university to cater for large number fo tertiary students (50,000 students vs 100,000 CBD workers according to your figures). I agree with the need for improved bus lanes on Albert St to cater for increased bus usage on this section. The completion of this would deliver significant benefits.
Northern Express services would still go to Britomart so theoretically you could transfer onto that service at Fanshawe St or somewhere on the shore if you wanted to go downtown.