Auckland Transport held the first of their community nights yesterday to discuss with locals the AMETI works. They’ve also released a copy of the information boards they’re using online. Crucially the documents give a hint in to the reason behind the recently announced decision to delay the Reeves Rd Flyover.
The plan for years has been for the busway to turn right off Pakuranga Rd into Te Rakau Dr. After stopping at the bus interchange the busway would then carry on towards Botany and would do so by shifting to a busway in the centre of the road. That shift would occur at the intersection with Reeves Rd and would need it’s own phasing. The issue – as explained to me – was that because of the other demands on the intersection the but phase wouldn’t be frequent enough and would have created huge delays. The flyover was to get some of that traffic out of the way.
The image above suggests that AT is looking at alternative routes for the busway with one of them going around the back of the mall. In many ways this is quite an elegant solution. Going around the mall doesn’t add to much to the time it would take for buses but gets them out of that Te Rakau/Reeves intersection thereby negating the need for the flyover. Where the busway crosses Reeves Rd it could be via a very simple intersection that phases quickly as there would be no turning movements and the shift to the centre busway would just occur a bit further south.
It’s innovative thinking like this that AT should be applauded for as it gets the outcomes for much less money. Of course not everyone is happy with the decision. MPs Jamie Lee-Ross and Maurice Williamson along with Councillor Dick Quak have been very vocal in condemning it and I understand have been lobbying the Minister to intervene and get the flyover back on the agenda. I certainly hope AT do a good job of explaining their reasoning.
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Dick wants us to spend 170m on a superfluous bridge? Isn’t he stopped to be fiscally conservative?
What’s the reasoning messrs Lee-Ross, Williamson and Quax are using to get the flyover back on the near-term construction schedule?
They ‘just know’ that road building is always best.
No, its not that…there’s something else and it can be smelled as far as Denmark.
The Flyover was always a disaster, ugly and splitting the town centre. Perhaps a tunnel under Ti Rakau would be less obtrusive. Having used this intersection for 12 years I can testify it is seriously busy for most of the day. I would suggest busier than Kirkbride/George Bolt in Mangere, but with far fewer cabinet ministers being delayed.
I praised AT for this decision at the Ak Conversation and David Warburton then said that while it may please me it hasn’t others. Now that’s clearly true, but I want to be clear about what is pleasing about it. Not just that it brings forward delivery on the mode that is missing and therefore more urgent, but that it is evidence that AT have looked at the evidence and options, and been open minded and creative about solving a problem rather than just doing what institutions like theirs have previously done, and started from a small set of untested assumptions and proceeded to reinforce existing conditions. As the politicians listed above clearly want to.
This is the great news. It really looks like AT, and presumably their partners at NZTA, are really changing their processes for the better. Evidence based, creative, place quality valuing, choice building, value for money processes and outcomes is what we are after. Whatever the mode or modes. Let’s hope that power and influence doesn’t manage to mangle this.
Power and influence almost invariably mangle good decisions like this. The battle at Reeves Ridge is not over, as those with the wire-cutters, seek to shut off the light at the end of the tunnel. Time to plant some pohutukawa or kauri there.
Just more ideological duncery by Quax to oppose resolving a mode conflict by giving buses a preferential right-of-way rather than doing the same for cars. Same result, surely, and if it’s way cheaper his own sub-1% party can hardly back him.
Ideological duncery. A brilliant phrase. This also describes the National Party motorway obsession.
Hi, the proposed round-the-back busway is shown as not going along Reeves Rd but cutting across built up area. Is that deliberate? My wife’s family own a business on Cortina Place – are they going to be compulsory evicted?
it looks like the proposed route goes along the boundary of Ti Rakau Park at the end of Cortina Place on land already owned by Auckland Council and Auckland Transport. At its narrowest, this strip of land is 20m so more than enough to accommodate a busway.
Aha, thanks for the land ownership intel. So extending from the end of William Roberts Road.
I would assume so. I believe William Roberts Rd was meant to be extended to Ti Rakau Drive anyway had the flyover gone ahead
This also means you could run frequent connector buses down Pakuranga Road and have them transfer passengers at the mall.
I would be extremely surprised if the patronage fRom highland park to Pakuranga didn’t justify its own route
The reeves road flyover should be built directly in front of Quax’s house so he can look at it every morning and marvel at the beauty of concrete blights on the landscape.
Clever JBM. Quax is a fool that does not understand that only losers support ugly flyovers in 2015. Cycling and walking don’t require extremely expensive flyovers.
And John Milford. He loves them.
John Milford! That elitist, backward, dinosaur from Kircaldies, that sells overpriced, pretentious stuff mostly imported from Europe, and ignores Wellington’s walkable urban design. He is a clown. Greedy right wingers with their car obsessions are like alcoholics-irrational and not respectful of others. I wonder if flyover advocates will enjoy the magazines in hospital, when they get heart disease due to sitting in traffic for hours and ignoring walking and cycling?
Actually a flyover makes sense if it is slender, light-rail-only structure. An overhead station above the Te Rakau parking area would be a good transfer point to local buses if the light rail went only down Te Rakau.
Dick Quax might appreciate a light rail line outside his house when his faculties are so shot he can’t drive. It is a situation that catches up to most of us. Probably will get to Dick faster than most of us cos his intellectual capability is obviously already limited.
I really don’t think we can rely on Pakuranga and Botany politicians or a certain councilor as to what is best for Transport. Spot the bus lane, cycle lane competition. Actually that competition isn’t fair.
I wander what the degree of saturation is on Ti Rakau Dr, Gossamer Intersection when it takes numerous phases to get close at peak hr, and the ones further east not great either. That’s what happens when you hinge everything on one mode. In fact all of Auckland needs to fire on all cylinders not just one. Time to fully.open gates to 100% on bus and seperated cycle.plus better ped. How fast can an Ambulance go down Ti Rakau Dr???????? plus all our main roads. Isn’t that an Emergency Services Issue ie Civil Defence Overide to Road Maintenance?
Actually my mum lives on Ti Rakau Dr, finally looking to move. I wander what her chances of survival would be if needing an ambulance at 5pm? The Transport Sector has primary obligations to Emergency Services, is the while sector failing that, I think so. A bus lane not only frees up PT but frees up Emergency Services.