Brian Rudman has hit the nail on the head with his piece this morning and raised many of the same points we frequently do:
But let’s not allow the authorities to persuade us that last Thursday’s logjam was a one-off event, and to pin the blame on the drivers involved in the motorway pile-up.
When I read of motorists woes in Friday’s paper, my first thought was, well, welcome to the club. On Monday, I had waited in Albert St for my 5.05pm bus, and when it failed to show, caught an Inner Link at 5.20pm, which then took 45 minutes to crawl up the short trip to Three Lamps, Ponsonby.
The journey wasn’t helped, by a New Zealand Bus car, parked illegally as usual, by a clipboard wielding “inspector”, slap bang in the middle of the bus lane outside the Victoria Park Markets. By week’s end, someone must have talked to her. I last spotted it parked illegally on the footpath in front of the bus shelters instead.
My planning guru, one of the “seen it all before” school, assures me everything will settle down in a week or so, as students start either sharing cars, find the parking problems are too great, or sleep in and start missing early lectures, that sort of thing. Here’s hoping.
Of course in a city with better separated public transport pathways, gridlock on the roads would be manna from heaven. What better promotion for the merits of public transport than a stalled and steamy motorist, trapped in their car, while a bus or train speeds past in their dedicated bus way or rail track.
In a year or three, when the new electric train service finally arrives, a part of this dream will become reality, and start luring commuters out of their cars. But for buses – the main form of public transport here – a network of separated bus lanes remains a pipe dream. Especially when even the bus operators treat what fragments of bus lanes that do exist – such as the one outside the Victoria Park Market – as a joke.
While Thursdays traffic problems were certainly larger than normal, they were by no means the only day that there are issues. The NZTA reports of accidents happening across the motorway network almost daily on their twitter stream, like this one from today.
An abandoned vehicle is blocking the right hand lane on SW Mwy just before Queenstown Rd offramp nthbnd ow.ly/iHgdt ^LT
— NZTA Akld & Nthlnd (@NZTAAkl) March 10, 2013
Not all incidents create major problems but invariably there can be significant local congestion, this is especially the case when roads are near capacity. When that happens it doesn’t take much for traffic jams to form and even someone braking or changing lanes can send a shockwave of congestion back down the the roading network, as this video made by Japanese researchers shows.
The reality is we simply can’t build our way out of congestion, and no city has been able to do so. As Patrick described the other day, one of the big benefits of investing in better public transport is that it can take the edge off the roading network. Its not about each mode competing against each other but them working together to get the best outcome for everyone. But for PT to do its share and help take that edge off, it needs to be a better option in all situations, not just in the peak but also off peak, weekends and for events. One of the biggest things needed is much more extensive priority measures to at least keep the higher capacity PT network flowing.
He comes to the conclusion:
After several years of steady growth, public transport usage is starting to decline. At the last Auckland Transport board meeting, the bureaucrats presented plans for a marketing programme, complete with billboards telling us to “get training” and “get moving”.
Now I’m no marketing whizz kid, but I am a frequent passenger, and my instant response to being told to “get moving” is, chance would be a fine thing. I would, if I could find a regular bus service to move me.
Before fancy double decker buses, we need buses that turn up on time – or at all. We need electronic indicator boards that don’t lie and frustrate. And we need dedicated bus lanes in and out of the city so that be it Mad March or the depth of winter, buses can actually flow.
I agree, the best way to market PT services is not fancy marketing campaigns, or double decker buses but to get services working as people expect them to and having them run on dedicated bus lanes, especially on the parts through the centre of the city. I’m not aware of a single metre of new bus lane that has been added in the last few years, although some of the existing lanes have definitely been downgraded. So come on AT, lets get serious about getting these bus priority measures sorted.
Processing...
You’re absolutely correct: Rudman got it spot on! Dedicated bus lanes and accurate PIDs. But also bus priority at intersections, drivers not handling cash, proper integrated fares and then Auckland’s buses might be going somewhere.
Rudman is partly right although to go further we need to solve the problem not change the nature of it. Bus lanes are just the worst – we had to pick someone up from downtown late the other night and then I made the mistake of going west up Symonds Street – where the 24 hr bus lanes are totally empty 59 minutes the hour yet the car tailback at 11pm at night was horrendous. My teenage daughter calls the bus the “loser cruiser” – and that’s what it is. We need trains and trams, we need to send a signal to car-addicted Auckland that fresh thinking is on the way. As Patrick said elsewhere on this blog: “Buses are traffic. Ak cannot handle more traffic. How hard is this to understand?”
careful… bus on its own ROW is no longer traffic. But it does need that Right Of Way to be fully joined up and not intermittent.
Ben you have never explained how a bus is so different from a tram. (Except in cost of course). Obviously I am not surprised YOUR daughter thinks buses are loser cruisers. I just hope other parents do a better job bringing up their kids.
I guess Swans and trolls both live under bridges…
If anyone is doing the trolling it is you Ben S.
Yeah right, getting personal and (anonymously) saying I’m a crap parent would pretty much count as trolling. You wouldn’t have the guts to say it to my face – ergo, you are a troll.
You obviously provoked me into an emotional response, as was the intention with your inflammatory comment.
Cut it, both of you. Instead of arguing over the same thing over and over, here is a challenge for you both. Write a guest post outlining exactly what you think should happen with transport. Ben perhaps you could explain what routes you would put trams on, with some rough costings and indications of where the money will come from. Also covering what you would do with the rest of the network where trams won’t operate.
Swan I would like to see your suggestions other than just buses everywhere or price everyone off the roads
Thanks Matt – I’m working on, believe me. And a CRL submission.
Hmm “loser cruiser” eh? Been on many peak hour buses recently Mr S? Try it. Once on board have a look around.. count the suits, iPads, smartphones etc.. ALL losers? Yeah right. Plenty of them even using their valuable time productively. While you’re at it, you may notice that you and your 50 fellow commuters get stuck from time to time.. now have a look outside. Where did that bus lane go? Irritating isn’t it? 50 of you in one vehicle jammed on one of NZs most valuable transport corridors cos of all those poor sods in their single occupancy cars with nothing better to do with their time than listen to the radio.
I didn’t come up with the term, Wheel. But, you know, I guess there’s a reason why it exists. That is the perception out there. And we have created a culture where car ownership (and therefore usage) indicates an elevated social status.
I spent 5 years commuting on the bus into AKL CBD. I’ve done my time. Served my sentence. It was not nice. It was in fact hideous. Just as you describe. I think there’s one thing everyone who visits this blog can agree on – even that s-necked troll Swan – and that is our system is beyond third rate, especially for commuters.
Trouble is, buses and bus lanes will not fix that to any significant degree because they suggest a continuation of the status quo.
If people value trams over buses or other forms of transport so much, how much do you think they would be willing to pay for the average commute? $20, $30? That is the sort of money we are talking about. Still keen on the tram, or would you rather $5 for the bus?
Well, actually, having used trams for decades I do prefer them to buses. They just work better and are more pleasant to use and share the road with pedestrians better than any other PT mode. No idea if they are a good fit for Auckland. Is hilliness a problem?
Tom, think of Swan’s question this way: People prefer $30 bottles of wine to $15 bottles of wine. But what do you think they buy more of? $15 of course, and more than twice as much – so the total revenue for lower priced wine exceeds total revenue on higher priced wine.
It’s pretty much the same for light rail versus bus – yes many people prefer the former, but very few are prepared to pay anything like the price premium that is necessary to make light rail a good public investment in most situations. Buses, it seems, are “good enough” for most people in most situations.
Even if (I say this tongue in cheek) many of the transport snobs that frequent this blog have a strong preference for the tram sitting on the top shelf.
Ben the sad thing is that your “trams everywhere” ideology actually harms rather than helps those who genuinely do think that light-rail has a role to play in Auckland’s future transport system – in select locations and for specific reasons. That’s because people like you aren’t taken seriously as what you’re suggesting is economically impossible, but people tend to throw the baby out with the bath-water and don’t see that in some situations light-rail makes good sense.
Please think about that. Seriously.
Where did I say “trams everywhere”? It’s a bit tough to damn me with your fake pathos for terms I have not suggested.
So the bus flying through on it’s own lane is the loser cruiser…. that must mean the car going nowhere in a tailback at 11pm is the winnermobile?
I had the same discussion with a real estate agent at an apartment in midtown. He was twenty minutes late, griping about traffic driving up from his offices in Britomart (!) and finding parking etc. I asked him why he didn’t take the City Link. His response included the words loser cruiser as he told me how slow and unreliable the buses are. Couldn’t help but laugh!
To be fair the buses on Queen St are by no means quick..
“And we need dedicated bus lanes in and out of the city so that be it Mad March or the depth of winter, buses can actually flow” There are no more bus lanes planned that I am aware of. Why on earth are cars in Queen St yet only one route allowed-the inner City Link- each crowded to over flowing with 55-60 people saving that number of cars- but held up by these same cars- we need a strong, brave woman such as Penny Bright to fight the case. Buses without lanes
=trains without tracks.
This is exactly right. And I believe this is the true legacy of our current Council. For all their pro PT puffery, not a single new bus lane. But who needs bread and butter when you have visions to talk about for three years?
I work in the Britomart building and I regularly use the City Link. It is always chocker block and sits for 10-15 mins full before leaving.
It isnt actually that slow in my experience (and I generally use it at lunch time). I know it is meant to have 10 minute frequencies but in my experience it isnt that frequent. It could easily support 5 min frequencies 9-6 every day.
Getting cars out of Queen Street would be such an easy fix and do we really need cars going up and down there? We could leave the intersections and have a mall like Cuba Street with long pedestrian sections and a few major instersections.
Of course, the retailers will scream blue murder. But so did the Fort Street retailers and see how there tune has changed after their business went up by hundreds of percent, especially hospitality.
Who would have thunk it. People buy stuff, not cars. Those retailers will never compete with malls unless they create a point of difference, like a funky outdoor area buzzing with people from all over Auckland, otherwise known in other parts of the world as a city centre.
Another simple bus lane option would be the clearway on New North Rd. Every bus I have caught on New Nth Rd in the last 2 weeks has been late. I’m sure it would be pretty simple to make it a bus lane clearway…
Perhaps this blog should start campaigning for bus lanes like it does the CRL? I know that there have been a few posts, but more noise could be made.
Perhaps you could do it yourself, in your own spare time like the blog editors of ATB do and members of the CBT do? The regular CBT meeting is tomorrow night, all welcome. http://www.bettertransport.org.nz/events/
Yes I think we could make more noise about bus lanes, but as Cameron notes we do this in our spare time. Also worth noting that when we have made calls for more bus lanes then our biggest critics have tended to be the “rail-only trolls” for whom buses are “dirty stinking” things” not worthy of the pixels they are written on.
I believe that people need to support better PT first, and then have an informed discussion about which mode works best in individual contexts. I don’t think the rail-only trolls quite realise how much harm their uninformed attacks – or more commonly their lack of support – for proposed bus investments have in terms of sapping energy for greater PT Investment.
If we could get agreement among ourselves that the over-arching goal is a more livable city, in which better PT is essential, then we might find that we can make more progress. But when rail people make a deliberate point of talking down or fighting bus investment, however worthwhile, then we’re destined to sap each other’s energy. IMO.
You mean like all those posts you can read by clicking on the bus lane tag at the side. The one that refers to 121 posts about bus lanes…..
If I werent suspecting you of trolling I would go say start your own blog or commit your own resources to lobbying and campaigning for transit options you would to like to see in Auckland. It isnt that hard to put submissions together, attend hearings, kick start a blog, or get into the ear of the Councillors. Either that or email CBT on what more you would like to see.
Sheesh
Rudman is right however that the Disaster that was last Thursday will repeat itself and AT needs to get its act together. Interested to know how marketing on a rather inadequate existing product is meant to work…
“Interested to know how marketing on a rather inadequate existing product is meant to work…”
Ben, theres plenty of examples of exactly thing in the world of commerce.
Could name a few software products that would fall into that camp…
So you could say that AT’s marketing department are merely following the trend of other business and not letting the crap product get in the way of a good marketing campaign.
Which bus route is the meeting held on?
Manukau Rd buses, Balmoral Rd crosstown, or the orange outer link.
Looked up Max – Buses to Greenlane Hospital go through Gillies Ave every hour
Surely one of the most (if not the most) important aspects of a good public transport is its ability to operate independently from other traffic (for the reasons discussed, and we saw last week). That is the biggest advantage of a train system, and light rail/trams can provide this to a degree, but depends on the system employed. But of course the downside of trains / heavy rail and also trams/light rail are that they are hugely expensive to build and operate.
But what form our public transport takes is not so much the issue, but how independent it is. Cities around the world are now recognising that building more rail, whether heavy or light, is very expensive, and increasingly more cities are turning to more independent bus systems.
I still think Nantes in western France is an excellent example in this regard. With a metro area of 800,000 Nantes was one of the first European cities to reintroduce the tram network in the 1980’s, with the tram network alone now carrying over 60 million passengers per year. However (this is the point I am making), when contemplating a 4th line, they considered trams too expensive, and they built a bus version – utilising the elements that made the tram successful (dedicated lane, well designed and equipped stations, priority at intersections, high frequency and extended hours, 4 park-and-ride facilities) – but at a much significantly less cost – 3 times less than the cost of an equivalent tram. See this article for details.
http://www.uitp-bhls.eu/IMG/pdf/Abstract_Nantes_Busway2008.pdf
I think this is a huge lesson for Auckland. (re)Introducing a tram/light rail network will be too cost prohibitive for our small tax base. But a dedicated bus acting almost like a tram could be a viable alternative, offering the much needed independence I talked about at the beginning, whilst looking for all intents and purposes like a tram (thus overcoming some of the concerns over taking the bus).
Yes Stingray, you are quite right it is the quality of the corridor rather than the machine that provides most of the value [not all though]. The only problem with this observation is that politically in Auckland many of those who oppose improvement of the rail network do so because they do not want to spend much money at all on on any form of Transit, so when they say the problem can be solved with buses you will find that they certainly don’t mean high quality bus corridors or even bus lanes. Yes Mr Brewer that’s you.
So yes it must be the best mode for the route, and mostly that will mean buses, but it also has to mean the best route for the mode, and that means more expensive proper Transit privilege. And right now even proper joined up bus lanes on existing roads seem hard to do despite the low cost.
Yes Nantes is the perfect example of the bus/tram false dichotomy. I love their centre busway. Putting the buses in the middle of the road makes oh so much sense!
I’m mesmerized by the crosswalks at every intersection.