Don’t disrupt the flow

A case of almost comical timing prompted me to write this post. It started off by me reading this article in the Papakura Courier about residents of a retirement village in Takanini who want to be able to cross the road to the shops on the other side. There is a signalised crossing nearby but it adds roughly an extra 100m which some of the residents struggle with and those that do brave it have found drivers often ignore the signals. The retirement village has even resorted to using a shuttle bus to get residents across the road when they would otherwise have been prepared for a few hundred metre walk. The bit that really caught my attention though was this answer from Auckland Transport about it.

Everyone has different ideas about what could change, including a longer-timed pedestrian crossing, an island in the middle of Great South Rd, moving the crossing further south and even upgrading the Walters Rd roundabout to traffic lights.

Auckland Transport’s Randhir Karma says a complaint was also received from village residents earlier this year.

But engineers found a crossing further south won’t work because it would obstruct Southgate’s driveways and general traffic flow.

But residents are right to worry about drivers getting confused between the two sets of lights by McDonald’s, he says.

“What we could do is look at orientation of the traffic lights on the poles. [We] could potentially look at how [we] might direct the traffic lights so they’re not confusing to the approaching vehicles.”

Auckland Transport has to find a “fine balance” between traffic and pedestrians, he says.

I’ve bolded the worst bit. When it comes to transport in Auckland the one thing that is sacred above all else is traffic flow – parking comes in a close second. There is this mentality that we must not do anything to slow traffic down and all other users of the road can go to the far queue. But the comment about Southgate’s driveways is also interesting. There are two separate parts (not sure if they are both called Southgate or not) with the north-western part having two entrances – including one massive opening with three lanes and even slip lanes while the south-eastern part has four entrances to spew cars out of in all directions. These are highlighted below but the question I have is why the developers were allowed – or forced – to provide so many. Surely they could be consolidated down with the more concentrated vehicle entrance being controlled by lights along with pedestrian crossings.

I also think this part from the end of the article is almost hilarious

The organisation is “grappling with congestion across the region” but has few funds to fix it, with the cheapest solution being to get cars off the road by promoting cycling and public transport, he says.

So if the best solution is to focus on PT and cycling then why is the organisation doing the opposite? What’s more the suggestion is coming from the manager of road corridor operations. Must be some serious blockages further up preventing the organisation from focusing on other modes.

But what made the timing comical is quite literally within minutes of me finishing reading the article (and tweeting about it) this press release arrived in my inbox from Auckland Transport.

Big savings from improvements to Auckland’s roads 

Work to make some of Auckland’s main urban roads more efficient has seen savings of around $18 million in two years.

Auckland Transport’s four year Route Optimisation Programme has, so far, meant improvements to 40 per cent of Auckland’s urban arterial routes or 134 kilometres of roads.

Route optimisation provides efficiency through improvements like better coordination of traffic signals, assessing the operation of the route and minor changes to traffic lanes, parking and pedestrian crossings.

The savings, so far, include one million litres of fuel,  just over a million hours of travel time and 2,400 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Other benefits include reductions in the length of queues and congestion levels.

For pedestrians and cyclists there is less waiting time at some intersections controlled by traffic lights.

Auckland Transport’s Manager Road Corridor Operations, Randhir Karma, says some of the improvements have been relatively easy to make.

“There have been simple changes to help speed up flows like improving traffic signal timings, changing the way lanes are configured and how they merge. To make public transport more efficient, we have improved access to some bus stopping bays. These quick wins, in particular the signal improvements at intersections, have also provided benefits for cyclists and buses.

“The cost of the programme, so far, is $3.7 million which includes a number of minor capital projects to increase efficiency along routes and at intersections.  That’s great value seeing we have made savings of $18 million for ratepayers and taxpayers.”

The most impressive result for the 2012-2013 programme has been along Great North Road where better coordination of traffic signals and minor improvements mean, on average,  two and a half minutes is shaved off each trip in the peak periods for the 25,000 vehicles using the road each day.

The next stage of route optimisation will mostly be focussed on roads in the inner city.

Once again the all-important flow is the focus and AT have been busy making sure it’s improved. The results appear positive but are they great for all users? Yes the press release states that buses and cyclists have benefited and even that pedestrians will also have had improvements but the key is that these improvements are only at some intersections. What about at the rest, have there been any crossings where it is now harder for pedestrians? My guess is yes, especially on intersections where people are trying to cross the main flow.

Putting the specifics aside of exactly who benefited aside, my immediate next question was, what would the results look like if we spent the same amount of money ($3.7m) on improving access to public transport stations? Basically focusing on making it easier to walk or cycle to catch a train, bus or ferry. As luck would have it, just before this came out I had been looking at the issue of access and had put together the map below which shows the walking catchment of the Fruitvale Rd train station which has a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Each different coloured segment is 150m long and the darker the line, the further away it is. The lines go out to 900m from the station.

Now the part that is the most noticeable is the redder sections just to the east of the station. Some of the houses in there are nearly 900m away from the station despite being much closer in a straight line. Sure 900m is easily walkable for most, when you look closer you can see that we could fairly cheaply and easily dramatically improve access. A 170m path alongside the tracks (fenced off of course) is all it would take to cut 500-600m off the distance to station. What’s more as you can see in the map below the development was designed with that thinking in mind as there was a space left between the houses which currently has a concreted footpath running into a fence.

And you can see the impact that short path would have below with around 100 dwellings shifted considerably closer to the station.

So come on AT, where’s the PT access optimisation? it is almost certainly going to be needed to help make the new bus network work well too. Improving station access for pedestrians and cyclists is also going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to provide a heap more car parking.

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