Occasionally it is small projects that can have a lot of impact on people’s PT experience. With the ever growing number of people working near Victoria Park, an upgrade to the bus stops on Fanshawe St along with improvements to the Daldy St intersection is very welcome and should improve safety too.
In the afternoons the existing bus stops are often overflowing with both buses and with people and without making any changes that’s only going to get worse. As this image from march shows, the number of people waiting to catch a bus cab spill over in to the park.
#marchmadness in full effect at Victoria Park @AklTransport @TransportBlog pic.twitter.com/KodLyot441
— Geoff (@geoffnix) March 7, 2016
Construction is already under way to lengthen the bus stop by around 15m and AT say the shelters will be extended as well as pushed further back on the footpath which should make it easier for the often large number of people walking to or from work each day along here.
In addition AT are adding an entrance to Victoria Park from the bus stop, making improvements to the existing pedestrian crossing and also adding a formal pedestrian crossing to the wide mouth of Daldy St. A plan of which is shown below and AT have already installed red road markings for citybound traffic like the ones under trial in Remuera.
Improving the Daldy St crossing is a good thing as crossing that road can be a gauntlet at times and I imagine those less able bodied than myself could really struggle.
While it may only be a small project, if it hopefully improves things for people who live or work in the area.
‘Onya, AT.
Who are these people who cycle onto Fanshaw St? And still a 2 stage crossing for pedestrians across Fanshaw.
I cycle onto it when getting across from Victoria Park to Wynyard, see others too. Furthermore, know multiple people who cycle on it briefly to get to AirNZ.
It’s a nightmare cycling along there.
I love cycling along Fanshawe St. It’s got nice wide painted “cycle” lanes on either side – which you occasionally share with a bus but even on my single speed it’s easy enough to go faster than the busses go. It’s really useful to get from southern Beaumont St to Queen St really quickly.
This is where you wish that pedestrians had right of way when crossing these side streets, like many countries around the world (eg Canada), so that it was just emphasizing the fact.
It can be scrum along there, especially as the buses often arrive in clumps with people rushing up and down the narrow footpath. In the rain it’s enough to reduce people to tears.
The Daldy Street crossing should have been done before they closed Halsey Street for over a year. Nightmare trying to cross Daldy with nearly all Wynyard Qrtr traffic going down one street.
Is the bus shelter expansion going to be big enough? It was was past overflowing before and that was without Fonterra and the other new office buildings going up on that block.
Should also add I guess the red is to stop the numerous red light runners who come off the motorway and don’t slow down. They should either put speed bumps there or have a raised crossing.
agree about the Daldy St crossing. I feel bad when I cross the intersection and I have to make tens of people wait under the rain. But I’m on a motorbike and if I stop to give way to a pedestrian I have 50% chance of being wiped out by an oncoming car
How about investing in a very much safer foot bridge or an underpass rather than a crossing? Start a safety trend with public amenities!
Underpasses are not necessarily safer. They can be dingy, dark and scary places. Footbridges add extra distance and often people don’t use them anyway and cross the road anyway. They’re not usually the best answer and crossings are usually better.
There are underpasses under Symonds Street, and they’re very underutilised. In that case it’s not necessarily for dingy, dark and scary reasons, more of a design fault. The buildings on both sides should’ve had an attractive link to each other using the underpasses, but the designers put them right out of the way… dumb. Also the footbridge from Albert Park to AUT across Wellesley Street – the main reason it’s underutilised is because whoever built it, created a dog leg adding almost 100m extra to the journey. How dumb you gotta be?…
Other countries seems to manage to build usable underpasses and bridges. why is it such a struggle here?
Yes, another addition to my idea of the Victoria Park basement parking – pedestrian underpasses to the northern side of Fanshawe St at Halsey and Daldy Sts. In fact there’s so much space there, an entire bus depot could be undergrounded for the length of Victoria Park.
Would much rather put the traffic underground and connect victoria park to wynyard quarter properly.
More expensive though, obviously.
Underpass: Generally dark and feels unsafe, you can only exit in two places if a group block both ends your stuck and no one can see you.
Foot Bridge: The climb puts people off unless they absolutely must, if they think they can get away with it people will just run across the road which can actually increase accidents.
Both: the ramps/stairs up and down limit already restricted footpath space and are a barrier for mobility impaired.
As others have pointed out footbridges and subways are not necessarily safer than a crossing on the level, but they often are inconvenient, bulky and expensive. A footbridge has to give about 5m clearance, which means that on a level site each side has to have 30-odd steps plus a 40m long ramp or a lift, a subway about half those dimensions. Clever design in the right location can make them easy to use, but that’s not at all easy to plan or design.
I disagree on both footbridges and subways for pedestrians. These will further reinforce motoring as primary occupier of the roads. Pedestrians are classed by the Road Code as Road USERS too. They pay for these roads through their rates, fuel taxes, and PT fares so everything should be done to meet their requirements. I would prefer more and bigger pedestrian crossings instead. The money saved from these bridge/subways could instead be put into building traffic bollards that rise and fall at the behest of the pedestrian request to cross this road.
Now that would be a fun improvement!
Thanks Matt for digging it out. I searched through AT’s webpages and couldn’t find what they were actually doing. I’m happy about the citybound extensions, but I am very disappointed to hear that on the park-side (outbound) that gigantic long bus stop is not going be split into three separate ones:
1. Northern Busway buses (ie. “Express”)
2. Takapuna/Esmonde buses
3. Kaipatiki (Onewa/Northcote/Akoranga) buses
That is to avoid the running from one end of the stop to the other, missing buses and to reduce delays for buses waiting for others to come from the other end.
Yes Stranded, but that would make sense…
however the dynamics of buses arriving and leaving, pulling in and out can cause problems with differentiated stops however ideal for passengers; i.e. a good idea but needs a fairly big “no mans land” between stops
Hi Steve, good to hear from your perspective from behind a wheel of one of these large beasts with some very dynamic cargo on-board 😉 My hat’s off to you. 80m is the old (as at last week) bus stop on Fanshawe. It looks like they’re currently adding another 15m to bring it to 95m. My calculations show enough space for 180m there. Say if there were 3 stops 60m each (60m is 12m more than the current Civic stop on Wellesley St) – then it still should be plenty for 3 separate stops including the no-mans land in between them. The no-mans land could just be painted island to visually separate the different stops? Surely it would be a huge improvement than what we have now…? But how to get AT to even hear us?
if they’ve any sense, they’re following this blog fairly carefully
one of the reasons that the stop is fairly constrained was that back in the Auckland City Council days Transport was responsible for bus stops EXCEPT where the stop was adjacent to a park, where it became Parks responsibility, we were fortunate to get what we got on Fanshawe and did try to do an East/West split on the stop, but it just didn’t work out in practice
Thanks Steve for the historical info. I’m guessing that the bus stops are 100% under AT jurisdiction today and these issues are just legacy now… On the subject, I just walked past 44 Symonds St bus stops – and there are 3 separate stops without “no-mans-land” in between, with total length of 90m length. I’m not saying it’s working perfectly, as it’s not perfect – more space would work be even better – but it is working better than Fanshawe mess. Considering Symonds St being 2nd most busy bus corridor in Auckland after Fanshawe, I’m sure AT can do something cherry glazed for Fanshawe St northbound with double space available @ whooping 180 meters !
For 13.5m buses NZTA’s draft PT infrastructure guidelines recommend a 15m box plus 15m entry taper, 9m exit taper – see https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/About-us/docs/Consultations/2014/guidelines-pt-infrastructure-draft.pdf. So a stop for three such buses not impeding each other would need 45m for 3 bus boxes, 45m for 1 entry and 2 jntermediate (“no man’s land”) tapers and 9m of exit taper, total 99m.
All Symonds St bus stops are split (except where dedicated to only southern services) and it works reasonably well. Not perfect, though: in peak, the number of buses can still exceed the available space for each split (such as opposite AUT / outside St Paul’s Church) and sometimes I had to keep a sharp eye out for the right bus out of the up-to-seven Sandringham/New North/Mt Eden Rd buses all arriving at once.
They should make the crossing across Fanshawe one stage, not two. Very pedestrian unfriendly.
Fanshawe St Bus Stop small projects that can have a lot of impact on people’s PT experience. In the afternoon bus stop is full of by the working people. it needs to make improvements to the existing pedestrian crossing and also adding a formal pedestrian crossing.
Vehicle speed seem to be the main problem and the feel of the drivers that they must be moving at speed or their vehicle is not being used at optimum.
however the dynamics of buses arriving and leaving, pulling in and out can cause problems with differentiated stops however ideal for passengers; i.e. a good idea but needs a fairly big “no mans land” between stops
sorry about the double post, my phone said that it was not posted at first, mods please delete this one
Might be an “improvement” for the bus drivers but not for the passengers. Your first photo is very misleading, that nice wide footpath is going to be ripped up and turned into more road for the buses. Pedestrians lose out again.
The footpath is still WAY too narrow to handle everybody rushing to their bus or just standing around waiting. This means the main problem is not resolved — people standing around on Vic Park and having to walk on the road between buses because there’s NO ROOM ON THE FOOTPATH.
Also, the new bus shelters are better but the continuous line of them is effectively a WALL that prevents people waiting in Vic Park (for aforementioned reason) from getting to their bus.
Not much improvement. By failing to widen the footpath and accommodate passenger behaviour, AT hasn’t fixed the main problems on Fanshawe.