The ‘real’ Victoria Park is surely the 80% (or more) of it on the other side of the motorway, no?
In spite of the traffic VP is a great urban park – and heavily used – just take a wander down there on a weekday early evening. It’s like half of Auckland is in training for something. But all that activity is on the other side of the motorway from this picture.
I’d classify it as a good urban park, but one completely blighted by the motorway viaduct. The grass area on the left of the photo is used very little due to the hulking mass of the motorway separating it from the main playing fields.
The west end of the park was spruced up as a by product of the tunnel’s construction, but much more could be done, such as removing all car parking from under the viaduct, and adjacent to the cricket pavilion. For some reason, these car parks are completely full every weekday, even in the depths of winter, and despite being nominally time-restricted. There are thousands of car parks available in parking buildings and parking lots on each of the four sides of the park, so why the need to take up parkland with carparks?
Access to the park from Fanshawe Street could be improved – at present the only formal access is from the Beaumont St corner, and the Halsey St corner. Anywhere in between requires a walk cross country, which can be muddy in winter.
It’s not “completely blighted” by the viaduct – the other half (more like 9/10ths) of the park is heavily used and provides great amenity. There is also a popular skate park (see http://goo.gl/maps/C1vT8). I’ve spent a lot of time there in the last few years (kids’ cricket) and it’s pleasant enough provided you are engrossed in what you are doing.
It would be a nicer place if there was less traffic and less parking, certainly, but given its central location, it’s not exactly a surprise that it is what it is. Parking is an issue for people involved with the cricket – that sport involves lugging a lot of gear around, so some parking by the pavilion isn’t completely unreasonable, although I agree that it’s hard to know why that parking is always full on weekdays too. In an ideal world there’d be no viaduct, of course.
It’s well used and I’m one of many who use the park for fitness training however it’s quite different to the Domain for instance. There’s the constant hum of motorway traffic from the viaduct, bits of shit thrown down in the general area, and there’s a very large expanse of completely destroyed land underneath. Not to mention all the parking that’s been allowed to eat up so much of the park. Considering it would have been possible to have removed it for only $10 million during the tunnel construction, it’s really a sad indictment of how little value in placed on urban amenity in Auckland. The almighty car and flow is all that’s important.
There was something in the Herald last week about the cross country nature of many of the most obviously walks, and as usual the rocket scientists at AT responded that any additional footpaths would need study into placement and the like. They just need to get down there and follow the paths already worn by pedestrians following their natural routes.
It’d be a much better park without the southbound motorway viaducts shoved over the top – why not bury that motorway sooner than later like the northbound ones?
We missed to perfect chance to do it when the first one was being built. Now that we’ve put southbound on four lanes taking it back to two while building the southbound tunnel in its place is much much harder. Also the economies of scale of doing them both together have gone…. yet another example of where place loses to movement because it isn’t valued in the math. You can count cars easily, much harder to quantify the value of an urban park. Well it isn’t for most humans; just for economists, accountants, engineers, and politicians.
Isn’t there an issue with the grade? Northbound is descending from the CMJ in to the tunnel, so there isn’t a problem. A southbound tunnel would see a steep rise from below-surface-level up to the CMJ. I thought it was supposed to be too steep.
No, the alliance building the tunnel offered to put all of it underground and the extra cost was only $10 million on top of the 60 odd spent on reconfiguring and upgrading the existing viaduct. NZTA declined in part because they had their second harbour tunnel in mind and didn’t want to mess up the connections with that. So already the awful AWHC is ruining place in the city and it hasn’t even been built.
Why? They’re (NZTA) going to spend that money on some form of expensive motorway related construction somewhere – so I’d prefer that if they’re hell bent on spending it, that it at least go towards removing some of the blight they’ve previously inflicted by earlier decisions….
And until you (or a change of Gov’t) can convince NZTA not to undertake such stupidly expensive, road-only investments then thats my considered position.
I any case, that viaduct is as old as the Newmarket one is/was, so how long do you think its got before its deemed to be seismically unsound and needs an expensive rebuild?
They spent 60 million I think on upgrades to it when the tunnel was built, so it has a long life now. I don’t think I’ll be around when it’s gone and I’m not all that old.
Yes but the tunnel consortia offered to do both at once for only an addition 100m; which once you subtract that 60m of upgrades no longer needed as the viaducts would be demolished, makes a net 40m.
And of course we were told we needed to do this work because the viaducts were approaching the end of their lives….
But wasn’t the rub that Auckland City Council as it then was, on its own needed to stump up that $40m for “their bit” and couldn’t justify the $40m spend to make one little teeny weeny, itsy bitsy park a better place for a few “Aucklanders”?
And if I recall none of the other councils would assist nor would ARTA/ARA come to the party.
They really should have dug both tunnels at the same time. But again with the “cutting costs in the short term and more cost in the long term” policies….
Well, on last nioghts news they ran a piece about the open day in Wellington for yet another bit of the Wellington “RoNS”.
NZTA are spending $120m undergrounding 300m of SH1 (3 lanes wide) in Wellington right now – in front of the National War Memorial, to (in part) remove the severance issues and return the park in front of the memorial to something usable.
So it its good for the Wellington goose, its surely good for the Auckland gander.
If Grafton Park was returned to its original state, it could become again, an area to rival the Domain and it would be a crown jewel for the redevelopment of Tank farm and provide a focus for that area of town.
There’s also a certain level of justification for a project that otherwise has no justification. At least VPT made financial sense, one of the few RoNS that actually did/do.
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The ‘real’ Victoria Park is surely the 80% (or more) of it on the other side of the motorway, no?
In spite of the traffic VP is a great urban park – and heavily used – just take a wander down there on a weekday early evening. It’s like half of Auckland is in training for something. But all that activity is on the other side of the motorway from this picture.
I’d classify it as a good urban park, but one completely blighted by the motorway viaduct. The grass area on the left of the photo is used very little due to the hulking mass of the motorway separating it from the main playing fields.
The west end of the park was spruced up as a by product of the tunnel’s construction, but much more could be done, such as removing all car parking from under the viaduct, and adjacent to the cricket pavilion. For some reason, these car parks are completely full every weekday, even in the depths of winter, and despite being nominally time-restricted. There are thousands of car parks available in parking buildings and parking lots on each of the four sides of the park, so why the need to take up parkland with carparks?
Access to the park from Fanshawe Street could be improved – at present the only formal access is from the Beaumont St corner, and the Halsey St corner. Anywhere in between requires a walk cross country, which can be muddy in winter.
It’s not “completely blighted” by the viaduct – the other half (more like 9/10ths) of the park is heavily used and provides great amenity. There is also a popular skate park (see http://goo.gl/maps/C1vT8). I’ve spent a lot of time there in the last few years (kids’ cricket) and it’s pleasant enough provided you are engrossed in what you are doing.
It would be a nicer place if there was less traffic and less parking, certainly, but given its central location, it’s not exactly a surprise that it is what it is. Parking is an issue for people involved with the cricket – that sport involves lugging a lot of gear around, so some parking by the pavilion isn’t completely unreasonable, although I agree that it’s hard to know why that parking is always full on weekdays too. In an ideal world there’d be no viaduct, of course.
It’s a fair bet that any of those suggestions that Vic Park be used for test cricket (see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10813323) would fall flat based on the presence of the viaduct though!
It’s well used and I’m one of many who use the park for fitness training however it’s quite different to the Domain for instance. There’s the constant hum of motorway traffic from the viaduct, bits of shit thrown down in the general area, and there’s a very large expanse of completely destroyed land underneath. Not to mention all the parking that’s been allowed to eat up so much of the park. Considering it would have been possible to have removed it for only $10 million during the tunnel construction, it’s really a sad indictment of how little value in placed on urban amenity in Auckland. The almighty car and flow is all that’s important.
There was something in the Herald last week about the cross country nature of many of the most obviously walks, and as usual the rocket scientists at AT responded that any additional footpaths would need study into placement and the like. They just need to get down there and follow the paths already worn by pedestrians following their natural routes.
It’d be a much better park without the southbound motorway viaducts shoved over the top – why not bury that motorway sooner than later like the northbound ones?
We missed to perfect chance to do it when the first one was being built. Now that we’ve put southbound on four lanes taking it back to two while building the southbound tunnel in its place is much much harder. Also the economies of scale of doing them both together have gone…. yet another example of where place loses to movement because it isn’t valued in the math. You can count cars easily, much harder to quantify the value of an urban park. Well it isn’t for most humans; just for economists, accountants, engineers, and politicians.
Isn’t there an issue with the grade? Northbound is descending from the CMJ in to the tunnel, so there isn’t a problem. A southbound tunnel would see a steep rise from below-surface-level up to the CMJ. I thought it was supposed to be too steep.
No, the alliance building the tunnel offered to put all of it underground and the extra cost was only $10 million on top of the 60 odd spent on reconfiguring and upgrading the existing viaduct. NZTA declined in part because they had their second harbour tunnel in mind and didn’t want to mess up the connections with that. So already the awful AWHC is ruining place in the city and it hasn’t even been built.
Id rather we not spend several hundred million in taxes on a tunnel until the existing viaduct reaches the end of it’s useful life.
Why?
They’re (NZTA) going to spend that money on some form of expensive motorway related construction somewhere – so I’d prefer that if they’re hell bent on spending it, that it at least go towards removing some of the blight they’ve previously inflicted by earlier decisions….
And until you (or a change of Gov’t) can convince NZTA not to undertake such stupidly expensive, road-only investments then thats my considered position.
I any case, that viaduct is as old as the Newmarket one is/was, so how long do you think its got before its deemed to be seismically unsound and needs an expensive rebuild?
About 10 years I reckon.
They spent 60 million I think on upgrades to it when the tunnel was built, so it has a long life now. I don’t think I’ll be around when it’s gone and I’m not all that old.
Yes but the tunnel consortia offered to do both at once for only an addition 100m; which once you subtract that 60m of upgrades no longer needed as the viaducts would be demolished, makes a net 40m.
And of course we were told we needed to do this work because the viaducts were approaching the end of their lives….
But wasn’t the rub that Auckland City Council as it then was, on its own needed to stump up that $40m for “their bit” and couldn’t justify the $40m spend to make one little teeny weeny, itsy bitsy park a better place for a few “Aucklanders”?
And if I recall none of the other councils would assist nor would ARTA/ARA come to the party.
They really should have dug both tunnels at the same time. But again with the “cutting costs in the short term and more cost in the long term” policies….
Well, on last nioghts news they ran a piece about the open day in Wellington for yet another bit of the Wellington “RoNS”.
NZTA are spending $120m undergrounding 300m of SH1 (3 lanes wide) in Wellington right now – in front of the National War Memorial, to (in part) remove the severance issues and return the park in front of the memorial to something usable.
So it its good for the Wellington goose, its surely good for the Auckland gander.
If Grafton Park was returned to its original state, it could become again, an area to rival the Domain and it would be a crown jewel for the redevelopment of Tank farm and provide a focus for that area of town.
Yeah but that’s Wellington where the bureaucrats make sure they look after their home patch.
There’s also a certain level of justification for a project that otherwise has no justification. At least VPT made financial sense, one of the few RoNS that actually did/do.