Auckland Transport have announced that they are close to a final design for the Panmure to Pakuranga Busway and that there will be community consultation about it this week.
Busway for east Auckland a step closer
Quicker, frequent and more reliable bus services for the east are a step closer with Panmure to Pakuranga busway design plans near finalisation.
Public information days and neighbourhood meetings are being held next week and information has been sent to people in the project area to get feedback before consents are lodged in late April.
The key project is the Panmure Station to Pakuranga town centre section of the South Eastern Busway. Construction is likely to start in 2017, with the busway due to open by 2021.
Auckland Transport recently announced it is aiming to open the full busway to Botany by 2024, four years earlier than previously planned, and extend bus lanes to Highland Park.
The Panmure to Pakuranga projects include:
- Replacing Panmure roundabout with an intersection with traffic lights and more direct pedestrian crossings
- Panmure to Pakuranga busway on lanes separate to traffic congestion
- Panmure to Pakuranga cycle and foot paths separate to traffic
- Second Panmure Bridge for busway and shared cycle/foot path.
Auckland Transport AMETI Programme Director Peter King says large numbers of new passengers will be attracted by buses travelling on congestion free lanes every 5 to 10 minutes between Panmure and Pakuranga.
“Buses currently get caught in the same congestion as cars, meaning people have limited choice. Providing a quicker, frequent and more reliable option is expected to shift large numbers out of cars to ease pressure on the roads for journeys that can’t be made by public transport.
“The recent experience with the new Panmure Station and electric trains shows significant growth comes with higher quality public transport.
“Another major feature is separated cycle and foot paths which will make it possible to cycle between Panmure, Pakuranga, and on to Farm Cove and Pigeon Mountain by connecting with the Rotary Walkway along the coast.
“We encourage people to come to the information sessions, return written feedback forms or give feedback online. This will help us finalise plans and reports as we intend to lodge consent applications in late April,” Mr King says.
The consents process will provide the opportunity to make a formal submission to Auckland Council on the projects and be heard at an official hearing.
The open days are:
Pakuranga open day
When: 12 March 2015 from 5pm to 9pm.
Where: Pakuranga Plaza Centre, Aylesbury Street.Panmure
When: 14 March 2015 from 10am to 1pm.
Where: Panmure Bridge School, 76 Kings Road, Panmure.You can also give your feedback online below until 29 March.
It will be good when this finally gets underway. East Auckland desperately needs some good quality PT improvements and given what we’ve seen in other areas of the city this is likely to be very popular. This also comes just a few weeks after AT announced that they were delaying the Reeves Rd flyover which has allowed them to bring forward the completion of the busway.
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Hopefully AT will really push the improvement this project will bring for vehicle users. It’s a little sophisticated I know, but worth the effort for people in such an auto-dependent place:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/new-motorway-will-derail-commuters-20140217-32hvs.html
“public transport operates to a fixed speed, a timetable. Most people will take whichever transport option is fastest. They don’t care about the mode. If public transport is quicker they’ll catch a train or a bus, freeing up road space. If driving is quicker, they’ll jump in their car, adding to road congestion. In this way, public transport speeds determine road speeds. ”
Not quite. This claim uses one big assumption that assumes the capacity of public transport is infinite, and the the capacity of roads is finite. Given that the capacity of transit is finite, if the the amount of people travelling to a certain area at a certain time is more than the capacity of public transport, some of them will travel by car or they may decide to leave home earlier or later. In Auckland’s case, the public transit system during peak hour is full – i.e. it cannot take anymore people. As a result, regardless of the speed of public transit, roads are going to get more congested if the capacity of public transit does not increase. therefore, increasing the speed without improving capacity is going to be fairly pointless if you want to combat road congestion. However, with AMETI, I would sincerely hope that capacity increases too.
Not infinite, adequate, which isn’t true everywhere in Auckland. The Northern Busway and some isthmus routes certainly aren’t.
I don’t think roads or busways, or train tracks, etc. are build to “fix congestion”. They are built to expand capacity for moving people around.
As I understand, building new roads and building public transit will both induce demand until they saturate. At that point, this saturation will act as some kind of pricing. As it gets busier, when going by car, it will cost you more time (congestion). And when going by public transport the cost is less comfort (crowding).
If you can go only by car you could call that a monopoly, and the price (in time loss) can rise without limit, people still have to drive. When there is also public transit, then people can choose to put up with crowding, rather than congestion.
There is no indication that Ziebot’s claims PT routes have infinite capacity, in fact if you read the whole article she is clearly calling for more investment in Sydney’s rail capacity (particularly across the harbour). Her argument is that this investment would be more effective for all users than the 11billion on WestConnex. Particularly road users.
Fascinating that all vehicles shown are Double Decker’s,
David (Wellington)
fascinating, and very very promising at the same time.
Howick & Eastern have ordered 15 double deckers for the 500/550 route which will eventually operate along this busway. The first ones arrive in November.
From their page:
“AMETI Stage 2a includes: […] Building the Panmure Station to Pakuranga section of New Zealand first dedicated urban busway, separate from general traffic”
Isn’t it our second dedicated busway?
I guess “urban” in the sense it doesn’t go along an existing motorway?
According to the page, it’s considered the first ‘urban’ busway because the busway passes through signalised intersections instead of being fully segregated, has a speed limit of 50km/hr and will have more bus stops closer together.
https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/ameti/panmure-to-pakuranga/
That footpath will be a welcome development. The current one is hilariously bad.
Did some calculation, Highland park to Panmure train station is 10minutes without traffic.
However there are around 15 bus stops in between.
There are also 15 traffic lights on the way as well.
Assume each stop takes 1 minutes (including deceleration and acceleration time) and each traffic light takes 1 minute wait.
That trip from highland park to panmure will take 10+15+15 = 40 minutes.
Then people have to transfer to train. Panmure to britomart takes 17 minutes, plus 3 minutes walk to platform and wait for the train (assume synchronized timetable) 40+20 = 60minutes
Adding walking time to bus station and from train station to work (assume 10 minutes). It will take more than one hour. (70 minutes).
Still not attractive enough compare to driving, or even just the existing bus route.
They really have to do something extra to reduce the time wasted at traffic light and bus stops.
Uhm, you do realise that it takes longer than 10 minutes during morning and evening peak? Which is when the busway will see the most use?
You do realise that you are adding 1 minute at every traffic light for buses, but for some reason don’t do so for cars?
Or that with HOP cards, buses don’t stop for a minute average anymore?
Your argument is rather flawed.
Shockingly bad calculation. You do realize that it currently takes roughly 20mins by bus from Highland Park to Panmure station? So you’re assuming it’s going to double in time when the bus way comes in? If anything, it will be much quicker because they’re getting rid of quite a few of those traffic light intersections, not to mention the benefits of being separated from general traffic.
I imagine that constructing the busway will involve consolidating stops, probably by 50%. And that signal priority will exist at most intersections. The other thing to remember is that traveltime is only one factor why people use pt, parking costs being an obvious one. I think youll find that PT is a very competitive option for many people. Indeed, it already is.
A whole minute at each bus stop? Have you caught a bus lately?
And why are you comparing a best-case scenario for cars (“without traffic” and assuming green lights most of the way) with the worse-than-worst-case scenario for buses?
There are currently 7 bus stops between highland park and Panmure, I imagine that might drop to five or six with the busway.
We can easily program these lights to give buses priority. This is a huge improvement over the status quo.
“Buses currently get caught in the same congestion as cars, meaning people have limited choice. Providing a quicker, frequent and more reliable option is expected to shift large numbers out of cars to ease pressure on the roads for journeys that can’t be made by public transport”
this quote by Peter King could have been written by Patrick Reynolds. I actually think you can find those exact words in a post by Patrick somewhere here
Yay! I have to say big ups to AT over this. proper evidence based analysis for best outcome, not just bowing to the politically powerful in the area and their through-the-windscreen ‘common sense’ of what’s needed. I hear the local MPs and others are kicking up a ruckus as they are not used to this kind of work by local authority. This is the Super-City working as it should; disinterested decision making in the best sense of the phrase. No quiet chat between the area party bigwig and the local chief engineer about what’s best for his prospects…
I really think all this wouldn’t have happened without all the job you and the other guys at transportblog have put in. And the results are starting to show. Having another glass for you, salute.
+1
I’m surprised the local MPs are kicking up a fuss. I would have thought they’d be applauding the long-awaited provision of quality PT to their population and be urging their masters to be supporting/funding it!
What are their concerns?
Even Dick supports this (doesn’t he?!?).
They want a flyover, cos ideology.
Why is the separated cycleway and footpath only in Pakuranga? Why doesn’t extend across and through Panmure?
there is a shared cycle/ pedestrian path on the panmure side (as shown in the images). its not separated due to constraints arising from the panmure basin cliff edge.
Correct. Space is much more constrained west of the bridge. East of the bridge, the mere fact of the busway meant they had to acquire properties whole. Once they did that, space was available to do separated paths. West of Panmure Bridge, it’s also a matter of fitting everything below a steep slope, so costs blow out. In fact, seeing that the decision on this aspect was made 2-3 years ago, I am surprised we got even a shared path – traditional thinking would have been “there’s already a walkway along the lagoon, why do you want anything else”?
Getting rid of the horrific Panmure roundabout is already an epic win, IMHO. https://at.govt.nz/media/998781/Proposed-signalised-panmure-intersection.jpg Hooray! 🙂
I think the whole project could be a failure. The Northern Busway is a total success because it doesn’t have many traffic lights to get through. This busway will be competing with general vehicles the entire way. With no reeves flyover, the existing several km queue in the mornings will just be all that much longer and will bring the buses in direct competition with general vehicles.
Are you aware of how a bus lane works?
Ari has a good point, but traffic light priority and wide-ish stop spacing will be go a long way to ameliorate this concern
That’s not so Ari, this busway will have entirely separate lanes between Pakuranga and Panmure, with only a couple of little residential side roads crossing it which will presumably be signalled accordingly.
If you are worried about further out then the bus lanes on Pakuranga Rd are the obvious answer.
Very interesting. If this works well it might prove another point in favour of us moving out that way in the next few years. (Weighing up New Lynn, Glen Eden and Mt Wellington/Panmure at the moment)
Looking forward to NEX extension to Silverdale (well the buses – the actual busway would be even better). Last night several buses were at/over capacity so were either not letting on more passengers – great for PT image, or people were standing beside the driver’s etc – not very safe.
Haven’t seen any posts on here but there on social media there is an AT PR fail happening in Silverdale…. Yesterday they posted notices on cars parked on the grass in the Park n Ride – Silverdale telling them that they would be receiving fines shortly as it was damaging the grass. The grass area referred to is the grass that the future bus interchange will be built on…. so it is going to be concreted over anyway so this whole “damaging the grass” is a load of BS. The actual Silverdale park n ride only has space for about 2 bus loads worth so is a complete joke (remember that Silverdale is mostly a rural area so there is plenty of cheap land at hand). From the comments I saw on social media the majority of posters were saying that if AT starts fining people for parking on the grass then they will simply just carry on past the park n ride and drive their car to work rather than catching the bus (hence the AT fail). Yes in an ideal world these people would catch the local bus from their house to Silverdale first rather than driving a car however local buses are few and far between up around the coast (and a lot of people using the park n ride are actually from Warkworth etc). I’m sure if AT said to Silverdale Rugby Club (across the road) that they would like to use their carparks (and pay them a small but reasonable access fee – say $5000 pa) then this would help the issue and also provide the club with a tidy little source of funding (note that there aren’t other roads etc close by to park in as it is Hibiscus Coast Highway).
Another point about the fail from AT is that people have posted on social media AT cars parked on the very grass they are trying to ban. Also AT vehicles parked on the grass at the council offices in Orewa. Please note that the usual excuse of damage to pipes etc doesn’t apply in the Silverdale Park n ride case also.
Why doesn’t the rugby club just sell their parking directly, say a couple of bucks a day?
Bet those people aren’t feeling very PT friendly after seeing that pointless crap on their car, I know I wouldn’t be. Way to go AT, too much parking-warden and not enough PT service delivery.
The parking building at Silverdale Town Centre has plenty of spare capacity. hint, hint AT. Why end the NEX in a paddock?
I sincerely hope that AT will do a big TOD in their land acquisitions in the Panmure Town Centre, and along Lagoon Dr on the Eastern side.
Looking at the top image you have 2 lane cycle-walkway, 2 lane busway, grass lane, 2/3 lane highway, grass lane, 2/3 lane highway.
It seems kind of wide / unwieldy.
What if you had 2 lane busway, 2 lane cycle-walkway AND grass lane together then a 5 lane highway, 2 lanes each way and a centre lane that provides slip lanes each way or a narrowed planted median strip?
Does anyone think that would be a better layout / more human scale?
i.e. never having to cross say 2 bus lanes, 3 highway lanes, a grass lane and another 2 highway lanes JUST to get to the either side..?
Walking, biking and a grass lane being central would break up the roading more effectively.
As a HUMAN you would come to an intersection and either walk straight through 2/3 lanes, turn left and cross 2 bus lanes or turn right and cross 4/5 highway lanes.
John I agree. Even though current plan is a light year jump vs Dick Quax and co Flyovers etc. You can go fully multi modal in 17m width and maybe 18m width if busway seperated excluding pick up stations. I haven’t measured Pakuranga Rd yet but looks like ,25m to 30m width as it is. This could be marked in 1 evening and kerbing or barriers next night.
Why doesn’t NZ’s first “urban”?? busway promote itself with a really easy point of difference?
If your thinking is car-centric what would appeal more to you..?
The busway will have a 50km speed limit (same as the highway I guess).
The busway will have a 60 (or even 70)km speed limit – 10 (to 20)km FASTER than the highway…
If you are driving in your car, miraculously free of congestion and you look across and STILL see a bus smoking past you at a higher speed… wouldn’t that really make you think just how useful that thing over there might be..?
The big difference between the “urban busway” and motorway-style Northern Busway is, as pointed out above, the need to allow for vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists to cross the Busway at a limited number of signal controlled locations along the route. The alternative would be either complete community severence or expensive and unsightly flyovers or underpasses.
When I am walking across the Busway to get to and from a station I would much rather the approaching bus is doing 50 km/h than “smoking” at 70 km/h. Also the need to follow the existing alignment of Lagoon Drive does not permit a higher design speed due to forward visibility issue.
And the chances of the car driver being free of congestion during peak hours would seem remote, so the driver sitting in the queue being passed by the bus is still likely to see some attraction in the alternative.
I don’t agree.
Never mentioned or proposed flyovers / underpasses.
Can you point me to the information that says “speeds between Basin View and Church Cres are limited to 50km due to design speed issues.”
A 60/70km speed LIMIT does not mean bus drivers do that where it is unsafe / impractical just as we now don’t do 100km on large parts of the open road or through town centres that allow 50km – you drive to the conditions and when practical drive to the limit.
This ‘urban’ busway will produce rationalisation of bus stops – on the plans it looks as though there are only 3 or 4 stops the whole way from Pamure to Pakuranga.
Buses could easily do 70km on their long segregated stretches (Church Cres to the bus stop before Williams Ave being c.700m with 1 intersection – Millen Ave on the highway side, and Basin View to Church Cres c.600m with no intersections).
They would not be doing anything even near 50km when you are crossing at a controlled intersection (your only option), they’d be stopped or more to the point you would be waiting at a distance back until the bus has driven by often starting from 0km having just picked up or dropped off passengers.
Two more points –
1. Read my post where I advocate for a buslane – separated central cycle/walkway AND greenlane (buffer) – separated highway.
2. I also said ‘miraculously free of congestion’, as in highly unlikely.
The far eastern suburbs are certainly starved of public transport options. I’ve been going into the city a few days a week from Howick for the last few months. I’ve largely given up on the ferry, frequency options simply aren’t good enough.
The train from Panmure is great, 12 minutes into Britomart is awesome. Parking at the station is limited, anything after 7:30am, forget about it. Additional parking would go a long way.
The Bus / Train integration thing isn’t working yet. The bus component isn’t good enough. At peak times, trains are every ten minutes but bus from the city only every 20.
It’s not unknown to walk past a bus outside Britomart on the way to get a train, get to Panmure , then have to wait 20 mins only to catch the bus you walked past in the city.
For this to work, buses need to start and finish at Panmure and leave 2 minutes after a train arrives.
Absolutely right. Tell Dick Quax.
Needs more like 5-7mins after the train has departed. trains are never exactly on time.