When moving around the city, the shortest way from A to B is generally in a straight line. Sometimes though, following a straight line isn’t always easy due to obstacles like buildings so you have to work your way around them and the street network is generally designed to facilitate this movement. We tend show these movement options through maps like the one below.
But in the CBD the streets aren’t always the only way to get around as there often unmarked passageways through buildings all across the city.
Land in the CBD is a premium and naturally when it gets redeveloped, the developer wants to maximise their return. That has resulted in building taller than what we have in the past giving us the skyline we have today. But their are limits to how high we can go, not so much physical limits but ones imposed by councils over the years to protect things like view shafts. Those height limits were a bit more like guidelines though, developers were able to apply for permission to build extra floors in return for providing public amenity. This amenity could come in many forms, it might be a public viewing area, a kindergarten or importantly for this post, public access through a building.
This public access can have quite an impact on if you want to get somewhere. One that I have been using a bit recently is in the Lumley centre on Shortland St. A public lift is available from an entrance off Fort St that whisks you up 8 stories almost to the top of Shortland St. That saves you not only a decent uphill trek, but depending on your destination, can save you quite a detour. With this access getting from Britomart to the top of Shortland St can be done in a matter of minutes without having to build up a sweat. The Fort St the entrance can sometimes a bit inconspicuous so I have pointed it out with an arrow.
Similar access also exists in the Vero building and people may be more familiar with the set of escalators in the neighbouring building.
These isn’t the only building that you can use to save time. For example to the south west many people know about the arcades (Midcity and The Strand) that provide a link from Queen to Elliot St. But perhaps less well known is the link through the Atrium on Elliot through to Albert St. Entering the mall you can use the escalators to rise all the way up to Albert St where you can exit through the foyer of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Once again if you don’t like hills, not that Wellesley is too bad, this can save you from having to negotiate them. If the rain is driving in it can also be a route to keep you a little bit drier.
These access ways are littered all over the city and can really help people to get around yet none of them show up on maps. It would be good to create a map of them all so in the comments lets get a list of all of them so we can do that.
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Shortland Street to mills lane there is a walkway and a staircase at the end. Its dingy and is pretty dangerous at night though.
1. You can get from Wyndam St to Durham Lane via the Ibis Styles ( the tall thin building that has had 5 previous names in 10 years )
2. Also from Albert St to Durham Lane via walkway under apartment building “Chifly Suites” (beside the “70-74” sign)
3. From Victoria Street to Durham Lane (somewhere just uphill of the supermarket)
4. From Albert to Federal St via the Skycity convention centre (up the escalators )
I was going to suggest using Google Map Maker to add these to Google maps, but “Underground trails that pass through buildings are part of indoor mapping and should not be added in Map Maker at this time.” (https://support.google.com/mapmaker/answer/1098068?hl=en)
I guess the walkways that don’t go through buildings should be definitely added.
Khartoum Place/Lorne St through to Queen St is a favourite of mine, very well known but not really mapped anywhere.
My list:
– At the end of the new Telecom building on Hardinge Street there’s stairs down to Fanshawe Street.
– Cut through Downtown shopping centre & the PWC Building to get from Britomart through to the Downtown carpark.
– Door/stairs on Quay Street between PWC and Copthorne into Downtown Carpark
– There’s a couple of walkways through between High Street and Queen Street through malls/shops. You can also do Queen > High > Lorne > Albert Park throw Khartoum Pl (where the fountain is)
– Stairs between Beach Rd & Anzac Ave opposite Parliament Street (there used to be a lift through the Pub, not sure if it’s there anymore)
Need to get them into OpenStreetMap 🙂
“- At the end of the new Telecom building on Hardinge Street there’s stairs down to Fanshawe Street.”
Not stairs, just a steepish path. I use it ever day to walk up to (and down from) the new bus stop. You have to go past stinkers corner though, where all the Telecom smokers stand about generally smelling bad and throwing their butts all over the ground there!
When at Uni I used to cut through the car parking building opposite the stairs that come down from Albert Park near the art gallery. That gets you from Kitchener Street to Lorne Street.
And not really hidden but still cool is the little spiral staircase between Mills Lane (next to Tabac) down to Exchange Lane and onto Queen Street.
Simon
The Beach Rd/Anzac Ave link is Constitution Hill. It’s not known terribly well be name, but a lot of people know of it.
The rabbit warren of paths through Albert Park to various parts of Kitchener and Bowen Streets are good, but very poorly signposted.
Crowne Plaza short cut I thought was well known considering the movie theatres used to be at mid-city
The shortcut through the lumley centre is actually a condition of their resource consent
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10711779
Most of these are conditions of resource consents – as Matt says. What’s particularly interesting is that the building owners tend to do everything possible to hide these connections and discourage people from using them. I think this was raised by Shale Chambers (Waitemata Local Board chair) a year or so ago though I’m not sure what progress was made on the issue.
This is fantastic.
There’s a back-entrance to Food Alley that provides a shortcut from Federal Street to Albert (or to lunch).
Same deal with the Lim Chour food court that has stairs from Cross Street through to K.
If we are making a map, can we also include public-spaces? Courtyards like the one outside URS on Gudgeon Street are semi-secretly available to the public at all times.
Of course there are many many such short-cuts through the universities. Some of the ones I use quite often:
– from Waterloo Quad there is a steep path down to the law school. You can pass through the building and end up on Emily Place.
– the stairs from the AUT main quad on Wellesly St up to Mount St
– You can cut through the UoA architecture bulding and along the carparks behind the engineering building to get to Grafton Rd.
– the path/driveway that goes from the end of Whitaker Pl through Elam and up behind St Pauls church to Wellesly St – I keep thinking a footbridge over Wellesly St to connect this with the above would give a faster walking option from the uni hostels in Whitaker Pl to architecture/engineering/business schools.
I used to walk through Britomart station entering at the westpac building and exiting on queen square when it was cold and rainy. Can’t do that anymore without an Hop card.
But if you do have a Hop card, it’s still free, if a little bizarre.
Durham street west to Albert street: Elevators on corner of Durham st west and Durham lane, which can take you up to leve 5 of 86 Albert st, which is Alber street level.
This same level 5 on 86 Alber St has escalators which take you down one level, and through a couple of twists and turns before you can either take elevators to Queen street level in 191 Queen st, or another set of elevators to Victoria st west street level in the Brookfields building. A bit of a maze though.
Also, the new Countdown on Victoria st blocked a public access route, set of escalators from Victoria st down to Durham st west. What happens when building take away public space, if part of resource consent?
Anyone who has lived in Wellington for any stretch of time gets to know the Lambton Quay to The Terrace lifts (the James Cook Lift is a favourite for Uni students), and, in particular, what time they are locked off. Never really occurred to me that there might be some in Auckland too.
The Capital on the Quay to 125 the Terrace is a great lift too if you are in Wellington. There is also a connection through the former Telecom office block on Wills which comes out on Boulcott near Plimmer steps shaving off an up hill if you need it cut it out.
Wellington has the most wonderful secret paths, especially up to the university; quite Blade Runnerish going under the motorway esp in the rain.
In Auclkand my favourite new one in Auckland is Imperial Lane, also offering the flashest loos in Auckland.
Behind the Stamford Hotel is a spiral staircase down to a great alley and on to queen.
Every path in Albert Park is wonderful. Myers and up to St Kevin’s is old fav too.
You can go through the red Waldorf building between Anzac Ave and Emily place – between 7am and 7pm, ignore what the receptionist tell you if you ever come across it and the route is shut as this is also part of their resource consent but they clearly want to make it as difficult as possible.
The roof on the Oracle building near AUT on Wakefield Steet is actually public but they shut it and are still arguing with the council over reopening it, I think the council lacks much power in that regards.
There is also a viewing floor in the old BNZ building on Queen Street, from memory that has also been closed.
The minutes from one of the Waitemata Local board meeting lists most of the public routes in the city and follow-up action they took when they did a random sampling and found a large proportion were either closed, misleadingly sign-posted, or not indicated at all.
Have a look at pages 25-30 in this document:
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/localboards/waitematalocalboard/meetings/waitematalbag20120313.pdf
Also, google doesn’t want unofficial access routes posted, technically these are all official public thoroughfares so basically public roads through private buildings so would be allowed. In any case it’s more than possible to create a private google maps that people can zoom in on with all of these listed, it would be quite a nice resource actually and publicising it would make these routes more used and less easy for building owners to close off again.
Handy!
Enter 228 Queen Street, go up one flight of stairs, walk to the back of the building, your are now on Lorne Street, turn right. Enter the carpark on Lorne Street, take the lift to level 5, you are now Kitchener Street, 100ms from the art gallery.
I found a gem with maps: http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/central/updates/t042/pm42publicspaceamenity.pdf
That’s pretty cool 🙂
Map of walkways etc at end of this report (old link was broken)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130818175534/http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/central/updates/t042/pm42publicspaceamenity.pdf
An updated list of locations from Waitematā Local Board, apparently dating back pre-covid but accessible as of 11 September 2022.
https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/about-auckland-council/how-auckland-council-works/local-boards/all-local-boards/waitemata-local-board/docsfloorprovisions/bonus-floor-provisions.pdf