One of the projects announced last year as part of the government’s NZ Upgrade Programme was $247 million for two new stations at Drury to support and encourage the sprawl planned for the area – though I’m still not sure how two stations cost that much when the likes of the much bigger upgrade of Puhinui Station is about $70 million.
Exactly where those stations and a third near Paerata will go has been the subject of plenty of debate and for a while it looked like the stations would go odd places such as the middle of a floodplain away from the proposed development. Over time this has slowly gotten a bit better.
At Drury itself, the various private developers are pushing to get development underway, which if happens will also require the council to find over $1 billion for infrastructure ahead of when they had planned to provide it at a time when funding is council funding is already constrained as a result of COVID.
Now, Kiwirail and the Supporting Growth Sprawl programme are consulting more specifically on what facilities they’ll include at each of these stations.
Community feedback from May-June 2020 along with technical investigations have helped refine and confirm the intended station locations. We also heard feedback about how people want to travel to each station and the type of facilities they’d like.
We’ve outlined the intended locations and the facilities we’re proposing for each station below – your feedback will give us more information to help develop the station designs in more detail.
We want to hear your thoughts on each of these stations:
I’ll cover off each of the stations below but one thing that immediately caught my attention was how much now planning for these stations to reinforce auto-dependency and limit the ability to access stations by other modes, or for PT to be useful for anything but trips at the peak, which is completely at odds with their own stated intentions of doing the opposite.
These major projects also seek to provide the future growth areas with travel choices, so they grow in ways that are not highly dependent on private vehicles.
To me it highlights the catch-22 situation Auckland seems to be in. Everyone says they want to drive to stations (and elsewhere) because there’s nowhere where we’ve properly given people a viable alternative, and so we keep designing new and existing places in a way that reinforces that.
Drury Central
The station will be just south of Waihoehoe Rd, between Flanagan and Great South Roads. For the station facilities they say:
You told us that you’d prefer to travel to Drury Central station by car and bus. We’re proposing:
- The station interchange facilities are located south of Waihoehoe Road, east of the existing rail line / Flanagan Road, and immediately to the north-east of the proposed station platforms.
- In the future, a new accessway from Waihoehoe Road to provide access to a large park and ride and pick-up and dropoff facilities with bicycle parking.
- A new bus interchange integrated with the station, to improve public transport connections and providing frequent services along Great South Road.
- A connecting overbridge to provide pedestrian access to the platforms across the tracks from both Great South Road to the west, and the future Drury town centre to the east.
The station location itself isn’t too bad, but it seems it will be separated from most of the housing and other development planned for the area by the massive park and ride they’re planning. It might not look that big here but drawing it’s approximation on a map suggests it could be twice the size of the P&R at Albany so space for over 2000 cars. Anyone wanting to walk or cycle to the station would need get through that.
Given the plans are for this area to be heavily urbanised in the coming decades, such a large P&R is out of place. A smaller facility with demand managed by pricing seems more appropriate and would also allow more land to be used for development. Furthermore, a location not right next to the station, such as just north Waihoehoe Rd between the rail line and Kath Henry Lane might be more appropriate. The distance from there to the station would appear to be less than some other P&R facilities are from their respective stations, such as at Glen Eden and Sunnyvale, or even the far end of the Albany P&R.
As a reminder, this is the development planned for the Drury Town Centre Development.
Compare that and the plans for a massive P&R with this concept image from the Drury-Opaheke Structure Plan of 2019 which appears to show a station opening out onto a plaza surrounded by multi-storey buildings.
All centres should aim to provide for a mix of uses. Figure 3 illustrates a larger conceptual mixed-use centre with apartments, terrace houses, commercial buildings, shops, parks and public transport. Section 3.13 specifies the outcomes expected for these centres
Drury West
This station is going to be located 450 m south of the existing intersection of of SH22 / Karaka Road and Jesmond Road. This is much better than some of the earlier proposals as will put it closer to the centre of the development planned for the area. For the facilities they say.
You told us that you’d prefer to travel to Drury West station by car or walking and cycling. We’re proposing:
- The station interchange facilities are located between SH22 / Karaka Road and the existing rail line, to the immediate north of the proposed station platforms.
- In the future, a new accessway extending south from the Jesmond Road / SH22 intersection to provide access to park and ride and pick-up and drop-off facilities, a bus interchange, and bicycle parking.
It’s not shown all that clear here but part of the Supporting Growth plan is to extend Jesmond Rd south and over the rail line. As such it’s surprising the station isn’t also integrated with that future rail bridge and instead off on its own.
Most of the development in the area is planned to the north of the station so once again we have the station being accessed only after passing through what appears to be another large P&R which will make access by walking and cycling more difficult.
Paerata
The station at Paerata will be alongside the under construction Paerata Rise development
You told us that you’d prefer to travel to Paerata station by car or walking and cycling. We’re proposing:
- The station interchange facilities are located between the existing rail line and Sim Road to the south-east of the proposed station platforms.
- In the future, a new accessway from SH22 / Paerata Road to provide access to park and ride and pick-up and drop-off facilities, a bus interchange and bicycle parking. These will be the main facilities and ways people can access the station, especially those from rural areas.
- The new station building includes a connecting overbridge to provide pedestrian access to the platforms from both sides of the tracks
It’s good that the P&R is at least on the other side of where the main development is for this one, though most of the development is also much further north from the station with the Paerata Rise Master plan seeming to have not much development immediately adjacent to the station.
The consultation for these stations and facilities is open until 12 March.
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Gotta have those car parks as clooooose to the station as possible. Sigh.
What travel time is this going to add between Puke & Papakura? 6-7 minutes presumably? I guess it will give some weight to having express trains from Papakura to the City once the third main is done
I wonder what the car parking fees are compared to rents on a mixed use development? The council should assess how much rates is generated from a car park versus a mixed use development.
Parking fees, lolol, that’s a good one
If fees aren’t being charged then this opens up lots of questions. Like why do we give away free land for storing cars – we are in the middle of a housing crisis yet there is no policy of giving away free land for houses. And given NZ’s commitment to addressing the climate emergency why would we subsidise CO2 producing motor vehicles?
And this has enormous consequences. The existing park and rides, plus the existing Council owned carparks, if shrunk to appropriate sizes, provide sufficient land to support enough high density quality housing to shift the balance, completely removing the need for the Supporting Growth / Sprawl Programme.
It’s got to go.
Agreed Heidi
Councillors, when you voted to stay in C40 you committed to actually leading.
Car dependent planning leads to increased carbon emissions. Leadership at the moment means insisting this consultation – and the whole Supporting Sprawl Programme – gets put on hold until the Auckland Development Strategy has been overhauled.
Over to you now.
I believe in greenfield TODs. I have seen them done well overseas. I think there is potential for greenfield TODs to speed up the delivery of the CFN. But these are bad examples and I am not surprised there is negativity towards them.
Greenfield TOD’s have their place around cities that are compact and growing. They are entirely wrong for Auckland, where the housing being added desperately needs to be added into the existing urban area in order to improve it and create liveable, compact communities where there is currently autodependency.
Our city is deficient in so many ways. The urban fabric, the built infrastructure, the streetscapes, the lack of street trees, the abused stream network. There’s so much work to do to fix it.
The money being wasted on greenfields development is money that should rightfully go to fix these problems. Plus we simply can’t give up the farmland – it is land required to help with carbon drawdown and biodiversity.
Please don’t let the fact that greenfields TOD is appropriate in some places interfere with what is needed for Auckland. Greenfields TOD is wrong here.
“The money being wasted on Greenfields development is money that should rightfully go to fix these problems”
Are you suggesting that rather than someone building a house they should stay flatting or live on the street and spend that money improving a stream somewhere?
Have you taken this moral step yourself?
What is a TOD.
It’s short for Transit Oriented Development. Development planned around the transit stations.
In other words, building homes, jobs and shops in the prime spots next to train stations instead of using all the land within waking distance for parking.
You must promise to never ever utter the word ‘TOD’ within 1km of the Auckland Council building. Bad things will happen. Urban designers and planners, with glazed over eyes, will come shuffling down the stairs and out onto Albert Street like a zombie apocalypse. I promise you there is no stopping them if they already have the brain infection and then hear the trigger word ‘TOD’.
Tod means fart in Thai.
Tod means death in German.
Agree Brendon, public transport is costly and attaching development to existing rail infrastructure makes so much sense. You only need to look at the cost of Dominion Road light rail to understand how difficult infill works are. It also orientates the city towards the new industrial area & transport freight triangle of Auckland – Tauranga – Hamilton.
Public transport can be very reasonable, if road space is reallocated.
There is always money for car access, Hamilton new station at Rotokauri looked like it was to get good biking access, but sadly once the roading network was connected, job done. The shared use path end 200m short of existing shared use path network. https://goo.gl/maps/EtY3rxXRytV8J8k9A
Northern end it gets to Te Kowhai Rd and then just reduces to foot path in all directions. They did try but they just could not see past the idea once you can get there by motor vehicle you have access.
As a sort or related note to today post, someone’s got a number of nice pics of the new Hamilton Rotokauri station google.
https://goo.gl/maps/A1q2TA18mpUHAtPm8
https://goo.gl/maps/gwdnQo3KxwQci2TZ7
The size of these new suburbs is unclear to me. How many feeder buses will be required. Presumably the buses will start at finish at Papkura and Pukekohe would that be right. Or would they have a separate bus at each station doing some kind of a loop around each development.
I don’t understand how everyone can be hand wringing about not developing on highly productive agricultural land for ages then suddenly an apparatchik spews out of the bureaucracy a proposal for more sprawl on/threatening highly productive agricultural land? Where is the disconnect here?
Yes, this is bizarre.
This hasn’t suddenly been sprung out of anywhere. This has been zoned as future urban since 2013. The issue is that once you change the zoning it’s very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
If they spent most of this huge amount of money on extra tracks rather than car parks, you would get a much faster, more attractive train service. 3 from Pukekohe, 4 from Papakura is long overdue.
How dare they provide train stations that people can get to an use in the immediate future. It should be designed for pedestrians only so that only the 5 houses within walking distance can use it:)
From what I can see here the main issue people have here is what they are imagining to be inside the project area, seeing as the plans don’t actually show any detail.
“From what I can see here the main issue people have here is what they are imagining to be inside the project area, seeing as the plans don’t actually show any detail”.
True, but when it comes to transport development in Auckland it seems that the bad outcomes people ‘imagine’ quite often (but granted, not always) turn out to be absolutely correct when the final product is delivered.
It’s all well and good to campaign for improvements, but imagining stuff and then slandering others with it is hardly a nice way to go about things.
Currently there are plenty of people living in rural communities round here who drive to places like Papakura to park-n-ride. Given it will take some 20 years for this new town centre to come to existence it makes sense to use the station as a park-n-ride in the immediate future.
So long as they dont invest heaps of money in and pave it etc, just gravel it, I wouldn’t disagree. And when the time comes to develop the site into apartments and shops it is legally immune to complaints from the AA then sure. I seriously doubt those conditions will be the case however.
There’s not much detail but it’s not hard to make an educated guess. For Drury it’s not too difficult to work out what those boundaries correlate to on a map. Measuring that out out and not including the space that already exists for Flanagan Rd it works out at over 60,000m2. What else could they use anywhere near that amount of land for.
And yes it will take time to develop these sites, a small, charged park and ride would be okay but that’s clearly not what is being proposed.
Furthermore, as I understand it, a business case was completed last year for this and it found that P&R was needed for Drury or Drury West but that a short term, temporary one could be fine while the area develops. Again that’s not what’s being proposed.
All of this suggests that someone in a decision making capacity hasn’t read or been briefed properly on the planning work that has been done and is just charging ahead based on their own personal reckons. This is something we’ve seen and heard about time and time again in Auckland (and probably elsewhere).
How do you know that what is being proposed is not short-term and is going to be there for the rest of time?
If they want people who currently live out in the country to change modes rather than driving to the city, they need to provide them with a realistic option and to me a park-in-ride here makes sense. If and when it does get built over it will then raise the question as to how these people in the country are expected to get around if you don’t want them driving. This also means other stations like Papakura don’t need a much park-n-ride anymore and can be developed around.
In terms of space, without plans its pure guessing. There is likely a fancy station, enough space for 4 tracks, a wetland and maybe even some parkland. The worst thing to do we be to make the area too small like what’s been done on the rest of the network.
It’s very difficult to change something once people live there. It’s much easier to do what the long term goal is from the start, even if its not optimal in the short term. Resistance to changing infrastructure and expectations is essentially why we aren’t just intensifying the existing auckland and building this in such a far flung place anyway. Taking away someone’s gravel parking lot in 10 years will encounter significant protest and has a pretty high likelihood of being prevented, even if it would be better overall.
The goal of these stations shouldn’t be to provide to people who live super rural and commute into Auckland already, it should be to prevent any increase in traffic and emissions from the expansion that is being put there. If some people switch to the train then that is good, but I dont think that’s the primary goal. The reality is that some trips will be vastly cheaper to provide for with cars, the motorways still exist and will forever or at least a very long time. People living super rural like the existing population does and commuting into Auckland make up a small population and they shouldn’t be catered for at the expense the much larger incoming population, which has the potential to vastly increase emissions if not pushed onto PT out of it being very convienient. Walking over a 400m parking lot is not in increase in convenience vs having the dense development right beside the train station.
A better place for the expansive rural park and ride you picture might be further out, so that it’s not going to seperate the housing from the station. But this would be a very expensive way to put people on PT. The money would likely have more emissions reduction if it were spent on other PT projects around the city. So it wouldn’t get approved by itself.
Currently they’re trying to shoehorn the two different demographics together at the expense of a much worse outcome for the majority. I suspect they wouldn’t get approval to build a pure park and ride station further down the line because it doesn’t make much sense, so they’re trying to put it into the station that’s definitely going to get built. Overall that would decrease the BCR of the new stations, but it would still be passable, and the designers would get the big park and ride they want, and whoever they asked in the current community wanted. These people probably aren’t the people that would live in the new communities, and have likely never experienced what a decent TOD would be like, dont know that living closer to the station and walking will be much more convenient than driving. They see the issues at Albany and all the other park and rides and think, we need more, especially because its a free service and a free build to them.
“How do you know that what is being proposed is not short-term and is going to be there for the rest of time?”
Because you don’t consult like this on a temporary solution or at the very least you make it abundantly clear upfront that it will be temporary.
The government is required to consult on everything, be it fully permanent or permanent with various temporary elements.
I would rather they built a train station with an open air park-n-ride facility today that can actually get used, than build something that will provide for about 20 people and slow the trainline down. They can then remove the parks or get them put into a parking building when the town centre comes along in 20 years.
Always with the bad faith arguments eh Richard
And no they’re not required to consult on everything, case in point they never consulted to extend the Albany Park and Ride by 135 spaces in 2019.
Sorry, but can you explain the bad faith argument?
Regarding Albany, I recall designing that carpark back around 2005 as part of the original works. That land was just sitting there waiting for the cost of building the carpark to be justified. We also had plans for a carpark building at Constellation along with and HOV access onto the busway.
Generally if the land is already designated for a purpose, you don’t need to do full blown consultation.
Richard, your response “ In terms of space, without plans its pure guessing. There is likely a fancy station, enough space for 4 tracks, a wetland and maybe even some parkland. The worst thing to do we be to make the area too small like what’s been done on the rest of the network.” left me rolling around the floor laughing.
Robert Dew
Why did you find it so funny?
Maybe one of these stations should have permanent park and ride. The other stations shouldn’t open until they have a reasonable number of houses nearby. Its always hard to take away temporary amenities like park and ride.
The problem is this encourages car orientated development and entrenches driving behaviours in new residents. It’s much harder to sell a low car development based on future transport options.
It occurs to me that KiwiRail was asking the wrong questions when trying to establish what facilities to include as part of these stations.
Given that they are happy to effectively give away a large chunk of land to store motor vehicles they should have been looking at the opportunity costs of this free land and how to move the same number of people at effectively no cost.
It wouldn’t have been a major exercise have costed in a circular bus service, battery electric for preference, to have operate within a reasonable radius of the station during the hours that the rail services operated and coordinated with the rail timetable.
HOP card tag on and off would have caught those using the service for other than commuting to the station.
We need to stop thing in terms of how do people get to the station and more thinking in terms of how do we extend the PT service to the people.
I’m sure given the choice of a included bus fare almost at your door and getting yourself to the station more people will choose the bus option especially if it seems to be free what using the rail service.
If building homes is the plan here, rather than building more box retail then I know a little place called Albany that has an abundance of undeveloped land right next to a Rapid Transit station!
Then after that maybe the Unitec build could be fast tracked even ‘faster’ then maybe Westgate could actually be reworked to be a good TOD, then maybe even intensify Papakura especially around the train station. Then heaven forbid you could actually intensify around the actual inner city where people want to live THEN finally, when you are literally out of intensification areas and all the Rapid Transit lines are developed you can go ahead and start building a new Box Retail ‘town’ with cookie cutter McMansions in Drury.
What is the deal with albany? its just a wasteland of grass and weeds. So much potential, so little action.
Time for you to go to Albany and have a look at the Hotel and appartments block next to the transit station and more being built , and not to mention the removal of car parks Hooten car park 1 third of it removed for baseball court , Hooten car park 3 removed for BMX track , removal of parking at the stadium replaced with public swimming pool, what used to be the Albany Pub car park is now covered with appartments , parking behind the old Albany village is covered with appartments and Massy uni building They are also charging for on street parking around the park and ride
Albany is growing it won’t happen over night but has been growing for the past 25 years, come over and have a look at how to do high density housing we have been doing it for years
In a purist sense I agree with Heidi that in the Auckland situation TODs are not the way to go…. However…
You’re smoking crack if you think that you can force change through the layers of BS… Central Government, AT, AC and last by no means least Local Boards.
Local Boards* and the twisted tentacles that come with them (Local Business Associations, developer mates, politician mates etc) are the very fine grains of sand at the bottom of the slurry pond. Small in significance but be dammed if anything is going to get through…
*Fun fact, if you’re a Local Councillor you are more likely to be called John than be under 40…. tells you everything you need to know.
We need to turn our backs on the most NIMBY of them all. Let them keep their back yards and their six lane high ways through their town centres Looking at you Remuera and Ponsonby). It’s too hard basket…
So on the weight of what’s ahead I agree with Brendon. We need to ensure that greenfields are developed as TODs. Although not an easy path to pursue, much easier than focusing on trying to effect change where change is not wanted. In time it may lead to epic TOD communities attracting younger people as the once sought after leafy greens stagnate as car dependent hell holes. May assist with lowering house prices in those places as well.
I can see why you’d say this, but I think you’re fantasizing to think that greenfields TOD could ever create low carbon communities in Auckland.
If the NIMBYs remain car dependent in unchanged suburbs, they’re not going to hop on a train to visit Drury or on a bus to go to a specialist shop in Panmure or New Lynn. They’ll drive. And anyone visiting the leafy suburbs – knowing they’re headed somewhere still car dependent, without good public transport – will tend to drive. This will lead to more people still being dependent on cars despite living in reasonably well-connected intensified suburbs.
New Zealand’s carbon budget runs out in just a few years. Well before 2030. You can call my ideas purist all you like, but we do need to pull on all levers at once. This does require getting local boards to either change or simply be overridden to prevent more egregious climate injustice. We’re in this together. It’s an enormous task. And there’s no solution to be found by just nibbling at the edges.
In NZ we could have greenfields TOD in a rapidly growing town or small city. But anywhere that’s close enough to Auckland that people would consider themselves as part of Auckland’s pool of services, jobs, amenities, ie in the same economy – greenfields TOD just means continued car dependence.
We need a paradigm shift, and few people seem to understand how critical it is that the shift happens quickly, and across all parts of the political economy of car dependence at the same time.
Thanks for the support SaharanSariSinger I also think if Auckland built some really good greenfield TODS – say twice as nice as Hobsonville but with a proper CFN connection – master planning 20 minute communities where most day-to-day activities are within walking distance – then this would provide a template (and economies of scale with larger capacity construction companies etc) for the better located CFN nodes to develop that due to their locations will eventually grow larger than the peripheral greenfield TODS.
The benefit of supporting proper greenfield TODs (not half-arsed ones) now is it will be a faster way to break through the various TOD barriers. It will establish new systems (both with housing and with transit) and new market expectations much sooner than otherwise.
What it’ll do is allow for planning from a blank canvas. Which you think will demonstrate quality and allow that to filter into brownfields work.
Fair enough, but I disagree. The problem with that approach is that starting from a blank canvas is every designer’s dream and the wish for having that freedom is exactly what has created most of the problems we have seen in planning.
Rather than demonstrate the possibilities, in allowing dreaming planners this blank canvas, all that happens is the budgets remain focused on sprawl and road building, and no demonstration of how to repair is made. And it’s how to repair that is what’s missing from the skillset, but it’s what our population are actually wanting. They’re sick of the deficient city.
Who did they consult . There is hardly anyone living there
In the Auranga development (near Drury )there are dedicated bike lanes and very skinny main roads in). Would be easy cycling/walking distance to the NIMT. Houses are also tightly packed Tiny sections and most are duplexes. Be keen to understand if the developer was required to do this or chose to? If we have to have sprawl, it’s a step in the right direction. Key obviously is to link active modes to Train and Town Centre.
If i could get an express train from here to CBD i would live here over Point Chev any day… Not that i could ever afford Pt Chev…
https://www.auranga.co.nz/
All the photos and video were taken at high tide. Still there is a lake. Looks quite nice not my sort of place but I can see the appeal.
It’s a similar deal at Paerata Rise actually. Though due to not being basically next to the motorway does make it quieter than Auranga.
I have made a Wikimedia page of photos (I had previously) taken of/at Auranga.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Auranga_Development
The point, though, is that there is one photo that shows the narrowness of the road and another that has the separated bike lane they put in since I didn’t see those on the Auranga website.
Also, re: the photos on the bridge… when we were standing there, you could hear the motorway pretty clearly. I don’t know how much this will change over time.
Thanks for the photos.
A feature of the trainstation debate is a (deliberate?) lack of visualisations – where the 2000 car park and ride will sit.
The Auranga town center artists image winds me up – 1 bike in the door zone – a car/bike/kid killzone. Argh.
The Auranga development is a strange one. It has very narrow main roads lined with car parks that are so small you need either a compact car or an SUV to drive over the kerbs in order to use. Every time someone wants to use said car park they block the entire road and hope the person behind them hasn’t driven up to close to stop them from reversing. To a similar extent, if a car ever breaks down or gets a flat tyre it will block the main road.
Meanwhile the narrow cycleway shave these death drop rain gardens so that when you fall off your bike you’re in for a chance of a serious injury. I was out there the other day and saw a poor little kid hit the kerb separating the cycleway from the footpath resulting in tears. These cycleways only seem to be on the main road however so not too sure what you’re meant to do on the side roads.
In terms of house size, I’d imagine the developer choose to do this as that’s what their allowed to do now. The more houses you can pack in the more money you can make.
The only redeeming feature I find with the place are the nice parks and walkways.
This development is doing what most of the latest ideal best practice in terms of urban design is.
Oh no you have to wait the odd time someone wants to parallel park. This is the same on most roads, even though people do wildly swerve into the other lane to avoid waiting 5 seconds you’re not supposed to.
“To a similar extent, if a car ever breaks down or gets a flat tyre it will block the main road.” Like on any other road the car blocks the lane. This is a residential street, not an arterial, people can go around in the time it takes them to get a tow truck. This is an issue, but such a minor one that the benefits of narrow roads by far and away make up for it. Complaining about such a minor, and fairly infrequent event is called concern trolling.
Those kerbs are best practice now, people hitting them generally don’t fall off (kids excepted, however they fall off all the time anyway), they are pretty forgiving, especially compared to totally vertical ones. The kerb is needed because otherwise people are much more likely to walk in the bike lane. An obvious kerb creates a barrier in peoples minds that makes them less likely to walk there.
The side roads are not currently 30km/h, however that is what they should be, and hopefully will become. The idea is that you don’t have to build full on cycle infra on every street, when its 30km/h. I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about low traffic neighborhoods. Kids can ride on the footpath, and adults are capable of riding at 30km/h.
“In terms of house size, I’d imagine the developer choose to do this as that’s what their allowed to do now. The more houses you can pack in the more money you can make.” Maybe, but it aligns with every other environmental and city building goal too. So who cares.
I agree the parks look very nice. Overall I think it looks pretty ideal, the motorway noise would be a bit of an issue, and theres the high voltage lines. Hopefully it gets a good cycleway connection to the train station, and the shops.
I always find it interesting how certain people are so dismissive when it comes to concerns with blocking main roads (calling it trolling), yet the slightest delay to a pedestrian or cyclists is an apparent human rights violation. Or even worse, a pedestrian walking on a cycleway which it seems should be a capital crime.
But yes I know most of what is there is what is currently classed as best practice as I’ve designed quite a few of them. I was just pointing out some of the inherent issues with it such as the death pits (rain gardens). I also find them somewhat annoying to use, but I understand their intent.
I like your vision zero response, “however they fall off all the time anyway”.
“I always find it interesting how certain people are so dismissive when it comes to concerns with blocking main roads (calling it trolling), yet the slightest delay to a pedestrian or cyclists is an apparent human rights violation. Or even worse, a pedestrian walking on a cycleway which it seems should be a capital crime.”
I’m talking about Kahui Parade, are we talking about the same road? I believe this is what you implied about the narrow streets etc. Calling this a main road is a smidge of a stretch. Although your point still stands.
I don’t know if you have any specific examples, of the slightest delay being really bad to pedestrians. I’ll try guess what you mean. Defaulting the crossings to automatically activate, for example, there was some heated winging about that recently. The difference with this is that its a continuous and pretty likely (relative to a car breaking down) event that the person gets delayed by a minute because they didn’t quite press the button on time.
The main difference in the disparity of reaction to delaying pedestrians or cyclists vs delaying cars, is that we want to encourage walking and cycling as much as possible (city building, place making, emissions, “vision zero”). And that walking / cycling is already objectively less convenient than driving, at the time of the trip to be taken, (pressing a pedal, vs physically walking somewhere, or pushing down pedals repeatedly). So some effort should be made to encourage walking over driving.
I’ve thought about the disparity of reaction like you said, on the surface it sounds hypocritical, but because of the other reasons stated it makes sense I think.
Yes the rain gardens do seem like an issue, thats why I left it out of my earlier comment, not sure what the solution is, cover the whole thing with a grate that the plants can get through? seems expensive. Hopefully the fall will be cushioned by the plants.
“I like your vision zero response, “however they fall off all the time anyway”. Yes children seem to bounce (not off cars, but off the ground), especially if they’re wearing their helmet. You could give them a perfectly flat tennis court to ride around on and they’ll still pelt themselves into the ground. It would be better if we didn’t have to have the kerbs though I agree. If we adopted a Netherlands style asphalt dye that could potentially have a similar effect. Especially after a few run ins with angry cyclists to train people.
“I also find them somewhat annoying to use, but I understand their intent.” Cycleways you mean? or the kerbs.
What is your job / previous job may I ask?
Jack.
Surely you’ve heard of the term “beg button”, this is a common complaint here that pedestrians, and now cyclists, are required to wait just like everyone else at an intersection.
The post the other day was seemingly suggesting all call buttons should be continuous meaning they would go off regardless of there being someone there or not, meaning they would be causing congestion for no reason and would only be of benefit for those who happen to arrive at the intersection within a small window of 10s or so. As a pedestrian and cyclists myself, pushing a button so I can wait for a safe time to cross a busy intersection has never been a hinderance or made me think I would rather be driving. I think you will really struggle to find someone who said they drove because they didn’t want to wait for 30s to cross a busy road.
In terms of the road, I’m referring to Bremner Rd, not Kahui Parade that is a side road with no cycling facilities or median. Kahui Parade would get very little traffic and people can easily pass someone who’s going to spend the next minutes trying to manoeuvre into one of the miniature carparks without damaging their car.
“If we adopted a Netherlands” You know the current layout is actually based on design from the Netherlands right? It’s actually a development from the “Copenhagen style” which proved to be somewhat of a failure when implemented here. Personally I see the kerb as a needless small hazard other than in busy areas, and if the idea is vision zero we shouldn’t be introducing safety hazards that provide little to no benefit.
This parallel parking on a street where people can’t easily swerve is all good and well until you try to do it, and you figure out that many drivers actually are dumb enough to drive right up to your bumper.
looks like a very nice place to live, needs a really solid cycling connection to the new station.
When they finally build these new station platforms , will they have descent shelter for those waiting or will it be an old bus shelter style building ? . And hopefully the shelter will be large enough that it will hold more than 6 people as most do .
. And if possible will they supply a Toilet as with a new platform they could plumb it while under construction
I personally believe these facilities should be nothing more than a central platform with a shelter and toilet facilities. $247m is a ludicrous amount of money. How much was Newmarket/Panmure? Should be like the style of stations Wellington has. Linden, Paekakariki come to mind. Basic but workable. With a high frequency network you just show up and go anyway. After you’ve spent $10 m on those reallocate the other $237m on cycling infrastrucutre. Then boom you will have the most advanced TOD township in NZ. Then infill with apartments in the sub $400k mark and you wont need a PnR anymore.
For the price of the stations I’d expect lazyboy sofas for every passenger on the platform.
+100
Well, this is the kind of development model that Twyford and his Labour colleagues have been promoting for years. As well as the ‘Up’, ha ha.
Hands up if you voted Labour….
And yet still a lot better than what Nick Smith in the previous government was offering.
if the park and ride is vested in the council then that would be good.
For when the time comes (as they say it has in Papakura for building multi story carparks on the site) but building infrastructure such as shopping and living space on the site with all walking unimpeded by vehicles and close transfer to buses to serve park and rides at Clevedon and Te Hihi. With all parking close to the station paying it’s way.
Joe
Did you read what he said?
“Funny, they always build roads to open on Day 1, and public transport on some indeterminate day in the future.”
He is obviously upset that roads are being built in these new developments and I’m curious to know how it would work without them.
Not too sure what you’re on about with concrete highways, you must be imagining some other post as I never brought them up.
Regarding Albany, there is nothing inherently wrong with the roads, the issue is what they are zoned for. If each of those superblocks was made into a nice integrated housing development the place would be much nicer. Alas they are things like Mitre10 Mega.
Mate I don’t know if English is your first language or not. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
“He is obviously upset that roads are being built in these new developments and I’m curious to know how it would work without them.”
I totally disagree, they’re complaining that roads and PT aren’t treated on a similar level of importance to the community.
“Funny, they always build roads to open on Day 1, and public transport on some indeterminate day in the future.”
They’re saying they should be built at the same time, and that PT is treated as a maybe later currently, nowhere does it suggest that they shouldn’t have roads haha.
No-one is cooked enough to suggest we should ONLY build a bus only road, or ONLY a cycleway to a brand new sub-division. Although it is fairly entertaining that you think that.
Ahh, so you want the PT service to go in at the same time as the road?
So if we are to allow someone to build a new development of 5 houses out by Manukau Heads they should be required to stick in a train line at the same time?
If you’re have trouble understanding my point, I’m simply illustrating why roads are open on day 1 and why PT often comes in at a later date. No need to get so angry or abusive about it.
Classic trolling.
– Don’t listen to what anyone writes
– Pose silly questions which aren’t relevant to the convo
– Call people abuse or angry if they don’t agree with you.
Firstly, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that I was getting angry about anything, or be “abusive”
“Ahh, so you want the PT service to go in at the same time as the road?” Not necessarily, but the infrastructure should be going in at the same time. There is a difference. Just like the road, power etc, The t3 or bus lane, bus stops, cycleways / parks, rail stations should all be in at the same time as the roads themselves. The bus services probably shouldn’t start until a couple dozen houses are up. But the services should probably start long before it makes any normal sense to. Indicating to people buying and building in the area that the busses are here when you arrive and will continue to be here is pretty important in my opinion. It prevents people starting commuting with their car and getting comfortable with that, then never switching. And opens the area up to people who don’t have a license / car.
“So if we are to allow someone to build a new development of 5 houses out by Manukau Heads they should be required to stick in a train line at the same time?”
I believe the conversation is about the new, large scale developments around Drury. There are some places now and always will be, that it makes more sense to drive from. Providing solid PT would be too low an ROI. Your example sounds like one of those cases
lol Joe:
Are you trying so describe the majority of people on here?
Jack
I’m only referring to the post Damien made:
““The other stations shouldn’t open until they have a reasonable number of houses nearby.”
Funny, they always build roads to open on Day 1, and public transport on some indeterminate day in the future.””
He wrote this in response to someone saying they should open the stations when more houses are nearby.
The entire topic is around stations that are already proposed for this area and nobody has talked about deleting them. This little debate was in regards to how Damien found it funny that people were building the roads for this development on day 1 but someone was suggesting no opening the station till there were some houses.
I was simply illustrating that it’s silly to complain about the roads being made for the development 1st when they are needed to build it and for people to move in.
Starting a bus service before anyone moves in is not necessarily a stupid idea. There are many people working in a development like that, who can then take PT to work.
Although in Auckland I imagine it would often be pointless.
I have read the comments for this GA article. I like reading comments because often there are new perspectives or information I hadn’t considered. But after reading a few Richard comments I saw his was trolling and stopped bothering.
Why not move the park n ride a bit further off and use shuttle to get drivers from car to train?
This is how the airport works so why not train stations?
If those shuttles went a bit further people could get them from their street and not need to drive at all!
A bit horrific, the massive footprints of those stations, purely because of auto-dependency. A station ought to be a neat, compact affair that doesn’t completely dominate the locality. Rolling back NZ’s car-dependency is going to be a long-haul process. For the time being it seems we will have to continue building for it, until a large-enough number of people are on-board with the need to de-escalate it.
Cars are awesome.
You’re awesome Bob, but do your parents knows you’ve gone past your allocated screen time for today?
Childish much Joe?
Richard. It was the thought that any governmental or local body would actually without a lot of public “insistence” would even consider a park, let alone a wetlands area.
Yes, I agree with you that the inclusion of both would be a fantastic feature to have at any station, and would also help with creating a secondary use for rail, but sadly I certainly can’t see that there is anyone there with that level of foresight.
Robert Dew
It’s a requirment to no only treat stormwater runoff but to retain the flow to prevent flooding. Wetlands are the prereffed method as they are the cheapest to maintain and are preferred by Iwi parnters.
The reason they aren’t done more often is that they require land that can be hard to aquire.
In terms of parkland, I’m not meaning the Auckland Botanical Gardens, but this again is a common feature.
I have being thinking about the Huntly station a bit and it hasn’t hurt too much. In a way its a neat solution to providing a simple station on a double track line. Downside of course is the turnouts for trains to get to and from it and two trains can’t be at the station at the same time . The plus is it simple. I suppose another example would be the Strand. Anyway not good enough for a metro situation but good enough for somewhere like Pokeno or other locations where trains are infrequent or maybe where a train needs to be terminated.
This was my view of that Station last October ;-
Why are retail offerings never considered as part of Auckland’s station designs? Regardless of mode of travel to a station I would highly appreciate a fruit & vege store/metro supermarket. Seems like an easy win for supporting PT use and reducing PV travel… even if it means a slightly longer walk to the car.
Now wouldn’t that be a great forward think Idea, small shopping centres built over railway station like they do in many overseas stations.
No, can’t do that as AT are only in the business on operating railway station (I was actually told that once by a senior manager at AT) and besides it might encourage people to use PT.
Kiwirail – working hard to keep commuters off the freight lines since… 2008 when Mr Bolger was appointed CEO of the organisation his government had previously privatised. Now – how to figure out who thought quarter billion dollars for a couple of trainstops was a good idea. Im guessing i know who is going to pay the quarter bil.