Another step in the development of New Lynn is happening, in January I posted about improvements to Gt North Rd and Delta Rd that Auckland transport was consulting on. AT have finished that consultation and a contract has been signed with Downer to do the works which should take place from now until early 2013. Here is what AT say the works include:

  • New and wider concrete footpaths on Great North Road and Delta Triangle to encourage enhanced retail use, such as café-style seating, and safer and more attractive pedestrian areas.
  • Creating vehicle access to Delta Avenue from Great North Road for city-bound traffic to improve accessibility to local businesses and the large McNaughton Way carparking area located behind Delta Ave
  • Installing new drainage systems in the form of rain gardens to help manage stormwater run-off
  • Extensive landscaping, including new trees, low-level planting, seating and efficient street lighting
  • Installing raised speed tables at the intersections of Delta Avenue/Hugh Brown Drive/Memorial Avenue and McCrae Way/Great North Road and at the new access point from Great North Road into Delta Avenue
  • Replacing existing inset parking on Great North Road with off-peak “tidal” parking and reconfiguring parallel and right-angle parking on Delta Avenue
  • Service relocations
  • Road reconstruction and resealing

The works will mainly take place between 10am and 10pm Monday to Saturday and here are some images of what the finished result may look like:

You can find out more about it here.

Share this

11 comments

  1. I always find these images completely disingenuous, they litter them with cyclists and yet make absolutely no effort to cater for them. I wonder whether they are even installing a bike rack. If the ratio of bikes to cars as depicted is what they expect in the area then how about reducing the lanes of cars from 4 to 2, installing cycle lanes and widening the footpaths. As it is it remains an ugly car dominated area, new paving won’t solve the fundamental problem with this design.

    1. Indeed. You have two options. Either ride in the car-parking lane and risk getting doored.

      Or ride in the single other lane, which is likely choked with slow moving cars frustrated at you riding past them, or slightly faster than you and frustrated at being behind you, or you sit behind them at the same pace keeping them happy while breathing their toxic carcinogenic exhaust fumes.

      The rest of it could work, I’m not in a position to give judgement. It could be excellent!

      1. Nicely put George those are the options on four lane roads. On Ponsonby Rd I often take the ‘fast’ lane as this seems more acceptable now there’s the 40kph limit…. drivers do still like to rush from one red light to the next. I get shouted at now and then…. park of the game of driver education, I think sometimes. Any lower speed limits in New Lynn? Still all looks very ‘road’ and not so ‘street’ to me, no real attempt at physical restrictions for vehicles, that’s the only real way to change the quality from auto world to a human one….

    2. I agree – disingenuous. Those two cyclists coming towards us are more likely to have cars behind them really close honking their horns and screaming obscenities.
      But as a general rule, project images (houses, apartments blocks, street designs, new spaces, new public buildings etc) all bear little resemblance to real life.

  2. Good work New Lynn. Our family did a bike trip from Olympic Park,(great playground and bike track with sculptures) to kohu road icecream cafe (mind blowing icecream, vintage caravan with kids movie). We biked on the sidewalk because it just doesn’t feel safe on the road despite the paint and picture of cyclist. The train goes right past some of our areas best attractions. Here are some of the best family things to do in our area from the train, Maxx should promote the cool things you can do from the train and run a special train on weekends and school holidays, Swanson (great playground, cafe), Corbans Estate (should be a stop), Sunnyvale (follow stream bike path to Oratia FArmers market and artisan wine restaurant), Fruitvale small suburban bike ride to Humbug Cafe ( beautiful food, tennis courts), New Lynn (Should stop at Olympic park for park and Kohu rd), Motat/zoo tram could connect to the train and loop to include pt chev park, and into britomart. Their are some hidden gems.

    1. Fantastic description of some things to do out that way! Could you work with your Local Board and produce a brochure aimed at cyclists that has a map of all these things? People are likely to come out via the NorthWestern Cycleway, or by bringing their bike on the train.

  3. The artists depiction would be a lot more accurate if there were no cyclists on there and a heap of queued cars and buses.

    1. Also, they would almost certainly be driving across what looks to be a raised table crossing (not a zebra crossing mind you) – yet another failure in NZ planning, we can’t even bring ourselves to give pedestrians priority over cars in town centre…..Another lovely design feature is the use of planted berms (a la Symonds Street) to stop those pesky pedestrians crossing the road except at the designated spot. Wouldn’t want them impeding on traffic flow would you.

  4. What is the goal in New Lynn?

    Great North was an arterial but is being slowly turned into a useless space (neither arterial nor local road nor ped space) – it WILL have near-arterial volumes no matter what discouragements are put in place, because it’s the way from A to B. Meanwhile Clark was supposedly an arterial project but has been gummed up with non-synchronized traffic signals. Existing shops were driven out of Totara by the construction and as there’s now no passing custom, nothing has moved in. If McNaughton carpark is so great, why build a 4 level garage in the middle of the retail area?

    It’s just fail upon fail.

  5. Looks like a pretty ordinary four lane arterial road to me. With the obligatory b-s- artist’s impression showing a brace of cheerful cyclists and hardly any cars (the exact opposite of the most likely future).

    It’s true that Great North Road further west is unavoidably a major through route. But then, eastbound, it splits into three just west of New Lynn centre. There is no reason why GNR needs to be a through route in New Lynn centre. Through traffic can be directed to bypass the centre via Rata and Clark Sts, and GNR through the centre can be optimised for the urban amenity. One through traffic lane in each direction, and one cycle lane/widened footpath, would seem appropriate.

    There is of course serious congestion on GNR westbound in the evening as the three routes merge to one at Clark and Rata Sts. Narrowing GNR through New Lynn centre would simply move that bottleneck a kilometre east, which would improve the amenity of New Lynn cente and probably not make much difference to motorists (it’s queuing to get through a bottleneck point that causes delay; exactly where that point is is not so important).

  6. Waste of time if you ask me. All these improvements and for what? I’ve lived in New Lynn for 24 years.I’ve seen new lynn slowly progress visually, but business wise, it’s a complete let down. Not so much for larger business, more directed at smaller businesses that fail to thrive.

    Which is what has brought me to this decision. Going to help improve new lynn and or west auckland. The New lynn business association is so useless I don’t know why they bother. I really don’t give a sh!t if these all all voluntary business owners. They do nothing to generate attention towards new lynn and or the business sector.
    http://www.newlynnbusinessassociation.co.nz/

    So I am going to try and do this myself. I am not a business owner, I have done some business studies, but other then that, I know the area and it’s populace.

    New Lynn business association site if a laugh … so, I am going to create one myself and forward this to “the powers that be”. I can’t believe that the “Whats On” tab is empty.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *