This is a guest post from Anthony McBride in Christchurch on the opening of the new bus interchange a few weeks back
One of the best news for a long time, for me, and I’m sure thousands of others as well, is the (partial) opening of the new Christchurch Bus Interchange…It was a freezing day for Christchurch with the temperature at 8am hovering about 0°C, but driving by the former temporary bus exchange, and into the modern bus interchange, was a really a bit of a moment of excitement, I actually heard some soft wows as we turn into the station, we parked into the tooth, and have the bus doors and sliding doors open, it was a sight of hustle and bustle.
It’s quite awesome seeing the smiles on people’s faces, including the staff who were handing out chocolates and bus maps for everyone. And hearing announcements echoing over the warm halls on what buses are arriving and the doors which they are due to arrive at.
“O Queenspark, Door 11”
It has a very airport like feel to it. There are even posts next to tactile paving with buttons on it, where the blind can push the buttons to find out which door it is, and what bus it is.
And the information boards are great too….
My slight gripe with the information board pictured however….Is that the Platform D is on Plaform C’s side….And platform C is on platform D’s side. It confused me more than twice already, and I would have gotten on the wrong bus if there was not an information board above each door about the destination. (Like in the second picture)
My personal fears about the slowness and dangers of the sawtooth design appears to be incorrect, with the buses backing out taking no more than an extra 20 seconds, and the bus drivers don’t have to worry about any of the public walking into the bus movement area as it is closely monitored, and all buses will be stopped should anyone walk in.
Looks like a Control Tower…!
Extra pictures from when I looked around outside the interchange….The new cycling lane is open, the cycling racks are well in the area is well used and there is even some cycling traffic lights!
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Thanks Anthony, for this ‘news from the south’!
Be interesting to see if this terminal is ‘transformational’ to bus-use in Christchurch, the way Britomart Station has been to train-use in Auckland.
The problem with it at the moment is that once you leave the interchange on foot you walk straight into roadworks. You’ll often find pedestrians weaving in and out of traffic lanes and across roads to the opposite footpath outside this area. But of course, transferring passengers (which I find most users are) have a much nicer area to wait for their next bus.
Thanks for the report, must head to Christchurch for a look around soon.
Awesome. I have no doubt this will lead to an explosion in bus use in Christchurch.
It was going great guns when the earthquake hit. Like Britomart, show a little love to PT users and they will jump at the chance to use a great facility.
Now just get the cycling infrastructure right and I might even be tempted back home.
Sorry for the typos. I wrote this at 3am. >.<
Cycling traffic lights!!
Yep. They actually just installed another set after I took these pictures as well.
Shame that despite the road being rebuilt the only appear to have painted on cycle lanes rather than having them protected and connected into that new footpath, or is the footpath the cycle lane?
the cycle lane is raised above the road and the footpath is raised above the cycle lane. Interesting setup. Actually isn’t open properly yet as it is being used by pedestrians as the footpath stops short of the intersections at each end
It’s commonly known as a ‘Copenhagen Lane’ although the Dutch have been doing the same thing for a very long time as well.
Different height? Brilliant!
It looks like you can only board disembark trhrough front door, or am I getting that wrong?
No, there’s access to both front and back doors. Plus a separate access so that you can put your bike on/off the rack on the front.
Sawtooth configuration!? Is this real and not a prank??? I’m no PT design expert but doesn’t that go against best practice. Only a matter of time before some one is run over and the ped will be blamed. Not to mention pretty inefficient. I much prefer the old station.
Yes. There are two sliding doors for the front and rear doors, and another door on the front to place your bike on the front of the bus.
Manukau is supposed to use a similar design, seems more appropriate for long haul bus stations, commonly seen in American cities for Greyhound and the likes.
News is AT scrapped the previous Manukau interchange design, including the sawtooth bays. Drawing a completely new design. Thank goodness.
Pretty hard to hit a pedestrian when they’re not able to go into the bus circulation area. And the site would have been extremely inefficient to fit the same 16 bus bays in a layout that allowed easy access to all of them without peds either crossing live bus lanes or going under/over to access other stops. The old (pre-quake) site was inefficient in that it didn’t have great capacity (only 9 cramped stops in the building and no room to allow bikes in the front).
Right, because pedestrians always stay out of areas that aren’t designed for them…. Great safe system there….
Works on the Northern Busway.
Reversing buses on the Northern Busway? Is that a new feature?
The northern busway is not a single major bus interchange. In reality it is very few buses along a long stretch of road and large gaps for pedestrians to run across. I have seen it. It does happen. People are idiots but they go where they want.
Apologies if this wasn’t clear. Keeping pedestrians out of where they shouldn’t be has worked well on the Northern Buswway, Smales, Sunnynook, and Akoranga all keep pedestrians off of the main carriage.
Great, although I had hoped the rail line might open again in Christchurch, especially when presented with such an opportunity (the rebuild).
and not to mention a bunch of trains being available in Auckland.
Wouldn’t they be looking at light rail if the passenger volume warrants it?
They’d achieve very different things. Heavy commuter rail would be particularly useful for the longer distance commuters from Rangiora, Kaiapoi etc while light rail would be perfect for corridors such as Riccarton Road I’d say.
Unlikely to happen in the current political environment though.
LRT plans were ditched by Brownlee and co and I can’t see them having any interest in starting rail, it’ll only lead to an explosion of use like investment in Auckland had, meaning further calls for better PT, at present they can continue to trot out the line that buses use roads too – and then build a motorway that doesn’t have buses on it.
How cynical. And completely, 100% true!
What about tram-trains you could then have both light rail in the city plus be able to use the existing tracks with one rolling stock as they can do both. You could have trains go into the heart of the city without having to tunnel. Patronage would grow and you would take it from there.
any interchange that requires buses to reverse is a POOR design…
pity Asia is way ahead of us and the west on Public transport…
Yes, and also worth asking the question: If we aspire for a frequent PT service where passengers don’t need to wait very long, then why would we design PT waiting facilities to a similar quality to what you find in an airport? The length of time people spend waiting for PT, and presumably the benefit they derive from said waiting facilities, must be reduced.
Or turning it around: The most effective PT systems are not noted for their passenger waiting facilities, because you don’t end up spending much time waiting. Instead, such systems are noted first and foremost for providing simple, frequent, reliable, and fast service.
In other words: PT interchanges and airports are serving two quite different transport systems. One involves not waiting very long, whereas the other involves waiting a long time.
I’m not sure the two are mutually exclusive – frequent services _and_ comfortable waiting spaces?
FWIW, one of the main interchange hubs in central Newcastle upon Tyne (I used it regularly for my local buses) was rebuilt on the airport waiting / sawtooth model and worked beautifully. The airport style space flowed straight into an extensive city centre mall department store, which in that instance made for a surprisingly good, seamless set of spaces.
New station: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=32399384&postcount=79
Old and new: http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/wp-content/themes/Old-Bus-Photos/galleries/newcastle_bus_stations/newcastle_bus_stations_h_es.php
Whether that sense of good contextual connection occurs in Christchurch would be the real concern for me…
A great insight. Thanks.
The interchange is not really that similar to an airport in terms of its function though eg. it doesn’t have much in the way of waiting lounges, seating areas etc. I think Anthony’s referring more to the decor, signage and audio announcements, which are quite airport-like.
I will be perfectly happy to provide more pictures and insight into the rebuilding, PT and cycleways as well if anyone is interested. 🙂
And don’t forget that plenty of news about Chch’s cycleway rebuilds gets reported at “Cycling in Chch”, e.g. http://cyclingchristchurch.co.nz/2015/06/05/cycling-projects-underway-around-christchurch/
Thank you Anthony, as one reader of this blog I would appreciate your updates as well as your thoughts.
I was down there the day before the opening (missed it by just 8 hours) but i think a key thing to note is that this is only half of the bus station – yes, it is the important half, with the buses and the people, but the main part of the station is still a few months away by the look of it – no roof completion yet, no glass, no walls, (refer to 2nd to last photo) so a little hard to see what it is going to be – Anthony may be able to shed some more light on it, but as far as I understand, it is going to have retail, and link better into the city? I suspect that when that is complete, that will be the real point of differnece to the poor Chch commuters (who have had it pretty bad for the last wee while…).
That is correct, the next half of the complex will have an additional 8 bus bays, about 4 or 5 retail stores and more features added. 🙂 I’m not sure if there are any additional routes added though, but I would like to think so, more bus routes circling the CBD would be great, though they could easily be added later as the employment numbers in the city blooms.
Having used the covered access to the bus doors in the USA and Canada I like the idea for what I consider to be a very cold winter environment at Manukau. I feel that would enhance the use of bus/train interchange.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but I repeat my comment in the post of 8 March 2014 about this. [note 1] In summary: this interchange looks to be wildly overdesigned and inappropriate in relation to the need.
Christchurch is perfect for a bunch of pendulum (through city) bus routes. There should be one major through-city bus mall north-south, and one east-west. The interchange is the place where they cross. Bus stops should be on the street as close as possible to where people want to go, not least to provide the activity and passive surveillance that people want at low use times. The accent should be on proper interchange functionality, not large off street structure. All the needed functionality (shelter, information, toilets…) can be provided on the street in little space in a bus mall.
More detailed comments at http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2014/03/08/the-new-christchurch-bus-interchange/#comments
note 1. Assuming the the interchange as built is the same as the plans we were discussing then.
Hope the complaints about this sawtooth design are taken into account by AT when designing any facilities in the future.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/69457515/13-crashes-at-new-christchurch-bus-exchange
LOL. I am not surprised. 13 accidents in 3 weeks isn’t that high for what I thought was the main bus terminal. I would expect a lot of bus movements there. Isnt it 100 non injury accidents before 1 injury accident and 10,000 non injury before 1 fatality?
I think people will just get complacent and someone will get run over some day. But the (non-liable) experts know what they are doing I guess.
Yep, 13 incidents (let’s not call them “accidents” or “crashes” when you just nudge a fence or bollard) out of 18,000 bus movements seems nothing too alarming for an initial operation period, especially as most of the problem issues (e.g. a temporary fence that kept getting hit) have been dealt with.
Still trying to work out how “someone will get run over” in an area where there are no pedestrians…
Glen, I know you are an expert and respect your opinion as being qualified and authoritative in pedestrian safety and transport and what not. NZ has a problem with pedestrians getting run down on the road “where they are not meant to be”. My point is that sometimes pedestrians go wherever the hell they want regardless of rules and signs, especially when they are running late to catch the bus. People get complacent or distracted or frustrated or drunk and make mistakes, whether they are walking or driving or whatever. Yes, the risks are probably low, but having a system where buses need to reverse is just asking for trouble. The designer has specifically designed in a safety issue and mitigates it with “no pedestrian” signs and maybe a few barriers instead of eliminating the safety issue from the design altogether. Can the designer guarantee the mitigation will be 100% effective?
As a side note, how do you get you bike on the bike rack? Those doors and bays look pretty tight. Has anyone seen cyclists give it a try?
The sides of the arrivals screen have since been switched to the right direction
The interchange that you so proudly speak of is a white elephant rather than a magnet for more users now tend to keep out of town if I can help it on purpose to by pass the interchange. you clearly didn’t look to see all the undesirable people hanging around the interchange.
Do you still feel that way Nick? You complain of lack of warmth at the Wellington hubs, yet when there is warmth you complain about it. Would love to hear your views on this today.