Following on from my post yesterday about the the new developments about to happen in New Lynn, Auckland Transport is also currently consulting on its plans to improve Gt North Rd through the area and I for one think they look pretty good. AT has this to say about the works
Along this section of road, the aim is to provide a more pedestrian-friendly town centre or “high street” environment while maintaining a key arterial road that serves the wider west Auckland area.
The plan allows for wider footpaths, new seating and additional plantings to create a more pleasant environment for walking, shopping and socialising. The old brick footpaths, which pose safety risks, will be replaced with modern concrete footpaths that match other redeveloped areas in the town centre. Additional tree planters will be introduced and low impact drainage systems, in the form of “rain gardens”, will help to manage storm water run-off. Under the proposal, vehicles will no longer be permitted to make a right-hand turn into Memorial Drive.
Footpath widths at this intersection are currently well below the desired minimum width of two metres, so this change will allow the footpath to be widened sufficiently. However, there are still a number of alternative access points into Memorial Drive – from Totara Avenue, Delta Avenue, Clark Street and McCrae Way.
Delta Ave is also getting an upgrade and here is what AT says about it.
The new-look Delta Avenue will be a tree-lined boulevard and a pedestrian-friendly environment for retail and leisure. The footpath on the retail side will be widened from two to four metres to encourage enhanced retail use, such as café-style seating, while the footpath on the Delta Triangle side will be widened from 1.5 to two metres. Extensive landscaping work – including new trees, seating, footpath surfaces, pavers and efficient LED lighting – will be undertaken. The plans allow for vehicle access to be created from Great North Road for city-bound traffic, improving accessibility to local businesses and the large McNaughton Way carparking area located behind Delta Avenue. The existing Delta Avenue/Hugh Brown Drive/Memorial Drive intersection will be replaced with a raised mini-roundabout to improve pedestrian safety and accessibility. The roundabout will feature zebra crossings to give pedestrians priority and increased visibility.
So what will it look like:
The first thing I noticed was the number of raised platforms to slow traffic down but there are also other features as well, a close look at the current situation shows that in some places parking is separate to the traffic lanes but as part of this will become off peak only in one of the lanes, there are also wider footpaths and much more planting than what exists now. And an artists impression of what it may look like once it is finished, it would be interesting to see if we ever get to a situation where there is more cyclists than cars as depicted here. 
All up while there could definitely be some improvements, I am pretty pleased about what is proposed here considering it is still a pretty key arterial road in the area and a vast improvement on what is there now. If you have a view on it and wish to give feedback, it is open for another few days and closes on 13 January @ 5pm
Processing...
Looking at the plans, it’s hard to see what would encourage cyclists in the area. There are no cycle lanes and lots of carparks remain on the road. I guess the raised areas should calm the traffic a bit.
Definitely looks nice – the lack of cycle lanes at grade with the footpath is a shame.
Im all in favor for cycle friendly developments, but cycle ways at grade with the foot path in my experience are not the best option. I could rant on about them, but those who have used them will know they are unsafe if you like to travel at normal cycling speed.
The pictures quite clerly show bicycles mixing with the traffic and no cycle lanes. I’ve cycled through this area in the past and I’m not aware of any alternative route.
Something needs to be provided to make it safer.
Those raised areas would be a pain to ride over too, I wonder if flat gaps could be left for cyclists, like those recently constructed on the Mt Eden summit Rd?
I knew someone would raise the issue of Bike Lanes 🙂
I guess there is only so much that can be done in the space available but if you feel strongly then you should put your feedback in. Also Anthony I don’t see why it would be a pain to ride over, they usually have a fairly gentle slope on them unlike speed bumps. The left most one is already in place where Totora Ave comes out so check that one out.
Well IMO there’s plenty of space for cycle lanes, rather than keeping on street parking and at the same time building off street carparks (supplementing the vast numbers of parks in the area) simply use that space as a cycle lane, you’d probably still have space for 4 narrow lanes if desired or simply make it 2 lanes peak and off peak. Cars now have a major bypass of the area and should be using that. The focus of this area should not be the car, I think there are a lot of positives to the plans but I think the primary focus is still to a major part on car flow and maintaining more or less the status quo in terms of capacity for them.
Vocal shop owners will ensure they never lose those onstreet parking, even though you don’t really need it with all the carparks they are planning there. Cars through there don’t really have a major bypass.
What do you mean they don’t have a major bypass? They just built the enormous Clark Street bypass – if that’s not a bypass then I don’t know what is.
“New Lynn’s town centre will gain an extra development boost from a traffic bypass over its $160 million railway trench. Construction will start early next year on the $40 million bypass, which will involve Clark St being extended westward from its intersection with Rankin Ave by 300m as a dual carriageway, and bridging the railway trench before joining Great North Rd.
That should remove serious traffic congestion through Totara St West in the town centre, which Waitakere City Council expects will become much more “pedestrian friendly” once the bypass is completed by May 2012.
In approving the project, the Transport Agency has agreed to provide a $16 million subsidy, to be added to contributions from developers and the city council.
The dual carriageway bypass will complete a traffic transformation of New Lynn which began with the removal of a congested roundabout next to a rail-level crossing.
That has been supplanted by an 800m trench from Portage Rd to the western end of the town centre, although traffic lights have been installed on what remains a busy four-way intersection.
Once the bypass is completed, drivers travelling between the New Windsor end of the Southwestern Motorway and West Auckland will be able to avoid the New Lynn centre.
The city council said yesterday that funding for the project would allow for the redevelopment of Totara Ave West and the adjoining Todd Triangle as “a more pedestrian-friendly business area and focal point for the town centre”.”
The Clark St extension is a bypass of Totora Ave which has been turned into a shared space and is what will become part of the commercial heart of New Lynn (much in the same way we don’t want major through traffic through the heart the CBD).
Gt North Rd is on the other side of New Lynn and while they join each other just to the west of the diagram above, they split away from each other like a triangle so it simply isn’t practical for most of that traffic to use Clark St.
I’m more than familiar with the area – and there’s plenty of routes cars could take to avoid great north road .
I’m very familiar with the area as well and I would find those alternate routes quite inconvenient in their current form.
Perhaps if there was an upgrade of the route between Gt North Rd and Rata St then it might ok but that would probably be quite costly due to the need to purchase property and I don’t think it is worth it.
Between Ash St, the Totora Ave / GNR bypass and the announced upgrade to Wolverton St I think there are plenty of alternative route options around New Lynn.
Even more bizarre than the number of cyclists is the number of seagulls. Is Great North Road a major bird migration path, or have the architects just been up to their old tricks?
I have to say, I’m getting heartily sick of the focus on Great North Road. There are other roads in this city, some of them are even Great, and most of them would benefit significantly from some attention. GSR in Otahuhu town centre, for example, is a disgrace.
Hell, I’d just like it if GSR generally got some bloody recognition for its role as a public transport route, because right now things are woeful despite it being pretty easy pickings to shave at least 10 minutes off the peak-hour trip between Harp of Erin and Khyber Pass.
What other focuses on Gt North Rd have there been, I can’t think of any recently. The reality is this upgrade isn’t because it is Gt North Rd but because it is in New Lynn which is one of the key growth areas over the next 30 years for which much of the planning had already been done by the WCC which is why it is happening now.
b-line. Which isn’t strictly GNR, but it’s more attention to that side of the city.
Maybe I’m just getting overly twitchy, but when was the last time we heard about anything happening south of Newmarket that’s not related to trains?
Great North Road doesn’t have a b.line. The only two are on Dominion Rd and Mt Eden Road.
A lot of focus is on New Lynn, but that was because Waitakere City Council actually got their act together and budgeted some serious money for upgrades there – which is now being carried over by Auckland Transport.
Panmure is another area with a lot of focus at the moment, for similar reasons.
So plane trees are now in and NZ natives out? I remember when they decided that Queen St should have cabbage trees because they were native- has there been a change in policy?
Deciduous trees work really well as street trees because they offer shade in the summer but let the sun in during the winter. While planting natives is excellent, I don’t necessarily think it needs to be done everywhere.
Maybe some guerilla cycle lanes are in order
http://fortworthology.com/2010/10/04/guerilla-complete-streets-fort-worth-better-block-project-plus-fall-arts-goggle-report/
Brilliant. Kerbside parking should (mostly) be a thing of the 20th century.
Slightly off topic but…
I can understand why streetlights were placed over the carriageways when cars still used ascetelene headlamps but it still done that way with modern car and cycle lighting technology? Is just because “thats the way we’ve always done it” or because cars are more important than pedestrians. In the photo the trees are between the lights and the footpaths so in the absence of shop lighting pedestrian safety is compromised, try walking down an unfamiliar residential street with shade trees at night and you’ll appreciate why this way of doing things might be part of the reason people don’t walk if they can avoid it.