One of the projects that is sitting in the pile awaiting funding is the Parnell Train Station. The project has been one that seems to always be just around the corner. The tracks in the area were lowered in 2011/12 in one of largest Christmas shutdown’s we’ve seen to enable the station to be built but that never happened and constant delays have ensued. One of the major problems is the cost which is estimated at close to $20 million.
That’s definitely a lot of money however with its proximity to Parnell, the rapidly developing area around the old Carlaw Park and with it being the closest station to much of the University it has the potential to be one of the busiest stations on the network. The plans would see the old Newmarket station that is currently in storage moved to the site and restored with the intention of tying in with the mainline steam site.
There are a number of other images in this post. With funding currently dependant on the outcome of the LTP discussions I had assumed it the project had been placed in stasis. However it now appears that might not be the case.
Deep in the agenda for the council’s Parks, Recreation and Sport Committee next Tuesday is an item about Auckland Transport seeking approval for works within the Auckland Domain in relation to the Parnell Station. The approval is needed because some of the construction works would happen outside the rail corridor and in the Domain itself. It says that AT seeking approval for the works on what will be stage one of a revised version of the station and consists of just the platforms and paths. Crucially it says that AT are wanting this part of the project done very quickly with construction complete by June this year. This sounds a lot like they’re trying to use up some remaining budget.
My first reaction was that this seems like a very proactive move from AT, rather than waiting for the funds needed for a large redevelopment, get in there and at least get something underway and working. However upon looking at what’s just what’s planned – or in this case what’s not – I’m now less convinced. The works to be constructed within the rail designation are:
- The proposed platforms are to be constructed adjacent to the existing Mainline Steam building, as shown in the attached plan. Both platforms are 5.0 metres wide and approximately 16.0 metres long. [presumably a typo and they mean platforms 160m long]
- New pedestrian pathways from the existing underpass to the platforms. CCTV operation and lighting of the platform.
- Platform seating, service points, station signs and necessary accessibility considerations (stairs/ramps).
So missing from this list we obviously have the station building – which I’m not that keen on anyway – but more importantly it seems no shelter at all. In addition there will be no pedestrian over-bridge, something I’ll cover shortly. Below is the current plan.
Other than the missing shelter and pedestrian bridge the other thing that surprises me – but perhaps shouldn’t – is that it seems there’ll be a substantial area for car drop off and turn around. Surely the last thing we want to do is encourage people to be driven to the station clogging up those narrow and steep streets.
Along with the shelter, perhaps the most serious issue is the lack of the pedestrian over-bridge between the platforms. Without it means the only way for someone coming from the western side of the station to access the eastern (southbound) platforms is via the existing underpass over 100 to the south of the platforms. That means all up it’s around a 400-500m detour. That alone will put a lot of people off using the station. In fact I think it’s so serious it could backfire on AT and playing right into the hands of the anti-CRL brigade who will hold it up and say the same thing will happen with that project.
I should add I’ve long been lukewarm on this project as I’ve thought the station has been placed in the wrong location. The site was chosen for its proximity to the Mainline Steam site – after some desired a sort of heritage precinct – it’s straight line proximity to Parnell – ignoring the steep and narrow streets – and it was also argued that it would be a museum station again ignoring the steep hill between the two locations.
Instead I’ve long thought it should be on the outcrop slightly further north that’s now used as a carpark. It would have provided easy connections to Heather St for an easy walk to the Parnell main street, to Parnell Rise for good connections to Link buses, better connections to the current and future development in the area. Further a path along the rail line would have still provided very easy access to the Mainline Steam site.
Unfortunately it’s probably a bit too late for this as the cost in both money and disruption to change now would likely be too great. I can probably live with the current planned location and have no issue with AT looking at where it can cut costs – such as dealing with the station building later. However it the plan is for the station to be so basic as to exclude shelter and easy access between the platforms then I have to ask why bother at all.
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Also, we really should be spending any available money on the still unfunded(!) Otahuhu, Manukau, Te Atatu interchanges first as they are far more important (they are all major network interchanges and critical to proper design and operation of the New Network).
I agree Andrew. Ive struggled with the concept of the Parnel station, seems to me to be the private train station of the select few living in that gully
+1 – Well put, Lance! Currently, the submission/information request/etc. processes in local government affairs favour those who have time on their hands, and aren’t so friendly to those for whom English is not a first language.
Would it be worth putting together a fund through this blog to pay for someone to translate some of the important posts here (e.g. the CRL, CFN, RONS, etc.) into Samoan, Hindi, Mandarin, etc to broaden its “market reach”? Or is there a grant we could apply for?
To be fair, I think a lot of the traffic will be people coming into Parnell rather than the other way round. The people living in Parnell have pretty good public transport already to get into the city, being on both link bus routes (and with other buses besides).
I agree, which is why I think Parnell gully is the wrong place for it. There just isn’t much there to go to. One side is the bush covered hills of the domain, the other has a few apartment blocks and villas then up to the Main Street.
The business end is at the other end, carlaw park, university, beach Rd, the strand… Even the main business part of Parnell is actually along Augustus Tce. The station really should be a ‘Carlaw Park’ station with access to Parnell.
Takanini Station has been in urgent need of a proper upgrade for a long time now and has consistently good usage stats, even in its current rundown condition. Money and effort would be better spent on a proper station upgrade at Takanini rather than on Parnell Station where the ROI is questionable.
I would agree with this logic. If Glen Innes is the impression that the bulk of our rail riders are getting of the system then think how much more there would be if there was a proper station there.
AT should change location to your idea Matt at maximum velocity. Location is everything and good overall connections are key.
KiwiRail have offered the old Newmarket station to a heritage operator, as they don’t want to keep paying for its storage.
Interesting. It would be great to see the old wooden station transferred to Sunnyvale. There is a huge empty lot awaiting development? And you get off the train but there is no cafe, dairy or shop. And because it’s down the bottom of the hill with an empty overgrown lot and no shops , it feels unsafe. So we have two security guards (who do a great job) But a bit of urban planning here would be great. And would be an appropriate place for an old station. Doesn’t have to be a multi million dollar excercise.
Agree. The station is a bit isolated. The shops unfortunately are further away. The unitary plan should allow for more commercial and residential development around train stations to make them safer all hours.
I visited the Swanson Railway Cafe on a rainy Saturday morning – what a cool place, buzzing with patrons and rail passengers. That could easily replicated across the network, especially with the development going on around Sunnyvale
As I understand it AT no longer wants the signal box, but the station building is still in its plans for Parnell and so has not been offered to heritage operators.
Surely by not having a road down to it we could afford some shelter. It appears pedestrian access is via a painted medium but given the roadway is 5m wide I’d suspect that will turn into a de facto passing lane for opposing traffic.
It’s just madness to have drop off at such a station.
On the plan there’s a dotted line towards the bottom left, could that be an under/over pass?
Another observation – why do they have weird-looking trains in these pics and not our new EMUs?
Designer probably wasn’t made aware of the EMU’s, design was made a few years back.
very old graphic….
car drop off is symptomatic of AT’s carcentric disease. makes no sense at all. I would like to see instead an open air escalator up to parnell rd like you can find in Barcellona for example
Yep, this car centric stuff is ‘Car-cinogenic’ to all humans in the extreme.
in this case the cancer is parking and traffic – but thats only the thin end of the wedgie.
not sure I agree with this – the vehicle access may be quite useful for service access, e.g. cleaning, security etc. And quite cheap, assuming the land is not being bought simply for this purpose. If it is being purchased for this reason then your point is probably valid, i.e. it’s probably not worth the money …
I think the vehicle access issue is symptomatic of the general problem that arises when building train stations at the bottom of a gully: Access is difficult.
As Matt notes, this really is a poor location for a station. The other point to make is that it’s located where peak loadings occur on the network, i.e. passengers on train is high. This means an additional station here imposes considerable additional delays to other rail users.
The corrollary of this is: If you’re keen to build a new station close to the city centre, then you sure as hell better make sure it’s a busy one – because it sure as hell is going to delay a lot of other passengers by say 2 minutes per passenger per trip. Just to put that in context: If there’s 20,000 passengers per day flowing through this point that are not using the station, then that’s 40,000 passenger minute delays attributable to the development of the station.
That’s a shed-load of delays …
Agree that we should wait and do the station properly when we can afford it. A half ass job now could very much backfire.
Location is not too bad if we can mitigate the hills, this will definitely put some people off using this station! Agree with open air escalators being used to track up to Parnell Road, but also understand this may need to be left till a little bit later for cost implications. Also what route would the escalator take?
Drop off zone is stupid, its in Parnell!!
Agree totally. I used to walk up the hill from the underpass to get to work and you’ll end up sweaty even if you are fit.
The car ‘drop-off’ is completely absurd. Who is it for and driving from where? This is a interestingly tucked away station with potentially good local walk-up but that needs GREAT pedestrian connections to work, let alone thrive. They are needed from Parnell’s point if view, and for the usefulness of the station. And has to be properly designed, direct, highly visible, attractive, and activated pedestrian connection up to Parnell main street, not yet another barrier. And in the other direction through the Gully to campus. And directly to both platforms.
I don’t share Matt’s conviction that it’s in the wrong place [although car parking is certainly the wrong use of that very interesting cliff fringed coastal fragment that he prefers]. The current site has potential better connection to Parnell main St, but that connection is just not there yet and has to be built. It is also roomy offing new station focussed retail and hospo business possibilities. Parnell Station could be a destination in its own right. If this is developed. It’s actually a lovely valley to be in, especially now with the electrics swooshing through instead of the stinky diesels straining up the hill drowning out the busy bird life in the Domain. This is a hidden gem that could be awakened by the station, but not by half of one.
And, of course, people arriving from south and west, and therefore on the western platform, have to be able to get across the tracks to get to Parnell, safely and directly. Where much of the employment, hospo, and retail is. Furthermore for students and others from the Grafton Gully area heading south and west need to be able to access he eastern platform directly too.
If this is a staged development then AT need to tell us the timeline.
Every delay to the bridge and to high quality pedestrian links will mire this into suboptimal performance. The rail hating Trioka of Wood, Quax, and Brewer will haunt the place on rainy afternoons glaring at any poor souls trying use it. At best it will be condemned to the very slow start that befell Manukau through the problems in the MIT building’s construction and the continued delays to the bus interchange.
As it is above it looks hopeless. Of course NZTA/MoT don’t like this station, seeing it only as a delay for their favoured long distance commuters, as conceived here, to near bare-bones hopelessness, they’re probably right! But then their white-anting hasn’t helped it get funded properly. Perfect circle.
Looks like this is a project run by people that don’t believe in it having to meet a deadline and therefore doing an absolute minimum; designed to flop.
Full upgrade Takanini Station first – a far more pressing need there than at Parnell.
Perhaps they want to rush something in before development begins on the Mainline Steam site.
The construction is being staged, as far as I’m aware. This first stage is just the physical enabling works; construction of the platforms and pathways. From what I heard the opening of the actual station won’t happen until October, once the new Newmarket Crossing (bridge replacing the Sarawia St crossing) is opened. This will mean that the dwell times at Parnell won’t change the overall rail timetable, as delays associated with the Sarawia St crossing will be resolved (and the new EMU timetable will presumably be in place?)
Hopefully between June and October AT will be able to find funding for construction of the shelters and other amenities. It will also mean that the EMUs will be fully operational across all lines (which is important because the diesel’s can’t get going uphill from being stopped at Parnell, due to its grade).
The vehicle access is probably a requirement from an operational perspective, such as if they need to run replacement buses due to a break down, or need to get emergency services to the platform.
All that seems likely, and of course only EMUs can stop on this slope, thankfully. Some communication form AT/AC around this would be good. You never know, even the champion of Parnell in the Herald Bernard, might then have mentioned it in his panegyric.
Yes I noticed in Bernard’s Herald article on what could be done to revitalise Parnell he discussed a few businesses that might be coming to the area.
I can’t think of anything that would bring people in better than getting a train platform set up. The lack of parking makes it a pain of a place to visit.
Latest AT report has Sarawia crossing scheduled for completion in mid-2016 https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/newmarket-level-crossing/
The location on the bridge seems much more appropriate/useful.
Not the biggest problem (amongst the many others outlined here) but are they actually expecting Mainline Steam to completely reorder their depot so that everything exits out the rear, rather than out the front which will be lost to the dropoff area in the plans? That’s a lot of cost for a private society to absorb and they might be forced to move rather than shift all of that heavy gear around, which would make a major part of the whole “heritage precinct” concept moot.
The outcrop concept looks much better for all involved – as it stands it looks a bit like they have decided to lump all of the “train stuff” in one place rather than genuinely pick the best site from a blank slate. It might work as a nice private station for local landowners in the Gully, but I can’t see it delivering on any other level in the proposed form.
Isn’t Mainline getting the boot to make way for apartments?
Yup. Mainline are on the move:
“KiwiRail offered to lease us a greenfield site at Opaheke between Papakura and Pukekohe. Although it is a little small we were unable to find any other suitable site. We have been working in conjunction with KiwiRail and their consultants to develop a plan for this site and get it through various local body approvals and we appreciate the effort KiwiRail is putting in.”
Thanks folks; I’d heard about Mainline shifting a while back but must have slipped my mind. The shed buildings have some sentimental attraction for me but probably no real heritage value (it wasn’t an original steam depot) so if Mainline have found another home, probably time for them to move on.
Maybe AT could cut a deal with Mainline to retain some steam relics as points of interest in the new development, if they are interested in heritage flavour…
That main building at Mainline is awesome as well. Beautiful and huge steel beams inside, steel framed glazing. 🙁
Mainline steam perform a culturally valuable but low/zero income function that needs to be at much less financially valuable location. That they have been able to be in the inner city just how fully crazy the values of the sprawl era became.
We owe them for giving those sheds and their contents a function while our society couldn’t see their value. They are now ripe for repurposing into fantastic hospo and other visitor attractions. And to earning a return for their current or future owners which the station will ensure…
No where’s that development agency?
The alternative location would be much better even though my vested interest is the other as I’m looking at the mainline building from my office. The walk from further north wouldn’t be bad at all.
Maybe the could move it further round into the block between Beach Rd and The Strand and build a big ugly brick station that looks like an Edwin Lutyens knockoff. Oh wait the building is there already.
This station should be developed as it will provide another transport option for the ASB tennis centre
I agree, a pleasant summer’s walk through the bush to/from the tennis and a relaxing train ride, full of strawberries and Pimms, what’s not to like? beats driving and parking in Grafton Gully. Unlike many in our transport institutions it seems, i see plenty of value in this station, if done well. Especially with high quality; direct, legible, and creative pedestrian routes all round it. An AC responsibility?
“what’s not to like?”
The fact that for 360 days of the year when tennis is not happening this station will delay almost everyone else using the Southern line …
General point #1: Mass transit systems are used by many different types of people, all day, every day of the year, and for many different things that don’t fit under a general rubric of what “we” (you or me) like.
General point #2: One should not build new stations close to peak load point of mass transit systems that serve activities that are not used for most of the year. The ASB tennis centre really is not a very important part of the world. In fact, I’d suggest it’s one of the least intensively used sites in the wider area. And in terms of the universities: You’re really not that much worse off catching the train to B-Mart and walking/busing up, especially for AUT. As for Western Line users, they’ll not need this station post-CRL and even pre-CRL they’re better getting off at Grafton and busing down.
QED serving the flaming tennis centre is not a flaming priority (code for “Stuart not like”).
P.s. “Especially with high quality; direct, legible, and creative pedestrian routes all round it. An AC responsibility?”
But pedestrian connections of that quality could be built around almost *any* station in almost any location, i..e they would expand the reach of any station. So why invest in such facilities that would only be used by station users when if you used the location shown by Matt you’d be able to invest in pedestrian facilities that would benefit *everyone* walking past that point.
I’d argue that the need to invest in stand-alone pedestrian facilities to support this station places it at a disadvantage compared to other locations, such as the one Matt shows above, because in the case of the latter any investment in walking connections would tend to benefit not just the rail station but also people on Parnell Rise etc.
QED Stu not like.
Fair enough Stu if there was only a Tennis Centre proximate to the station; which is clearly untrue. It is a case of a many different reasons to use this station adding up to build demand.
And yes every station should be analysed for the quality of it’s walk- and ride-up amenity, as for so many it is sub-optimal. My point is here that there is nothing else, so its success or otherwise is entirely dependent on the quality of pedestrian access ie no point it building it unless this condition is met.
In terms of the delay to other passengers, there is a case that this is a better post CRL station, as the Newmarket deviation is then no longer the primary passenger rail route into the city. But it will be, with good pedestrian connections, another reason to use the network, and a driver of up-lift in a forgotten and city proximate valley.
Current post CRL running pattern plan, note Parnell the least busy city station:
I agree with the last point here – if you consider the station as more than just a station and a way to connect the University with Parnell in a more effective way, then there are better reasons for spending a little more than you might otherwise here. Even if in time the station itself not serviced by express trains or is partially dropped to speed up running times, the overbridge connections to lower Parnell streets would be hugely beneficial. I wouldn’t have it through the bush though – it needs to be as well lit and safe as possible.
I am thinking a high pedestrian bridge stretching right across the gully from Parnell road to Symond street with a lift to drop you down or up to platform level.
Is this really such a high priority? Plenty of Link connections to the CBD and Newmarket in Parnell already while other parts of Auckland have no service… A drop off zone? Wouldn’t the main traffic be foot, being mainly shops and the Domain in that area? Newmarket and Britomart don’t even have half-decent drop-off zones, let alone all the other stations further out. It’s also going to be a huge hit on the timetables, as the AM EMUs go very slow out of Britomart around the corner due to their length and the narrow gauge, and slow to Newmarket because of junctions, so this is the only part where they actually pick up speed (the ADL DMUs seem to handle these zones much better).
Doesn’t seem to be spending right, nor for the right reasons, given the drop-off and poor pedestrian access, especially going across platforms. Improve pedestrian-friendliness and it may work better.
It’s sad seeing more of Mainline Steam’s collection slowly going each time, going past on the train
Has there been no thought put in place to have 4 sets of tracks here so that slower trains can service Parnell while faster ones shoot stright on through. Win – Win
Is there a case for putting LRT up Parnell Rise to Newmarket instead of this?
Would achieve much better linkage, Beach road has the width, only issue is the need to cross SH16 in the guise of Stanley Street/Beach Road port link.
Or maybe we give Parnell two link buses instead?
Two Link routes and a station, more than enough…
Watch for the demolition of the Mainline Steam depot shortly, as it’s about to go. A real shame the heritage precient never eventuated. The site is to become a retirement village instead. Parnell station may set a new Gold Card use record???
Anyone got any info on the latest of this station? The AT website indicates opening this month, but it looks a long way from that.
I’ve also heard rumours that it cannot open until the Newmarket Level crossing replacement is completed. This sounds absurd to me – since they’re several km’s apart, but the guy I heard it from is directly involved in that project….
AT do say they need [want?] Sarawia crossing removed first, but that project is delayed so who knows when Parnell will open…
I just found this online, looks like mid 2017. SUCK!
https://www.fyi.org.nz/request/3336/response/10905/attach/html/4/Response%20Oehley%20CAS%20144978%20T9Q7J1.pdf.html