Auckland Transport has it’s first board meeting of the year this morning so I have gone through the business report to see what interesting info it contains. First up hidden under the road corridor operations we have:
The Remuera Road Bus Lane has been assessed using the methodology contained in “Bus and Transit Lane Review Report” (July Board report). RCO met with the Orakei Local Board to discuss the outcome of the assessment and the recommendation for the TCC to approve T3 Transit Lane trial. The Local Board has requested additional information to be supplied before this can be included in the agenda for the next Local Board meeting.
This is an interesting outcome as information provided in the past suggested that the bus lanes were the most efficient way to move people down this important corridor, I guess the constant nagging of the local board finally got to someone at AT. Moving on we have this:
Mainline Howick & Eastern bus services are being retimetabled to provide enhanced services from March, the key elements being:
- More service from Botany Town Centre and surrounding suburbs to the central city.
- An integrated timetable from Howick and Botany to the central city so that there will be a bus at least every 15 minutes, all day, seven days a week between Pakuranga, Panmure, Ellerslie and the city centre, and vice versa.
- Improved service levels on two crosstown routes which will be extended to the Manukau Station.
- Some route number changes to make services easier to explain to customers.
Now to me that service between Pakuranga and the city sounds a lot like the frequency requirement of a B Line.
From the report we also learn that the new 7 story parking building in Manukau will open in May, I wonder if the station will be open by then as since my post the other day I have heard that the opening date has been pushed back to at least after Easter which is partly due to AT not getting their paper work complete on time. Interestingly there is no word on what is happening with the Manukau station itself in this report
On the issue of cycling and walking there are a few interesting points.
- Pedestrian monitoring on the Auckland isthmus was completed, showing an 11% increase on last year.
- Continued progress on the development of cycleways including: –
- a preferred alignment for the extension of the Waterview Cycle and walkway connection between Great North Road and Hendon Avenue in Mt Albert. Draft Feasibility report completed and discussions with land owners initiated.
- the development of a NZ Cycle Trail application for a route between the CBD and the Airport.
An 11% increase in pedestrians is quite a big jump, I wonder how much of that is from within the CBD as a result of improvements like shared spaces?
Integrated ticketing is ticking along, AT says they are still on track to roll out the core system in the middle of the year. They also mention the number of active HOP cards has passed 100,000 however what is concerning is that at this critical phase the project director overseeing the whole thing has recently left.
Next up is the current planned or out to tender bits of work that have caught my eye.
Federal Street Shared Space: The traffic assessment has been completed and this indicates that Federal Street is able to function as a shared space. In mid-December, SkyCity advised that they would not proceed with the proposed overbuild, but have indicated a desire to continue with the shared space proposal.
Victoria Street West / Elliott Street pedestrian mid-block crossing: Currently working through detailed design
Neilson Street: A major project to consider an east-west link has been established to respond to growth and freight requirements along the corridor
Really interesting to see that Sky City have dropped their plans for an over bridge, I had mixed feelings about it but I know many people strongly objected to it. Not far away it seems we will get a new pedestrian crossing at the end of Elliot St which should make it much easier to cross the road there. Lastly a Neilson St upgrade is something that I feel is definitely and is probably something that if done right could remove or push out the need for one of the major motorway projects in the Auckland plan, a east – west link saving potentially over $1b
Lastly moving on to the special projects section we learn that CAF has submitted its concept design, something I thought would have happened as part of the tender process. AT says that both the EMU and depot projects are proceeding to their plan. On the issue of the City Rail Link (CRL) they say work is still progressing towards being able to issue the Notice of Requirement which is needed to get the designation. The winner of a tender will be announced this month on what is called the City Centre Future Access Study, my understanding is that this study is to determine exactly how much capacity is in the city centre for buses and cars and other vehicles and will eventually be used as part of an updated future business case for the CRL.
Here is an indication of all of the large projects that AT is working on at the moment (click on it to see a larger view)
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Can’t see integrated ticketing on the spreadsheet?
I’m getting a bit nervous about the total vacuum around integrated ticketing. AT should be engaging with the public around restructuring fares at this point, just to get the discussion started if nothing else. Waiting until integrated tickets are rolled about before even starting engagement around fares is meaning we’ll be into 2014/15 at the earliest before anything happens about the transfer penalty, the obscenely high cost of tickets, or any of the other fare-related impediments to increased public transport use.
Great to see the H&E improvements, they were long needed. Too bad they came one year too late for me!
Neilson Stret – from what I remember this IS the east-west link in effect. The upgrade is likely to be a limited access expressway, ie halfway to a motorway standard road. The big issues are how much this affects local land use (ugly, but an important part of urban functionality in Auckland) and how on earth to solve the Onehunga harbour interchange…. options have been sketched for ages, all of them are complicated and/or high impact.
The east west link as reffered to the the Auckland Plan is a new motorway from Onehunga to East Tamaki which is primarily for freight traffic and budgedet at $1.25b. My view is a substantial upgrade of say $100m on Neilson St, Church St, improved links to the motorway etc could remove much of the need for the billion+ motorway or at least push it’s need back much further allowing the funds saved to be spent on other things or helping to reduce the shortfall that exists.
I would really like to see some progress on the cycle trail application. 6 months ago, Cycle Action Auckland was ready (and had the support of the NZCT themselves) to lodge the application ourselves (the applications do not HAVE to come from authorities), but Auckland Transport requested us to cancel that, as they want to do it themselves. We would really like to see this come to fruition.
Good to hear the progress on the Waterview cycle route, which I of course consider my own personal baby. But I guess it is appropriate that discussions with land owners have to be held pretty close to their chests until there is agreement.
The report says that they are currently identifing and working through all of the safety issues along the route.
Good post Matt, Admin had a look at the so called ‘middle rung’ issue some time ago here:
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2011/11/22/the-proposed-“middle-rung”/
Worth a look.
Not more bloody motorways…face palm.
What is happening at Swanson that requires eight months of construction? I know they need to add a third track and associated platform face, but I wouldn’t have thought that would take eight months. The park ‘n ride appears to be excluded, as it’s listed as a separate project.
Regarding the comments on Bus lanes in Remuera Road.
I drive this road every day and in my opinion and experience these bus lanes are a big FAIL and I’ve used the bus as well as my car on this road while the bus lanes are active so I can comment as both road and PT user.
The reason for this opinion is that although the name is “Remuera Road bus lane”, the bus lanes don’t cover the full length of this road, (probably in part due to lobbying by the Remuera residents and retailers not wanting to lose on street parking during the AM/PM peaks near the Remuera shops).
In fact this bus lane is actually split into two parts in each direction.
The first part of the bus lane covers the link from Market Road to/from Newmarket (both directions) – AM peak from Market to Newmarket, PM peak the reverse.
The more problematical part of the whole thing is the second half of the bus lane which is between Upland Road and Blackett Crescent intersection with St Johns road. (Blackett to Upland AM peak, Upland to Blackett PM peak).
Between these two “Remuera Road” bus lanes is a stretch of over 3 km where there is normal 2 lane each way traffic.
This means that in theory buses should get some marginal “head start” when heading to Newmarket in the AM peak, via the Blackett/Upland road Bus lane, but they then get stuck in normal traffic for the next 3km (which takes in 7+ bus stops – all mostly used to pick up/drop off many passengers), this covers the areas of Remuera village, Orakei Road intersections and Remuera centre proper on up to Market Road, at which point the second bus lane to Newmarket kicks in and it can get to Newmarket in its own bus lane from then on.
Coming out of Newmarket (evening peak) is the reverse setup.
Main problem is that for some time now the section of the bus lanes from Blackett to Upland (and v.v in the PM) has not been actively enforced (no cameras or AT officers patrolling the bus lanes). Or if cameras are there no tickets are issued.
Official reason is apparently (that the Orakei Board said recently is that) AT doesn’t think that Auckland Council got the bus lane designation correct in their bylaw so they can’t/won’t ticket anyone or enforce the bus lanes as they are “unenforcable”
This has allowed/encouraged some residents to park their cars in the bus lane with impunity each and every day.
In is a real issue, as on the stretch between Macfarland and Upload it is particularly bad, and the bus has to weave in and out of the bus lane into General traffic to get past those parked cars. Its not just one car either, its about 4 sets of parked cars.
Since the general traffic lane is now also regularly backed up to well before Blackett (which is a single lane before then as its not wide enough for a bus lanes as well as general traffic on St Johns road) the buses can’t even get to the bus lane easily most days in AM peak. So stays jammed in traffic.
Note this degree of backed up buses in general traffic didn’t used to exist before the bus lane went in, so the bus lane has made the bus journey times worse.
Then once the bus gets in the bus lane, a parked car is encountered, then bus has to wait for the general lane to clear enough to allow the bus to “hop past” the car and back into the bus lane for the bus stop. Then this repeats two or more times. Each “hop” of the us takes 3+ minutes, adding delay after delay to the bus trip.
So we have a situation where the non-PT user is being penalised with congestion mightily for not using a bus (as they have only a lane of traffic not two), but can clearly see that the bus next to them is in fact is no faster due to this lack of enforcement of the bus lanes.
(Surprisingly enough the level of compliance of cars keeping out of the bus lane is very high, its mainly the parked cars which let the side down here).
In my time of using this road since way before the bus lanes went in, I can count on one hand the number of buses that pass me in the bus lane each day while I wait in traffic for my 20-30 minute journey to Newmarket along Remuera Road. So I don’t know where AT gets their “stats” from – I suspect they only look at the bus lanes from Market Road to Newmarket and ignore the poor second cousin out east. The buses before then are also usually under half full. They only fill up once they get past Remuera, so the “effectiveness” of the Blackett/Upland bus lanes has to be called into question on passenger numbers on the bus. Can’t argue after Remuera though as the buses are always full after Remuera in the AM peak.
PM peak is similar with cars parking in the PM bus lanes without fear of ticketing or towing and bus is half empty by the time the Upland road bus lane starts in the PM peak.
I have asked the local board more than once if the bus Lanes aren’t enforceable to at least consider getting AT to put back the Clearways that used to be there at least for the Blackett to Upland roads but apparently AT knows better and won’t change anything anytime soon.
Also seems to me that while stopping in a bus lane is not allowed, the penalty for doing so is only a ticket, not a tow – therefore anyone who parks in a bus lane causes a traffic jam that is not cleared with a tow. Making the penalty for parking in a bus lane, not much worse than a slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.
Somethings got to be done, this is giving Bus Lanes a bad rap and isn’t delivering any benefits to the PT user or anyone else that I can see, except allowing half a dozen lazy residents on street parking at a high inconvenience to the rest of us.
AT – Either fix and enforce the bylaw or rip out the bus lanes ASAP and make it clearway.
T2 or T3 won’t make a difference either unless you enforce your bylaws!