A few weeks ago I asked readers where in Auckland was in urgent need of more bus lanes.My first post regarding quick wins on Fanshawe Street has been quite successful so far, with several Councillors asking questions of the Auckland Transport chair. This resulted in Auckland Transport finally acknowledging that they were aiming to build a proper busway along here in the next few years, as well as a promise to see if the quick win idea was feasible.
Another area that came up regularly in the comments section of the first article was the area around Upper Symonds Street and Newton. This is especially topical this week with university starting back this week. I heard from several people that there were big delays here on Monday morning, and total jams here are not uncommon.
This area has very high bus volumes, with several of the highest frequency bus routes in Auckland converging at this spot. Looking up the timetables between 7am and 9am I found the bus volumes were as follows-
| BUS ROUTE | 2 hour volume |
| Dominion Road | 45 |
| Mount Eden Road | 36 |
| New North Road | 30 |
| Sandringham Road | 40 |
| Manukau Road (joins at Khyber Pass) | 23 |
| Gillies Ave (joins at Khyber Pass) | 8 |
This gives a total of 182 buses in the 2 hour morning peak, or one about every 40 seconds. The 2013 screenline survey (undertaken last March) showed that buses carried 6734 people into the city along this corridor between 7am and 9am. In comparison the latest vehicle count data for the area (from 2006) only found 984 cars in the busiest morning peak hour. While we can only guess at car occupancy rates (often estimated at 1.5), buses will certainly be carrying at least 2/3 of the people along this corridor. This is a strong case for continuous bus lanes along here.
So here is the map of the current bus lanes in Symonds St from Karangahape Road south to the intersection with Mount Eden and New North Roads.
Bizzarely there are no northbound buslanes at all, while the southbound lanes stop at Khyber Pass, despite 83% of buses continuing to the New North/Mt Eden intersection.
However there is a very easy fix for most of this corridor. This area is lined with Clearways (seen in dark blue). These are parking during off-peak times, but general traffic lanes from 7am to 9am, and 4pm to 6pm. These could very simply be converted to bus lanes following the same time periods. Considering the statistics above this would result in a better outcome for most users of this corridor. These Clearways also continue down New North Road almost to the Dominion Road flyover so these should become bus lanes too.
The only issue comes near Alex Evans Street where the it narrows to 2 lanes, and there is a left turn into Alex Evans. This could either be a joint left turn/bus lane or the left turn into Alex Evans could be removed as there are plenty of other easy routes for left turning traffic.
At the intersection with Karangahape Road, general traffic gets 2 northbound lanes, despite them merging straight away into 1, while buses get a tiny advance stop box, which gets blocked by left turning traffic. So the easy solution is to make one of the straight through lanes into a bus lane, which matches what happens straight after the lights anyway. This can extend back to Alex Evans St, with a gap to let cars cross over into the ridiculously long left turn lane.
Again these are just short term fixes. In the longer term a more complicated solution will need to be devised, potentially a centreline busway with full stations. This could fit in with a major regeneration of the area in tandem with the Newton City Rail Link station (located directly opposite where Mt Eden Road ends). However it will be complicated to design an appropriate solution that matches the needs of increasing numbers of buses, much increased volumes of pedestrians and the need for separated cycleways.
Processing...
Average vehicle occupancy is 1.5 across Auckland, but that’s for all vehicle travel – in this area, at peak hour, I’d think it’d be more like 1.2. Pretty much all commuters, very few kids on their way to school… you’re right Matt, it’s nuts that there’s no bus priority in this area.
Agree, it’s completely “nuts”. Fundamentally anti-demographic.
Two thirds of the people travelling in buses should get two thirds of the corridor.. the fact that they are being so efficient by travelling in just in 10% of the vehicles should earn them a very substantial bonus priority, not penalise them.
I also agree with Barbara’s and shorty’s comments about cyclists. Their numbers haven’t been included in this analysis.. but if this area was good (rather than awful) to cycle through, you’d expect the potential for cycling to be quite substantial.. maybe 10%+ during university term time.
It never ceases to maze me how we let the (in this case, tiny) minority of car commuters rule our world.
Good work Luke!
Three years and four months… your first metre of bus lane any time now Auckland Transport.
This area is very scary for cycling at and outside peak with few alternatives. Bus lanes aren’t bike lanes especially with 40 second frequency.
Yep, it’s part of my daily commute and a terrible place to ride.
Makes complete sense. I hope AT keep reading and acting on these simple ideas. I also hope that a project that is essentially a paint job does not turn into a $5M epic.
They could all do with extended hours, too – say, 7-10am and 4-7pm.
Agreed that it’s very scary for cycling. They really need protected cycle paths.
This needs to be done almost everywhere. 6 PM is almost the busiest time in the evening peak these days. Some bus lanes (e.g. Mt Eden Shops) stop at 5:30 PM which is crazy!
Jimbo, the Mt Eden shops clearway only starts at 1630 as well. I regularly hit this bit at 1625 and we get stuck trying to merge to get around the one car blocking the lane.
Great to get this review, thanks Luke! As you say, it’s timely with the Uni about to kick off in full working mode, along with Unitech.
You have shown the priority needed for buses in moving people in these corridors. I also want to put cycling into the mix, as cyclists and buses are unhappy bedfellows, but under the current system we have to get along. Most of us have experienced the mayhem in peak hours of trying to navigate our bikes past buses spread across the road to try to pick up passengers from the busy Uni Symonds St stops.
We’re all hoping the Grafton Gully cycleway will give cyclists another option to Symonds St. From what we’re hearing the Dom Rd parallel cycle route is too indirect for commuting cyclists, so Sandringham and Mt Eden as well as Dominion Rd will continue to be important for these travellers. I want to keep them in the frame, so they also a safe and reasonably pleasant ride to their destinations.
I’ll raise this with AT, as all of us see improved bus services on these routes as a priority. I’ll be asking them also to keep in mind the old ‘mouse and elephant sharing the same space’ scenario that our colleagues in NZ Bus describe. Most of their drivers do their best to respect cyclists, as do the latter, but clearly we’ll be putting the relationship under even more pressure as both modes become more popular.
Bus lanes on Newton- bikes on KRd and Bond St. Currently AT/NZTA actually send people on bikes up to Newton Rd from the North western cyclyeway this is a route that needs to be fixed. Can’t see this ever being a good cycling environment, but it could be a good transit one as Luke has shown.
Could we invite a guest post from AT explaining why your proposal isn’t going to be implemented (alternatively, a short statement saying if they’re going to start work in April would also work)
I imagine they are already planning a full study into the issue with an expectation that recommendations will be ready to consider in June 2015.
Great idea! Hope AT’s listening in and actually gets it done. Bus drivers would probably also love it. And a general comment on short bus lanes: they’re a safety issue at both ends, just as much as short bits of bike lanes – would be nice to see an effort to build continuous infrastructure.
Don’t forget that there will in practice be even more buses many days than the number counted, as there usually seem to be “assists” operating – by observation you can sometimes get three or even four buses on the same route within a few minutes in upper Symonds St.
Auckland Transport could start this tomorrow if they wanted to. But they don’t want to.
And as TimR says above, this could happen very cheaply. Green road surface does not cost millions of dollars
Not quite true about no new bus lanes. Over the summer, NZTA finally “opened” the 400m section of shoulder bus lane that it built in 2011, eastbound on SH16 between Westgate and the Royal Road overbridge. Modest but effective. A bit of paint and a sign on a stick and 3-5 minutes is cut from the bus journey on congested mornings.
That’s good, but the “no new bus lanes” criticism is specifically aimed at Auckland Transport.
NZTA has added bus lanes. Hell, even Auckland International Airport has added an (effective) bus lane. But nothing from AT, 3 years and 4 months after starting operations.
I think this is the best precedent for Upper Symonds St – a car light bus corridor that also works for cyclists and street life.
http://sf.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DSC_5471.jpg
How many cars we stuff through this part of town is a choice.
yes that’s exactly what could work. One bus lane, 1 general traffic lane and 1 separated cycleway lane in each direction.
Even works for the narrowest section between Khyber Pass and Mt Eden Road. http://streetmix.net/lukechristensen/3/upper-symonds-st
No room for bus stops, but could use the land used for car parking by the water resevior to expand the corridor here. Note right opposite Newton station site (red roofed building) so underpass would work here. Usually hate underpasses but for direct access to station they will work fine, and have high ped volume.
Sadly, the reality is that CAA is now facing the next iteration of pushback against cycle facilities. We had numerous projects – be it small improvements or large routes – where cycle facilities were deemed impossible because either there was a bus project planned, or even just because the route is on the network and might get bus priority some day. You really feel screwed over, especially when you know there’s not going to be any bus lanes there for 10+ years at the current speed of roll-out.
I guess you have to question whether Dominion, Sandringham and New North buses should use this route at all – Ian McKinnan Drive and Queen Street (or maybe even Albert Street) would have to be the quicker route. Maybe AT are waiting for the bus service review before they start making changes?
There are a lot of students on these buses which makes going too far west a problem. There are some direct buses already that do go down Ian McKinnan and Queen Street though.
Its only a short walk from Queen Street to Symonds Street. Could put covered footpaths in if necessary, or even travelators.
One thing for certain, Dominion Road buses should not go via View Road / Mt Eden Road as they do now.
Quicker for whom? Lots of people get on and off the bus here. It’s a reasonably major local centre. And this route would be just as fast – if it had bus lanes. Meanwhile, Queen Street is full of pedestrians, and Albert Street has West and North Shore buses.
The more relevant question is whether many of those 984 cars should use this route at all: since they have the alternative, four-lane, 60km/h option of Ian McKinnon/Alex Evans. Which are purpose-built for frictionless through-traffic.
It would be quicker for anyone going to the city but slower for those going to the university. It would also mean you can get off the bus at various places in the City instead of just the Civic Centre.
Have a look at the current route the Dominion Road buses take and tell me if that is the route you would take if you were driving to the city – it definitely isn’t the route I would take!
The bus isn’t just there to serve people going to the city. The University, as you say, but also Newton itself. I’d expect the bus to serve the areas of demand along the corridor, not try to dodge them. Whereas driving routes should try to dodge town centres.
The Dominion Road route is a bit extreme, but I think the Airbus route is the right compromise: Dominion Road, then onto New North Road at the interchange. Which is actually 100m shorter than Ian McKinnon, anyway, although Ian McKinnon has a higher speed limit.
That said, View Road is a much shorter detour than you might think. It’s 3.1km from the corner of View and Dominion to K Rd, which is only 800m longer than the “express” route – about a minute and a half at average speed. The express saves time by not stopping, and by having less traffic conflict along the way, rather than the route itself. Bus lanes would help considerably.
Sorry, for “The Dominion Road route is a bit extreme”, I mean the route along View Road.
Maybe its just perception, but It seems to take an age from the time it turns off at View road until the time it gets to the city (and I only really use it off peak so I don’t think its traffic). Maybe its the number of traffic lights in between?
Personally I think buses should get people to the main destination as quick as possible and not take detours to convenience a few.
Oh, it does take ages, but that’s because of the lack of bus priority. Ian McKinnon is wildly overbuilt and competes with more direct routes, so it flows relatively freely in peak times. If Mt Eden Road, New North Road, and Symonds Street all had bus lanes, that’d speed up the buses, and the lower car capacity would encourage more traffic to bypass central Newton.
Like I say, I think the detour down View Road is going overboard, and the buses should duplicate the old route from before Ian McKinnon was even built: down Dominion Road to the interchange, then up New North Road and Symonds Street. This is what the Airbus does already, and about half the Dominion Road buses in peak time (ones noted as “Flyover”). Needs more bus lanes, though.
Meanwhile, we should be trying to get cars out of the town centre. Traffic going from Dominion/NNR to town can go via Ian McKinnon, and from Dominion/NNR to Newmarket can go via Piwakawaka Street and Newton Road. Only Mount Eden Road traffic needs to go along Symonds Street, and cutting down to one car lane will encourage some people to take Dominion Road or Gillies Ave instead.
the one reason that Dominion Road services going up View Road is good is because of the connection with Mt Eden station. This gives an easy connection to Newmarket, as well as west to Kingsland and beyond, all areas that are annoying to get to from Dominion Road.
The issue can be helped by adding bus lanes to Mt Eden Road between Esplanade and Symonds. I know they exist most of the way northbound, but if parking can be removed by the Symonds St intersection, and slight kern cut, then could add a northbound right turn bus only lane.
So I say keep sending a bunch of Dominion Road buses down View Road, until CRL is built, then they can go via Flyover to meet with Newton, or if frequency getting too high half can go down IanMcKinnon, and half past Newton Station. However the connection to the wider rail network at some point is essential.
At this rate it seems like AT will have the CRL under construction before they get any bus lanes painted anyway…
I don’t think the Flyover route has worse access to Mt Eden station, though. Figures from Google Maps: if you get off at Ngahura Street, you’re 180m from the platform, versus 130m off Mount Eden Road. Though New North Road would obviously need a pedestrian crossing there to make that stop useful.
I agree with Steve D 4:45 pm – bus connections to the train the vis Mt Eden station’s Ngahura St entrance might even be faster than the current connection from Dominion Rd buses, by the time you factor in the shorter bus journey time than.
But great post Luke, I ride this route everyday and I think your suggested improvements are spot-on. I think sharing a Symonds St bus lane with left-turning traffic into K rd wouldn’t be that bad, if the bus lane extended back over the motorway overbridge. I find it it is the straight-through traffic along Symonds St that blocks up buses at this intersection.
Plenty of buses will still head down Symonds past the two universities. Even if there were ‘only’ 90 buses in peak hours, that would easily justify their existence.
I wonder if there are more bus passengers than cars at non peak times? Might be a case for a 24 hour bus lanes? Of course that would involve 3 years of consultation with business owners and then nothing would go ahead.
The buses are still pretty chocka outside the clearway hours, so it could well be that there’s more bus passengers than cars all day.
But the point of bus lanes is to avoid congested car traffic – the traffic flows freely the rest of the time. Bus lane hours should be based on when there’s car congestion, rather than necessarily when the buses are heavily used. If the buses still go just as fast in the general traffic lane, there’s no reason not to allow on-street parking then.
Assuming the traffic isn’t bad there outside rush hour which is a big assumption.
I think a major route like Dominion Road should have 24 hour bus lanes the whole way meaning bus times will be constant and reliable. If it went down Ian McKinnan there are very few traffic lights between Mt Roskill and the city – with some slight modifications to Dominion Road/View Road and Queen Street/Ian McKinnan intersections the bus may not have to stop there at all when citybound.
Implement these and a few other changes (fewer bus stops, more incentive to use HOP), and I guarantee passenger numbers will increase significantly. Also we can get higher frequency as the route will be shorter and more reliable meaning more trips per bus/driver.
Why spend millions on light rail (which will also be the end of the car parks) when a decent bus route may do – and we can have it now!
The traffic’s bad longer than the clearway hours, but not much longer. It’s pretty quiet by 10am in the morning and 7pm in the evening. Extending the hours to be 7am-10am and 3pm-7pm would be fine. Putting the dictator hat on, I don’t think we should worry too much about protecting on-street parking, but if it happens not to harm anyone else, why not?
yeh agree with those hours. In my post just proving that the change is really easy, and shouldn’t even generate complaints. In general bus lane hours should be expanded to those suggested.
Easy really make the main road bus lanes and the existing bus lanes car lanes between 7 and 9 am
Brilliant!!
Don’t underestimate the amount of political opposition that has to be addressed when bus and transit lanes are under discussion. Remuera Rd is a classic case where the local board created a firestorm that lasted the best part of a year when AT categorically refused to change the bus lane to a T2 as they demanded (having campaigned on and subsequently claiming to be elected on the basis that they would ENSURE that AT delivered a T2). While decisions on the best configuration of any given road to move the greatest number of people at the best speed should be based on modelling, rather than emotion or politics, it would be fair to say that both the pro-car and pro-PT lobbies are both absolutely convinced that their take on the best configuration, based on casual observation, is accurate, and that the “others” are talking through a hole in their head. That’s why the modelling of HOV lanes is so useful – it provides a politically-neutral way of advancing such proposals.
That’s not to say that AT couldn’t do more. It’s clear that the new FTN will require more HOV lanes to support its operation, and we can expect new proposals to come through as this network gets firmed up. But don’t underestimate the forces that are ranged against HOV lane proposals – they know exactly which levers to pull to stall and delay and obfuscate the discussion. And don’t underestimate the importance of AT obtaining political support for what it does either. Failure to obtain political support can really come back to bite any organisation that is funded by . . . political decision. It’s a very delicate balancing act.
I’m fairly sure Remmers Rd is a T3 now, not a T2. At any rate, I’d imagine the Waitemata Local Board would be all in favour of this – it’d assist with the liveability of the area around the top of Symonds St, help to unclog traffic, and get people where they’re going more easily.
Orakei Board only got the Remmers Road Bus lanes changed as the council (thats Auckland Council not Auckland Transport) had to re-designate the Bus lanes properly in a full council resolution as the old ACC did a crap job of the original bus lane designation resolutions and that AT said it could not enforce the bus lanes and also had to re-do all the signage. I also gatehr there was some conflict with the signage ACC put up being both clearways and Bus-lanes along the same road and AT was of the opinion you could have one or the other but not both.
So because of the needed change of signage, they agreed to make the Bus lanes T3 lanes to placate the OLB and get the bus-lanes back in operation again. As they’d been left in a legal (and un-enforced) limbo since the Super-City came together.
Haven’t heard about the supposed “Review” that was planned after 12 months of the T3 lanes, to decide to either revert them to bus lanes or make them T2 though.
Maybe that never happened.
Brilliant article. On a little aside, the fact that Gillies Ave only has 8 buses in the AM peak is pathetic. It is just as arterial as Mt Eden Rd. The only difference: Mt Eden Rd is not bordered by cliffs.
Off topic but I had to drive down Albany Highway at morning peak yesterday morning. Roughly 1/3+ of all the traffic is either parents dropping kids at school or kids driving to school. We should not be adding traffic lanes but instead dedicated bus lanes. Also, after driving along Shakespeare Rd after 3pm today, the clearway should be kept for school buses. Allowing cars to park there is nuts.
AT is almost completely ineffectual in relation to public transport. Having spent a few years living in the Mt Eden/Mt Albert area bus lanes do need to be improved.
And what if their is wide spread resentment to the implementation of bus lanes? For a start, its hard to imagine Len Brown becoming any less popular than he is now -assuming the Ngati Whatua room doesn’t see any more action. And the majority who do travel on buses will be supportive. If this area is anything like the Shore bus commuters won’t be those who are not able to articulate an argument. There will be lawyers, judges, bankers and all walks of life who will say, “we have chosen to use public transport and we deserve a fair go”.
Finally we may move towards a first world transport system.
And Bryce I don’t think that you are off topic. The Shore being a relatively narrow land mass in most parts lends ideally to a central public transport spine with regular feeders into it. Those feeders can be regular because they don’t have to have the cost of 9km of haul from Akoranga to the city.
I was talking to a good friend of mine today who lives in Milford (yes, retiree). He and his wife use the NEX often but the biggest issue is reliability of timing along Shakespeare and frequency of feeder services. I told him about the proposed network and that got his attention. Pity we can’t fast track the entire program. I’d say Auckland is crying out for it.
We can’t speed up the electric trains, which are a necessary prerequisite. As I understand it the New Network is supposed to happen fairly shortly after (late 2015 or early 2016 in stages around the city).
But what we can speed up, is the supporting infrastructure. We should have a real network of bus lanes complete on day one of the New Network. Currently, there’s nothing public about any planning for any of that. There’s not even the slightest hint that AT is planning any new bus lanes anywhere, ever, except for Dominion Road and, some time in the long distant future, Fanshawe Street.
There’s not even anything public about what’s planned for Wellesley Street. According to this, in two years time it’s supposed to carry seven frequent network routes running both directions. It’s not even possible for that to happen right now – you can’t turn right from Wellesley Street onto Symonds! Let alone having actual bus priority along the route.
I agree entirely and would go further by making the clearway bus lanes on Dominion Road and similar places all day permanent bus lanes. I cycle commute the stretch from Mt Roskill to Balmoral and find the buses a bit of a hassle but far less than the cars along Balmoral & Greenlane rds. At rush hour that stretch of Dom Rd easily handles all the commuting vehicles (except buses) in one lane. Sure a motorist will tell you it is nose to tail and it is but in pulses. When you cycle along in the bus lane great wallops of vehicles rush past for a small period then there is almost nothing until the next wave is released by the prior set of traffic lights. Sure for a driver in the middle of the wave it seems that the road is always full of traffic but it isn’t. It’s quite empty between the waves. They are suffering from the tyranny of traffic light control. So if Dom Rd can handle rush hour traffic with one lane only for cars & buses surely one lane can handle non-rush hour traffic. So let’s push AT to do something really bold and make the bus lanes permanent and full time. Oh I forgot, cars go shopping so we’ll have to allow them plces to park outside shops.