Today is the latest AT board meeting and here are the highlights (and lowlights) from their board papers.
Closed Session
After a few months with not much interesting standing out, there are a number of items on the closed report this meeting.
Items for Approval/Decision
- Eastern Busway Procurement Update
- Albany Transport Network
- Murphys Road Upgrade
- New Retail Leases – Britomart Station CPO Building
- $0 Child Weekend Fares
- Bus Services Procurement
Items for Noting
- Matakana Link Road Update
- Transport Design Manual
Business Report
As always, these are the items that I found interesting in the report and generally in the order they appear in the report.
Records Disposal
AT have apparently been working on a process to archive their old records though the Auckland Council Archives and includes scanning over 6.5GB of paper records. However what is concerning is they say they’re the first of the council’s CCOs to be compliant with the Public Records Act 2005, which means all the other CCOs aren’t.
Mooring Fees
Over the last 12 months AT, though the Harbourmaster, have had to spend about $135,000 to dispose of derelict, abandoned or wrecked vessels and have only been able to recover $7k of that so far from owners as there is no compulsory vessel registration in NZ making it almost impossible to work out who the owners are – and even if they do identify the owner, they often shirk responsibility for it. They say this is an increasing problem with most of the 3500 moored vessels being at least 40 years old with only a handful less than 10 years old. The Council agreed to increase mooring fees to help cover the costs so that this doesn’t have to be funded by rates.
Safe School Streets Trial Project
Everyone seems to acknowledge that getting more kids to walk and cycle to school would be good for both traffic and kids but it’s hard to get that to happen when some of the most dangerous driving occurs right outside schools as parents jostle for parking spots. Personally, I’ve had more close encounters with dangerous drivers riding my bike past a primary school than when I get merged into the middle of a 70km/h road.
AT recently trialled some tactical urbanism type measures outside Rutherford Primary School in Te Atatu to try and reduce congestion and improve safety. This included dedicated pick up/drop off areas, park and walk zones, new pedestrian crossing locations and restricted parking on Kotuku Street. It appears to have largely been a success and now some semi-permanent features are being worked on.
The purpose of this event was to demonstrate to the parents and local community how new parking strategies can provide a safer and happier experience for families at peak travelling times. This event proved that traffic flow can be managed, and safety is of paramount importance when designing traffic environments around schools.
Modifying parents’ attitudes and behaviour towards parking takes time and persistence. The next step for the Safe School Street Pilot at Rutherford Primary and College is to introduce semi-permanent fixtures to help manage the traffic flow around the schools. These are likely to be in place from July/August.
I understand AT are looking at trialling this with other schools too.
High Risk Road Interventions
As well as looking at speed limits, one of the pieces of work AT are doing to improve road safety is to improve the safety of high-risk sites on rural roads. They say:
Out of 173 projects planned for construction at the beginning of this year, 53 projects have been completed, 107 projects have commenced construction and the remaining 13 are in design or procurement. The delay in construction of the roundabout at Coatesville Riverhead / Dairy Flat highway and other parts of this corridor will result in an underspend.
In urban areas they “are focusing on three key areas physical interventions – a) mass action pedestrian improvements projects, b) improving safety in high risk intersections and c) improving safety at high risk corridors. There is a range of interventions that are implemented e.g. removing filtered right turns at unsafe intersections, upgrading zebra crossings, installing raised tables at intersections, installing high friction surfacing, focussing on motorbike safety and installing signage”. For this they say:
AT planned to complete 86 projects this year. There are 52 projects that have been constructed, 17 projects where construction has commenced and the remaining 17 are either in procurement or in the design phase. A further 28 projects have completed detailed design and will be constructed in 2019/2020. This programme is forecast to be less than 5% underspend.
It’s good to see these safety projects progressing.
In a separate paper, they say that after getting over 11,700 submissions they need more time to review them and now aren’t looking to make a decision until the end of September – they originally proposed having it come into effect on 20 August. They also say that the submissions included requests to reduce speed limits on 876km of roads not part of the original consultation.
Newmarket Precinct
The significantly enlarged Newmarket mall is due to open at the end of August.
A cross functional AT team is working to ensure an optimal customer experience through protection of public transport, network optimisation and mode shift activity; and have been focussing on delivering an operational plan for the roading network. The plan being developed in conjunction with NZTA and Scentre Group, is similar to that generated for the Waterview Tunnel and includes how the roading network will be managed.
A funding request will be made through the usual governance channels, which seeks to prioritise initiatives to improve accessibility for pedestrians, protect public transport customers, enhance safety particularly on Broadway, and manage the risk of congestion and queues.
If AT are serious about this they need to at least include the immediate installation of
- Bus lanes on Broadway
- Protected Bike Lanes on Broadway (remove the on street parking if needed)
- Pedestrian priority over Morrow St
Network Optimisation
Yesterday I covered the AA’s congestion report including their call for smarter traffic lights. Improving the optimisation of the network is something they’ve long called for even though it’s been happening. In this report it highlights that 270 intersections have been optimised over the past 11 months.
There is also quite a bit of information about work AT and the NZTA carried out to optimise ramp signals along SH20 between Waterview and Onehunga. They note this achieved improvements such congestion on the motorway in the AM peak starting 30 minutes later and clearing about 30 minutes earlier with delays reducing by about 12%.
Public Transport Services
Trains
A new timetable is expected to be signed off this month and will include some of the following changes.
The new timetable will see an additional earlier morning departure on the Southern, Eastern and Western Lines, providing further travel options for our customers working shifts. An additional, later night outbound service has been planned for the Southern and Eastern lines, with services expected to depart from Britomart after 11pm. This is the first change, in a series of proposed increases through to the opening of CRL. Western Line services are not included in this change to allow for increased CRL construction activity.
Still no word on actually making trains frequent, despite them meant to be being the backbone of the New Network
Ferries
AT say the weekend Hobsonville ferries continue to be popular above expectations
Buses
I recall AT promising to have the links working properly for the launch of the new network. Perhaps this time it will work but why will it take till October?
The Outer link has been reviewed to eliminate the wait times currently experienced by customers at Victoria Park. Preferred options for change have now been agreed and will be operationalised in October 2019.
On-Demand
ATs on-demand trials continue to disappoint. The graphs below show the outcomes so far with the $1.3 million trial well below targets.
To make matters worse, Stuff reported earlier this month a survey by AT found most users were people previously getting to the ferry terminal by walking, cycling or by bus with only 43% of users having switched from driving or being driven. I’m amazed this trial has managed to carry on. It should be cut ASAP.
E- Bus Trial Update
A paper gives an update on how the e-buses that are being trialled are performing. Some highlights include.
The two ADL/BYD e-buses are performing well and “able to complete a day’s scheduled operations on a single charge“. On the CityLink route their operating costs were about 77% lower than the normal diesel buses used while on the Inner Link and 380 Airporter route they have up to 84% lower operating costs
The Yutong e-bus is being trialled on the 380 Airporter and the 309 route and uses “a different drive and charging technology and has higher capacity batteries to support the availability of air-conditioning”. So far it has 76 percent lower operating costs when compared to similar sized diesel buses.
AT are also looking to trial three hydrogen fuel cell buses and extra-large three-axle electric buses.
Let me know if the comments if there’s anything you’ve seen that I’ve missed.
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If I’m reading that Devonport trial correctly, more people are just using it after being out on the piss on Fridays but still driving every other day of the week?
They’re actually planning to be on the piss on Friday, so use it to get to the ferries Friday morning and again when they roll off the ferry half cut.
So, as a road safety campaign? its clearly working well.
As a mode switch to PT campaign? Dismal failure.
Not even sure about as a road safety campaign. Are they monitoring whether local taxi use has changed? I’d imagine most of the Friday night drinkers would’ve walked or bused to the ferry and taxi’d home.
I’m wondering if there’s anyone in the AT Board who has asked any searching questions of AT about this. The trial is ill-located, it’s ill-conceived, and it’s continuing despite obvious negative modeshift and unwarranted subsidy.
Board, what can you do to cut through this?
The company behind this trial ‘Via’ operate a very successful service in Berlin, NYC, Chicago amongst others.
Unlike Uber they are entering new jurisdictions and looking to partner with local authorities. I think the van concept of taking multiple people is still far and away preferable to an Uber/Taxi which is generally still a car making a journey for more often than not 1 person. Obviously by partnering with AT they tried to turn this into a trial to prove a Business Case… I would love to see Via being allowed to just go for it, rather than being tied to just Devonport Terminal trips. No public subsidy, just another Rideshare service in the market….
With no public subsidy, and hopefully with the externalities of driving properly costed, rideshare has a good place in a transport network. People avoiding car ownership and general driving costs could easily be occasional users of a ridershare operation, while using other modes for their usual travel.
This scheme is not that. It is subsidised. The externalities of driving are not fully costed. It works to undermine the local bus service. And it provides one more service that allows people to retain their largely car dependent mindset, which Lester Levy describes as:
“perhaps Auckland’s most ominous and least confronted problem from a transport perspective… If a sizeable percentage of car drivers do not make a modal switch, congestion will simply get worse and worse and as long as the majority of car drivers assume that the responsibility for modal switching lies with someone other than themselves, the problem of congestion is very likely to persist.”
Intervention is needed to stop this lunacy before it works to shift more people back into cars where they were using the bus or active modes previously.
It seems that Devonport is the home of unsuccessful trials.
https://at.govt.nz/about-us/news-events/ev-chargers-at-devonport-wharf/
A local paper reported that these free chargers have attracted an average of about 2 users per week. Is any market research undertaken before such ventures are embarked upon? Did anyone contemplate that a driver, probably having only driven only 5 or 6 kms to the ferry wouldn’t need to charge their ev? Or was the thinking more along the lines that drivers might drive from anywhere to the free ferry parking, given that there is no disincentive for this, and therefore might need to charge their vehicle?
rather than drinking per se, I’m hoping the Friday spike is also explained by the fact that people are more likely to travel in groups after socialising, which in turn makes it easier to pool rides.
Just to frontfoot the rotting boats part (given a common thought that anyone that owns a yacht is loaded), there is quite a bit of talk on this on one of the local yachting forums and all the yachties are p1ssed off about it as well. It’s likely to end one one of those situations where again, the council has to cater for the lowest common denominator and the majority of people that look after (love) their boats end up paying for a few muppets.
The age of the boat has absolutely nothing to do with it though, my boat is coming up 50 and it’s every bit as good as new. A brand new boat would look like those dunga’s after some (10?) years of inattention.
Why does AT have trouble ascertaining the owners? Presumably the mooring fee payments are made by an individual?
Comment below copied from local yachting forum –
I wish it was that simple. Many of the old dungers we deal with have been left on someones mooring without the permission of the mooring owner. This is sometimes a person bludging and sometimes a mistake. A little hard to ping a mooring owner who happened to have someone dump a boat on their mooring. On the other hand why would the rate payer pick up the tab?
I note reading YBW.com forum that many are actually giving away servicable yachts as there is no resale value. This is sometimes exacerbated by mooring fees being due for another year.
Unfortunately of the few older abandoned boats we have sold most have ended up back with us a year or so later. There is generally little of value onboard, and to remove items such as port holes, fittings etc will cost us more than we would recover. A night on the hard before it is broken up sees some bits removed though.
My guess would be that we will see more of this issue as time goes on.
http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/16910-abandoned-boats-auckland-costing-a-fortune-apparently/page-2?hl=moorings
Standard council MO. Tax he people who aren’t complying, to cover the costs of those that do follow the rules and pay what they owe. Exactly the same as they do with dog registration.
The mooring rules are there to prevent any of this happening. Have a read. The harbor master is at fault.
That’s pretty bad that ratepayers foot the cost of disposing wrecked boats. Unless you’re sailing overseas, the rules and regs around boating are lax as hell. As one of AT’s mooring tenants, I only pay $900 per year (as do the numerous liveaboards nearby, who live on their boats and pay no council rates whatsoever). It seems too low to me to be unsubsidised, and if so it really should go up.
We seem to have very low aspirations around footpaths…the list is very long and there is budget for 21 in this year:
New Footpaths
AT planned to complete 21 new footpath projects this year. Construction of five footpath projects have been completed with the remaining 16 planned for completion in the remainder of the year and the FY 2019/2020.
The “City Centre Network Operations” aka the “City Centre Car flow team” need a wider remit I’m guessing.
To put the 21 into context, I believe the wishlist for a footpath has over 600 requests. All a bit strange when motorists have a duty to keep people walking safe, and this should have been paid by the ringfenced road user charges.
Heidi, you do get that people walking have a duty to keep themselves safe don’t you? Quit dumping all the responsibility for others onto motorists. EVERYONE in the road corridor has a duty of care to themselves and to others.
We’re discussing getting footpaths where they don’t exist, Geoff. A radical idea for some, perhaps, but this way people walking can attempt to keep themselves safe by keeping out of the likely path of the motor vehicles. Sort of a bare bones, minimalist bit of safety equipment, a footpath. It doesn’t always work. Even walking on footpaths can get you killed or seriously injured.
Of course every adult with all their marbles has a duty of care, and it rises with the level of danger presented by the equipment they choose to operate.
The point of my comment is that installing footpaths where required has been declined on the basis of funding, yet the future funding strategy clarified that pedestrians have a right to use the road, and a right to safety, and that motorists have a duty to pay for the infrastructure to keep them safe.
And that is because the biggest danger – by orders of magnitude – is presented by motor vehicles. This infrastructure has not been provided, so we have a deficient transport environment. Hence our low walking rates, and our high pedestrian DSI rates.
Blaming the pedestrians being hurt and killed on roads where the infrastructure is missing on the basis that they should be looking after themselves is extraordinary victim-blaming.
Seriously, not hydrogen. Are people really still falling for that mirage / distraction? It’s batteries, game over. Nothing based on pumped fuel or engines with 100s of moving parts can possibly win out over electricity, solid state controls and hi-tech motors. Fuel cells are nowhere; battery chemistry is racing ahead. You can already retrofit 40 kWh into a Gen 1 Leaf. Imagine where we’ll be in 5 years. All this does is delay a meaningful decision to get rid of the diesel dinosaurs. It’s not R&D to look at fuel cells when there are half a million battery powered buses in service globally, it’s a waste of money. Just get on with electrifying the fleet.. people are actually dying from air pollution, CO2 levels are actually rising, still. I thought we declared a climate emergency, FFS.
+1.
I am continuously baffled by the disproportionate amount of attention that hydrogen receives given its relatively high development and distribution costs compared to electric batteries.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/china-s-father-of-electric-cars-thinks-hydrogen-is-the-future
Stu, for some reason China seems to believe in hydrogen.
John, did you even read the article? Because it doesn’t seem to say what you think it says. Quoting with emphasis added:
“For Wan — a mechanical engineer trained in Germany — the shift toward hydrogen is a natural step in realizing a vision of having *electric cars dominate inner-city traffic*, while buses and trucks filled with hydrogen tanks *roam the nation’s highways for long-distance travel.”*
Even this guy (and let’s emphasize the fact that he’s only one guy, rather than “China”) recognises that urban travel will be dominated by electric vehicles.
Now we can have a debate whether there’s a role for hydrogen in meeting demand for long-distance heavy commercial travel, but EVs are the obvious tech for most travel. Including urban bus.
I thought hydrogen was electric, ie catalytic fuel cells generating electricity. Are you sure they are talking about burning it?
Yes apologies for not being clear: that’s my understanding too. We’re talking about two energy storage mechanisms: batteries vis-a-vis hydrogen fuel cells. Both use electric engines but are vastly different technologies really.
Stu,
yes I did read the article and at the same time I had read this:
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Fuel-Cells/Chinas-Elon-Musk-Sees-Big-Future-For-Hydrogen-Cars.html
Having read the two I thought the discussion was about cars, but I can accept that the first article was most likely to be about buses.
I completely agree with you that evs seem a much more sensible option for cars than hydrogen.
Seems they are piggy backing off the Ports of Auckland Hydrogen Fuel Cell plans, which will have HFC in use after mid 2020. But NZTA doesn’t have the rules around HFC buses yet, they’re still on the drawing board. So middle of 2020 to have HFC buses on the road/trial seems optimistic.
So likely no Hydrogen buses before then [if ever].
But reading the linked pdf at the link in Matt’s post about the e-bus trial, shows once again that ADL buses that AT bought for $840K each are surprise! absolute dogs. Causing no end of issues, delays, problems, you name it. Seems the only thing going for them is that they are silent [due to having no AC no doubt].
They are a rollover risk (as identified by NZTA) so were [initially] banned from Motorway speeds/use and thus not usable on the 380 routes – initially anyway.
And in addition to that serious issue:
Have no onboard Air Conditioning – in Auckland! and caused a raft of issues with the charging infrastructure, require/support slower overnight charging – requires two plugs between bus and chargers with each one delivering less oomph than the average 50 kW EV charger around Auckland, so no quick charging top ups during the day if needed.
Also required several software updates to fix issues, than then caused other (non related) issues elsewhere in the bus. ADL the Huawei of buses?
All in all, the ADL/BYD buses, are clearly not fit for purpose. Unfortunately, many BYD manufactured buses exported outside China have suffered the same types of shortcomings in “real” service and have helped give “e-buses” a bad name leading to slow adoption. Couple that with infamous ADL moniker and you no doubt have a solution that is neither cheap nor cheerful.
The Yutong bus by comparison, seems to tick all the boxes – including the one ADL doesn’t. Has on board Air Con and a battery large enough to run it! And is safe at motorway speeds and rollover risk is reduced. (no doubt heavier battery pack down low helps this]. Charges much faster and can top up during the days if needed.
The Yutong is a loaner until early 2020 so not likely to stick around. And thus has an unknown purchase cost. Unlike the ADLs which we now bought are are stuck with.
All in all, the “e-bus” trials were slow, and resulted in almost a totally predictable, waste of time outcomes.
They also talk of attempting to “re-power” existing single and double decker diesel buses with electric motors and such. Better to buy new buses designed as e-buses that tinker around with conversions.
Seems like you only know half the story Greg.
The roll over story was NZTA being over cautious and the speed limits no longer to apply. They understandably took a safety first approach.
The aircon issues effect all BEV’s – more power demand = less range.
As with everything with AT, there is always at least half of the story they don’t tell you (or their bosses). So whatever you think you do or do not know – its doubtful that its true.
NZTA are in charge of the road rules, so presumably its up to them to actually put safety first. After all they’ve been told to do so time and again. Even if they need a lot of reminding as they have had recently over dodgy WOF certifiers and Heavy vehicle inspectors who don’t certify or inspect.
Clearly if they decided the ADL buses had a rollover risk, it was due to the design of the bus having a higher centre of gravity than a similar sized diesel bus. Otherwise ipso facto the buses would not have even had the question asked. Hence why they speed limited them so they couldn’t use the motorways.
Who knows if NZTA actually revised their decision to allow them on motorways because it was too overcautious or because they were told to pencil whip the buses through the system.
As for aircon, so what. Just because something runs on electricity doesn’t mean it has to be second best in either range or other features.
The electric trains all came with aircon. As they should have. And the aircon is electrical meaning it doesn’t need a turning motor ala car aircon – to make it work. This means it can work when the bus is stationary – as they are for a chunk of their journeys. A key requirement for any electric transport.
Same need with electric buses – if people are given the choice of electric buses which force them to accept a load of user unfriendly “compromises” they will likely baulk at using them.
We want more people on buses not less. So they must deliver feature people expect nowadays in the 21st century on their PT – like, you know, aircon. If it was say the 90’s again, yeah maybe people might accept a lack of it. Not now.
If that hammers ranges a little – then get a bus with a bigger battery than needed to just move it along the road, and make sure it has better and more efficient aircon FFS than whatever Kamakuza brand Aircon ADL used.
Its not rocket science. Its customer service.
Air conditioning is nice to have but not essential. Heating and opening windows will do if the technology at present is unable to provide sufficient battery capacity for AC. It’s more important to get zero emission buses on Auckland roads asap.
Or buy a bus with air conditioning and don’t run it. In 5 years we might have batteries that can handle that load or have inductive fast charging at select stations.
The roll over issue has been resolved. It’s a fact, if you want to know more, ask NZTA.
The aircon needs a bigger battery and that adds weight to the bus. BEV buses are already challenged on axle weights – so if you want to ‘save the world’ on your battery bus, powered by coal, your going to sweat.
Of course Hydrogen solves these problems.
The ADL/BYD buses for RedBus in christchurch have air con, and it sounds like Waiheke bus company have order 6 ADL/BYD buses
‘Air conditioning is nice to have but not essential.’
I thought we wanted to make public transport in Auckland appealing for people to ride.
Hydrogen fuel cells don’t have 100’s of moving parts – hydrogen powered internal combustion engines do. Hydrogen fuel cells are a cleaner way of generating the electricity needed to power up the batteries.
Of course there are issues like the power cost of generating liquid hydrogen but globally most electricity including for EV’s is generated by burning coal.
Yes dm, thank you, I understand the difference between a fuel cell and an ICE. But you still have to create the fuel and then get the fuel to them. Moving liquified hydrogen around costs a fortune compared to moving electricity around.
The electricity generation mix is also changing. Not fast enough, not by a long shot, but inexorably, and dramatically. Coal is on its way out and will be followed by gas. Good riddance. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-18/the-world-will-get-half-its-power-from-wind-and-solar-by-2050
Well, as BEV power generation in Auckland would be made also using coal (fact checked with Supplier), it’s not a solution for us
Only if you charge at 6pm at night. If you have a special plan and charge later over night 10pm-6am then it is mostly just hydro/wind power. Buses could be mostly the same as well.
So no, there is no need to use coal if done well.
Ari, we will be using coal – it’s a Fact.
If in doubt – ask the electricity supplier.
That makes sense, Ari. The night time window for charging is limited, and doesn’t overlap with peak energy use.
Local resident, can you provide your actual question to the supplier, and the actual answer?
Local resident – 3.4 % of our power generation came from coal last year, this doesn’t sound like a reason to to avoid battery powered buses.
I guess the other admins were busy and didn’t get around to just deleting Phil’s comment, but coal is on the way out anyway https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/350390/genesis-energy-to-phase-out-huntly-coal-use.
Local resident, conceded there will be occasions when coal is used for generation, 3.4% last year and declining. So what? It is having electric buses displacing of diesel fuelled buses for the rest of the time 95 plus odd percent of the time that is important. What is the occasional coal use compared to full time diesel burning?
Anyone planning to submit on the government’s hydrogen green paper?
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/have-your-say/a-vision-for-hydrogen-in-new-zealand-public-consultation/
Submissions are due 25 October.
I will be submitting in an attempt to head off an appalling taxpayer-funded energy boondoggle of the highest order.
This is the AT website for the Safe School Streets Pilot program, which ran its first trial at Rutherford Primary/College in May.
https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/safe-school-streets/
Claire Dixon the manager of the program spoke at the Living Streets Walking Summit last month, apparently it was a challenge getting buy-in from schools, as many schools are still seeing their problem as a lack of sufficient school-gate parking.
The next schools in the pilot are:
Willow Park Primary School, Hillcrest, Auckland
Milford School
Sunnyhills School, Pakuranga
Owairaka District School
Mt Roskill (Primary, Intermediate and Grammar)
And I think the other problem is schools actually having resource and time to apply for the programme.
What they did at Rutherford looks superb.
Now it needs to be done at every school, and AT’s duty to children overrides any concerns or misunderstandings of the adults at the school. AT needs to find a way to deliver this that doesn’t require buy-in from car-dependent adults.
Council needs to give stronger instructions to AT and stop requiring them to “bring the public along”. Children’s safety is a higher priority than that.
I asked my child (a Rutherford College student) how the trial went. Was told “it just pushed all the cars into the surrounding roads”. Not sure it was a success as parents are back to parking in driveways and over the yellow lines, just like before.
1 – that’s partly the point. Keeping the immediate school gate area clear, diffusing the school drop-offs into wider area and to dedicated parking lots (eg a church parking lot nearby).
2 – the trial was for one day. The effects would have only been for that one day.. They’ll now be analysing/discussing how it went and whether to implement permanent infrastructure/interventions.
One day is pretty useless for a trial.
The outcome would be so weather dependent.
On a wet day – can’t have little Johnny or Judy getting wet – they might melt away.
On a hot day – can’t have little Johnny or Judy getting hot – they might get dehydrated or sunburned or something.
On a windy day – can’t have little Johnny or Judy getting blown upon – they might get dehydrated or windburned or something.
Or at least, even if the kids were ok with it their pushy parents would think otherwise and would demand to be allowed to drop them off at the school gates!
I can see this working out real well. Creating plans based on a single “trial”.
Reading the website actually it looks like there will likely be further trials during the pilot period. But the first trial was definitely a one-day affair.
The cost of traffic management every time would add hugely to the costs of operating the trials.. That same boring reason why so many trials and temporary solutions don’t go ahead.
I agree with Greg – one day is not a trial. A trial would need to last long enough for people to adapt and to test differing conditions (like weather). Probably several weeks.
I like the idea of using church or similar parking lots. It should be possible to set up a fairly simple system letting parents buy term/annual passes for morning and afternoon parking, to cover the costs. A small price for the safety of one’s children.
But what this really reminds me of is travelling along Remuera Road city bound one morning as parents dropped their children off outside Kings School (then turned right into Armadale Road, some without much consideration for on-coming traffic). On my left, waiting at the lights to cross to his school I noticed a small boy in Kings School uniform. There were several of those, of course, but this one stood out for being in a wheelchair and accompanied by what appeared to be an assistance dog.
If a primary school age boy who needs a wheelchair and a dog to get around can cross a busy arterial road to get to school, there must be very little need indeed for school gate drop-offs. Perhaps they could be limited to the more severely handicapped.
Interesting points. I’d imagine you’d want to provide parking (in the church lots, etc) for the parents who need it once in a while when things get tricky on a particular morning. Providing it as annual or term passes is like ignoring the illegal and inconsiderate parking. It prevents AT from recognising that its their duty to provide sufficient safety for independent walking / cycling / taking the bus to school to be attractive to children and their parents as a day-to-day solution.
That effect was feared by some. I believe it was monitored, and it didn’t pan out that way. Do you think your child has extra information based on observation s/he can offer to the project?
Schools also don’t have the expertise in-house to manage such things. They don’t employ road safety experts or traffic engineers. If they’re lucky they’ll have a well-informed parent on the board of trustees.
“AT say the weekend Hobsonville ferries continue to be popular above expectations”
Any looping back to how the expectations were arrived at, AT?
https://cheezburger.com/8578139904
Lol
Will we get to see progress reports on the Newmarket design, or do we have to just wait until the whole design is finished? Presumably there’s someone in Council who gets to oversee the process and can check that AT’s bold words are being translated into actual buslanes, cyclelanes and pedestrian priority?
What I want to understand is does AT factor in off-street parking supply (both Public/Private) when making decisions? It would be great to see some form of metric developed in and around CBD/Town Centres which empirically measures AT’s stated objective of Off-Street parking to be preferred over on-Street.
As an example in Newmarket if we draw a 400 metre circle around the Westfield do we even need any on-street parking supply (Save for Disability/Loading)…
People far smarter than I need to come up with what the OnStreet/Off Street ratio is any set area but it needs to be looked at. It’s crazy that there are parts of Auckland where we have under utilised off street parking and then packed on-street nearby as people try and park right outside the Dairy!
It needs to become part of the social contract that if you drive into a town centre you might need to walk 400 metres to get to your end destination. By removing/reducing on-street Parking we could un-lock the valuable curb for place making/pedestrianisation/cycling/active modes etc.
I suspect when Akl Council issues Resource Consents for these monstrous Off-Street Car Parks they barely engage AT. However the 2700 new parks in NewMarket make a huge material difference and need to be factored into AT’s Parking Strategy.
This is an important topic.
I’ve asked Council about monitoring on and off street carparks, and land area given to the driving mode. These things are not currently monitored, but need to be as a way of gauging opportunities for meeting our emissions reductions targets.
A good way to suggest this to Council is via the Climate Action Framework consultation. I think there’s support in Council to do so; just needs to be raised more.
Your ideas about requiring these figures to feed into the design for big developments is good, too. It should be more overtly part of the design process, and initially, perhaps, big development could fund the collating of the data.
Do you know if AT factor off street parking when determining on street pricing changes? In theory pricing is changed to maintain a certain level of occupancy (85%?) but if a price increase makes people switch from on to off street parking how is that a bad thing (apart from shovelling more money at Wilsons et al)?
It’s a good point. Following the 85% occupancy trigger point methodology laid out in the parking strategy would have some counterproductive outcomes when offstreet private parking is available. And that offstreet parking isn’t having to pay its share of the costs involved with the traffic it induced, so market mechanisms cannot work.
I could look in the strategy to see if there’s supposed to be some allowance given for this, but in a way there’s no point. They don’t use the 85% figure to base their decisions on. They don’t prevent increases in free parking supply occurring due to illegal parking. They don’t follow the strategy when deciding about parking supply and pricing.
Decisions are being based on other drivers, and none of these have anything to do with liveability outcomes, reducing emissions and vkt, good modeshift, or good urban form priorities.
I think that having a target occupancy for council controlled carparks is not a bad thing provided they collect the data, and then use all the levers available, not just pricing, to acheive this.
The levers are the target level, currently 85%, pricing, time limits and actually removing carparks. This last option is not given nearly enough priority.
What Luxated is pointing out is that increased numbers of people wanting to park in an area will result in in higher prices if the 85% occupancy mechanism is used, until such point as a private provider supplies extra parking offstreet. Then the 85% mechanism will simply lower prices for the council parks; a counterproductive result. Knowledge of the private parking in the area should instead be triggering removal of the onstreet parks.
Heidi I do not believe for the CBD at least, that the economics of providing new build parking buildings would stack up against building commercial/ residential buildings. There has been no great rush in Wellington to rebuild as parking buildings those buildings lost in the earthquakes.
Are you suggesting that they aren’t being consented or built? Sky City Convention Centre? The 1000+ carparks recently consented within the Wynyard Quarter? https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/8d8774_d1516af83be84e3a8af378b476fe8698.pdf (See Infratil presentation) Plenty of other examples even just in the CBD.
The traffic induced by these carparks is undermining the projects we are paying for to assist modeshift. It’s pushing the networks in the wrong direction and giving us poor value-for-money.
Thanks for that Heidi.
Obviously another lever is required. When I was working in London in the mid 1970’s, inside of a decade the Greater London Council moved from requiring off street car parks with each redevelopment, in inner London, to not requiring carparks, and then to actually levying heavy annual fees on every park provided as an off set to the costs of providing general vehicle carriageway and the required public transport improvements.
We should do the same.
Heidi
The news about the car park in the Wynyard Qtr is just bizarre. AC trumpeted this area as 30% mode share by 2030. Have they given up on this?
I look at projects such as this all over Auckland and wonder, does AC really have any idea how they are going to reduce emissions? Sure I see the ideas in the Framework (BAU 2 22) and wonder whether they will just cause Auckland to stand still?
Heidi
The 85% parking strategy provision and private off street parking availability might be an issue if AT weren’t so damn cheap. Have a check on Parkopedia for city rates.
Can I suggest that parking buildings under construction in the city are mostly to service business operations. The Convention Centre car park is clearly an example of this.
I understand that this was allowed without any traffic management strategy in place. So potentially there might be about 1000 vehicles arriving in a narrow window between 7am and 9am for a morning conference. (I am assuming that many will arrive the night before and some will use other transport methods.) Will many of those use the Wellesley St bus corridor?
I wonder if the time is near for an inner city congestion tax? I note that the original London scheme caused a 16% reduction in carbon emissions.
https://www.c40.org/case_studies/londons-congestion-charge-cuts-co2-emissions-by-16
Wow alot of good chat threading off my post.
I think broadly speaking the following needs to happen in the parking space…
1- AT needs to do a stock take of all parking spaces. This includes all on-street spaces and all off-street spaces (both private and public). I honestly doubt they have any idea!
2- A methodology then needs to be applied whereby on-street parking is stripped out if there is sufficient off-street supply in an area. (this is my original ratio comment) e.g if there is more than x off street parking spaces in a 400 metre radius get rid of the on-streets (save for some disability and loading zones).
– This will have namely 2 benefits:
–> The curb will be unlocked for other uses; and
–> congestion will be reduced by less people scanning for on-street spaces.
3- Somebody needs to put a bill board outside Goffy’s office saying no more Fu*king car parks. Honestly …1000 car parks in Wynyard quarter; 2700 in Newmarket; SkyCity 2500 The contradiction is laughable. This totally undermines any sphere of control that AT Parking has to control the market. More parking leads to more cars. Is so simple!
So to summarise this point… From this day forth there is to be no more new carparks. It needs to become like the emissions trading scheme. If you want to put in a carparks you need to wait until there is capacity through carparking being repurposed elsewhere and then you need to pay handsomely for the privilege.
4- All remaining on-street carparks then need to be priced at a point where there is no longer a subsidy to the motorist. It’s about making people think twice about driving down to the dairy to buy a can of coke!!. AT should be able to do this at scale. Rolling out AT Park to a wider area is at a very low operational cost. With their new Licence Plate reading cars coming they will also be able to expand enforcement coverage like never before.
I suspect once the audit is done and we realise just how much parking supply there actually is AC should sell off their main carparks. Even though AT’s carparks are cheap they are still not filling up. This is because there is such a glut of supply. It will only get worse in the City once SkyCity/Newmarket comes on line.
Just let the corporate parking overlords milk those willing to pay for everything they are worth. In a capped market with a supply ceiling set it will be interesting to watch.
It will only get tougher if we add congestion charging down the line as well.
Yes, I think there has to be a huge push to demand change to this situation. These aren’t isolated blips. The mindset that parking is some kind of “good” that needs to be “preserved” and provided at facilities needs to be challenged and turned on its head.
Council’s not geared up for the speed at which it needs to change. A huge shakeup is required. That the documents are already in place but are being ignored is shameful. Monitoring the parks is the best thing we can do to sheet it home – Council allowing parking supply increases is undermining their own strategies.
I hope everyone will at least submit about this in the Climate Action Framework consultation, which is currently happening.
84% Lower Operation Costs! IMPLEMENT IMMEDIATELY!!! Any business owner who ran a trial that gave those sort of results would do exactly that. So what is AT going to do? Another trial, look for 3 axle buses, try Hydrogen. Didn’t they notice that AC declared a climate emergency? We, the people, want action on this NOW!! Not further delays & trials. Plan a fast rollout and learn and adapt through that process.
They didn’t say how much of the cost savings were from the avoidance/reductions in Road User Charges (Zero emission Heavy Trucks & Buses powered pay no RUCs at the moment).
And how much of that % was actual operational savings from not running the bus on diesel fuel.
Given the “free of RUCs” situation will go away [probably before AT actually get any such e-buses on the road for real], the up to 84% savings headline might not be there to be had in the main story – in the longer term.
“Council’s not geared up for the speed at which it needs to change.”
Heidi, half right. They are not geared up and neither are they gearing up. The C40 City Organisation is giving them the mechanisms. There are 450 options in the Mckinsey report for reducing emissions; but the report then suggests a focused approach to just four areas, one of which will be difficult in Auckland given that it is decarbonising the grid and we are going to use it to electrify many things.
McKinsey then gives the formula, focused acceleration. And AC have said delivery of this in 2023 (the BAU 2 22 approach), but why the delay? And why drop out some of the factors that have been so successful in other C40 cities?
If I was a cynic I would suggest that our leadership is not only looking to this re-election, but the term beyond. Disgraceful, just do something.
https://c40-production-images.s3.amazonaws.com/researches/images/66_MCBE_C40_Focused_Acceleration_report.original.pdf?1510424835
Small change I noticed at Newmarket yesterday – Barns dance ped crossing is now at the Broadway / Khyber Pass intersection.
Giant intersections with giant delays are our specialty. How much clock do they give there. At least the red lights stay on for turners with Barnes dance.
Hallelujah!
I’d like to see some discussion of how the Light Rail to the NW could be brought back in house as NZTA clearly aren’t progressing it at all and have left the business case process open to derailment by unsolicited bids.
Morrow St is currently too hard for pedestrian as it has narrow sidewalks and too many driveways.
There is an opportunity to create an mall/street flow to the Teed st area, by building an arcade from Bourke st to Teed st.
Electric bus is good idea and should have a more aggressive rollout timetable.
“Normalised year on year growth in the East New Network area the 12-months to June 2019:
• Customer journeys have increased by +11.4% to 3.3 million.
• Customer trips have increased by +13.1% to 3.7 million.
Normalised year on year growth in the East New Network area for June 2019:
• Customer journeys have increased by +27,356 (+10%) to 0.28 million.
• Customer trips have increased by +28,689 (+10%) to 0.31 million.
• Transfers within the East have increased by +4,111 (9%) to 0.049 million.
This compares to the whole of network base 12-months to June of journeys 80.1 million (growth +6.3%), trips 94.1 million (growth +9.3%).”
From P71 of the AT Report – really sloppy as this information is under the Northern heading.
Can anyone point me to the pages in the AT Board Meeting Report where they address climate change?
Do we need AT to declare a climate emergency given that most of Auckland’s emissions increase is coming from vehicle emissions?
I am very concerned about Newmarket Mall when it opens. Gillies Ave, Morrow St and Mortimer’s Pass are all extremely narrow roads. How will it handle the 2000+ cars that flock to and from the mall’s carpark each day?
+1
“Removing filtered right turns” so in other words make everyone wait at least 30 seconds (or more if they can’t get through a phase and block the road leading up to the intersection) at the lights. Guess what that does besides wasting time? It increases emissions as vehicles sit there idling. Aren’t we trying to reduce emissions?
Not everyone is in a car.