On Monday the Auckland Transport board hold their next board meeting and as I normally do, I’ve gone through the reports to see what’s being discussed. Starting with the closed session we have a number of topics that could be quite interesting. These include:
Items for Approval/Decision
- Regional Passenger Transport Plan (RPTP) – I assume discussing the changes based on the updated RPTP consultation they conducted recently
- Media Advertising – Given it’s coming from the PT team it seems to be about how AT advertise PT in the media.
- CRL Business Case Summary – This should be interesting. I wonder if it is something new that will soon be released to the public or is a rehash of the old business cases.
Items for Noting
- Infringement Revenue – I assume this will be discussing what happens with infringement revenue
- LRT Stakeholder Engagement Plans – AT are continuing to progress their LRT plans (and a tender closes today for a Technical Advisor for the project) and so engagement with stakeholders is bound to increase. This appears to be information on how they’ll do that engagement.
On to the main report and first up are the project updates.
Te Atatu Road Upgrade – It appears that since the report was written the contract for this $30 million project has been awarded to Higgens Contractors and work starts 4 August. The project effectively widened to provide a flush median and sporadic on road unprotected cycle lanes and shared paths as well as replaces the roundabout at the intersection with Edmonton and Flanshaw Roads with signals.
K Road Cycleway – Around a year after we last heard anything there’s finally a mention in the board paper. Unfortunately it doesn’t give us info on when it might actually start being built.
Eastern Rail Cycleway (Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive) – The report says the NZTA should be awarding the contract to construct the first stage from Glen Innes to St Johns Rd by the end of this month while design and consent works continue on the rest of the project.
Onehunga Mall Streetscape – Construction starts mid-August on an upgrade of Onehunga Mall. The first improvements will be to the footpaths.
Mission Bay Street Upgrade – An upgrade of Tamaki Dr in front of the block of shops to the east of Patterson Ave in Mission Bay is also planned. The report just says they will be widening of a section of Mission Bay’s town centre and I can only assume they mean of the footpaths. Consultation will happen this year but construction won’t start till next year after the Christmas season. This is what a local board report says
The proposal is to widen the footpath, by removing the car parks along that stretch of Tamaki Drive. There will be a new mobility park installed in Patterson Ave, as a result of removing the existing mobility car park. Parking on Patterson Ave will remain as it is, with exception of the allocation of the mobility park. This will require the use of two existing car parks.
Ōtāhuhu Bus-Train Interchange – The detailed design is complete. There is currently a tender out for construction which closes mid-August and be awarded in September. Completion is now not till June 2016 and the new network for South Auckland continues to be on hold till this project is finished.
AMETI – Movement appears to be happening with the extension of the busway from Panmure to Pakuranga along with discussions of how it travels through Pakuranga
Lodgement of the Stage 2A NoR for the busway from Panmure to Pakuranga (Ti Rakau Drive) is pending resolution of the cultural mitigation process; this is expected by late July to permit on-going dialogue between lead iwi Ngati Paoa and other relevant iwi.
A joint review of the AMETI delivery strategy with regards to the timing of the Reeves Road flyover and Stage 2B (busway between Pakuranga and Botany) components has been carried out between AT, Council and the NZ Transport Agency, with final dialogue scheduled for July.
Newmarket Crossing (Sarawia St Level Crossing) – AT say in August they will be seeking approval to lodge a notice of requirement for the project however that means it will still have to go through a considerable process before it is built. This is important as AT claim it’s the one thing that’s stopping them from being able to increase the frequency on the Western Line.
On to other areas
Some new ads for the benefits of bus lanes. This is an area I think AT have been doing very well in lately.
Moving on to the projects and initiates that make up AT’s key strategic priorities.
Ticketing and Fares – AT have giving some a high level summary of the response to the integrated fares consultation a few months ago. All up 1556 submissions were received and the broad results are below.
- Do you think the proposed zone boundaries are about right? Yes 60% No 20%
- Do you think the proposed products are about right? Yes 51% No 37%
We won’t know the final outcome and any changes that would be made till later this year.
Electric trains – In total 54 trains are in the country and of those 47 have been accepted for carrying passengers. The last three sets arrive early August and all trains will be on the network by the end of the year
New Network – at the time of writing the report there were over 1000 submissions on the network for the North Shore. Consultation for the Isthmus and East Auckland is being targeted for September/October. The first area to go live will be Hibiscus Coas in October this year.
Capacity – The first two of Howick & Eastern’s 15 double deckers have come off the production line in Scotland. They will arrive for testing in October and then the remaining ones will be built in Tauranga. Ritchies have 18 double deckers on order and I’m aware one is already on the network.
Infrastructure – There are a number of bus priority improvements that are due to start or be completed this month
- Onewa Road T3 lane (city bound) – construction progressing and due to be completed in July
- Park Road bus lane (hospital to Carlton Gore Road) – consultation completed; construction due to commence in July
- Parnell Road bus lane (St Stephens to Sarawia Street – outbound) – consultation completed; construction due to commence in July
- Manukau Road/Pah Road transit lanes – internal consultation completed – external consultation commenced
- Great North Road bus lanes (New Lynn to Ash Street) – final concept plans completed – consultation underway
- Totara Avenue signal removal – improvements to New Lynn bus interchange; construction due to be completed in July
- Esmonde Road bus lane – construction to commence July
Customer Experience – Some more things for bus users not to look forward to
AT’s partner for bus shelters, Adshel, are launching 35 digital screens at prominent Auckland bus shelter locations, in a move that will offer advertisers unrivalled impact and targeting opportunities and in line with global leaders like London, San Francisco and Stockholm, where roadside digital advertising has seen large demand. Spanning sites across the Auckland CBD and key fringe suburbs such as Ponsonby and Mission Bay, the new format provide more opportunities for advertisers, and this will increase the revenue share available for AT.
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Glad to see the Mission Bay improvements are coming along. The footpath gets pretty congested in front of the restaurants in that stretch and all you get a view of is the cars parked between you and the road. Hopefully there will be some planter boxes put in for a bit more sense of separation.
Would really like it if bus users were treated with a bit more dignity and respect, not an audience for endless annoying corporate advertising and messaging.
Agreed. Is that what those nasty pink coloured concrete footings/additions to Queen street bus shelters are supporting – the digital screens? Why bother making the effort to have designed shelters if you then come along and start the death by a 1000 cuts?
From what I’ve seen so far, most of the ads are targeted at the drivers cruising past… Just a technicality… hehe
There’s a lot that’s good here. The transformation enabled by AT continues.
Without a unified Auckland how much of this would have eventuated? Not so much.
I agree. Have just been down in Welly and strongly advised them to support the idea of a unified transport agency, as this can still happen without amalgamation. A bunch of tribal mayors running things have done them no good. The invention of AT has been great and continues to improve.
And thank god AT are removed from councillors. We have our own tribal ex-mayor Wood and tribal wannabe mayor Quax busily whiteanting CRL cos it’s not in their own parish.
Does anyone know about the “Great North Road bus lanes” – where to find information and link to the consultation? I just spent 5 minutes on the AT website, and can’t find this specific item…
Good to see the promised K Road cycle lane hasn’t been completely forgotten about it, but AT still suffer from a huge lack of urgency when it comes to cycle lanes.
Those new adshel digital screens are incredibly distracting for drivers.
How on earth did they get approved?
Also why were they installing the one near Vic/Nelson sts at 11pm on a Sunday night making a terrific noise with their concrete cutters with residents directly above them? Who approves this stuff?
I’ve been told that all 54 units in the country are now in service.
Are the final 3 sets spare? The Western Line needs a bit more capacity so could do with some more double-EMUs
If 54 units are in use then that is very concerning given that the western line needs both more 6-car sets and also needs 10 minute frequencies. Suspect it’s going to once again be the western line suffering due to shortsightedness
They need to order new units *now*. They can’t wait until we’re pushing 15-17 million.
Does our contract with CAF include an option to buy more units at reasonably short notice?
There is an option for more units, but the problem is budgetary rather than contractual. There just isn’t any ordinary funding source for rail infra. It all has to come from extraordinary sources. The NLTF is expressly forbidden for being used for things with steel wheels. Asset sale money all went on roads, or things with actual funding sources like new schools.
Having said that it is probably sensible to get say a year’s good running out of the full fleet before ordering more; there may be simple changes that we discover should be made on any additional trains.
“Lodgement of the Stage 2A NoR for the busway from Panmure to Pakuranga (Ti Rakau Drive) is pending resolution of the cultural mitigation process; this is expected by late July to permit on-going dialogue between lead iwi Ngati Paoa and other relevant iwi.” So in other words a pointless waste of time and money for no discernible benefit. Nevermind that PT in general benefits people who are less well off more and that Maori are on average less well off than the general population.
The works go through a major former Maori Pa site. A bit more than just pointless, and on the list of many things this project has (had) to overcome, not one of the most serious issues.
Is it still being used? No
Is it still intact? No
Is it a burial site? So far as I know the answer is No.
So a load of BS really trying to stop or make money out of progress. How much is all the consulting adding to the cost? How much is tied up in AT staff hours? how much goes to lawyers? How much goes to iwi in consultation fees? How much does “remedial” work cost to “preserve” heritage and mana? How far would all those additional costs go (along with other similar cultural issues) towards building more cycle ways or bus lanes or PT subsidies etc?
Just build the damn thing!
And of course if the route was going right through a site sacred in YOUR culture, you would have no problem? Wait, no, your answer will be that you don’t have a culture and nothing’s sacred to you. So you must be a more advanced person. Carry on.
What is sacred or special about this site? It seems if some old Kaumatua took a dump somewhere that would be reason for a site to be sacred. Ok being facetious but you get the idea. If it was so sacred they would have done something about it long ago rather than wait until some council project goes ahead where they know the money will be easy pickings – all at the expense of the ratepayer.
Something like getting the council to have on their register of places of significance to Manu Whenua, oh wait.
With regard to customer experience, a few more cm of leg room would do a lot more for my bus riding experience than more advertising in what is already a vast ocean of advertising.
Yes good point. Would it really cost much more to add 75cm to the length of a bus so that each seat could have 5cm more leg room? It doesn’t make for a very pleasant experience. After all it’s a bus not an airplane that has to minimise weight as much as possible.
Two comments on the digital Adshel screens:
* When it’s really cold, the heat vent at the bottom is nice for warming your hands up if you’re prepared to crouch. I’ve done this!
* There could be an opportunity here: How about dedicate the top 30cm of the screen or so to bus route and realtime information?
One more comment on the digital Adshel screens: how about getting rid of this insane and dangerous idea entirely?
With AT, while the left hand is promoting attentiveness to pedestrians crossing the road (look here), the right hand is trying to turn a quick buck by purposely distracting drivers’ eyes from the road in front of them (look there).
regarding LRT stakeholder engagement, will developers engaged? There are opportunties for public private joint venture.
Ritchies second double decker has arrived and is in regular service. One run I know it does is the 7:40 am ex Britomart. This bus and the next were built by Designline. The remaining ones will be imported from China apparently. It’s good to see that most of the Howick ones will be locally built however.
https://at.govt.nz/media/1130332/Otahuhu-Interchange-plan-diagram.jpg
The design for Otahuhu really doesn’t seem that great. Plenty of routes – the frequent network 32, connector 325, and locals 321 and 324 go through the interchange, not just terminate there. The design means it’s going to add a huge amount of time to those buses.
At the very least, there should be an entrance at the south end, going straight into the bus turning circle. Then buses approaching from the south don’t need to come all the way to the lights, then double back and slowly crawl – twice – through the interchange. A better approach still would be if buses from both directions could simply approach from one side and leave from the other, without doubling back.
There’s also a real under-use of the site. Some overly complex loopy accessways, a bit of parking, loads of naff useless landscaping. Why not put some concessions on the site, or some commercial space?
As an aside, it’s things like this that make me only a 80% fan, not a 100% busway fan for our new RTN routes (like the Northwest or East). Rail has many downsides too, but it’s inherent in the technology that it has to run in roughly a straight line. You can do the same with buses, but inevitably we seem to end up with designs like this, or Manukau, or Te Atatu, or the access from the proposed northern busway extension to Albany: long additions to travel time because the buses need to double back on themselves a lot. Rail’s huge turning circles make certain things impossible to screw up quite as badly.
It AT’s defense on part of your complaints, there’s almost no car parking left on the site, contrary to earlier plans. Though the location of the staff car parking there is still plenty weird. Stick it in back, if you really feel you need it…
Also seems silly that buses have to share the road with the cars coming in to drop off or pick up people, doesn’t seem a shortage of space considering how much planting and plazas they appear to be building to fill up areas they don’t know what to do with. Retail structures instead to provide some eyes on the ground would be a better use.
I can’t quite see from the drawings but is there any reason why all of the passengers have to go up over the bridge to access the trains? If there was side platforms instead of an island those traveling in one direction could walk on the same level directly to the buses.
Otahuhu has to stay as a mainline island platform station, since a third platform (side platform) can then be added on the bus platforms side for the CRL – for train turnback. Also, as an integrated bus-rail interchange station that is going to be gated, Otahuhu has to have an single overhead concourse to efficiently link all of the rail and bus platforms.
Side platforms are suboptimal. They restrict easy transfers, make gating of stations and other security controls much more difficult and are to be avoided.
Where they exist now they are largely historical anomalies. Middlemore and, more gruesomely, those now closed stations at Purewa and Waikamete cemeteries were built like that in WWII in order to facilitate the easy transfer of bodies that were no longer able to move by themselves.
It is a shame that cost and the desire for a straight run up the hill means we are getting side platforms at our next new station: Parnell. Especially as this will reduce that station’s functionality as a transfer point.
Yes, strange loopy design for Otahuhu interchange. Isn’t it as simple as through-buses having a good pull-off space at Walmsley Road?
There still needs to be space for the buses that are terminating, or waiting – some buses will be waiting to connect with trains. But I think if there were a second entrance and exit at the southern end, buses wouldn’t need to turn around or double back. Seems like it’d save at least a minute or two. I also wonder if it might not be better to have the drop-off zone on the street, though, rather than having cars queue up in the same entrance and exit as the buses.
Why would a bus we waiting to connect with a train when both train routes will be going every 10 minutes?
The trains will only be going every ten minutes 7am-7pm, Mon-Fri. They’ll be less often at other times. You also may need to catch a specific train in order to transfer at Papakura going to Pukekohe.
Meanwhile, some buses will be hourly or less.
Not quite, they go every ten minutes at least 7-7 everyday.
Two questions about the Otahuhu Interchange:
1. Are there going to be cycle lanes along Walmsley/Saleyards Roads? Unless a walking/cycling track is extended along the eastern foreshore of the Mangere inlet, these remain important alternative (instead of Great South Road or Atkinson Ave) cycle routes to Middlemore Hospital and nearby schools. There will be a significant increase in traffic once the transport centre opens.
2. Is traffic light phasing going to change at Walmsley/Kaka St? Some mornings, traffic already backs up along Saleyards Road waiting to turn right into Kaka St.
Gees I can’t wait to see that overbridge built at Sarawia. Hopefully unlike the Skypath this one won’t have to go through an appeal process and will get built sooner rather than later. One less “hold up” point for the trains and one less crossing and potential safety issue.
Also to everyone complaining about advertising. yes not great to have it but if it means more funding to get more stuff done then I have no problem with it, especially as the people on here complaining about it are probably also complaining about stuff not getting built/improved etc. If i had my way there’d be advertising on the trains as well if it meant it helped get something else done that we don’t currently have the money for. And there’s advertising on trains all around the world. why should Auckland be any different especially when we’re struggling for PT funding!