31 comments

  1. Great cartoon! Wonder if the polls squeeze up a bit whether we might see the govt change its position on CRL before the election.

  2. So they appear to have given up on Screen doors?,
    I would have thought that from a safety, pleasantness (and HVAC point of view) that it would have been best to have screen doors from Day 1, rather than wait for a “passenger action”

    1. Especially on what will be a fairly narrow platform for the volume of passengers using it. Still, this picture isn’t much evidence either way about whether the doors will be there or not – this is just the architect’s concept art. Whether the doors go in or not will be up to the money people.

      I’d also hope that Britomart also gets some platform screen doors and wider platforms once the CRL goes in. That station must have seemed huge ten years ago, but it’s already starting to feel cramped. At the very least, they should get rid of the two-thirds of the “pillars” on platforms 1/2 and 4/5 that are just decorative.

      1. personally I hate screen doors… but that’ll go the same way as the mandatory fruit salad paint job every train now has to have too…..

        Yes, there is no factual information in the image above.

        1. Platform edge doors have their uses, but they require a high level of accuracy and consistency about stopping points – train and platform doors have to line up completely, every time. It’s hard to see that happening without some sort of automatic train operation, which I don’t think is on the agenda. ATO is normally dictated by higher frequencies than I think are proposed for Auckland, of the order of 20+ trains per hour.

        2. Surely you can semi-automate that. I.e. provide exact information about intended/actual position to driver during last part of slow-down.

        3. Re stopping points, my gf tells me there are markings for the doors of the middle unit on the platform at Te Papapa

        4. Didn’t I hear there would be ATO in the CRL anyway?

          It’s an unfortunate reality that Aotea will be narrow due to the constrained corridor it has to be built in, but it will easily be the busiest station on the network.

          That makes screen doors essential in my opinion.

        5. Oh, they look pretty ugly all right. But people falling (or jumping) in front of trains is a very real problem, and I think that should outweigh aesthetics for a busy, cramped underground train station.

          Personally, I like the blue-and-yellow trains, even aside from the safety aspect. Civic infrastructure needs to be dignified, but it doesn’t need to be dull.

        6. Yes on the safety angle- Singapore has been installing safety doors on the above-ground stations in its MRT network after there was a spate of suicides (people jumping in front of moving trains- http://www.transitioning.org/2010/05/09/account-of-mrt-suicides-from-2004-onwards/). The underground stations have had doors since they opened in 1987. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_on_the_Mass_Rapid_Transit_%28Singapore%29#Platform_screen_doors_and_gates

        7. The high glass screen in Shanghai look great, and make you feel safer when the station is very busy

  3. Well, depending on the frequency of trains passing through, I don’t think the width of the platform would be too much of an issue.

    I love the scrolling signs btw.

  4. Hope they aren’t changing the name to Wellesley Street as it appears in the pic. The name Aotea creates some great place-making opportunities. We in good old NZ have been lumbered with some spectacularly boring place names, for which I’m inclined to blame that bluff Yorkshireman James Cook, who saddled our coastal extremities with such imaginative monikers as North Cape, East Cape, West Cape and (you guessed it) South Cape.

    Mind you, on a good day he did manage a few names which, like many Maori placenames, made witty and subtle references to physical features (Mayor Island and the Aldermen; the Hen and Chickens; the Poor Knights) or to events that occurred at the location (Cape Kidnappers; Cape Foulwind; Mercury Bay).

    But by and large he and the plain-speaking country folk from Devon or Dundee who followed him here were prone to prosaic placenaming which has lumbered us with Northland, Southland, West Coast, East Coast; and continuing on into recent times, the really stylish and evocative “North Shore City”.

    Hence I am a fan of the current proposal to revert to the Maori names for North and South Islands. Te Ika a Maui references the legendary explorer who goes out fishing and catches a gigantic island! Te Wai Pounamu, the place across the water where the greenstone comes from, tells us in one succinct phrase the whole story of the pre-European economy.

    But noooo, cry the unimaginative, let us stick with North Island and South Island. We won’t be able to pronounce it. Tourists will get lost. We won’t know where we are. (Somehow these objections don’t hinder people in Mozambique or Mooloolaba).

    Here in Auckland I am so pleased we named the station Britomart and resisted those who wanted it to be Auckland Station, Central Station or just Central. The name comes down from the 19th century, from HMS Britomart, which gave its name to the promontory whose rock and soil were used to reclaim the harbour where the railway was constructed. Now it has come to mean more than the station. It has become a precinct, a place to take visitors, a cool and hip location with stylish eateries and boutiques. The name itself has become the place. Can’t imagine that happening if we’d called the station Central.

    Which brings me to Aotea. What a name! Mellifluous, one consonant and four vowels, it slips musically off the tongue while referencing our first settlers, who transferred the name to Great Barrier Island from the fragile craft on which they had sailed precariously from Tahiti.

    Like Britomart, a decade from now when the new station has been built, Aotea will be The Place to Be. All the attractions of the entertainment district, the Town Hall, Aotea Centre, Q Theatre, the Civic, St James, Sky City and the cinemas are all less than 5 minutes’ walk from the station exits. Within 10 minutes are the universities to the east and Victoria Park/Freemans Bay to the west (not to mention the entire CBD workforce, office towers, hotels, apartment buildings, restaurants, cafes and shops).

    And like Britomart was, the immediate vicinity is tired, rundown and overdue for major work on the streetscapes. It’s exciting to visualise Aotea in another decade compared to Albert, Wellesley, Victoria and Hobson Streets and (shudder) Mayoral Drive today. Onward!

    And AT: let’s start now by using the name on our bus destination boards for the many services which presently go to “Midtown”, “City” and “Civic”.

    When the new network is established most of the frequent services will be routed through the city rather than terminating there, using two main corridors – Customs and Wellesley. It would be great to see simplicity and legibility on the destination boards, with all services being “via Britomart” or “via Aotea”.

    1. downtown, midtown and uptown always sounded pretty evocative to me – in that I could trick myself I lived in a bustling metropolis

    2. Even now the people who officially name things can’t get it right. Everyone who lives here knows it is The North Island not North Island. There is a definite article in the name.

  5. I‘d be happy to name the station Sky City or NDG Auckland Centre, if either of them wated to pay.
    I hadn‘t known until recently that blue/yellow provides necessary contrast for the legally blind.
    We should have platform doors from day 1. Even 3rd world countries have them for safety on busy platforms.
    I note the picture also shows a ceiling where there should be overhead power conductors.

  6. Half-height platform screen doors also work well in underground stations don’t forget. In Japan, where half height screen doors have gone in, at underground as well as at above ground stations, they have significantly reduced both accidents and suicide attempts.

  7. That’s just the “Wellesley Street” exit sign, look at far end and you can just see “Aotea Square” exit sign…I guess?

    Great picture, where is the rubbish, drunks, and pickpockets? Every city has them….

  8. I hope the station has bird song like the stations in Japan. Would be nice waiting for a train and hearing a tui or fantail

  9. It looks like there are skylights letting sunlight down to the platform. Look at the squares of light on the left side of the platform, and the couple wearing sunglasses. I wonder where they’d be positioned on the surface? The position looks like the middle of the road, central median maybe?.

    1. Waiting for someone to notice that. Yes have heard they are looking at a central median being used to provide natural light into the station.

        1. The one the engineers plan to make, by removing the bus lanes carrying 90% of people using the road (yes have heard this is what they’re planning to do)

        2. Bus lanes must be going underground too 🙂 Or am I going to be walking home in a few years 🙁

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