Last week we showed the plans for the new Te Atatu bus interchange that Auckland Transport are thinking of building. Its primary purpose is to support the new bus network which will see frequent buses serving both Te Atatu Rd and SH16, allowing passengers to transfer between services. But it seems that some of the local community are quite upset by the plan. This article in the Western Leader a few days ago highlights this as well as what I think is a bias that exists in our media.
Fumes, noise and vandalism are on the minds of Te Atatu Peninsula residents.
Auckland Transport is preparing a design for a bus interchange on Titoki St which will host 19 buses an hour.
Under its current plans up to 17 houses will be demolished.
The properties were purchased by the New Zealand Transport Agency for the widening of the northwestern motorway and the Te Atatu Rd motorway interchange improvements.
Titoki St resident Raewyn Michael is worried about the visual impact as well as the noise and pollution from bus exhausts.
“I can see the area it is going in from my house and I’m concerned about the lack of consultation. The first I heard of it was at a public meeting on February 20.”
She says it would be a sensible move to put the bus interchange on the other side of Te Atatu Rd on council owned land currently leased by the Te Atatu Pony Club.
Lets just work through some of this. The bus interchange appears to be being blamed for the houses being demolished even though they were already planned to be removed as part of the motorway interchange works. The bus interchange is really just making use of space that wasn’t being used.
As for the comment from the local resident about noise and pollution. Buses have historically had a very bad reputation on these counts however it is changing, the requirements for new buses are much much better in both of these areas. In the future we are also likely to see technologies like hybrid or even fully electric buses that will completely remove these concerns.
You also have to laugh about being concerned about the noise and pollution of a few buses when you are living next to a motorway interchange.
In addition to these plans Te Atatu Rd bridge will be widened to three lanes each way, the motorway will be lowered to give better clearance under the bridge and an extra lane will be added each way to the motorway to allow for more buses.
New Zealand Transport Agency will be putting up noise walls and planting trees to ease the effects of the motorway moving closer to neighbouring houses.
Ms Michael says this is a good thing but she is more worried about the 19 buses passing her house every hour.“The noise from the motorway isn’t too bad and after it’s widened it won’t be that much closer to my house but the buses definitely will be. I also worry about the type of people that bus shelters attract,” she says.
Lets get this straight, the motorway is being widened to add more lanes for general traffic. Bus lanes are being added but they really are being done almost as an afterthought, stopping short of each interchange.
Assuming that this resident has been quoted correctly I think what her views represent are more a bias against buses more than anyone else. This is a shame but exactly the kind of attitude that needs to be countered. While there might be some impacts for residents, they also stand to benefit the most from this development. After it has been built she will have a short walk to a station that will see frequent buses through it going in all directions.
Auckland Transport have also released some images of what the station could potentially look like showing noise walls and planting.
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It kind of a win lose situation the residents are in. Something like 20 buses going up the street an hour wouldn’t be pleasant but the convenience would be great. The residents proposal to move it under the power lines to me is crazy. Apart from concern for the power lines, the area is very isolated and away from walk up pedestrians.
AT rule out alternatives because the “Walk-up catchment is limited.” (despite the walk up catchment being much lower than 5% of those serviced by the feeder buses up the top of peninsula)
http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/improving-transport/te-atatu-interchange/Pages/your-questions-answered.aspx
But I think this is all about planning consents, NZTA/AT have a designation and consents for the motorway expansion and by using the TiToki St solution they can avoid a protracted fight with the pony club et al over other land options on the north side of the existing motorway.
The proposed “noise walls” to be honest are are ugly as sin and would make those bus shelters unsafe at night, Those renders look suspicosly like Concrete block with some greenery, Why not look at something similar to the transparent ones they use at St Marys bay, the bus station needs to be open or at least visible to deter after hours loitering and petty crime ( and I think this is what she means by “those attracted to bus shelters”, not commuters, but the local taggers et al)
The problem I have with the interchange is that it’s in the wrong place. I hate to think how long a westbound bus will take to get through it, plus a future busway will be on the other side of the motorway.
Stupid stupid stupid.
I don’t know how they would get a busway onto the Southern side at that point (have a look at the NZTA plans for the interchange and you’ll see what I mean.). It would also make the cycleway very difficult to build. I think there will have to be a single lane cross-over to the Northern side, after Patiki Rd and then a double lane, back to the South before Lincoln Road. It’s a pity that the Lincoln Road interchange bridge has not been built with the ability to feed 2 lanes under the bridge on the Southern side. Would have made life easier. In fact, with the motorway widening, I don’t think you’ll see a busway from Waterview to Te Atatu any time soon. The ship has well and truly sailed on that. The work required now, given the proximity to a conservation area etc, would be considerable. And you’d have to rebuild the cycleway again. I think the ‘enhanced’ bus shoulder lanes, in conjunction with motorway on-ramp lights, will work quite well (not perfect I know). I would rather see the money spent on a bridge across the Whau from Glendene.
Are you sure? I would have thought a busway would head west along the Northern side of SH16 from GNR, then plug into the (proposed) Te Atatu station, and then continue on the northern side for a bit before rising up and over SH16 to land on the southern side a few 100m before Lincoln Road (in the current vinyard). I think the station is in exactly the right place.
I’m just guessing based off the Causeway plans. The new west bound off-ramp at Te Atatu doesn’t leave a lot of room for a busway.
There is a public meeting tomorrow night that includes this as one of the subjects. I’ll be able to provide more info about what the residents really think after that. I wonder if anyone at AT has thought whether to offer to buy the affected houses and redevelop the site into apartments?
That’s the sort of thinking that would go along way, if Auckland Council purchased the houses and built good quality apartments with proper sound insulation they would actually become quite convenient places and if designed to overlook the bus interchange (commonly done in Europe) it would make the whole area feel safer at night. The reality is that most of this housing in the area is pretty crap low quality stuff that really should be replaced.
There is plenty of crap housing in Te Atatu peninsular, and much of it also poorly maintained. Though the reason for this is the stupid high price people have to pay for a basic section in Auckland, even in Te Atatu peninsular. All the people I know in Te Atatu peninsular moved there to have a quite house (which they could fix-up themselves) with a decent section for the kids to run around in, and some room for the “project car” garage too
Have you guys been over here recently?
Was in Te Atatu a couple of weeks ago.
While there are a few run down houses, there are also a lot that are being done up and more than a few being subdivided and having another house built on the section. Considering that less than 20 years ago the suburb was rated as a dive, I think the area is on the up. Most of the houses on the Eastern side are just a few years old. Neil Ave is a 40 year old street and I can’t think of a single ‘crap’ house on it.
I like the implication that anyone catching a bus is likely to be undesirable and a criminal – they should perhaps have a look at the general cliental on PT in Auckland these days, the average income of users of the bus and train is more than likely significantly higher than that of these residents.
No decent old-fashioned Aucklander would be caught on the bus. That’s for students and riff-raff.
[On the more positive side, a comment like that is going to stand out as a sore thumb for a lot of Aucklanders today, when 10 years ago it would have passed without comment, I guess]
The comment “I also worry about the type of people that bus shelters attract” made me laugh out loud. I would have through the bus shelters would attract 1) your fellow Titoki Street neighbours who are 2) looking to catch a bus.
So you don’t need to “worry” at all, it’s fairly obvious what sort of people those bus shelters would attract.
Yeah, it could attract me, on my push bike. Down and out.
Push bikes too, Bryce? It will be like the third world down there. No wonder they hate it 😉
Somebody did take exception to me riding my bike, on the road, through the town centre today. Passed me at the narrowest possible spot and missed by stuff all. when questioned (promise I used nice language) I was told (in not so nice language) that I shouldn’t be on the road and threatened with bodily harm. Needless to say I was happy to be in one piece and scurried off for my coffee.
Ass***** will be ass*****. I know, quite shocking when that happens. I have given up “discussing” with drivers on the road. Behaviour modification will work better as a society-wide project than an individual one…
My $75 bike probably just adds to the image 🙂
I do have to say I am disappointed by those renders, why the attempt to turn the station into a forest hidden away from the road? I don’t think I’d particularly want to wait for a bus there at night. AT should be making it open, visible and as suggested above building apartments right next door. These plans just add to my already existing disappointment with that NZTA have proposed.
I think the forest stuff is to try and keep the motorway noise down. They will have to keep to the same standards that NZTA have agreed to under the resource consent for the motorway expansion.
I hate to say it, but as somebody who really HATES the smell of diesel fumes from the buses, I can understand what she means. I think I’d literally rather live next to the North Western motorway than live next to a bus station. On the other hand, it all depends how close the houses will be – hard to tell from this diagram. Finally, is there any way that bus drivers can turn off the engines when idling? Is it really that bad for them to be shut down and then restarted?
Hi Lucy – if built as currently planned, the closest that buses get to any house would be roughly 25-30m. That’s counting from the front door of, say the house just west of Karamu Street.
Lucy, I think there’s two important things to consider about your statement:
1. If the station is not built then these buses will need to travel past this point anyway, but they will do so on Te Atatu Road. The implication being that if the station is not built then the buses will just have to stop on-street instead. That means our baseline is not 0 buses per hour in the surrounding area, but 20 buses per hour on a different street affecting different people; and
2. The bus station.is expected to handle approximately 20 buses per hour versus say 6,000 vehicles per hour on SH16. Plus many thousands of vehicle movements per hour through the TA interchange. Even if only 5% of those 6,000 vehicles is diesel then that’s 300 diesel vehicles per hour. SH16 is therefore likely to be an order of magnitude worse when it comes to air pollution (although distance and type of vehicle will matter too).
#1 means that opposition to the bus station really falls into the NIMBY category, whereas #2 means that the relative risks of the bus station do not seem to have been fairly assessed.
Cmon Stu, until AT let these plans out, the residents thought the road would just have a few cars along it, as the Te Atatu plans show a left turn only out of Titioki. Now AT plan to put the suburban buses along Titoki St. That’s a pretty unexpected change for the residents over the already consented WRR resource consent plans.
@ LucyJH
I currently live in a part of London right beside a far busier bus intersection then this one will ever be (in fact a bus depot is right there) and have had no adverse problems on my health, unlike when I lived in Auckland with its high “old” car usage. The fact is that most buses here are Hybrid (even employing stop/start systems and regenerative brakes) and the city of London makes all commercial diesel vehicles use additives in their fuel systems to reduce exhaust emissions to a level far less than that of most cars in New Zealand.
NZ’s cars are far more polluting then nearly every vehicle in Western Europe so if the buses back home in Auckland are properly controlled, the issues that you have stated are either being eliminated as we speak or need people like yourself to put pressure on the right people to see the European Commercial Transport emission controls implemented both in Auckland and NZ in general.
No point moaning about it here or in that local rag as mentioned in the article.
” I worry about the type of people bus shelters attract” – What an idiot! It’s just exhausting getting anything done in Auckland, the yokels seem to oopose change at every turn.
Trees do nothing to mitigate noise pollution, they would be for look
Look closely – there’s some massive noise walls shown in that picture.
Looking at the plan in the earlier post I would say only half the busses would be using Titoki St to access the station, the rest would be entering via the bus lane beside the motorway. All busses exiting the station look to be leaving by a controlled intersection onto Te Atatu Rd.
That is correct. Eastbound motorway buses would never go via Titoki Street. Only westbound motorway buses and entering local buses would. All egressing would use Te Atatu Road.
True, which should help the argument with the local moaners (who always harbour exaggerated fears faced with any change). But too many buses are still having to negotiate their way through the whole intersection to simply get too and leave this station.
More than 1/2 as all local feeder buses will use the Titoki St entrance. The local moaners, as you put it (I would call them people), have some very relevant objections. Number 1 is the change from what was supposed to happen after the BOI for the motorway widening. They feel they’ve been set up and justifiably so. The rest of the objections in the media are filler I believe.
Sorry, was in reply to Patricks comment.
Hi I’m , one of the so called local moaners, I feel a lot of people are misunderstanding our objection, I personally and a lot of the Titoki St & local surrounding areas are not opposing the idea of a Bus interchange/Station , we feel putting any bus interchange/Station in such close proximity to any existing residential living area is not on, …after all we will have at least 19 buses an hour (numbers AT have supplied us with) 7am – 7pm passing within 16 m or just across the road of our home, not to mention lower frequency bus numbers from 5:30am – Midnight, with the buses idling, doors opening and shutting, the patrons of double decker buses able to look directly into our outdoor living spaces, the security lighting illuminating our property all night, water blasting at 4am in the morning outside our bedroom window, the vibrational nature of our peat soils, some residents along Titoki st will have to reverse manoeuvre out of their driveways amongst the 19 buses an hour, these are to name just a few of the issues our plea to Auckland transport is to be sure they have proposed the best well thought out future proof location for the whole of Te Atatu Peninsula, Auckland, as well as for ourselves as residents in close proximity to the proposal. One of the main reasons Auckland transport are proposing this location is that the land will not cost anything as it is already Transport land obtained for the motorway widening project, If this location had been proposed during the motorway widening and properties taken under the Public Works Act on both sides of Titoki St with sympathetic well designed land separation to the next row of properties the whole proposal would have been more understandable, though the issue of adding even more traffic into the 41000 vehicles already using the Te Atatu/Motorway interchange daily really needs to be addressed fully by AT as anyone that lives here on the Peninsula knows the traffic is horrendous in rush hour traffic morning and after school, we would all hope the ability to access a more frequent bus system would reduce traffic flow but the proof will only be when it is up and running, the traffic will still need to be managed in the meantime.
Donna J
Hi Donna, You’re quite right, my apologies, the moaner comment was really aimed at the social class assertions about bus users of the local quoted in the paper. In my view sending all these buses through this intersection is a daft solution, as I have said upstream a number of times, for both locals [anyone using this intersection and Titoki St residents] and for people living further out and expecting a reasonable level of service from this bus route. However some kind of bus amenity is the local residents best hope for an increase in choice and accessibility and a reduction in the negative effects of the crushing car domination of your neighbourhood.
I am not able to tell if the mitigation measures in the above proposal will be enough to tip the balance away from the negative impacts of one bus every 5 minutes through the station towards the hugely improved connectedness this asset will offer. By the way I don’t think it will be hard to get out of any driveways in between buses 5 minutes apart, really. And the noise and fume problems will depend a great deal on how new the buses are on these routes. Getting a promise from AT about only using the newer higher standard vehicles would be a good start for instance.
With 2 x onramps on the Peninsula side of the motorway bridge, it was suggested that perhaps one could be reconfigured to a bus interchange (leaving both North and South citybound traffic to share an on-ramp (as per the majority of onramps in Auckland). This was rejected by an NZTA rep as it could affect traffic flows. How did people driving cars get to become more important than people in houses or walking? The AT plan to get more traffic down Te Atatu Road will also affect the interchange. Personally, I would like to see Edmonton Road hobbled from it’s arterial feeder role and reduce the volume of traffic down Te Atatu Road. Central Park Drive is a big wide designation going through an industrial area and would be more suitable for large volumes of cars, but they would have a slightly longer drive of course which is unacceptable.
Hi Patrick, No need to apologise, it’s a debate well worth arguing, the problem for local residents is apart from the pretty pictures which are by no means complete or conclusive we have no idea what mitigation Auckland transport will offer up, discussions held with AT to date are only to get feedback from us as residents as to what we think the effects will be based on no final design (the designs have changed through each meeting we have attended) or potential mitigation. Currently our understanding is this proposal could be processed under the existing Auckland council Waitakere Area District Plan Designations Notice of requirement conditions of consent which were assessed for the motorway widening not directly in relation to our properties proximity to the Bus Interchange proposal, for this reason we are having to oppose a Bus Interchange location on Titoki Street to ensure we force the proposal once lodged at Auckland Council to be publically notified, that way if the proposal goes ahead or not, mitigation can be fully assessed. For example this bus interchange proposal will have no park n ride facility which begs the question where would people park to drop of and pick up people if necessary, this is one example of an effect that needs to be mitigated that wouldn’t have been assessed as part of the motorway widening. As I am sure you know Media often only offer up part of a story which I believe in our case in the eyes of extended Aucklanders may have painted us as residents in an unfortunate light. Also the latest World health Organisation research on Diesel vehicles are quite alarming, so I’m not sure that getting a promise from Auckland transport would have any benefit, I’m finding it is hard to be an expert in every field in relation to this issue so am happy more informed at any time. It’s a shame that the Bus interchange proposal wasn’t discussed along side the motorway widening proposal at the design stage as there is quite a lot of land available between Te Atatu Peninsula & Te Atatu South, I believe with a clever design a bus interchange could have been designed within this area.
Yes of course this project is a perfect example something that is balancing between the motorway car focused NZTA and the Transit wing of AT…
Not sure of the benefits of a park and ride facility [bloody great car park] especially if you are concerned about traffic volumes, the point of the station is to enable interchange between feeder and longer haul buses.
A ‘kiss and ride’ or a drop off point is certainly more possible, requiring less land.
Yes Diesel fumes are vile. You certainly should push for higher quality vehicles in terms of emissions and noise and this can certainly be fought for. It will face some resistance but it’s something they can do regardless of infrastructure design so I wouldn’t let that go at any point.
Why there isn’t more debate about this more broadly is a source of constant frustration for me. A huge unspoken problem with the government’s hatred of trains for example. One of the many ways that their position is untenable and irrational.