Last night Patrick and I joined some of the team from Generation Zero to have a chat to Len Brown about the Congestion Free Network. During the conversation we discussed all sorts of different aspects of the proposal like the need to focus on an overall vision rather than the individual projects – currently it seems much more like we are building projects that sound good and then fitting a vision around that. Among other thing we talked included the importance of how the vision is presented through to some of the feedback we have already received and even some of the specific details about some aspects of our proposal (Len was really interested in the Mt Roskill Spur). It was a really good talk and we are looking forward to having more discussion with him in the future.
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Good work guys.
In fact, brilliant work. To date all of the transport lobbying in NZ has a major vested interest – Road Transport Forum for trucks, EMA for the old school, NZCID for road builders, AA for pure self-survival, etc. It is well overdue to have a true grassroots organisation thinking about transport from the a personal perspective, where we care about Auckland our place, not profit.
Thank you Matt, Patrick and Gen Zero.
Agree Feijoa. Nice work from people who just care about where they live.
To be fair, the EMA have been keen on the CRL and keeping Auckland moving in recent times
Very true
Top marks to you all! The vision approach is the way forward definitely and it might mean drawing those lines on the road sooner rather than later.
Bring on the Mt Roskill Spur!
If you want to support the Mt Roskill spur, there is an online petition here:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rail-to-roskill/
And the transportblog post about it is here.
Thanks, I’ve added my name. Not many supporters yet though ;(
To be honest I really don’t understand this push for a Roskill branch. It’s only benefitting a few residents in Owairaka. Folks in Mt Roskill already have very frequent & quick bus service along Dominion Rd.
I’d rather see you guys focusing on say changing one of the Harbour bridge lanes to a bus or T3 lane. After all any rail crossing of the harbour will be many moons away.
We’ll plan to have a new post up on why it is needed in a couple of days but the short version is it is a fairly cheap extension seeing as the designation for the route already exists (has since the 40’s), is comparatively cheap due to to the designation already existing which meant that the NZTA has already built bridges on most of the crossings to enable it to occur, AC already own the land for the Owairaka station, it performs some useful PT roles in balancing out the rail network and helps ease pressure on buses along the routes by shifting the longer journeys to rail meaning more space on buses on inner parts of Dominion and Sandringham Rd’s
I assume by shifting some of the long journeys off Dom Rd that there would be a transfer at Mt Roskill/Owairaka station? As I’m sure you know people are willing to transfer if it saves time but I can’t imagine there are any time savings at all vs just taking the bus down Dominion Road, especially in the afternoon peak where the express buses can go from Downtown to Mt Roskill shops in about 15-20mins.
Looks like about a 20 minute saving post CRL during peak times (see previous post), plus it is access to other areas from Mt Roskill, as well as cheaper running for high frequency trains on the inner west.
Frank it won’t help much with the existing network, but as Sailor Boy mentions it’s the post-CRL network that it will very much improve.
Excellent stuff.
How long was the meeting? Do you think it likely Len will actaully campiagn on the congestion free network?
Did you cover other things like just saying no to NZTA even if they offer to help pay for a new road?
Meeting was meant to be an hour but lasted ~1.5. Also discussed unitary plan.
Oooo so where can we get one of those posters?
Could print you one if you want to pay for it
Good quality pdf and image available here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/congestion-free-network/2030-congestion-free-network/
I’d be keen to buy one too for a reasonable price.
Maybe take orders to sell at the next movie night? Speaking of which, was it planned for September…?
Hi Glen, Minor hiccup with movie night. It will be pushed back a few more weeks.
Hi Kent,
No worries, just let us know. Looking forward to it 🙂
Heh. Sounds like the HOP delay
Congratulations again. While this is a politically neutral blog (for all the right reasons), Mayor Brown is currently commanding a very large majority in the polls over any other candidate – it’s very likely he’ll be returned. To have a strongly pro-CFN mayor is a very good thing.
Lol
George I agree 100%. To make direct headway into a poo-pooed CRL scheme 12 months ago is something the Mayor and Auckland Transport can be proud of. From my point of view time to now remark the network get the 1000 buses (and trucks for freight )going with priority over cars (while marking/completing an on-road cycling network) is phase 2 and should be done before xmas this year to get the vertical rise in bus patronage and rail going at max. So all rail gains are realised and people are into it big time.
Good work on the network. But how does the mt roskill spur make sense. Isn’t there frequent bus and tram to mt roskill in the plan? Seems like a duplication of public transport.
Not really duplication, the rail serves a different corridor to what the bus/tram does.
The Dominion Road light-rail is in the 2030 plan. However that is more about serving the Dominion Road shopping area, and supporting intensifcation along that line.
The Mount Roskill Rail line would take all the catchments of the Sandringham, Dominion Road, Mt Eden and Gillies Ave services south of SH20 and give them a very quick link to town (sub 23 mins to Aotea). This would leave the buses to handle the passenger load north of SH20, which is plenty high enough to run a highly frequent service.
I suspect there is alot of pent up demand for these services. You hear of many people driving to View Road/Mt Eden from the outer suburbs to get a quick tide to town.
A rail link would ensure these people caught the bus at their origin point.
The spur to Mt Roskill would have the same effect that re-opening the line to Onehunga had. Even though Onehunga has quite a frequent bus service along Manukau Rd, the Onehunga line still seems to have had increasing patronage from the start.
Would be intriguing to know how popular an extension of this spur, east of Dominion road, would be.
It would likely be post 2025 at the earliest but if the extension went via (say, Te Papapa) on the airport line and through to Penrose, to access the southern and eastern line, that really opens up a big chunk of cross-city travel by rail in the inner west and south-west.
Sorry – connect with Otahuhu rather than Penrose.
The problem east of Dominion Rd is that it is is going to be very expensive to get down the hill to Onehunga. The existing designation was for freight and winds to the north of Onehunga so probably not that useful while going down alongside SH20 is very steep.
So could you go straight to Penrose? Still get access to 3 lines that way….
One look at a map says Penrose is fanciful. Spur first, worry about any extension some other decade……
Could it instead try to merge with the proposed Airport line south of Onehunga, but before the bridge – by following the motorway? An alternative airport route, probably faster.
Isn´t it crazy. The Government closes Close to 400 kms of railway lines at the drop of a hat. But to get 1, 2 or even 5 kms of new railway line is like drawing teeth slowly. What is wrong with this Govt?
Yes we’ll done for perseverance and great to hear you got a good reception. But do you think they got the fact that what you are proposing is not on addition to continuing to invest the way we always have but instead of. I suspect you don’t try to emphasise this point but the onterdependence of investment rarely seems to be discussed. Namely that spending on roading capacity undermines pt investment.
No we definitely made the point clear that a large part of the problem is that we are continuing to spend huge amounts of money on projects that will undermine PT
Anna, this is it in a nutshell. To get the balance and to open up the restriction valve on walking/cycling/public transport is to rebalance the existing network and focus all the investment on it which does mean some road widenings in places. But only as required to give the bus feeders to the rail system or motorway priority and speed. It’s a new roading hierarchy and a new strategic spending focus. It all needs to be focussed on the dream not the nightmare. The irony is changing this focus actually helps car mode out for the people that do not choose to use the other modes of travel. We don’t need to have congestion and emissions-a one lane conversion for the existing 1000 buses/mark up cycle lanes where possible (complete the network) where possible will do it.
New Roading Capital Expenditure budget over the next 17 years:
$1M to $2M remark existing road with signals priority for cycling/buses/trucks (immediate focus for gaining most out of existing network and to spike patronage).
$0.5B Walking and Cycling
$10B Congestion Free Network
$1.5B Road Widenings for -Improved Bus Priority and Multi-modal arterials or strategic collectors to Planned Growth Areas (eg FLat Bush/Ormiston or Around Siverdale etc) ie critical links for continued growth and missing links.
Road Network current diagnostic in peak hour.
Walking-Very Poor
Cycling-Very Poor in fact dangerous
Buses-Very Poor
Trucks-Very Poor
Cars-Very Poor
After Road Network remark and signal optimisation with priority is order as above
Walking-Will improve.
Cycling-90% arterial complete network (missing links still need attention but some temp workarounds suggested routes)
Buses-90% priority-OK. 1000 buses moving with dedicated lane where possible and bus priority signal and advance loops -set for bigger vehicles-near bus stop 200-400m prior intersection.
Trucks-90% priority-(sharing bus priority) OK instant travel time savings -boost economy.
Cars-Very Poor . Then in 2 months with patronage gains-Poor to OK depends on fares/marketing/able to have 1 lane on motorway etc, Then in 12 months good.
Operation complete all parts of the artery are now pumping making the best of the tarmac/rail/ferries that we have.
All Strategic/Roading Capex teams and bloggers focussed on the above operation-implement before xmas gives 5 weeks before tested. Teams like AMETI reviewing design after a 30% PT mode share in 2 months and 50% 12 months. More focussed on the network rather than the stations for now until getting most out of the current network. When network up and humming then split resources between stations and network. To get people focussed 100% on maximising the network for the missing modes.
Congestion is fixable for peanuts. The solution is remarking to get the balance not tacking on in the absolute majority of cases? Delaying the solution is increasing costs , emissions,delays,decresing the cities productivity and only penalising the modes to get us out of this last 50 years on single mode thinking.
If we did the above now for some examples:
Single bus/Truck lane and cycle lane Panmure to Howick as is yes apart from Panmure Bridge.
Pakuranga to Botany-no widening to Ti Rakau Dr except maybe a few intersections. Actually with this one Ti Rakau reduced to one lane as it s with underground cables going in-leave it as is add the bus lane while everyone used to it.
Money towards sustainable solutions not just widening because we couldn’t see the light at the end of the 50 year tunnel.
The fact is that the widening proposals will disturb every mode quite a bit and it isn’t sustainable. A one night remark won’t plus gets the mindshift in one foul swoop and marketed with cheap fares. Phasing in pulling one tooth at a time or just marking the dream..that is the choice as I see it and cheap is GOOD.