After being potentially disappointed yesterday, there was some good news for the Northern Busway. A new station for the busway at Silverdale has now cleared the environment court so can go ahead. Here’s the press release from Auckland Transport
In good news for commuters on the Hibiscus Coast, the long-awaited Busway Station at Silverdale has been given the go-ahead.
The Environment Court has granted resource consent for Stage One of the station and Auckland Transport is looking to open it in the middle of next year.
Hibiscus and Bays Local Board Chair, Julia Parfitt, says “Our local board is ecstatic that at last the Silverdale Park and Ride (Hibiscus Coast Busway Station) has gone through all its planning consent hurdles and the first stage of the development can soon commence. Our members and our wider community look forward to the opening of Stage One next year and hope that construction of Stage Two of the facility will quickly follow”.
Auckland Transport aims to start construction in November and the first stage of the station should be finished by June.
This first stage includes traffic signals near the Silverdale War Memorial Park, a new road to the edge of the site connecting to Small Road, an interim car park for 104 vehicles, lighting for the road and car park, and stormwater disposal and treatment.
Work on the Busway Station has been held up while an appeal went to the Environment Court.
An agreement has been reached after discussions between Auckland Transport, NZTA and Johns Creek Holdings Ltd and its traffic engineers.
While I don’t support P&R in built up areas, I do support it further out on the fringes and think that this station will be great and it should also hopefully take some pressure off Albany. It is also unknown at this stage just how many services will stop there but I would hope that at least every 2nd or 3rd bus would go up there.
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Why do you not support P&R in built up areas? I always saw the one failing of the Sylvia Park development being that there was not a park and ride, and no connection to Carbine Road.
Of course the fact that it’s not recognised that there is residential south of Syliva Park might account for part of the oversight.
Because it is extremely expensive to provide in any kind of meaningful quantity. The value of land generally increases the closer to the centre of a city and to provide enough parking for everyone who wanted it would require either massive amounts of land or parking buildings which are expensive in their own right e.g. the new parking building in Manukau is cost ~$20m. The extension of the P&R at Albany cost $5.5m and only provides enough space for 550 car parks which once full are used for the day where that same money could fund a handful of buses to run some high frequency feeder routes all day for about 10 years.
Fair enough – although I think the catchments for alot of the “built up” park and rides might be larger than you think if you were going to cover the entire catchment with 5 minute frequency buses.
Would be good to have at least some nominal cost recovery (charge) for park and rides though; at the very least this would orient their use towards those that are genuninely further away from the stations.
I’d also like to see the council get out of providing parking (especially at effectively subsidised rates) in the centre city as well.
The space used up by Park & Ride is better used developing residencies.
…And the money for improving feeder bus services, with, of course, free transfers.
There needs to be a multi-level Park and Ride building in Papakura. The amount of cars here are out of hand. Ridiculous that Manukau got one (they built it too far from the station anyway, too far from the mall as well)
the Manukau car park is to replace parking in the centre on land that is being allocated to higher value use including the bus station for the interchange and some office development, it is not a parka and ride
park and rides should not be in built up areas because they substitute for wholely PT journeys, Constellation station P&R probably aggravates congestion in the area rather than alleviates it
You mean the Manukau parking building with 600 spaces that’s used by around 8 cars a day.
at present yes, because there’s still plenty of free parking and the building is not free, useage will change when free parking starts to get taken for other (productive) uses
The on road parking is pay and display. A year ago it was about $2.50 per day, so I guess far cheaper than the carpark building.
I wonder when that will happen. Or why that didn’t happen before the building was constructed.
it’s called planning, i.e. thinking ahead
my understanding is that work will commence within the next year
So how long, roughly, would the commute from Silverdale to the CBD be on the Busway?
35 minutes (unless there was significant congestion around Otehea Valley, getting in to Constellation or along Fanshawe)
Compared to 70 odd minutes (so I’ve been told) from areas like Howick. Not too bad huh?
Yes, but with the AMETI busway and new interchange at Panmure station we might see that halved.
The drag down Pakuranga Road at peak time is still pretty slow. Maybe some bus priority lanes along Pakuranga Road and Ti Rakau Drive at least?
True, too bad we will first see another decade or more of congestion and delays on AMETI… unless government changes and adds PT money.
That’s awesome. Opens up whole new possibilities for places to live, while working in the CBD.
Now all we need are bus lanes on the AHB and Fanshawe to make it even quicker.
Whats the timetable for the extension of the Northern Busway from Constellation Drive up to Silverdale? I assume the busway will be a separate road from the motorway from Constellation Drive north, as it is from CD south?
The extension from Constellation to Albany is in the planning stages and a nearish term prospect.
From Albany to Silverdale a proper busway is quite frankly unnecessary. In the near term congestion is not a factor and buses can zip from Silverdale to Oteha Valley Rd at 100km/h almost all the time. In the longer term bus shoulders and a priority lane at the off ramp is all it would need. Given there are no ramps between Silverdale and Oteha shoulder lanes would be just as fast as a busway. That would do perfectly well for a couple of decades yet.
Fair enough re the Oteha Valley Rd to Silverdale link – no need for road separation there as you say. As for the Constellation Dr to Albany road separation extension of the busway, will that be built before 2016? The way the current road separated busway has been built, it can be converted to heavy rail at some point is that correct?
Constellation to Oteha was needed 5 years ago.
Rob, before 2016 depends on NZTA, as peter suggests probably not while the Nats are road bingeing.
As for heavy rail, the answer is not really. The current busway was designed in a way that would not preclude it being fitted with “light rail” (i.e. trams) in the future. From what I can tell the grades and curves are well within the tolerances of what trams can handle, and the width and vertical clearances are likewise suitable (except perhaps one overbridge which would need to be modified). So sounds like a case of basically just laying tram track along the busway is ok. Also from what I can tell, the geometry is suitable for light passenger metro systems such as used in Vancouver or London Docklands as these can handle quite tight grades and curves.
As for heavy rail, well it’s pretty contentious but I think the following is quite close to the actual situation. There are parts of the busway (e.g. the Sunset Rd ridge) that are simply too steep for and would need to be modified with cut and fill or tunnels. At least one of the overbridges would need to be modified.The horizontal curvature is fine, but there is a viaduct at Tristram Ave that has compound horizontal and vertical curvature which is not good so this would need to be modified or replaced. The final point is the busway is a nominal 10m wide, when 12m width is the accepted standard for double track heavy rail so some suggest it would have to be widened all along. I’m not sure myself, a train is well less than 5m with so surely it could be accomodated somehow.
Anyway it really just come down to cost. The MoT has suggested heavy rail on the busway is so difficult the only option is a ten billion dollar fully tunnelled line in parallel (yeah right). More recently one consultancy said it was perfectly possible with a bit of work, and put the price of a harbour rail tunnel and busway conversion at $2.5 billion.
Unfortunately I can’t see the busway extended for some time as the study I have from the NZTA suggests it has a very very poor BCR (if I read it correctly)
One would expect the BCR is being dragged down by the pointless spend north of Albany. I would think the Constellation to Albany section would have a fantastic BCR.
No it was the section from Constellation to Albany from memory, will have to have a look at it. Can’t post it unfortunately as the file is 150MB
As the busway project would be 100% NZTA funded and all their money is being spent on RoNS, I highly doubt we’ll see anything happen until there’s a change of government.
Who on earth are Johns Creek Holdings Ltd?
Can answer my own question!
http://www.localmatters.co.nz/Hibiscus+Matters/Hibiscus+News+Archives/News+-+February+2012/Appeal+puts+brakes+on+Silverdale+park+n+ride.html
“However the company, which owns land opposite the park ‘n’ ride site on Hibiscus Coast Highway, near the Silverdale interchange”.
104 car parks is only 3 buses full. Have we not learned from Albany? Build multi story parking or the whole idea is a waste of money and space.
Mark – The problem with multi story car parks is they cost a lot of money and for what they cost, they don’t add that many people to the PT network. A 1000 space car park would cost at least $20m, probably more but after those 1000 car parks were used that is it. For the same price you could probably hire about 10 buses to run around local roads picking people up and dropping them off as a feeder service at high frequencies all day for about 10 years. That would be able to deliver significantly more people to the PT network than a car park would and also allow for things like connections to other local attractions which would generate usage on their own.
Mark – the 104 carkparks will be an interim solution only, with the Busway station itself and a carpark for 500 vehicles coming in stage 2. The 104 carparks will cater for existing bus services while the completion of stage 2 will be timed to coincide with the provision of increased levels of bus service. At present bus patrons are parking at the Rugby Club grounds and crossing Hibiscus Coast Highway to the bus stop on the south side in the face of heavy peak hour traffic. The first stage carparks will remove this hazard, while the signalised intersection will provide a safe crossing for pedestrians wishing to get from one side of the highway to the other.