An article in the western leader today raises interesting questions about how we deal with events and the disruption they cause to things like bus services.
There will be no Santa Parade in Henderson this year.
And Massey Henderson Local Board chairwoman Vanessa Neeson says Auckland Transport should shoulder some of the blame.
She’s accused the council controlled organisation of killing Christmas in the township by raising concerns about disrupted bus services – a move she says prompted organisers to transfer the 11-year-old event to Westgate.
Auckland Transport approached the Henderson Rotary Club after last year’s parade and said it wanted different parade routes considered for 2013 in order to avoid bus disruptions.
No alternatives were suggested and its own proposal was rejected by the club amidst concerns about speed bumps and safety.
Mrs Neeson lobbied the council to intervene and the original route was eventually given the green light.
But Rotary had meanwhile opted to shift the parade to Westgate.
Mrs Neeson says the whole saga could have been avoided if Auckland Transport had not got involved.
Without knowing the full details – as I’m sure there is more to this than the article says – it does raise questions about how we deal with buses during local events like this. This will likely be even more important in the future as the new bus network will see a lot greater frequencies on weekends.
In this particular case you can really see the problem as highlighted in the image below. The blue line represents the parade route while the red circles are the current bus stops scattered around Henderson (something hopefully cleaned up as part of the new network. As you can see the route passes through almost all of the bus stops – or in the case of the northern two prevents normal access to them. AT can’t just stop the bus services for a few hours as there are likely to be people further along the routes that would be affected and it is also quite possible that families might want to use the buses to get to the event in the first place. The layout of the street network also adds to the difficulty as there aren’t any obviously alternatives that allow buses to bypass the event, even if the event or buses took a different route.
And here are the proposed bus routes in and around Henderson from the Regional Public Transport Plan.
It seems that no matter what decision is made, Auckland Transport are going to annoy someone. Perhaps AT need to have a policy and processes for how they deal with these kinds events in the future so that if and when an event is proposed, it is extremely clear what is required by everyone so that decisions can be made quickly.
I’ll leave the last word on this to the bus companies who responded in the article.
Ritchies and NZ Bus are the only two companies that run services from Railside Ave and neither has a problem with the route.
Ritchies managing director Andrew Ritchie says just a few hundred customers are disrupted by rerouted services and the company doesn’t want to spoil the fun for everyone else.
NZ Bus chief executive officer Zane Fulljames says disruptions from road works and parades are normal and the company can forewarn its customers when plenty of notice is given.
“Is the parade disruptive? Yes it is.
“Do we have an issue with that? No, we don’t. We just work around it. It only goes for a couple of hours, it’s not a big deal.”
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I wonder if this will be the most soul-less Santa Parade ever, held in the massive carpark on a big box mall.
I’d love to know how they cope on Oxford St in London. It must be one of the busiest shopping streets in the world. It’s closed to general traffic all year round and is a very busy bus route with a constant stream of buses passing through all day But during christmas when the pavements get insanely congested (i have actually felt fearful of being crushed to death) they close the street and make it traffic free. Where do all the buses go?
Unfortunately all the links i could find to describe the traffic management plans have expired
I guess in London one advantage they have is lots of narrow streets means they can close one and traffic can just run down the next block down with only minor inconvenience. Whereas in Henderson with our crazy big impenetrable blocks surrounded by massive roads, the next road down is actually miles away and very inconvenient.
“The annual traffic-free shopping day in London’s Oxford Street will be extended to a full weekend this year.
In addition to the two-day closure, on 10 and 11 December, vehicles will also be banned on 26 December.
It is the first time the scheme, which has run for seven years, has been used to promote the Boxing Day sales.
The New West End Company, which represents local businesses, said it hoped the move would boost sales after takings fell by 4.1% last year.
”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13115438
To get an idea of the crowds see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11853632
“Retailers in London’s West End said their “strongest trading day in three years” has seen one million shoppers visit stores on a traffic-free day.
At least 1,000 buses were re-routed from Oxford Street and Regent Street.”
Has anyone done a timeline of the release of streets back to traffic and overlaid it on the bus schedules?
In Wellington, since the Golden Mile is both the busiest road for buses (served by practically every route) and the normal processional route (Santa parades, capping parades, Sevens parades, Chinese New year parades, State funerals, political marches and demonstrations, etc, etc), bus services throughout the city and further afield are disrupted quite often. Bus users live with it, but it’s less than desirable.
I assume the parade is on a Saturday so is it really putting that many people out? Would love to see some stats from the affected stops on a Saturday.
the proposal to close Lake Rd for “the Block” open day not only would have a massive impact on Devonport’s buses, but on the whole community
It looks to me like the people organising the parade don’t value public transport and don’t care what impact their parade may have on people who rely on public transport in Henderson.
They just want the problem to go away so they can have their parade.
The organisers don’t appear to be considerate people. Good to know. What are their names? I’m making a list of selfish, inconsiderate people.
Selfish? To want a xmas parade for a mere 2 hours? On a Saturday no less. Let us be a little realistic here. I wonder what the patronage is at that time of the morning? It appears to me that the bus companies and the organisers are reasonable people but AT are the one’s appearing as overbearing.