Some good news from Auckland Transport who quietly as of yesterday made changes to the city link services. Now all City Link services (the red buses) will now go to Wynyard. In the past only every second bus did so. This should hopefully make the service more useful to people, especially as Wynyard grows.

City Link changes

Now all we need is the upgraded bus lanes on Fanshawe and Customs St to take place so the buses don’t get caught in congestion.

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26 comments

  1. And proper bus priority in Queen Street please! My God this service is slow. It is literally faster to walk from Mayoral Drive to Britomart for much of the day. If AT could get the cars and parking out of Queen Street the frequency could double with the same stock.

    1. Yep Queen St would need to be bus only and then for mid block crossings to be removed to get speed up. Bus only would mean mid block crossings not necessary as would be very easy to cross most times.

        1. Yeah even George st in Sydney has only 1 lane in each direction for general traffic

        2. Well, Queen Street certainly doesn’t need to be four lanes wide, but you wouldn’t get that idea from looking at Lambton Quay. Lambton Quay is four lanes wide itself – plus parallel parking. There’s even one spot with five lanes, a solid median, and angle parking.

      1. Doesn’t that need the CRL first? Or just the New Network?

        In the meantime surely it’s a no brainer for 24/7 bus lanes end-to-end on Queen St.

      2. Ugh, Symonds St here, and Manners St in Wellington both show how dangerous a bus alley becomes with inconsiderate buses driving fast in narrow lanes and very few “mid-block crossings”. Buses don’t play nice with pedestrians.

        If it was *only* city link, then sure, but why would a transport planner not start funnelling numerous bus routes down Queen Street?

  2. I’d argue we need bus lanes on queen at before the CRL to manage the construction period. Traffic can get used to not driving up and down Queen St ASAP. He’ll I’d argue even if there wasn’t a single bus or train in the city there is still no need for cars on queen st.

    Let’s do it already, start with some green paint and tweaked phases to give kerbside bus lanes 24/7, then shift the kerb lines in so there is only the one bus lane each way. Then in the future if we want to it’s a very simple exercise to replace those lanes with tram tracks.

    Zero need for private vehicles, and commercial vehicles and deliveries can use the PT lanes as necessary at set times of day (I.e after the am peak but before the lunch rush, again mid afternoon). That might need a mountable kerb and some footpath areas strong enough for light vehicles to stop on briefly.

  3. they will still be subject to that annoying 5-10 minute wait at Britomart which completely nullifies any time saving between busing and walking

    1. What wait are you referring to exactly? I’d never noticed a wait at Britomart and until recently rode that bus every day. Do you mean traffic heading westbound toward Fanshawe St?

  4. This is the the current argument for inaction: ‘we need the CRL first’ no we don’t, we need to do the right things everywhere as soon as possible. Don’t buy into institutional inertia.

  5. Change in route (i.e. every circuit includes Wynyard) is great but we need at least one more stop between Britomart and Wynyard to service destinations that are mid-way.

  6. The Red bus is quite useful, but sometimes its just a joke! I waited for 26 minutes this Sunday to get a red bus. And when we DO get it, its always two buses tailing each other back to back! Do the drivers have something called “common sense”?

    1. Drivers don’t have much of an option, other than sitting stopped with a bus load of people on board waiting for the gap to get bigger. They do try to coordinate and skip stops, but it’s hard on that sort of corridor.

    2. I have waited up town for 40 minutes. Then the twins i.e 2 at a time) arrive. Any bus service in Queen St is currently a joke without buses. But instead service vehicles only allowed until 11.00a.m. Loading zones are available to all after that times.
      Then only buses, motor bikes (couriers) cycles & taxis allowed until 6.00.p.m. Why are private cars needed? Remind me again

  7. Any thought about extending the service to the south so there are patronage “anchors” at Grafton station and Auckland Hospital ? This could provide speedier journey times from the southern part of the CBD to the Western Line than travelling via Brittomart. Or are there already plenty of buses serving this route ?

    1. There’s a heap of buses passing Grafton there, and it seems quite a few people are jumping out there in order to skip the slow ride through the Newmarket/Parnell nexus and/or to get to Uni on Symonds St, There’s a fair bit of road priority for buses on the city dside of the station so it’s not a bad call. But they need proper buslanes through Kyhber. Been nagging our resident buslane maestro Luke to get on to that one! I’m sure it’s on his radar.

      1. Patrick,

        You’re not wrong, but there is one small issue for people taking outbound services for that short trip. Because origin stops are scattered throughout the CBD (and even around Britomart) the effective frequency for our Grafton hoppers is the same as for any one suburban trunk, not the combination of all the lines passing through their common city fringe waypoint. That’s not terrible, but it doesn’t match the all-day, turn-up-and-go convenience of the City Link, and it fails to exploit what should be a proximity advantage for a site that is on the way of multiple lines.

        (Having said that, I’d much rather see these neighbourhoods get properly redesigned streets with cycle tracks that hook up to train stations and the CBD. Buses are often at capacity serving the outer suburbs anyway.)

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