Auckland’s not quite at the point of having lots of old tunnels sitting around unused – with the exception of those under Albert Park – but if we did here’s a suggestion from London.
Personally I’m not sure it’s such a great idea and would much rather be riding on the street in a protected bike lane but still an interesting idea none the less.
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Might work at the odd location where a disused tube just coincidentally overlaps with a major gap in their cycle network. But even then, it would only work with good ramps each end, and those won’t be cheap at all…
Sort of bonkers idea that characterises TfL under Boris ‘Me Me Me’ Johnson. On a par with his even stupider Emirates Air Line cable car. Another opportunity to flog the public domain to the corporates/hedge funds.
It’s not a TfL project as far as I can see, it’s a private proposal.
Nothing in London is long enough to be usable and its a long way down…
dont forget the old parnell rail tunnel …
Maybe we should build some pedestrian tunnels. As you say Dads army built them under Albert park during the war. Also what about some bridges so you could walk from Hobson street to Symond street without the up and down. So valley to valley and ridge to ridge with a lift to do the elevation work. The big advantage would be the pedestrians would avoid HAVING TO STAND AT THE CROSSINGS WAITING FOR THE LIGHTS TO CHANGE.
I love the idea of a more 3D city. Underground, overground, wombling free. However, it is very difficult to build overpasses that dont have massive negative effects. Overpasses tend to shade the area below from the sun. They tend to create wind tunnels through the already shaded area underneath them. They tend to connect building to building which further removes people from the surrounding area, sucking life out of the street. They tend to have convoluted access ways to get up to them with switch backs or spirals or stairs that dont follow desire lines.
Pedestrian links should follow desire lines. You shouldnt be trapped on a pedestrian link for long distances. they should be built at a human scale, with interesting things closely spaced together. In saying all that, it may not be impossible to successfully build a pedestrian viaduct across queen st, say from Albert Park to Victoria St. But I think itd be very difficult to do right. I suspect it would shade the footpaths below and trap people on a long viaduct, with no links to the land below.
A few years ago I was trying to talk a park ranger I knew into giving me a tour of the Albert Park tunnels. No luck: the big issue is that they’re not ventilated so it’s likely that carbon monoxide and other un-breathable gases have been building up in there. Not OSH compliant…
Maybe not OSH compliant, but judging by the amount of urbex dudes that go in them without dieing, they arent lethal.
Not to mention the fact the entrances were filled in with rubble to stabilise the collapsing portals.
The elevated walkways across the Queen Street valley would add street level store fronts to those buildings that fronted it increasing the amount of retail frontage (after all it’s the pedestrians that enter shops.)
I think Copenhagenize put their finger on it perfectly when dismissing this idea and the equally “interesting” ones to put cycling up above the road and out on the Thames… http://www.copenhagenize.com/2015/02/the-village-idiot-of-urban-innovation.html
fully agree.
Of course we do have the old Parnell railway tunnel! . The Waitemata Local Board is working to get it opened up for a greenways route connecting to Newmarket Park.
a good plan; go pippa!
The touchstone factors I look at with urban cycle network designs are amount of frontage exposure and density of intersections. Usually, schemes like motorway paths and rail trails perform poorly under analysis. My first instinct is to dismiss the Underline concept for the same reason, just as other smarter people have done.
However, there are two possibilities that could rescue a tunnel scheme such as this one in London. Firstly, in terms of frontage exposure, Dr Fleming points to http://www.thelowline.org/ — a scheme to create solar-illuminated underground places that are as sticky as a street or the High Line. This could be deployed in a subterranean ex-rail network via old station cavities that are already designed to accommodate a lingering public, while tightly integrating with the street level (as in the High Line). Secondly, in terms of the density of intersections, the London tube perhaps uniquely offers a potentially large number and frequency of cross-connections in a sort of grid/lattice pattern. If these characteristics could be leveraged, maybe an Underline or Lowline concept for biking could be worthwhile.
Applicable to Auckland? Doubt it. Perhaps shorter bike tunnels could be useful as underpasses or hilly bypasses or elevator thresholds, one day. But I wouldn’t clamour for any of that before the at-grade street network becomes bike-enabled.
Transport for London said there were no unused tunnels of “significant length” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31298695
Off topic, but the 010 bus driver this morning at 7.05am on Carrington road almost killed me by failing to stop when I was already on the pedestrian crossing (the one that more or less links the NW cycleway at Unitec). I seldom complain about bus drivers, I think they get a raw deal, but this driver clearly saw me and decided to gun through the crossing anyway. It is the worst bit of failing to stop I’ve seen in such a long time and I got quite a fright. So my question is who do you lay a complaint with?
You can file a complaint with Auckland Transport: https://at.govt.nz/about-us/contact-us/feedback-form/
Make sure you select the relevant operator.
Apart from 111 for life-threatening incidents, your options when someone does something stupid and dangerous on the road are:
– *555 (free from mobiles) – this goes to police comms and they can dispatch an officer in the area to check it out or intercept the vehicle, although it has secondary priority to 111 calls. It might be a bit late now however.
– Community Roadwatch – you can lay a complaint online here: https://forms.police.govt.nz/forms/online-community-roadwatch-report/9 . This doesn’t constitute a formal complaint but the police will write to the registered owner of the vehicle, which for a bus company *should* mean the driver will be identified and given a talking to by their boss. Interestingly, although Roadwatch isn’t grounds for prosecution, I have been told (by a *555 dispatcher) that if somebody gets multiple Roadwatch reports, especially for the same incident, the police do sit up and take notice. Was anyone you know nearby?
– Formal complaint at the police station – if you have the time and inclination.
To do these it’s best to have the rego number of the bus (although having the route number and time should help). If it was me I would have *555’d them at the time, and laid a Roadwatch complaint if I had the rego number.
If you’re lacking the rego number, you might otherwise like to send NZ Bus a letter of complaint, and maybe copy it to the police and Auckland Transport for good measure. Be sure to let NZ Bus know that you’ll share any response (or lack thereof) with the other two parties to the letter. That ought to get their attention.
*EDIT: Dan’s note above is probably a good alternative to the letter, although possibly not as satisfying…
I stopped at unitec for the bike-to-work day pit stop – great to see AT out there being positive about biking, but had to ask their rep when they’re going to deal with the fudge-up that is Carrington. While it dates back I the era of cr*p bikeway design there’s just no excuse now; it’s the weak link in the northwestern and just waiting for serious injury. AT needs to pull finger.
As an aside, a question for those more knowledgeable: what liability do traffic engineers who design “dangerous” roads carry? I know my profession (architecture) is pretty clearly defined in its responsibility and held accountable (eg leaky homes settlements) and other engineering sectors are – is there any real equivalent for what I would regard as negligent design of roads, especially bad choices in exposing more vulnerable users to high risks…?
Thank you for the link to Copenhagize. This one really got to me. http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/11/critical-miss-or-critical-mass.html
Down here in Wellington we have a perfect site for an “underline”. The proposed Island Bay cycleway has a very difficult “stage 2” section involving narrow roads, loss of on-street parking (have to build alternatives), and a hill. Technically a new tunnel could bypass all these problems. I know there are cost and security issues but they can be overcome. I have ridden on a pedestrian/cycling tunnel under a river in Anterpen – flat and no winds in there!
Auckland and Wellington have similar CDB hills so a few strategic tunnels could help a lot. Let’s face it, Alice is currently boring a car tunnel. They are not really that expensive with today’s machines (small tunnels I mean).
Current project to re-open the old Caversham Tunnel in Dunedin to cyclists and pedestrians.
http://www.cavershamtunnel.org.nz/
However it has had to battle to overcome a number of bureaucratic safety hurdles which have been put in its way..