Auckland Transport have announced a “Design Showcase” for the three new or improved stations that will be delivered as part of the CRL as well as the public areas surrounding them.
A design showcase for the City Rail Link’s three new stations and their adjacent public spaces will give Aucklanders a peek into the future.
The CRL, which starts construction late this year, will re‐shape the city by bringing Britomart, Aotea and Karangahape Road within three to six minutes of each other and Mt Eden within nine.
Each station, new ones at Aotea and Karangahape and a redeveloped Mt Eden, has been designed in partnership with Mana whenua, who shared their considerable knowledge of the local areas to provide a unique look and feel.
“We think people will be excited when they see these new spaces and what they’ll do for the city,” says Chris Meale, CRL Project Director. “Together they represent the city’s most significant place shaping opportunity in the next decade.”
“Visitors to the design showcase in mid‐April will also find out how the first stage of construction will roll out later this year.”
Auckland’s population is expected to grow by 700,000 in the next 30 years with the CRL considered vital to meet the city’s traffic needs by 2040.
It will double the number of people within 30 minutes of the city, reducing the time and increasing the frequency of most trips, while allowing for more connections between rail, ferry, bus services.
“Auckland’s CBD is the heart of the city’s economy with up to 16,000 employees per square kilometer, accounting for 34 percent of jobs in New Zealand and 37 percent of the country’s GDP,” says Meale.
“Improved access to the city centre is the key to Auckland’s economic growth.” The design showcase is being held in an AT Bus by the No.1 Café in QE11 Square, 10am to 4pm daily from Sat 11 to Wed 15 April.
For more information on the CRL visit: www.cityraillink.co.nz and www.facebook.com/cityraillink
It should be interesting to see what they have planned, however seeing it’s on a bus I also hope they’ll roll it out to show other parts of the region. This is because one of the major issues I continue to have is the reoccurring focus on what the project does for the central city and not the massive benefits it also provides to other parts of the region.
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What an absolute waste of money. Overpriced, no benefit to the huge majority of Aucklanders and just a Len Brown vanity project. You should be ashamed of yourselves for going with this.
Golly ‘Malcom’ you’re going to have a lot of problems come the next Council election when there will be no Len Brown but all candidates backing the CRL…
Is the additional Harbour Crossing a vanity project for someone too; it costs twice as much and achieves less than a quarter…?
Go back a decade and you’d here similar things said about Britomart.
You are aware that the CRL pre-dates Brown aren’t you. It was also supported at the 2010 election by both Brown and Banks. Banks even pushed for it in 2011 when he stood for parliament when he had no need to. I think you’ll find that no serious candidate for mayor will be able to stand on a platform of not supporting it as soon as possible.
Could you perhaps elaborate on why this is your opinion? Facts or figures that back it up?
What a sham you are….Have you even seen how beneficial the CRL is?
So what would you do, Malcolm Jackson? Create an entire duplicated motorway network instead? How much would that cost? And where would you put all the cars when they arrive at their destinations?
and you will have to tear down half the buildings in the CBD to accommodate the additional traffic or the same level of congestion will be present, but several years later you will have the same issue, clearly roads is not the answer. Rail to the Shore, Airport and eventually NW and far-east is, and that will only be achievable with the CRL. Auckland deserves better than to be paved over into an eventual tennis court of massive proportions, it deserves the CRL.
Pricing transport to “clear the market” is the obvious alternative to transport investments with low BCRs including road and rail.
Malcolm Jackson – clown of the week.
I think this is a very good idea and I can’t wait to see what all the designs look like.
I totally agree with Matt – some of the ignorant comments quoted in the AA Post shows the huge gap in public understanding. The key messages required right now are not about what CRL is or what it will look like but what it will do, what it will make possible.
Is this bit correct? …“Auckland’s CBD is the heart of the city’s economy with up to 16,000 employees per square kilometer, accounting for 34 percent of jobs in New Zealand and 37 percent of the country’s GDP,” says Meale”. I think the percentages refer to the whole city, not the CBD.
In any case the value of the project to the CBD is only one aspect AT should be promoting. To me the greatest value is in joining up the network and allowing 5 minute frequencies everywhere: from Henderson to New Lynn, Orakei to Eden Park, everywhere to everywhere else; and enabling future lines to the Shore, Botany, the airport.
Talking of which I wonder how Malcolm Jackson (above) imagines he will get to the airport when we have another million people in the city if we don’t build the CRL. It will be faster to walk than to drive. Traffic speeds are projected to decline to an average of 7 km/hr on all arterials early next decade.
You’re right in one sense. If AT keep stuffing up the roading by reducing lanes and impeding traffic flows it will be quicker to walk to the airport – or anywhere for that matter.
Where have they reduced lanes in their entire existence?
Yeah, he either misspoke, or was miscited. These stats look right – Auckland overall has 34% of NZ
https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/city-rail-link/benefits-of-the-city-rail-link/
The comment of “up to” 16,000 employees per square kilometer, is actually “at least”. The core part of the CBD is over 50,000 per square kilometre.
I’d like to see a dedicated website set up for this. It’s disappointing clicking the cityraillink.co.nz link and being redirected to the jumbled mess that is the AT website.
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/our-analysis/city-rail-link/ there yiu go
Yeah it would be good to have something like http://www.crossrail.co.uk/ for the CRL.
Hi Dan. Try http://www.cityraillink.co.nz – Don’t forget the “www.” 🙂
Ta. Do get your web team on that – should also work without the www in this day and age.
You’d think underground rail sections weren’t a feature of cities the way some people react to this. Some folks need to do a bit of travel (but not to L.A).
Los Angeles has 22 underground rail stations on its metro network!
Definitely need to take this to Mangere and Manurewa and Botany and Mt Albert and Henderson. The level of understanding out there is still pretty low, because this hasn’t been explained to the public sufficiently. Credit to AT for their videos and some of the work they’ve done, they just need to sustain that.
Most people who oppose CRL are people who never have used PT and never plan to do so ever in the future.
They question why their rates need to go into CRL.
Why doesn’t AT market that more PT options decongest roads citing Northern busway as an example?
The truth is PT doesn’t decongest roads… it’s the same principle as building an extra lane on the motorway, that capacity is soon eaten up by people who can now drive because there’s effectively “more room” for them. I think we have to accept in major city congestion is simply a fact of life.
What PT does provide is an congestion-free alternative to the road network.
Excerpts from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Busway,_Auckland
“It was credited with having reduced peak traffic on the Northern Motorway by around 500 cars each rush hour one month after the opening,[9] and about 39% of passengers on the Northern Express bus service had never used public transport before.[5] The busway was initially used by 70 buses per hour during peak time”
“in 2010 the busway was estimated to remove the equivalent of about 5,100 cars in the morning peak, with 80 buses per hour during peak times”
Induced demand will eat up 10% of the capacity each year it has been estimated, so all the benefits of a extra lane are gone within 10 years.
With PT, the capacity increase it offers will keep giving well beyond 10 years. If you make it a non brainer to use PT for most journeys.
“What PT does provide is an congestion-free alternative to the road network.”
I can, but only if the PT network has priority or is separated e.g. bus ways, Trains or full length bus-ways.
Otherwise the PT gets stuck in the same traffic.
Its why the Northern Express Busway provably does actually reduces congestion – because it is a right of way protected service (on the North Shore) – its just not protected like that on or south of, the Bridge.
Great to see inspiration in great design. So Pukekohe Station is being preserved as a relic or an antique?
We all look forward to every station being upgraded to 21st century standards but that is going to take a while, more urgent to sort Papakura, Panmure, and Onehunga however, as they are interchanges that affect the whole network.
Also I’d add that people all use at least two stations and often more, so say the new station at Parnell is not just something for Parnell people but also for anyone using the network, or who might use the network, as it offers another destination.
There is a local pride and ownership issue around ‘home’ stations like Pukrkohe that is important so I hope the Local Board are being proactive not only in seeking funds but also in design and amenity issues for its improvement…?
Oh Don, dont you realise you are forever doomed to fight over the whatever scraps are dropped from the table? For there will always be something more urgent or more important to be built inside the urban area of Auckland. Doesn’t matter that you are taxed at or very near the same level as they are. You dont deserve the same level of service.
Tony other than the fact that what you say is untrue, fringe livers are not taxed anywhere the same degree as those in the centre, and nor do they raise anywhere near similar sums (simply because there are so many fewer people and properties there). But you have also ignored my other point to Don which is all train network users benefit from upgrades everywhere, after all to leave Puke on a train you have to arrive somewhere…
Where does this idea that we’re not being taxed at or near the same level come from? As far as I’m aware mine is the same as anybody else with an equivalent value save for a measly 10percent offset which doesn’t go anywhere near the lack of basic service we should be able to expect. And yes I would happily forgo it for a full range of services in return.
As for your second point, that’s ATs job. Perhaps you could get your local board to pay for your train station?
Wow you really do go out of your way to misunderstand things don’t you. Not suggesting that the local board pays for a station upgrade but that they get involved in the process. Also yes there is way more rating income from denser areas, by definition.
Patrick, it is more important to arrive at your destination in a ultra modern warm, caring, welcoming modern station, than have Pukekohe’s station upgraded. I would agree with you but rail commuters
from Pukekohe have to return home to a windswept open platform that has not even a plan for a forseeable upgrade.
As for being a fringe dweller, I will not care if Central Aucklanders go without milk, eggs, onions, potatoes, green vegetables, kiwifruit, beef, lamb (all which comes out of Franklin in future….
Clearly central city dwellers are happy purchasing imported foods and do not care where their food comes from.
We are one city and some do not wish to see all our rates going on the central city baubles and bling.
Swanson is getting an upgrade right now, which is hardly inner city. Pukekohe will get it’s too. And bling? Parnell isn’t even getting a bridge. This whining about your patch is silly. My area is served by a bus route that almost certainly carries as many or more people than the Puke train, and of course there are no stations, just a few tatty shelters [to match the crappy old buses], but not always even these, best to keep things in perspective, eh?
Yes we are one city but the subsidy goes the other way, in fact, the dense areas support the sparse ones. But that’s as it should be.
I’m misunderstanding things Patrick?
Understand this, ‘fringe livers’ are taxed at the same rate. We’re not even demanding the same level of service just some.
Same rate but off a property of much lower value and there’s far fewer of you. Hence, there is always going to be far more money raised in dense central areas. Regardless, how can you complain about a lack of service when you have a train service, not much of Auckland gets that.
So the Design Showcase Bus will be on display from 10am to 4pm. Not sure how many people who work in the CBD and use PT will be able to check it out. It appears to me that the hours are more for the convenience of the AT staff than for PT users.
The claimed times are woefully slow ! Britomart to Mt Eden in 9 minutes is 18 km/hr, which badly undersells is advantages. A rule of thumb for Australian electrified rail lines is a minute for every km plus a minute for each station, so Britomart to Mt Eden should be only 5 minutes (3 km plus 2 stops).
The CRL will be a game-changer on the Western Line, because buses such as Sandringham Road will become feeders for the rail service. Perhaps half of each bus load will alight at Kingsland for a 7 minute trip to Britomart rather than continuing on the bus to mid-town.