One interesting part of the Central Flagship bus changes that were finalised earlier this week is the use of Wellesley Street as a major crosstown bus route corridor in the city centre. The “Outer Link” route will use Wellesley Street to get across the city, between Victoria Park in the west and the University in the east. Here’s the relevant part of the route map (the Outer Link is shown in orange):
It’s not exactly obvious when you’re in town, but looking at the map above clearly shows Wellesley Street to be the most direct and shortest east-west link through the CBD. With the westbound Mayoral Drive to Queen Street section of the road already bus-only, it would seem an obvious candidate to become a prime crosstown bus route in Auckland’s city centre (along with Customs Street which obviously has the advantage of being located next to Britomart and the Ferry Terminal).
As I’ve explained in previous posts, one of the best ways to take advantage of Wellesley Street would be as the primary street for carrying North Shore buses (aside from the Northern Express, which needs to connect to Britomart as it’s part of the Rapid Transit Network). You would end up with the main bus routes in the city centre following the streets shown below (the purple route is a possible light-rail corridor):
Before we get into a big debate over whether so many buses should travel along Alfred Street in the heart of the University, that’s an issue that obviously requires further consideration and there are some obvious alternatives such as turning the buses around (and even storing them) on Stanley Street and the vacant land adjacent to it. There are some obvious advantages to sending all North Shore buses this way:
- Improved access between the university and the North Shore. This should remove the need for some of the special routes that travel via the University.
- Removal of conflict between West Auckland and North Shore buses on Albert Street.
- Opportunity to connect to Aotea Station in the future via its proposed entrance at the corner of Albert and Wellesley streets.
- With good bus priority this would be a really fast way for buses to get through the city centre (especially those that continue to the Hospital and Newmarket).
The last issue, that of bus priority measures, is what I find potentially quite interesting. With around 70 non-NEX buses travelling over the Harbour Bridge an hour during the AM peak, we would certainly need good priority measures. It seems to me that Wellesley Street has an almost unprecedented ability to handle high-quality bus priority measures – be they median bus lanes, curbside bus lanes with “station-style” bus stops or whatever else is chosen. There are a few reasons for this:
- It’s a relatively quiet street at the moment (at least compared to other crosstown roads like Victoria and Customs streets).
- There’s already an important bus priority measure between Queen Street and Mayoral Drive.
- It’s a pretty wide street in areas – meaning that on-street parking could probably be retained even in areas where median bus lanes were provided.
Obviously bus lanes would need to be provided along Halsey Street and one of the two right-turn lanes from Fanshawe into Halsey Street would need to be made bus only (plus some improvements to the Halsey-Fanshawe left turn). But from looking at aerial photos, and knowing the area pretty well, it would seem that these changes would be relatively easy to make.
Even with the City Rail Link project constructed, we are going to need to find a way of handling a pretty large number of buses from the North Shore in the future – until such a time as we build a railway line to the North Shore. A study from NZTA suggested that there’d be close to 250 buses an hour from the North Shore in 2041, with the City Rail Link project constructed. That’s around one every 15 seconds.
I think it’s time we started taking advantage of Wellesley Street’s potential as an excellent east-west bus corridor.
Processing...
good on AT with all the initiatives, the only pit fall i find with them is the stance on buslanes & priority lights for some reason they are not advocating it. we can see how congested britomart is. it takes about 12mts to get to britomart from Kroad. i cant see any plans may be i am wrong. you are quite right in the post it should be a combination. the only party benifited from all this is NZ bus, more routes, subsidy. i wondered why the travelling public dont raise this wil AT, i sort of realised after the replies i got, the comlaints are promptly received and FORWARDED to the concerend operator( iam sure they use a template for the email AT sends out) and we receive a template email from NZ bus. i hope they all can see the pic of light rail( in earlier posts) around the globe and where we are and how expensive it is and what bad service we get for it. thinking of buying some infratil shares.
I don’t think there’s much conflict between West and North buses on Albert Street, given most buses at peak are using opposite sides of the road, not that the bus lanes couldn’t do with some improvement.
I like these changes a lot, good on AT and whichever consultants helped them with it (anyone know perchance?). Now there is a really convenient connection from inner-city suburbs (where a lot of students live) to the heart of the city and the universities. Great stuff.
I think AT’s PT network planning team did the work themselves. The changes are predominantly a big step forward, aside from a couple of minor issues I had that I discussed in my previous post.
Excellent, good work AT. Great to see this happening.
By the way, I think buses on Alfred Street will work fine – so long as they don’t dwell there. It should effectively become a shared space just for peds and buses (I know cars are meant to be banned now but it’s still really a road with some signs at either end). So long as the maximum frequency is not more than say, one every 3-5 minutes, which I doubt it ever will be.
Well at the moment there 86 North Shore buses coming into the city during the peak hour. If we assume that 15 of those are NEX buses (one every 4 minutes), then around 70 buses would go via Wellesley Street under my plan – which is probably a bit too many for Alfred Street I suspect.
OK fair enough. Then maybe we need to get the buses off Albert, onto Wellesley, and just make that lane that connects with Symonds into a bus only lane? With a nice little waiting plaza at the top outside Subway.
Wrote a long comment and then lost it (not blog fault, closed the tab). Basically, Wellesley, Albert, Customs. You cross Queen twice, go past the uni, provide good links for the north to rail (and therefore west, central and south Auckland). Customs is the major hold-up potential, but it needs sorting out anyway, it’s a transport mess.
Completely agree, Customs is a mess. That seems like one street where we have the space for a median right of way, especially given that most buses heading east turn right up Anzac anyway. I’d have a median busway along Customs, one lane for general traffic, and on-street parking. Plus wider footpaths and land-scaping of course. Might have to make some of those side streets left in, left out only – but they feed into generally pedestrian heavy zones anyway so prob should happen anyway. What do you think?
Whoops. I meant to write Wellesley, Symonds, Albert.
Stu, agreed. You take out the small number of carparks along the road, and reduce the number of entrances onto Customs. Customs is a major thoroughfare anyway especially for commuters getting on and off the Southern Motorway. While we can debate the merits of this, reducing the stop-start nature of this road would improve their lives too. Bus priority measures are more important, but we can clean it up for everyone. It currently takes around 5 minutes to get from the bottom of Beach Rd to Queen St.
I would ideally like to see a large amount of the Central Connector buses using this corridor and not going onto Britomart. For those buses that pass by a rail interchange there is no need for them to terminate at Britomart.
They should get on Wellesley St and terminate around Victoria Park or Sale St. These are areas that are poorly served by public transport if you are coming from most directions around Auckland.
Probably all the Great South Road and New North road services should head along Wellesley St, freeing up the connector for the tramline services – Sandringham, Dominion, Mt Eden, Manukau Road. this woudl reduce bus congestion around Britomart substantially.
That Wellesley/Symonds intersection is a real pain in the neck though, as it wrecks the street pattern for buses, and puts a big thorn in the side of my plan.
Just looking at a street map Wellesley would be a great East West corridor. However in reality would have to send buses up Wakefield St and Mayoral Dr, or do a silly loop around Grafton Road and back onto Wellesley that way.
I agree, the Wellesley/Symonds intersection is a mess. How about we make the little bit of Wellesley that runs past the back of the UoA physics building into a bus only lane, turn that into the major uni bus stop, and get all the buses off Albert? You would have to change the signals to allow for buses to turn right out of there, but it’s not a biggie.
That would be a great opportunity and I agree that Great South Road buses have no real need to travel to/from Britomart – often even at peak times only 2-3 people get on the bus down there from my observations.
In an ideal world perhaps we’d through-route many of the Great South Road buses with those from the North Shore.
I think you’re better to get North Shore buses connecting to rail, actually. That way if people want to go down Great South Rd, they have the opportunity. Of course, we also need to sort out bus connections with southern and western line stations, but that will come, sometime after the start of next year.
Rail connections with North Shore buses would still remain because the Northern Express would still go to Britomart under my plan.
Oh yes, and improving it would also improve the major through-route for buses from Parnell.
Actually, all of these will have to be changed once the rail link is complete, so we’re looking at just the next 8 years anyway 😉
I think all Onewa and Takapuna buses should follow this route to the University then onto Newmarket and throug routing with either the Manukau Rd, Great South Rd or Remuera Rd. The problem with Great South Rd is that it could make some very long and potentially unreliable routes.
Onehunga to CBD via Manukau Road should be an obvious b.line service and could be connected to perhaps an Onewa Rd b.line route.
Good work here. Two thoughts about the Alfred St and Symonds/Wellesley problem.
1. A centre median station on Wellesley St between the AUT+ AK Campuses [Alfred St stops less useful for AUT and Fine Arts and Architecture at AU]. Route continues on under Symonds St and up Grafton Rd to a Hospital and Med School stop at the top before turning right onto Grafton Bridge, back down Symonds and left into Wellesley St and returns to the Wellesly St centre median stop before returning to the Shore. A median stop because the busses are going straight ahead so they can stay in their privilege lanes. Elegant? And serves the medical campus and the Hosipital…or
2. Stu’s idea of running up to Symonds St, next to the math/physics could work if the southern end of Princess St became one way north, ie no traffic turning out of Princess St at all, so this would be a full time bus lane? Bit worried about lots of busses trying to turn into Symonds there, lots of pedestrian conflict, which is why I like 1. above, keeps the busses on big ped. free road below…And not sure where they go from the top, left only? then what? Down the central connecter to new bus priority on Customs and back over the bridge? I guess that depends on spare capacity on Symonds and Customs…? What is elegant about the Wellesley St plan is that it keeps the Shore busses separate from others for simplicity and legibility, I do really like the idea of them going back over the same route because of this- Wellesley/Halsey. Thoughts?
I do think Alfred would become dangerous and nasty with zillions of busses, and don’t forget AUT; the middle of AU campus is probably not the middle of the demand.
I’m warming to this, there is a spare lane under the Symonds St bridge that could easily become a bus lane, currently planted in little NZTA fuzz, and an underused ped over bridge that could help feed any centre bus stop. Not that it has to be in the centre, but just that that should be considered, there are some conflicts to mitigate with general traffic but a fair bit of road width to fiddle with.
I do like the idea of a central median station, if it’s practical. The complex mix of streets and the slope present a challenge
I like! Very much actually.
I think going up to Grafton is too far, and adds slowness and complexity when what you want to be doing is sending buses back to the Shore, rather than duplicating city services.
More thinking out loud. Looking at the maps, I wonder if you couldn’t just take a lane off the Symonds St overbridge, separate it, turn buses right and run them back down Wellesley.
Still prefer Symonds – Britomart though.
That’s probably what I would do George. Certainly some buses can continue onwards to Newmarket but we already have a million buses between Newmarket and town, no real need to add more unless we’re doing full through routing to Onehunga/Manukau/Otahuhu or wherever.
I don’t think it’s good to send them to Newmarket and that’s not what I suggested.
George’s solution is basically a u-turn above Wellesley St on Symonds and has appeal. But would the two traffic crossing right hand turns in the middle of a very busy pedestrian crossing with about one or two bus lengths work with any kind of the numbers of busses on this route? Not likely. So you’re either left with sending them down Symonds to Customs, or my 1. above, looping up to the city end of Grafton, across the bus only bridge and back to Symonds then Wellesley. It is tricky to turn this route around, everything is basically buggered-up by NZTA’s violation of Grafton Gully and the fallout from that all around it. The place-wreckers doing what they do best…..
Looking at it, the best place for the west bound stop is outside the AUT building, before the road joins the underpass traffic, but the east bound stop could certainly be on the median before heading through the underpass, great location for Universities, the Art gallery, and the Library.
would the two traffic crossing right hand turns in the middle of a very busy pedestrian crossing with about one or two bus lengths work with any kind of the numbers of busses on this route?
I was actually suggesting a barrier separated lane on the wrong side of the road, which would give two free right turns. Putting those buses into traffic or making them wait for two traffic lights would be awful. I don’t know if this is feasible – the turns would be tight, but the bridge is wide enough at 4 or so lanes that you could take out 1/3rd and still have enough for free-flowing traffic on either side.
However, with the level of pedestrian traffic over that bridge, I can see your second point.
Ah I get ya, hmmm? Very tight turns for big busses, tricky. During term there are heaps of peds there, I’ve been teaching a bit at the School of Arch this year and that area works like a busy Barne’s Dance.
This is why I keep thinking we should try to keep on the level below, but how to turn them?
The intersection of Grafton Road and Wellesley Street West is pretty massive scale with 7 lanes of traffic. How about introducing a bus only lane/u-turn traffic light phase from the left turn off Wellesley St East back around on itself? You’d have to move the red stop area going up-hill on Grafton Rd back as well as removing part of the adjacent island.
But the road there is over 30 metres wide so surely could spin a bus (or even a BAM) around? And thanks to Transit’s anti-pedestrian policies in the area you don’t have the same problems as up on Symonds Street.
no need to have all buses trying to serve the whole CBD, just need to make transfer points obvious. Maybe free inner city travel with HOP Card like is being done with the inner link.
Also once Panmure interchange/RTN has been finished no need for Eastern services to go to Britomart either, these can be sent down Welleslesy. If anyone does want to go do Anzac Ave, or the northern end of uni they can easily transfer to another service.
Good observation. And I think the bus/rail interchange will be improved further as part of the AMETI works, making it even easier to transfer from bus/rail.
looks good in theory. has anyone noticed the wellesly intersection and queen street and the long queue of buses in evening peak times with 3xx and 2xx services. and about transfers this will only work if the travel is faster, the inner link or bus services will still have to go through the same traffic (look at buses in queen street now) i find it faster to walk to uni. BUSLANES and Priorty lights is the only solution. i understand that off peak is not a problem but if we want to attract people to PT we need to get the people out of their cars. iam not advocating to penalise car users or make their driving harder but make bus/ train travel attractive
‘am not advocating to penalise car users or make their driving harder but make bus/ train travel attractive’
I am. We need both, carrot and stick. Get the cars out of Queen St completely.
Given that the number of routes is being rationalised, I think there is an opportunity to introduce transfers between inner city services. Since AT and NZ Bus will be reprogramming the routes for Snapper / Hop anyway, it wouldn’t be that hard to enable the transfer function on the Hop card between specified key routes.
@Cam no need to complicate things. Inner city trips should be free on hop.
Transfers between inner-city services are essential in a CBD of Aucklands size. eg if you work around Victoria Park – ie Telecom, then you are well served by NEX and Northern services, but at 1km from Britomart and Midtown that is beyond reasonable walking distance for all other services. Same with services from the North, in the long term never going to be able to fit everything down the Central Connector, no need to when there is a bus every minute going in the off peak direction.
The consultation document said there will be a charge for inner city trips I thought?
From what I’ve heard, the City Link will be free for the first few months for everyone, then hopefully free for HOP users after that.
I have wondered in past if we could not take the NEX buses from the shore and deviate them down through the Harbour somehow so that it could run through to Quay Street. It would remove traffic from Fanshawe and hopefully be a faster trip. Ideally a road constructed all the way across the Harbour blocks but if not then maybe Gaunt Street and on down to Quay St
Just a thought!
Nightmare. No more arterials keeping us from the harbour please.