This is a Gust Post by regular commenter Matthew Thredgold (“handlebars Matt”). It originally appears on his blog here and has been reproduced with his kind permission.
Is it time to dust off for a reread the Danish firm, Gehl Architects’ 2004 Report for Wellington’s City to Waterfront Study?
The NZTA are often accused of sham public consultations and then doing whatever they want, and that may well be the case for what they are now calling The Tunnel to Tunnel Inner City Transport Improvements.
The politics of road building can be pretty nasty. There is the Happy Motoring brigade who never want to stop at a red light, wait in a traffic queue for any amount of microseconds, nor see a bloody cyclist on their beloved tarmac. The current transport minister may well indeed be one of the brigade – see Brownlee is a Roads Scholar. Then at the other end of the spectrum there are the green purists who view all road development and automobiles as intrinsically evil. (Yes I know such people probably are mythical, but I suspect people, like the commenters on every story on the RoNS in the Fairfax press who say “Hurry up and build the thing”, believe that they do exist.)
If we ignore the great economic cost of building giant roads and tunnels in the first place, and if we ignore the pollution issues, and the possible urban blight issues of a flyover in Mt Cook/Te Aro, and the fact that petrol is going to get more expensive, and that Wellington is presently in the economic doldrums meaning traffic levels are probably going to fall, does the Tunnel to Tunnel plan actually have some benefits for making Wellington a more liveable city?
Should we (we as in the non-Happy Motoring Brigade) roll over on the Basin flyover, the Buckle Street tunnel, duplicating the Terrace Tunnel, and the Mt Victoria Tunnel, and the widening of Ruahine Street and then use them as an opportunity to improve the outcomes in terms of urban quality, better cycling routes, getting rid of traffic on the streets that are bypassed and slowing down the traffic that is left? It is after all called the Inner City Bypass.
Firstly I’ve got to say it is a good idea to reinstate the Helen Clark Government’s plan to put Buckle Street into an underpass to make an urban park in front of the War Memorial carillon. It’s now a rush job to get it finished by the centenary of the Gallipoli landings (and it wouldn’t have been a rush if National didn’t cancel the plan in 2009). So we can thank Helen Clark for it, rather than John Key.
Next consider that a pedestrian cycle facility is meant to be included in the NZTA plan. I’m not sure from the brochure what the quality of it is going to be, but maybe they’ll even improve the Mt Vic Tunnel facilities (how many years have we been ignored on our calls to install a relatively inexpensive perspex screen for the pedestrian route in the current Mt Vic Tunnel so that pedestrians aren’t poisoned with fumes?) The blue dotted lines are crying out for separated cycle lanes (without fear of dooring) on Kent and Cambridge Terraces to join out this proposed better route with the waterfront and the start of the around the Bays route.
Those separated cycle lanes on Kent and Cambridge fit in with Jan Gehl’s idea of City Boulevards, as shown on this map on his report. Notice that with a lot of the traffic removed out of the city centre (and especially off the Quays) the Quays, Cable and Wakefield St and Kent and Cambridge Terraces are all City Boulevards. This is the idea from the Gehl report that needs revisiting.
But the good news is this is the NZTA’s thinking too. This is in their brochure:
So what is an urban boulevard for Wellington? It means reducing the 6 lanes on Waterloo, Customhouse and Jervois Quays down to 4. It means adding Copenhagen style cycle lanes to the Quays, so no on street parking. It means a 3 metre median planted with trees. (Yes it has this in part already)
And it means slowing the traffic. At the moment the Quays are way too fast. They are either 70 or 50 km/hr and it is too fast. The fast traffic and the 6 lanes means it is a barrier to pedestrians to get from the Golden Mile to the Waterfront. I would like a 30km/hr limit. The Happy Motoring brigade would like 50 and then drive at 60. Perhaps 40 km/hr, enforced, is a happy compromise.
We need the bike lanes on the Quays as the Inner City Bypass is for cars, the Golden Mile will remain to be for buses and pedestrians, the waterfront is for walkers, strollers, dreamers, and slow recreational cycling, and the safe separated cycle lanes on the Quays will be for cycle commuting. If you want to cycle slow go on the waterfront. If you want to cycle at 20-30km/hr cycle in the cycle lanes on the Quays.
Wellington is also having its debate on buses versus light rail for the railway station to hospital transport spine study. The Boulevard on the Quays could still be reduced from 6 lanes to 4, and accommodate the light rail tracks.
***
The Gehl report has lots of other good advice especially about linking the Golden Mile to the Waterfront and removing obstacles for pedestrians along the Golden Mile (by closing side streets) and is worth a read, but it also has some recommendations for cyclists. First a map of the cycle routes in the city. The orange boxes are areas of “cyclist confusion”. The northern one could be fixed with my cycle paths across the Cake Tin forecourt suggestion. The Eastern one by boulevardising Kent and Cambridge.
And lastly Gehl’s recommendations for cycling:
All good, and points d, e, h and k I think are particularly great advice. Point j gives the Trondheim example of the bike elevator.
All in all, I reckon the forces of Happy Motoring are going to win the day and we are going to end up with at least a completed 2-lane in each direction road between Cobham Drive and the SH1 and SH2 split. i.e the Inner City Bypass will be complete. The Mt Vic and Terrace tunnels will be duplicated. We have to stand fast and hold them to the Buckle Street Underpass that they’ve promised.
It is not all bad news as significant benefits are going to be had if we ask for them and prepare for them. We can make good decisions about the CBD. It does involve slowing down speed limits, narrowing roads, getting rid of on-street parking, building separated cycle lanes, and lots of things that are anathema to the Happy Motoring brigade, but we should stand tall and say thanks for the opportunity, we’ll take it from here.
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Firstly I’ve got to say it is a good idea to reinstate the Helen Clark Government’s plan to put Buckle Street into an underpass to make an urban park in front of the War Memorial carillon.
A Cut and Cover underpass in front of the War memorial pre dates the Clark Government,
If memory serves it was part of the “tunnel link” proposal for the inner city by pass in the 1990s, which proposed to cut and cover the entire route from the basin to the terrace tunnel ( for both east and west traffic), That plan was shelved and we got a bastard child of Karo drive and the current Buckle street….
OK, thanks for the correction Greenwelly. It predates my time in NZ.
The more I look at that basin reserve viaduct the more bitter the taste in my mouth. I hadn’t actually realised the extent of the ramps and structures proposed. Poor Wellington, as far as urbanism goes you’re better than Auckland. All the more shame that crap like this if foisted upon you.
Yeah, the viaduct looks horrible.
Also, I vaguely remember a certain William (Bill) Sutch mentioning how the War Memorial was meant to have been straight down to the water in the 30’s and that he (this being sometime in the 60’s) recommended a tunnel or the closing of Buckle street to implement this – then again my memory may be fading.
I’ve heared this before, although I think therewas meant to be an large avenue/boulevard leading down to the waterfront to enhance its view, not a park all the way down, although a park in front was originally planned. The scheme was downscaled in the early 1930s to what we have today because of the great depression.
Funny you should mention Bill Sutch. His brief but excellent polemic Wellington: a sick city ([Wellington]: Sweet & Maxwell, [1965]) is still worth reading. Based on a close reading of the brilliant Jane Jacobs’ The death and life of great American cities, Sutch cautioned against the building of Wellington’s motorway system as proposed by the National Roads Board (NZTA’s institutional predecessor), arguing that encouraging the use of the car was inefficient and destructive, ultimately only benefitting the ‘highways lobby’: ‘oil companies and petrol resellers; motor car manufacturers and distributors; used-car dealers; bitumen suppliers; road transport operators; tyre manufacturers; road construction contractors and earth moving equipment makers; and engineers and traffic officials in municipalities as well as the Automobile Associations’. Unfortunately, Sutch was ignored, as he was on pretty much every occasion by the National party administration. Sadly, his predictions have all come to fruition; Wellington is a sicker city but Gehl’s remedies would at least stop Wellington’s city centre becoming like Hamilton’s: defunct.
“Offer up-hill cycle transport by public transport.”
Oh yes! I never cycled much in Wellington because I really just do not like pedalling up hill. I can whizz around the bays, but the other 99 percent of the city is out of bounds for me. But I’d love it if I could take a bike-transporter to the top of the hills and cycle down at high speed. It’d be a blast freewheeling down from the Brooklyn wind turbine to the city. My life expectancy would be measured in weeks, but what a way to go.
Actually reasonably large amounts of Wellington are a reasonably flat ride from the city- the Newtown area though to Island Bay, around the bays to Kilburnie, Miramar etc and the entire Hutt Valley.
The flyover is a poor solution, evident by the Basin Reserve having to build a new $11 million stand just to try and block it out! The new parks that they are going to create next to it end up acting like a buffer zone, not as actual usable parks. Who wants to be sitting on the grass in the sun with a noisy bridge hanging right over them? The only winners are the drivers and Wellington Airport which is very happy and are already planning some new multi-storey car parking buildings.
I used to cycle home to Kelburn when I lived in Wellington, direct route up Boulcott St and the Terrace or the more gentle route up Glenmore St, not difficult!
Has anyone costed moving the War Memorial instead?
Even if it is possible to move it, where would you put it?
Maybe down nearer the waterfront? Somewhere more accessible to pedestrians anyway. Made more sense when the museum was nearby, just like Auckland’s main memorial. Seems like a lot of money to create a park above a road with little regular pedestrian traffic to enjoy it.
Great post here and I’m in full agreement. The flyover is a terrible solution. To be honest, arguably worst then just bulldozing straight through the basin!
The Government is too poor to help repair Christchurch so where’s it getting the money from for this latest Wellington motorway project. Hopefully its cancelled transmission gully and thats why its suddenly flash with cash for this war memorial upgrade.
If there was a better rapid transit option to link the suburbs east of Mt Victoria with the central city, I don’t think there would be a need for all these highway upgrades. I suspect any rapid transit solution is going to trail the roadworks by years however. I’ve always thought that PRT had real potential in Wellington, and to give the planners credit it was considered by the “spine study” earlier in the year. Based on what existed at the moment, they concluded capacity was too low and it couldn’t handle the surge in crowds as trains arrived at the railway station. I’m not sure whether its a good or bad thing that by the time light rail reaches the stage where it might actually be built, there ought be at least one or two more real PRT systems to gather information from. (The Amritsar system should answer the “can it handle train crowds?” question at any rate).
But getting off my hobby-horse and returning to the post at hand – anything that makes cycling more attractive in Wellington and improves the connections between city and waterfront ought to be encouraged.
Pods. Lol.
Why pods? Why not the BRT or LRT spine that is currently under review for Wellington? We know that works, is affordable and can be very effective in Wellington. Why reinvent the car to do a buses job?
To avoid smelly people? Or gay people (remembering that Colin Craig is a big Pod proponent).
Well if one is such a bigot surely they can just use a car or taxi to avoid smelly fags? Right wing christian homophobes seem to manage avoid interaction with normal society just fine without a pod system 😉
Well you’ve got me then. I can’t think of a reason for pods once those two are taken out of the equation.
A ferry link? Here was my take on it:
http://wellingtoncycleways.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/catching-a-ferry-to-massey-regional-park/
Cycling makes no sense in Wellington. It’s windy, wet and hilly.
Cycle lanes are a comple waste of time and money.
Bob, I think you are 180 degrees backwards, and 100% wrong. Safe cycle lanes are completely necessary. Some people can cycle up hills. Even me (with an electric motor’s help). Plus around the Bays, and through Rongotai and Kilbirnie to the south coast is flat. To Miramar is flat. To the whole of the Hutt Valley is flat. When I worked in Newlands I cycled from as far away as Pukerua Bay, and apart from a bit of Middleton Road, guess what, flat.
Plus, with a bike on the cable car – flat. Or this gondola proposal to Wainuiomata (http://wellingtoncycleways.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/a-proposal-for-an-aerial-gondola-linking-wainuiomata-to-days-bay/), and Wainui is flat. And probably my best idea : A Ngaio Gorge cycleway, (http://wellingtoncycleways.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/a-ngaio-gorge-cycleway/) and with the elevator and gondola at Crofton Downs Station it’s flat to Ngaio, and then it’s relatively flat all the way to J’ville.
Put bikes on trains in Porirua, and a lot of Porirua/Titahi Bay/Mana/Plimmerton is flat as well. Kapiti is flat (a bit too far to ride, but put bikes on the trains).
So apart from the eastern and western Hutt hills (like Maungaraki), bits of Karori (and that route up through the Aro Valley is quite cycleable), Wadestown and a few other hilly bits, 80% of Wellington is or could be flat cycling. The weather isn’t that bad, either. It’s not Port Douglas, but it’s hardly Minnesota in winter.
So I take your opinion and value it at nought.
Yes Matt, curiously Wellington is flatter than Auckland- the city centre that is. And although I know of one extremely fit [up] and completely insane [down] architect, in the habit of riding in and out from Northland [the WGTN suburb] there are certainly are ways to deal with the hills on PT. And that is really up and down and not in and out.
Wellington has plenty of wide boulevards often with angle parking! So much room for the Copenhagen solution. And frankly, not that much traffic. And appallingly low pedestrian priority.
There is a very very good history of the development of those hilly, borderline uninhabitable suburbs of WGTN called Ring Around The City that shows Welly as an extremely good example of the links between transport infrastructure and land use. In this case the cable cars you mention and the electric trams…. fantastically illustrated and compelling [I good a copy from Unity WGTN]. Lots of real estate booms, busts, and shenanigans all featuring men with fantastic whiskers and silly hats.
Why not pods? Looking at bus transit in the railway station to Kent Terrace corridor, I’m not sure how much scope there is to make the service more rapid. Buses already have exclusive right of way in several stretches, frequencies are ridiculously high, and any delays in the service are mostly due to people getting on and off. In terms of connecting with the eastern suburbs you’ve got the bottleneck of the Piri Street bus tunnel (which can only be used in one direction at a time) unless you start routing a lot of buses through Newtown.
Light rail might be more “transformative”, but the capital costs are also significantly higher.
Finally both systems suffer from higher operating costs due to the need to employ drivers, something you’ve talked about extensively vis-a-vis automated rapid transit systems. An ART system probably isn’t feasible in central Wellington without spending a lot of money, but pods probably are.
Lower capital costs, lower operating costs, faster construction time, on-demand point-to-point non-stop service – that’s why pods. I fully understand why the pods were rejected in the spine study that came out, but I will be interested to see if concerns of the study authors still hold up at the point where any capital works actually take place in Wellington.
The biggest absurdity in Wellington is one which few people seem awake to, namely this: The excellent regional rail service which links all the satellite towns and much of the Greater Wellington area, stops dead on the northern fringe of the central city. This is not a ‘destination’ in itself yet everyone bar none has to get out there, whatever their actual destination. The system screams out for an extension through the CBD and out to the southern suburbs. This was seriously proposed in the 1960’s and 70’s, but like Auckland’s CRL, it never became reality. Just recently it was raised again in the latest public transport spine study, but promptly ruled out in favour of a few bus lanes or light rail. Neither the bus or light rail proposals achieve what a proper extension of the existing rail system would, namely seamless onward travel, a unified system utilising the existing trains, a truly rapid transit across the city, and separation of the somewhat dangerous public transport artery from the pedestrian environment. However light rail is what most public transport proponents are pushing (aside from the few proposing pods, which suffer from the same disconnect).
For light rail to significantly plug the current gap, it would need to operate as “tram-train”, i.e. be able to share tracks with existing trains and allow some degree of through-running onto the existing system. This is done in a few places in Germany (notably Karlsruhe) but is by no means mainstream, and needless to say has not even been looked at by the spinal study. All that is envisaged for light rail is a totally separate line from the Railway Station to the Hospital, and the costs quoted for this toy are eye-watering. Unfortunately by advocating this as a serious means to revolutionise regional transport patterns, light rail proponents are simply shooting themselves in the foot and harming the credibility of any rail solution.
The main argument against extending existing rail is the perceived cost of tunnelling, underground stations etc, but no serious feasibility study has been done since the early 1970’s into how this might be achieved in practice, and what “outside-the-square” solutions might exist. So it looks like Wellington’s major regional public transport artery will continue to dump 13-15,000 people every day in one not-very-well-sited spot, while huge sums are to be spent on a motorway making it even easier just to drive the same route that a rail extension might serve. And as for the proposed light rail line which many lay-people struggle to see as offering significantly more than the current bus service (for a cool $178-$392 million that is), well, it is in danger of being laughed out of court!
. . . .and incidentally, many of those 13-15,000 people coming by rail every day tend to arrive within the same 7-9am time-slot (and leave 4-7pm), giving Wellington a pretty intensive peak flow for a city its size. Most people tend to walk to their destinations from the station, which is just as well because if a significant proportion of them continued by bus (or tram), a whole lot more vehicles would be added to the supposedly pedestrian-friendly “golden mile”. It is a tribute to the efficiency of shank’s pony that this many people can disperse themselves as unobtrusively as they do. However most do not walk beyond about 1Km from the station. A small number of keen walkers might venture further, but the clear message is that those whose destinations lie more than 1km from rail tend not to use the train, thereby excluding most of the southern CBD from access to the regional rail system, not to mention the hospital, southern suburbs and airport. And somehow the transport powers-that-be seem to think this is perfectly fine!