A bit of a Mangere day today. A story in the Aucklander last week discussed how poorly the area is served by public transport, particularly to one of the biggest local employment areas, the airport.
Sixteen bus services pass through Mangere Bridge every day yet none travels directly to the area’s biggest employer, Auckland Airport.
Mangere-Otahuhu Local Board is drawing Auckland Transport’s attention to the anomaly, along with other bus-related issues.
The board’s transport spokesperson, Lydia Sosene, explains that the two airports in the area employ about 12,000 people yet only 30 per cent of those workers live locally. She’d like to see numbers increase but says convoluted bus routes are hampering progress.
“There’s opportunities to up-skill and get jobs at the airport with programmes like Youth Connections, but public transport is the missing piece of the puzzle.”
The journey from Mangere Bridge to the airport, just 8km away, involves taking at least two different buses. It’s just as difficult to make the trip from Otahuhu.
“It’s ludicrous you can catch a single service to the airport from Botany but not from here. There is no direct connection from Otahuhu to the airport for residents, travellers,or people doing business.”
She says the area’s residents were especially reliant on public transport given their lower socio-economic makeup.
“We are a community with big challenges. Public transport has not served us well, yet it plays a key role.”
I don’t think anyone will argue that PT in the area is bad, just have a look at this map of the existing bus network.
With so many similar but different routes it sure is confusing and its not hard to see where the local boards complaints are coming from. What is interesting is the local board had recently written to to transport committee chairman Mike Lee about their concerns and a week before this article was printed they had a reply. That reply included an indication as to what the new bus network would be and is the first time we have seen it in detail as previously we had only seen the likely network for the isthmus and west.
The first map shows the frequent network that will have buses running at a minimum of one every 15 minutes for the vast majority of the day.
While the second image shows the secondary layer that will run at frequencies of at least once every 30 minutes. The rail network is in red, the frequent network is blue, while the secondary network is green)
It definitely seems like it is much easier to understand along with being much more frequent. There would of course be additional routes that operate at peak times and should really help to improve both connectivity and patronage. I realise there is a bit of a process to go though yet including a consultation period but really just wish we could start getting some of these new bus routes implemented.
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Posted on the other thread, but the response from Auckland Transport is classic cut and paste:
Why didn’t they elaborate a bit more with the plans described in this post? Mangere has long suffered from poor political representation at a local level I think. Arthur Anae and Alf Filipaina are missing in action on this issue.
Arthur Anae was asleep?
Mike Lee is ensuring AT do a least some good work. Our former admin is doing great work nearby, and now this.
Feeling more confident about transport in AK now than in years..
Are a few positives and negatives about the route map. Great to see frequent services going Onehunga – Mangere – Airport – Papatoetoe – Manukau. Will be a great alternative to the expensive Airbus express. I have managed to avoid the expensive bus a few times by taking bus and train combos, however is difficult to make it work.
However I don’t agree with having no frequent bus services on Great South Road north of Otahuhu (as far as Ellerslie I presume). This is quite a dense employment corridor, and train stations ahem big gaps between them, and poor urban/pedestrian environment so people won’t want to walk far.
On the other hand I am very glad to see the mad CBD to Papakura suburbs (down GS Road) routes diced and sliced into many pieces
Also Otara only gets frequent services to Papatoetoe, which is quite a major node. However I think they should get frequent services to Manukau and Otahuhu as well as from those 2 nodes there are a very wide range of destinations, and Otara is a very busy, and also very underprivileged area.
The Eastern area seems to be a huge hole, with only 2 15 minutes services in the visible part of the map. Would have though Highbrook would have been deserving of 15 mins services from Otahuhu via Otara and onto Botany.
Another interesting note is I presume 15 minute frequency rail services are required to make this happen, as many people are pushed onto the rail network to complete many journeys, such as Otara – Middlemore when currently these people will go nowhere near rail network.
Overall is a very very exciting development, and can’t wait to see and discuss full maps!
I think 15 min rail frequencies are obviously utterly critical for achieving this plan.
Just highlights how old Papatoetoe really should have been the hub of South Auckland, rather than the mess of Manukau.
With electrification surely 10 min frequencies are a target? 10 mins is turn up and go, and can absorb delays without seriously inconveniencing passengers; 15 mins not nearly so well. I really don’t think it is wise to plan for precise connection between buses and trains when all the variability of our networks can be covered by higher frequencies. More shorter trains will be more expensive to run but are likely to attract more use, so the increase in driver costs could well be offset by high patronage. But for this the system will have to work and be seen to work; regularly.
Agreed, need 10min frequencies, however I would accept 15min until electrification is on-board.
Can’t see too much detail around Onehunga, but it seems to me that 15min frequencies along Onehunga line are needed to get the best out of the plan. Otherwise when people turn up at Onehunga they dont know if they are going to get Manukau Road buses that take 35mins(supposedly) or a 25 minute train journey to the city which only comes ever hour, or maybe half hour once electrification in place.
Uh, the Onehunga Line has two return services an hour at present.
Commuting to Auckland Airport: Would more people use the Southern Rail to Papatoetoe and then the 380 if there were more buses to the airport, especially at the peak times? It would require a covered walkway from the Papatoetoe station platform to the bus stop. (similar to the covered walkway at the Ellerslie Railway Station) I believe that patronage could improve markedly, if there was certainty of times once the trains arrived at Papatoetoe. The Airbus express would probably complain that their market was being eroded.
The same situation exists with the 375 bus service going to the Middlemore Train Station. Not good at present with such low frequency services.
I think that’s the idea of the new network George. 15 minute services all day every day for all lines forming part of the “frequent” network (i.e. the top map). I presume the 380 will effectively be extended from the Airport to Onehunga via Mangere to form one of the frequent routes.
The buses from Otara will have to go to Middlemore as well as Papatoetoe. The powers to be will have to change their plan. Also Papatoetoe station looks to be a main junction problem is the bus stops are all over the place around it. I wonder if a bus interchange with good connections to the station could be built not to sure where though. Maybe on station road next to the pedestrian overbridge there is a little spare land. Maybe with the same sort of layout they have at Otara. Buses coming from Mangere come in on the left. All other buses turn across the traffic then loop back out again.
Yes Middlemore is served only by rail, not just on the frequent network, but even the 30minute network. I wonder in this case about the merit of forcing change for all bus passengers, esp those from Otahuhu, Otara and Mangere. Passengers with ill health is one area where transfers can be problem.
With this level of forced transfers I think 10 minute frequencies are required. I would extend the Otara service to Middlemore and Otahuhu, its really not that far.
That map doesn’t show all services, only the all-day-every-day network. There is a tertiary layer of target services below that, ones that only run some of the time where appropriate. These covers off things like community access to hospitals.
bus services to the Manukau (ex)city centre from the north and east are dire, in parts of Mangere Bridge and Favona MAXX advises a 30 minute trip, 20 minutes walking and 10 minutes on a half hourly bus, do a risk analysis on that, a 20 minute walk to a bus that you just missed and have to wait half an hour for the next one!
then there’s the Howick/Pigeon Mountain area, at least one transfer (sometimes two) and up to 86 minutes for the trip! you could bike faster
as Manukau is one of the 10 metropolitan centres in the Auckland Plan, it deserves better than this
It will get a lot better than that, see the second map above.
the second map (both are low res and hard to read) still suggests a transfer at Botany, I wouldn’t find that acceptable over such a short distance as a commuter
Howick has a direct connection to Manukau via Botany at a minimum 30 min headway all day every day of the week, which means at peak time it would be every ten or fifteen minutes, maybe better.
What those maps show are service levels, not necessarily individual routes. For example, not everything feeding into Botany will terminate there, some like the Howick bus may continue onwards making up frequency on the frequent line to Manukau (or to Panmure, or Sylvia Park, or whatever). Don’t take those maps as the be all, they don’t show the whole story by any means.
I can only say it again they wont get away with downgrading services to Middlemore its not just the Hostipal but also the De La Salle college as well. Plus it creates the economy of scale plus the MIT at Otara which makes the 375 bus a success. They will have the community boards all over them like a rash.
There is no downgrading of services to Middlemore. Middlemore currently has a tertiary level service, and it will have an improved tertiary level service under the new network. A very important thing to consider is that those maps above show a class of routes that basically don’t exist yet, the super frequent and reliable all day network. A layer of buses service akin to what we have in most places today still sits below that.
More importantly though, Middlemore will also be serviced by two rail lines running at least once every fifteen minutes each, all day every day, with will connect Middlemore to major interchange locations at Papatoetoe, Manukau and Otahuhu, among other places.
That’s a huge increase in service.
Nick this is probably an example of how people will misunderstand the new network. For the consultation work, will maps of existing services be produced showing current frequencies, emphasizing how few of them would have qualified for even the secondary network, let alone the primary?
Yes, and they’re a very sparse set of maps indeed. Most existing routes fail to meet even the secondary network requirements for all day every day service at a minimum 30 minute headway, even some of those considered very busy are let down by short spans or poor evening and weekend frequency.
FYI here is the map of the only existing services that currently meet the criteria for the Frequent All Day Network:
http://www.maxx.co.nz/link
Don’t the bline Mt Eden and Dominion Road services meet this standard, or are they lacking in evenings and weekends?
I guess our point is the Middlemore should have a much higher level of service that it does at the moment due to being a high trip generator for patients and workers. This plan will see many people going via rail for one stop, which adds up to quite a big increase in journey time. A little change maybe sending Otara service to Papatoetoe via Kolmar Road, then to Middlmore and Otahuhu. This could then become the Mangere service. I worry people from Mangere and Otara suburbs will need to take 2 buses and a train to get to Middlemore, and this is asking a bit much with 15 minute service frequency. Either way looking again at google maps transit and the dire mess of services in this area your plan will be a huge improvement!
Also I don’t have same data and constraints as you do. Would be fascinating to know what you could do with an extra 10% of money/service kilometres to play with!
Finally this shows Middlemore is in a silly place, should of been in Manukau CBD, or Otahuhu between town and train station. Would have made it much easier to serve. Street network makes it difficult to serve efficiently with buses.
The bLines only guarantee 15 minute headways between 7am and 7pm Monday to Friday. While they are pretty good on the all-day aspect, the lack the every-day side.
Mangere and Otahuhu have a direct bus to Middlemore, it’s just not show on those maps of the frequent all day network.
More importantly Middlemore has it’s own rail station serviced by two lines that have a minimum frequency of 15 minutes all day every day. At worst there will be eight trains an hour in either direction between Otahuhu and Papatoetoe.
There is nowhere in Mangere or Otara (or anywhere in Manukau for that matter) that is more than a single transfer away from Middlemore.
From Otara using ethier 375 or 575 passengers have a peak service of 15 mins at the moment. 375 goes through to Mangere and the airport.
The 375 and 575 only run Monday to Friday, and only from about 6am to 7pm. That’s a worse-than-tertiary service, even combined together.