Wellington is a great city and for many decades has been the county’s premier city for public transport as well as other urban issues however I wonder how long that title will last. The regions transport committee – made up of the regions mayors, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, the police and the NZTA – are looking to focus transport investment over the next six years around roads. It’s all part of the Regional Council (GWRC) coming up with the next Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP)
This Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) is a statutory document that must be prepared every six years as required by the Land Transport Management Act (LTMA) 2003 (as amended in 2013).
The RLTP must contribute to the purpose of the LTMA which seeks ‘an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system in the public interest’. It is also required to be consistent with the Government Policy Statement (GPS) on land transport.
The RLTP informs the development of the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) by identifying the priorities and key improvement projects for the Wellington region. The NZ Transport Agency is required to take account of the RLTP when preparing the national programme.
The diagram below illustrates where the RLTP sits in relation to the other key transport planning documents at a national and regional level.
While the Transport committee don’t come up with the projects on the list they do prioritise them or can exclude projects if they want. The list then goes out to the public for consultation which will happen over four weeks from mid January. So what are the projects considered a priority?
So of the 17 top priorities there are only three PT related – Rail improvements, Integrated fares & Ticketing and BRT investigation – and they aren’t that high on the list with the highest one only 9th. In addition there is only one walking/cycling project. If you didn’t already know this was in Wellington you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is an Auckland plan.
So what is happening with PT in Wellington
The great news is that it seems patronage is on the rise with the figures till October for the last 12 months with overall patronage the highest it’s been for over 15 years.
Island Bay Cycleway
There is one other piece of good news and that is Wellington City Council has announced the design for the Island Bay Cycleway. The project was approved yesterday and unlike Auckland’s efforts. Impressively (for NZ) they are putting the cycle lanes closest to the kerb protected by parking. Some of the space for this has come from removing the central median. The cycle lanes even go around the back of bus stops. Here are a few images of what it may look like.
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No doubt if questioned on the paucity of priority and funding for major PT projects, Fran Wilde would respond, “Look, you’ve had the rail upgrade, the Matangi trains, and you’ve got the promise of some big bus improvements and a cycleway, what more could you possibly want?”.
Meanwhile what she really means is, “. . . what GWRC* think you should have is MOAR ROADS!”.
* Greater Wellington Roads Council
We DO have plans for cycleways like that in Auckland in various locations (better quality in fact). But unlike Wellington, we don’t have them approved & funded to start building soon. Here, our mayor proposes potential cuts to cycleway funds, and projects that go to consultation get watered down.
As a Wellingtonian it’s a bit disheartening to see the PT items so far down the list.
Especially frustrating is integrated fares – it’s something that everybody wants and should have happened a long time ago.
I’m looking forward to the cycleway though.
“So of the 17 top priorities there are only three PT related – Rail improvements, Integrated fares & Ticketing and BRT investigation ”
You are being a little unfair,
You missed point 10, Ngauranga- Petone Cycleway/Walkway, which to be honest is the big gaping hole in Cycling in the region..
Also the Mt Vic tunnel duplication is being promoted as having an enclosed and seperated cycle and walkway on one side of the tunnel
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/mt-vic-duplication/img/cross-section.jpg
> Also the Mt Vic tunnel duplication is being promoted as having an enclosed and seperated cycle and walkway on one side of the tunnel
That’s because part of the tunnel duplication is removing the (albeit horrible) walkway from the existing tunnel, so the traffic lanes can be slightly widened.
The new walkway will be more pleasant than the existing one, though, and it’ll also allow bikes to choose whether to continue to take their chances with the cars, or to annoy the pedestrians (if there even are many).
This isn’t a pedestrian project.
They could have upgraded the tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists years ago – by putting in proper separated glass or plastic walls with soundproofing and ventilation.
At the moment the tunnel is both highly toxic and carcinogenic, and ear destroying (because the NZTA have decided that horn hooting is a cultural practice worth preserving). It is a disaster, and will remain so until the NZTA is reformed, or one third of a billion dollars is spent on a small section of the Wellington Dividing Motorway.
i suspect the reason they are reticent to upgrade the current “shared path” ( which is too narrow to actually ever comply with any version of a two way shared path) is that if they do anything other than “repair and maintanence”, they will get caught by their own rules that would require them to bring it up to current standards ( which they could never do in such a small space)
If only NZTA had rules about the standards of shared paths! As it is they’re only guidelines that can be ignored with impunity, as NZTA is doing with the Basin and Mt Vic proposals, which have been designed by NZTA to be substantially narrower than NZTA says they should be.
> because the NZTA have decided that horn hooting is a cultural practice worth preserving
What’s the NZTA got to do with it? They don’t have any power (or practical ability) to make anyone hoot a horn, or refrain from hooting a horn. It’s up to the police to enforce the law, and even then, the hooting’s only illegal at night.
They have been asked on multiple occasions consider putting up signs, running education campaigns (newspaper or radio advertising), and working with the police to enforce the law. On each occasion the NZTA have refused. Their most common refrain is that they will fix it after they’ve built their $330 million tunnel (ie, not within half a decade).
BTW, you’re wrong. The law states that a “horn should only be used as a reasonable traffic warning”.
> They have been asked on multiple occasions consider putting up signs, running education campaigns (newspaper or radio advertising), and working with the police to enforce the law.
I’m no psychologist, but the people in Wellington who are into honking in the tunnel tend to be really into honking in the tunnel. I bet if NZTA ran a radio campaign, the DJs on that very station would be stirring people to go honk in the tunnel to fight The Man who was trying to take away their fun, and honking would have a bit of a resurgence.
NZTA has come up with some decent ads for things, but generally against things that people already oppose, like drink driving. A campaign against tunnel-honking seems about as doomed as the “Mantrol” campaign.
> BTW, you’re wrong. The law states that a “horn should only be used as a reasonable traffic warning”.
The Road Code says that, sure. But the Road Code isn’t the law. Unless you’ve got a link to an Act, regulation, some case law, or a legal opinion, it seems pretty safe to assume that, like the rest of the Road Code, the word “should” means “this isn’t legally required”.
The road code long ago used to highlight legal requirements in red, to set them apart from things that were just good advice. Maybe they should bring that back, because (to segue a bit) I’m sure it’s responsible for people thinking that there’s some sort of law requiring you to drive as close to the speed limit as possible, whereas you’re only required to do that during the driver licence test.
The Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004 says:
7.4 (5) A person must not, at any time,—
(a)use a warning device on a motor vehicle otherwise than as a reasonable traffic warning.
So, as you would expect, the Road Code is a plain English statement of the law.
If you didn’t already know this was in Wellington you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is an Auckland plan.
I take exception to that. Public transport has been flat for a decade. Per capita, it’s declining. Road-building is out of control, with the NZTA having complete autonomy and ability to determine outcomes for major roads through each city. Imagine that the NZTA controlled half of Auckland’s arterials, and you’ll get the picture. Auckland is in a far better position for the next decade than Wellington.
+1 Agree
Still love Welly city, was down last week and the quality of the streetlife is great and intense, but does drop off real fast away from the absolute core. The poor pedestrian deserves much more priority though, they so out number drivers but don’t get the amenity. And where is the city cyclelane network? Streets are wide enough to put it in. What gives Wade-Brown?
Wade-Brown is restricted by slightly more than half the council being composed of troglodyte councillors (she’s only one of 16 at the table). A few months ago they voted down a proposal to reduce the speed limit in the inner city from 50 to 30km/h. Anyone who knows how unsuited to speed these narrow streets are, and how many pedestrians spill from the narrow footpaths, will know how insane the high limit is. Among the arguments against it was that “the average speed is already under 30km/h, why would we need a limit?” The data showed very clearly that there were a large number travelling at or above 50km/h, putting everyone at risk.
I think they’ll get there, eventually, Wellington will continue to decline in relative terms to Auckland, which is improving at a much faster rate.
Agree and a lot of that comes down to local gov structure. Also NZTA WGTN do seem especially backwards? Proximity to head office and Beehive?
Wellington is a peculiar city, quite bi-polar.
On the one hand you have the salt crusted, wind blown, slightly grungy urban character which gives the place an innate character which is just wonderful to be part of. In recent years, some of Wellington’s best planners and architects have certainly responded to these qualities, but that essential heart and soul was always there just below the surface and waiting to be exposed.
This sort of “city-character” stuff that just comes so naturally to Wellington, is an area that Auckland has had to work at, due to past mistakes. Auckland is getting there, in part due to the hard work of some of those who regularly post on this site.
Unfortunately on the other hand for Wellington…. a very conservative, very beltway oriented political culture also comes with the territory. The place is rife with political middle management creatures who are often truly awful to work with, “play their games” and very provincial minded too. This can be a big surprise to Aucklanders expecting to do business in this dinky, uber cool city they’d heard about at the other end of the island.
Wellington is well and truly screwed. The Local Govt Commission has just gone with the super Council plan. Oh well they shafted Auckland so why shouldn’t Wellington get a taste as well.
This time your cynicism is well off target: Amalgamation the best thing that has happened in Auckland, it’s put a brake on decades of successful divide and rule from central government
Meanwhile the Wellington dog is wagged by its suburban tail, the likes of the absurd tarmac lusting Mayor of Porirua, and run roughshot over by antediluvian NZTA functionaries.
Find a faultline and pave it!
Yeah crazy, amalgamation is the best thing that every happened to Auckland, we have achieved more in the last couple of years than the two decades before it.
Think what we could have achieved if we hadn’t at the same time devolved lots of Council functions to separate bodies though, which are now fighting the head!
I regularly work on resource consents where the traffic people from Council and Auckland Transport (yeah, both sides now have traffic staff!) are at thinly veiled loggerheads. I presume similar matters happen in other technical areas, where unelected CCOs or major players like POAL try to protect their turf from the decisions of the elected Councillors.
I guess it is all a matter of perspective. If your goal is to fleece the suburbs to fund spending in the centre then sure I can see how it has worked. If the idea of local control means anything then it has be an abject failure for Auckland. Where I live we were far better off under the North Shore City Council and we even had councillors who lived in the area. Now mine live in Orewa 29 km away! WTF?
This is just such a spectacular crock. The entire Sprawl adventure has been funded through disproportionate taxation of the centre funding the edges. Get your history straight. There was no there there to fund the entire infrastructure of dispersal so the old city was squeezed to fund its own decline. Shameful.
Furthermore this is just a microcosm of what happened at the national level as the city driver funded rural roads. Auckland didn’t receive its share of the NLTF for decades as the provincial party took all it could for the ‘heartland’.
Anti-urbanism ran this backwater for the last 60 years. Am enjoying the push back.
So will you still enjoy the push back when a right wing Mayor and Council gets elected as inevitably they will and stop all the spending and cut back public transport operations budgets? First thing they will do is increase the uniform charge up to where it should have been. They will cut rates for the wealthy but shaft poorer people who have gotten use to artificially low rates. Next they will take the knife to your pet projects and probably seek full fare box funding of PT. What will you think of this unaccountable nightmare then?
They have 100 million dollars for the cross valley link prioritised at number 8. This completely superfluous road intended to ‘solve’ non existent congestion has a BCR of 0.3 to 0.4.
http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/Documents/CouncilMeetings/Community%20Plan%20Committee/910%20March%202011/Cross%20Valley%20Link%20options%20report%20.pdf
Not half as useless as the $124 million Arras Tunnel which makes zero difference to traffic that closing Tory Street without the tunnel wouldn’t have done anyway. It has buried and landscaped a mere 200m of SH1 (in one direction only), for a cool $600,000 per metre. Fine if we were flush with money and all the more-important needs of the country had been funded first, but this is not the reality. This was seemingly a John Key-driven project that had no public scrutiny at all, and appeared to leap-frog everything else on and off the priority list, so that JK will get to officially open it on Anzac day next year. A $124m JK photo op. National got away with this because it was a road project and as we all know, road projects are exempt from the rigours of sound economic analysis.
It’ll make a difference to traffic one day every year, not just 2015, since the road would otherwise be closed on ANZAC day, and you’d have to make a detour. Of course, it’s also a public holiday, so most people won’t going to work!
But considered as a cultural project, not a transport project, it’s a bigger deal. It means that every day, the park isn’t bisected by a multi-lane state highway. Still, I don’t know if that alone is worth the gigantic price tag.
Undergrounding Buckle street was not a National party Idea, It was intially proposed by Helen clark in 2004
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2012/08/21/guest-post-is-it-time-to-dust-off-wellingtons-2004-gehl-report/
The Clark Govt experienced an epiphany of sorts during their last term of office. They went cold on funding Moar Roads, and instead suddenly became highly supportive of funding rail upgrades in Wellington and Auckland. In their dying days of course, they saved the whole rail system from an ignominious fate under Toll Holdings. Heck, they even saved the Johnsonville Line from conversion to a uni-directional busway!
My point – Labour was at no time ready to fund an underground inner-city bypass. And it certainly didn’t figure in any of Labour’s plans under Cunliffe. The Buckle Street Tunnel was dead and buried until National came along and dug it up again.
We have been supplying Wellingtons cycleway products for 2 years now and they do a great job .there incite to cycleways is way Above what Auckland is .Keep up the great work down there guys
Whats needed are more cycleways, buslanes & partial pedestrianisation of the golden mile, what were getting is a $2.5billion dollar motorway to otaki & a monstrosity of a motorway rammed thru the cbd & town belt to encourage everybody to drive.
Depressing.
The Island Bay cycle lane win is significant progress for a Council that has given lip service to cycling in the past. A hard-fought win. Big ups to the Cycle Aware Wellington volunteers and Island Bay bikers. On the RLTP, the Ngauranga – Petone cycleway is about 100 years overdue. Good to see it has a $43m pricetag, as this indicates they now prefer the better seaward side option. Mt Vic tunnel duplication would include a proper cycleway. And third, the Cross Valley Link would allow Petone Esplanade to be cleared of monster trucks, and upgraded for cycling and walking. Pedal on.
“Mt Vic tunnel duplication would include a proper cycleway” – unfortunately, not as proposed. The facilities for cyclists are a shared path through the Mt Vic tunnel that is 2m narrower than NZTA’s guidelines, followed by a service road along Ruahine St and Wellington Rd that is also the only access (vehicle and pedestrian) to adjacent properties. So there’s actually no dedicated cycleway in the plans at all, let alone a “proper” one.
>Petone cycleway is about 100 years overdue. Good to see it has a $43m pricetag, as this indicates they now prefer the better seaward side option
Not sure why you’d think that the seaward side would be better, unless you’d only ridden along that stretch on a calm sunny sunday. Middle of winter, southerly, you don’t wanna be on the seaward side. And Whats more annoying is that it ends at Petone – at least if they are going to do the CVL, the thing should extend along to it and continue and parallel the railway to Taita/Pomare.
>And third, the Cross Valley Link would allow Petone Esplanade to be cleared of monster trucks, and upgraded for cycling and walking.
Sadly, no mention of rehabilitating the Seaview line for a fraction of the CVL cost
What’s not clear from the GW documention is that this is not a complete picture of transport expenditure over the next three years, because it excludes projects already accepted for the NLTP, underway or not. So a complete picture would included the other Wellington RoNS projects (Basin, Transmission Gully, Kapiti, Peka Peka-Otaki) on the roads side; the second Matangi order and finishing the rail upgrade on the PT side; nothing that I can think of for walking and cycling.
The programme as proposed is 85% of the expenditure over the next three years on roads, 12% PT, 3% walking and cycling: with the addition of those other projects it would be well over 90% on roads, I would think.
Is there a typo in the table pasted to this post? $23.90 million to duplicate the Terrace Tunnel (3 lanes + shoulder/s) seems like not much money for a wide tunnel project like that (on or near a major fault line in a highly built-up area – or is that $23.90 million just for an investigation and preliminary work, with more to come later?
All expenditure figures are just those incurred in the next 6 years. For The Terrace tunnel the figure for the next 10 years is $282M, which presents a slightly different picture.
Thanks for the clarification Mike. Are there any more projects that have expenditures creeping over the 6-year cut-off? Transmission Gully doesn’t seem to be on the list – I thought that was starting?
A number, Jamie – see pp33-35 of http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/council-reports/Report_PDFs/2014.602a1B.pdf, and see pp13-14 of the same document for projects that are already funded (eg Transmission Gully, Basin Bridge, phase 2 Matangis) and so do not appear in the current document.
To think of the the Regional Rail Plan as just 1 PT project is a bit disingenuous.
I’ve talked about it before but it is a major piece of work – the 4 lines will be run on a 15min or better peak freq on an In / Out model of long distance semi expresses and short distance all stops.
Station upgrades and hubs at Waikanae, Plimmerton, Porirua, and Upper Hutt, Taita, Waterloo and Petone as well as Johnsonville.
Fully double tracking the Hutt Valley line.
Third platforms and turning facilities between Porirua and Plimmerton.
Also NZTA is taking leadership on incorporating rail into the Melling interchange upgrade that would bring a station into the Lower Hutt CBD.
BRT has of course been chosen for the central city.
The 1st of 4 sections of the Island Bay – Wgtn CBD cycleway is starting along with the Great Harbour cycleway linking Wgtn and the Hutt Valley.
It is often noted here (as a weakness) that Wellington has a mature rail network so investment in roading is natural.
Auckland and Wellington are at different ends of the spectrum currently – mature road vs mature rail.
The only real trick being missed is fare integration! This should be PT priority 1 and a top 5 project.
Snapper has been around for years and this should have been bedded in by now.
So what are the missing projects? What should be done instead?
One project I can think of is rationalisation of the stations in Tawa.
There are four stations plus Keneperu, this is surely too many.
I think retaining Linden in the north and Takapu in the south and choosing a Tawa Central station from the remaining two would make sense.
Keneperu station’s value / performance should also possibly be looked at for efficiency.
I would then look to add a new station south in the northern part of Johnsonville at Glenside (before the tunnel).
Glenside station could then be integrated with two buses running east and west on Westchester Dr.
The east would cross over the motorway to Granada and service parts of Newlands and Paparangi in Johnsonvile’s northeast.
The west would service Churton Park in Johnsonville’s northwest.
This would allow commuters the option of bypassing the Johnsonville hub / Ngauranga Gorge or the slow Johnsonville line.
Being the first / last stop to Wellington station commuters could be at Glenside station within 10mins.
Wellington’s rail system is significantly less “mature” than its roads. I don’t know where this stupid term “mature rail system” keeps coming from.
1) The most glaringly obvious missing project for wellington’s rail system is to extend it to connect the south and east of the city, and airport. This was a serious proposal in the 1960’s prior to us getting hooked on motorways, but at some point in the mid 1970’s it disappeared off the radar. That so few people seem able to grasp that what we have today is *unfinished*, is a testament to blinkered vision. We unquestioningly shell out $billions to shave a few minutes off car journey times including bulldozing motorways through the CBD, but fail to recognize that the excellent rail system we have, and indeed the excellent city we have, are hamstrung for want of this basic piece of infrastructure. If this was built it would transform public transport use-patterns across the region.
Other obvious missing links are:
2) Rail to Wainuiomata – a suburb of 20,000 people. This was pushed in the 1970’s but also fell victim to the Roads-only zeitgeist.
3) Re-join the Johnsonville line to the NIMT at Redwood and allow it to be more than just a suburban stub.
4) Extend the Melling line over the Hutt River to Lower Hutt Central. This could easily be incorporated in the proposed new road bridge (but probably won’t be).
4) Add a station stop at the Ferry terminal, including a platform + connecting footbridge on the J’vlle Line. The closure of the former Kaiwharawhara station should have been done in conjuction with this is, but instead it was summarily deleted with no forward plan at all. A testament to our visionless decision-makers.
5) Add stations at Ngauranga (NIMT), Glenside, Raumati, Lindale, (a branch line to P’ram Beach would bring another well-populated area within reach of rail.
The aim of all this is to maximise the effectiveness and reach of the rail asset we have, which most people agree is of value and worth keeping, but few seem able to grasp the obvious sequitur that it is therefore worth developing further. Somehow this is only considered for roads.
Dave I’m assuming your comment was kind of?? directed at me and not just the world in general so I’ll respond…
1) Is of course obvious but insanely expensive / been canvassed many times, as I said – like it or hate it – BRT has been chosen.
Wait until the CRL has been built in Auckland, then I think Wellington will begin to have visions of what can be.
2) Interesting but again Generation Zero had a busway running to Wainui from Waterloo station and I’d say that is better value for money.
3) Not sure of the point… if you were at Redwood, a station I think that probably should be axed, I doubt many people would want to go to the city via Johnsonville or just generally have much business Tawa to Jville / Western suburbs… so that rail extension / connection might not be great value.
I think a Glenside station with 2 buses servicing the northern parts of Jville would be cheaper and better value for money, also there is already a Porirua – Jville / Courtney Pl bus that if you had integrated fares kind of does what you want (with an increase in freq).
4) NZTA are taking leadership over this and are incorporating rail at Melling Interchange – so don’t worry.
4b) Yes I agree, though to include Johnsonville the station would more likely need to be a Thorndon station with a 300-400m walkway to the ferry.
5) Yes I agree, Ngauranga should be an interchange between Kapiti / Hutt Valley lines. They investigated Raumati / Lindale in the Rail Plan… and it didn’t stack up. Have you by the way read that Regional Rail Plan..? Glenside see my comments above. A Paraparaumu branch might be interesting but again is it efficient? Would it beat a decent Kapiti bus network that works with the existing rail network?
Good to be talking about Wellington!
There seems to be a certain amount of misunderstanding about what is proposed for rail. It is not the whole of the Regional Rail Plan (http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Transport/Public-transport/Train-docs/WellingtonRegionalRailPlan2010-2035.pdf), just its Rail Scenario 1, which consists of:
a) double-tracking Trentham-Upper Hutt;
b) 3rd platform and turnback at Porirua;
c) upgrading track & signalling through the Tawa basin;
d) turnback at Plimmerton;
e) redevelopment of Upper Hutt Stn;
e) upgrades to level crossings;
f) deferred station maintenance and repairs;
g) KiwiRail infrastructure “catch up” renewals (funded separately by the Crown).
It does not include station upgrades and hubs at Waikanae, Plimmerton, Porirua, Taita, Waterloo, Petone or Johnsonville, except that “consideration should be given” to park and rides at some of these stations; or NZTA “taking leadership on incorporating rail into the Melling interchange upgrade that would bring a station into the Lower Hutt CBD.”
As for combining Redwood/Tawa and closing Kenepuru, even GWRC isn’t mad enough to close stations just after spending a lot of money doing them up – and for what benefit?
Mike you are confusing what is in the Rail Plan, what is going to be rolled out in the next few years (RS1) and what I am thinking ‘would’ be good for the future as possible options.
I’ve read the Rail Plan study too there is provision for ‘hubs’ obviously not in the next 3-5 years but in the next 15 definitely.
p.86-88
Johnsonville station upgrade is committed, Upper Hutt, Waterloo and Porirua are medium term major upgrades and Waikanae, Plimmerton and Taita will be key stations due to the new In / Out service model. Petone I might be wrong about, I thought I saw somewhere it was being upgraded along with the WelTec works? Maybe not.
NZTA is taking leadership / progressing the Melling interchange so it isn’t in the Rail Plan study but you can find it. There was even a dominionpost article about it a few months back.
I think there could be efficiency gains from rationalising stations in Tawa (two of the stations are less than 500m apart) and notice I am proposing closing one station in Tawa that already has four as well as Keneperu and opening one in the north of Johnsonville so maybe no net loss / possibly one station.
Also if you were to make Ngauranga an interchange between Hutt – Kapiti lines and have some sort of station in the Thorndon area for the ferry then dropping one or two stations in Tawa / Keneperu and gaining three south, Thorndon, Ngauranga and Glenside would be a station gain but keep the timetable pretty much as is.
What money has been spent on Redwood station? The platform extensions in 2010? That would be the one I would replace for a Glenside station further south.
Have they spent money on Keneperu too..? I actually don’t know so much about Keneperu if it is used then keep it of course but I think it should be investigated.
Thanks, John, but I’m quite clear about RS1 proposas that are in the RLTP – I outlined them in my previous post. There’s no commitment to any other projects in the Regional Rail Plan unless and until they are included in a future RLTS. In particular, only the feasibility of a Jville station upgrade is approved in the plan, so any concrete commitment is some considerable way away.
As an aside, projects that have achieved similar status in previous plans include light rail to Whitby, Stokes Valley and Melling-Waterloo (all in the 1999-2004 RLTP for completion in 2005-19), so there’s a pretty high chance that things will not turn out as planned!
As I said, all stations in Tawa, including Redwood and Kenepuru, have had considerable money spent on things like platform raising and extensions, so any prospect of closure is pure fantasy.
And if you believe everything that’s written in the DomPost, particularly on transport matters, well…
Ok Mike sure but I don’t think you are really comparing apples with apples there…
I mean things that need to happen, Poririua, Taita and Plimmerton need to become key transfer stations in the “In / Out” service model, and Waterloo is a major bus interchange already and effectively Hutt Central so these four stations will definitely be upgraded in some capacity.
Johnsonville and Upper Hutt stations likewise as terminals.
I mean you are comparing these existing stations that require upgrading to implement the RS1 plan with past proposals that would’ve had to have added NEW stations and track, not really the same I don’t think.
Rail into Hutt CBD isn’t being driven by PT but is a lucky coincidence that the Melling Bridge is a flooding bottleneck. So rail is being included in the design.
If you want to disbelieve what NZTA / GWRC are saying then fine, but I’ll believe them, it is logical future proofing.
They wouldn’t do it just for rail but it is a natural side benefit to sorting out traffic congestion and flood risks in the area.
They might have spent money in Tawa but I don’t think it’d be a huge amount especially if you took a 10 year time frame for rationalisation (depreciation).
Just because the stations are there it doesn’t mean they are needed or efficient and hopefully this can be tested / reviewed against emerging / future options.
Sorry jk, but I don’t understand your point. I’m not making any comparisons, just describing what’s in the proposed plan, ie just RS1.
And I’m not disbelieving what NZTA/GWRC are saying about rail into Lower Hutt, because I’m not aware that they’ve actually said anything much on the topic recently apart from some very general statements about access between the rail and the CBD in the Melling Gateway Strategic Case, http://www.gwrc.govt.nz/assets/council-reports/Report_PDFs/2014.591a1.pdf.
As for the four Tawa basin stations, I suggest you look at the occupancy of the car parks at Redwood and Tawa stations and their recent/proposed extensions, and the money spent recently on platform raising at all four and on the footbridges at Tawa and Linden and the station building at Tawa, and ponder why on earth anyone would consider closing any of them. Closure of Kenepuru, the least-used of them, was rejected just a couple of years ago, and during the temporary closure of Redwood (the station you want to close permanently) for rebuilding of the platforms GWRC had to both extend the car park at Tawa and lay on a peak-hour bus shuttle to provide for passengers inconvenienced by the closure.
Hi John Keenan
Although prompted by you, my earlier comment was directed at whoever will listen, however years of trying to advocate for more rail in Wellington have taught me that very few will. So kudos to you for at least engaging!
1) The cost of a heavy rail extension in Wellington has not been reliably assessed since the 1960’s, perhaps early 70’s, unless there has been something since that I don’t know about. The recent PT Spine Study merely picked a per-km figure based on a few major projects overseas which I consider far from comparable. What no-one has done is consider the obviously cheaper alternative (where possible) of “tunnelling” at-grade-covered-over. I estimate a 1Km, 2-track extension to a temporary terminus beside Frank Kitts Park could be achieved for $100m and could support 20tph, if we were willing to de-traffic the Waterfront route and properly boulevardise/landscape it! I tried to present this to the PTSS hearings panel but it looked like Fran Wilde fell asleep!
As far as BRT is concerned, all that has been “chosen” is a $40m band-aid for Wellington’s PT. Some fancy new vehicles and a few bus lanes where they can cheaply be achieved. This is mere window-dressing, equivalent to about 70-metres worth of that stupid Arras Tunnel! It will do nothing to impact regionally-generated traffic problems and the need to extend rail will remain as strong as ever. A more enlightened administration will sooner or later realise this.
I have long thought that the successful implementation of Auckland’s CRL will assist the awakening process in Wellington, so the enforced delay to this as long as National remains in office has been frustrating here as well.
2)-3) As for these other rail-extension projects, yes indeed, they may be unviable under the impossibly-obstructive scrutiny given to anything PT-related today. However that doesn’t mean they would not be desirable to have and I simply suggest them as a contrast to the even-less viable road-schemes which are nevertheless being rammed through today.
And by-the way, Auckland has proved many times over that cheap, bus-based PT is no substitute for a decent rail service. Agree that integrated fares and better bus-frequencies *should* improve the situation, though I fear that our habitual tendency to overprice and under-deliver may even scupper this.
4)-5)-6(?) – All nice-to-haves, but I suspect even these will need a complete change of administration to be considered. Rail over the Hutt River at Melling – I’ll believe it when I see it. A “Ferry Station” on the J’ville line would need a 160m footbridge, ideally covered. And I’m not sure what you mean about an interchange between the lines at Ngauranga? The lines are about 800m apart here. Kaiwharwhara used to be used as an interchange-point during peak hours until they killed it.
Something definately needs to be done to improve connectivity between the railway station and the bottom of the cbd, courtenay place area. Id like to see a busway along the quays with a fast frequent service which would alleviate some of the golden mile congestion.
And a wad more cycleways, pedestrianised areas and general pedestrian priority.
Yes I agree with the busway along the Quays, with 3 plus lanes in each direction it is certainly doable.
I’d favour running it both ways on the city side and then running north / south traffic on four lanes harbour side.
You could definitely run something Wellington station to Kent Tce (Embassy) as a first section with say three dedicated stops along the Quays and Wakefield St before a loop up Kent and a U turn back down Cambridge.
Wellington Station – Brandon St – Civic Square / Michael Fowler – Tory / Wakefield St – Embassy and Downstage Theatres…
I have long thought that a good precursor to any CBD rail-extension would be an intensive limited-stop bus service from Wgtn Station Platform 9, direct to Courtenay Place stopping only at Civic Square, then maybe continuing on along the City-Airport corridor. It would be arranged as far as possible to connect with every train and obviously would require integrated fares with rail. It would provide a rapid alternative to the dawdle along the Golden Mile. Best if it was run by Tranz Metro and kept out of the hands of Infratil! I wasn’t envisaging any busway infrastructure, at least not to start with. Just get it going to prove that the demand for a rail extension exists. Something GWRC refuses to believe.
Buslanes along the quays, reroute the Newlands, Eastborne & Flyer buses along there, at least 12 buses an hour so frequent enough to make train-bus connections.
PT to airport seems to be resisted in both areas (only lip service paid to it). How does the revenue from parking at airports figure in their balance sheets? Is that the factor that seems to slow it down. Certainly there are large numbers working at the airports who need to have good transport and their relative wages seem to be reducing all the time.
Integrated ticketing and fares for Welly: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/64034276/Single-prepaid-card-for-all-public-transport
Amazing huh? 8-10 years post Snapper and real integrated ticketing is finally coming… Though Patrick you might want to be careful, according to the grizzled Wellington veterans on this thread you can’t believe anything the Dompost says… 🙂
Also can someone enlighten me here… smart gates ONLY at Wellington station for a cost of $20m!!!
Excuse me?? So the gates at Britomart cost $20m in today’s dollars!?!?!
I must be missing something from that article… if you had say 12-16 gates at Wellington station, 4-6 each way and 4-6 peak tidal (can go both ways) plus maybe 1 or 2 accessibility gates (double gates) that would cost $20m???
Absurd surely..?
I don’t now where the $20m figure comes from or what it covers, but gating Wellington station will not be easy, because, for example:
a) it’s a Category I heritage building;
b) it has very high peak flows;
c) platforms 1-8 are the main through route for crowds between the city and the stadium;
d) platform 9 is also a through route, and is completely open, with no barriers (or obvious location for them).
– and solving all these will cost money.
In comparison, Britomart is relatively straightforward, with only just over half the number of platforms, and less dominant in its network (which is why gating just Wellington would work, but gating just Britomart wouldn’t).
I think Wellington station has a natural choke point between the inner atrium and the outside roof covered platforms, 12-16 gates there with 2 double access would be pretty effective (20 max).
At peak time (using 16 gates) you could run 14 and 1 double in vs 2 and 1 double out.
At 5sec per transaction, 12 per min / gate x 15 gates = c.180 people per min.
Or for context that would be a full 6 car train through the gates in 4-5min, does it really need to be designed for much more..?
What does the station being a heritage building have to do with installing gates? Extra oversight / design approval costs?
Platform 9 could be bordered using basic materials, say planter boxes alternating with trellis to a height of 800mm and then high tensile wire run above. 3-5 rows spaced 200mm apart would give you an effective barrier (1.4-1.8m) that was transparent and relatively tasteful for little cost along with some CCTV (as deterrent).
A narrow access way on the eastern side of the gates and barrier could allow flow between the outer part of platform 9 where the buses park and the inner atrium.
Trax Bar would need to close off one of its entrances on the western side of the station or be reconfigured as two separate bar areas.
Currently at the stadium end of the station the platforms rise up to a single east-west bridge that runs into an existing manual gated office with turnstiles.
When it isn’t an event time / day this bridge and the gates are closed off, aren’t they?
So outside of the 50 events p.a. held at the stadium the station is never used as a thoroughfare is it?
Surely those stadium gates could be configured with some basic ‘eftpos’ style portable scanner / readers for people to use at event times along with some staff oversight.
Depending on the crowd size 4-12 scanner / readers would probably be acceptable.
Think 5 sec per transaction, 12 x 4-12 = c.50-150 people per min through the gates. 1000-3000 people cleared in a 20min period.
jk – as with Tawa stations, I suggest you go and see for yourself. You would then find out that there are no turnstiles at Wellington station; that the stadium entrances/exits are not closed off when there are no events – they are well used by eg people working at Harbour Quays; that the platforms are used as a thoroughfare by non-passengers on a daily basis, but particularly at stadium events; that platform 9 is already quite narrow, and gets crowded with train passengers, bus passengers, ferry passengers, car park users, sports centre users, Harbour Quays workers etc etc; that up to three trains can arrive simultaneously in the morning peak; and that modifying a heritage building has its own particular challenges.
I’ll be back over January, I’ll check it out.
I wasn’t aware of the throughput, but again i think you are overstating the the challenges.
If the stadium end is free flow there are existing gates that could be easily modified though right?
And as for modifying a heritage building… come on Mike we are talking about installing small gates into the ground between the platform area and the inner atrium, what are the particular challenges? A Metro New World (and Vic Uni) already inside the station but gates at the natural choke point are a huge problem..?
jk – you asked why installing gates at Wellington would be expensive. I’ve given you quite a few reasons, corrected misunderstandings, and indicated issues for which there is no single obvious solution (eg how to deal with the many non-passengers that currently use every platform, or the 33% of AM peak passengers that arrive within just 15 minutes).
It’s up to you if you don’t accept these points: I’m sure GWRC would be very happy if gating, including putting many metres of gateline into the highest category of heritage building, could be done “easily”, but fortunately their views appear to be founded on practicality and experience rather than optimism.
Mike Merry Xmas buddy, take it easy!
I think you have provided an opinion but I’m not sure about reasons.
Yeah you have stated (without reasons) that it will be expensive in a ‘heritage’ building, so why would a gate line be expensive?
I am using a metro network at present that has close to 2m riders / day.
Think about that… the metro ridership alone is more in a week than Wellington’s entire ridership for a year.
The main station for example has 2 metro lines, 4 ways, 2 train lines, 4 ways, high speed rail, a bus station and FOUR shopping malls built inside and running out from the station.
How do they provide barriers and access? by using a lot of half glass fences (I’m suggesting cheaper trellis / planter boxes) and high tensile wire – transparent and economical with space (plus CCTV). Practical and real world, nothing optimistic there.
There will be 22 trains running in the hours between 7-9am peak right? 3 six car trains arriving at the same time is just poor management of the timetabling.
Like I said I’ll check out the throughput / stadium end of the station when I’m home.
Waikanae, Plimmerton, Upper Hutt, Taita (x2?), Johnsonville and Melling should be able to come in at 2.5-3min intervals of each other, 15-20min period.
Under what I roughly proposed (180 people / min) that should be a pretty congested but free flowing service through the gates.
Review and add 4-6 more gates if required leaving the existing space in the original design.
Would love to see the costings for the $20m headline figure, I just think it is excessive – your opinions and points haven’t really changed my mind… Enjoying the debate though.
Would be good to know the real reason for the integrated ticketing delay in Wellington.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/64113312/Editorial-Wait-for-smartcard-far-too-long
In 2013….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/8713005/Integrated-ticketing-coming-for-Wellington-transport
Side point but why can you not buy a Snapper card at Wellington Airport?