Nau mai haere mai to the last weekly roundup before days start getting longer again. What does the middle of the year bring us? Lots!
The week in Greater Auckland
On Monday, we shared a guest post that asked: is it time to switch sides?
Tuesday’s post was a guest post by Councillor Pippa Coom, about the renewed ‘outrage’ over the West Lynn bike lane improvements.
On Wednesday, Matt rounded up some excellent suggestions for Minister Wood to add to his itinerary when he’s in Europe this week.
Yesterday, we re-published a post from Island Bay Healthy Streets, about the involvement of car-sales businesses in stopping the Newtown Cycleway.
You might have noticed we’ve published a few guest posts this month. We’re always interested in hearing from new voices! if you’d like to send a post to us, check out our guidelines, and get in touch.
Life downtown
The city centre’s had a bit of bad press recently, but what’s it like for the 45,000 or so people who live in the area? This article on the NZ Herald speaks to some city centre residents, and looks at the bigger picture of the amenity that’s needed to support its population.
On the other side of Queen St Valley, Adam Parkinson is also happy with his decision to switch Sandringham bungalow for Emily Place apartment.“I love it here. I’m basically living in a 15 to 20 minute city, I can walk to everything I need. And at times there’s a lot of energy, and there’s a sense of being amongst it.”
Chloe Swarbrick gets behind the pedestrianisation of Queen Street
Earlier this week, the Green party released a petition led by Chloe Swarbrick to pedestrianise Queen Street. Swarbrick cites the City Center Masterplan, pointing out that the vision of a car-free Queen Street was agreed to years ago. It’s time to just get on with it.
“It’s fundamentally about equitable and fair access for everyone in our city centre, whether they be someone with disabilities, parents with prams, local residents or those on their way to work,” Swarbrick said. “The current layout of Queen Street is far from that vision.”
Sydney’s George Street transformation is a great example of what Queen Street could look like. George Street was transformed from a traffic street into a car-free street with light rail running down the middle.
Tāmaki’s sustainability scorecard
How well do we score? New research comparing health and sustainability outcomes of 25 different cities finds that Auckland is falling behind.
“Our research shows that Tāmaki Makaurau does not appear to have urban planning and transport policies incorporating health-focused actions and air pollution management, or housing density and street connectivity standards,” says Hinckson.
NZ Super Fund to back Eke Panuku
This seems like a positive opportunity. Eke Panuku is doing some good strategic work planning for the future of places in Tāmaku Makaurau – and a partnership with the NZ Super Fund will give them more budget to go further.
Paul Majurey, Eke Panuku Chair, says: “Partnering with the NZ Super Fund will give us access to long term Aotearoa-based capital, meaning we can adapt to market changes over time and widen the footprint of our work to transform Auckland’s town centres. Importantly, this new funding will mean we can up-scale and accelerate development plans and improve outcomes for Auckland. Our focus is on well-designed, mixed-use developments that reflect the Māori identity of our city, integrate with transport connections and incorporate sustainability.”
https://twitter.com/nzsuperfund/status/1536115436382654470?s=12&t=6nuMB_KzPG9ICnUn6rS12Q
The lost Maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau
Definitely take some time this weekend to head over to The Spinoff and check out Toby Morris’ most recent Side-Eye comic, all about the Maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau: the many that we have lost because they were destroyed in the last 150 years, and how we’re treating those that remain.
Safer speeds in Glen Innes
We really liked this clear and positive messaging about safer speeds in Glen Innes from Auckland Transport. Consultation is open now for safer speeds in Glen Innes as well as Takapuna and Devonport town centres, and you can get more information on AT’s website.
Britomart to the airport in sixty seconds
It’s got to be some kind of record?? Joking aside, it’s nice to see the public transport trip to the airport looking pretty seamless.
Britomart Station to Auckland Airport in a minute pic.twitter.com/x3pB8eypuQ
— Malcolm McCracken (@urbanistfromwhk) June 15, 2022
Checking in on the Dominion Post’s mode shift series
June’s far from over – so we’ve got plenty more great content from Dominion Post’s mode shift month to cover.
What if public transport served Saturday sports?
First up, anyone who’s got school age kids will understand the Saturday sports-day logistics. More than one kid? That often means most of the day spent in the car getting between games. In this article, Yadana Saw wonders if there’s a better way to organise Saturday sports transport.
Reflecting on Saturday sport, it is ludicrous that we haven’t activated existing resources or employed some cross community and governmental teamwork to efficiently transport thousands of people from various sporting codes doing roughly the same thing, at the same location and when the time is known in advance. While a handful of players are organised enough to carpool, and the premier teams are well cared for, the rest of us weekend warriors will be scrambling out of our cars hoping we’ve made it on time.
Asking for more from the Manawatū transport plan
This is slightly beyond Wellington, but the west coast up to Whanganui is becoming a series of coastal satellite communities for Wellingtonians priced out of the capital. Residents of the area have sent Horizons Regional Council a clear message that they want better public transport: more services, more reliabity, and better infrastructure, such as shelters. In short, people want to find it easier to get around without a car.
Getting more rail services was especially popular with submitters, with Patrick Rooney from Save Our Trains saying the region was unique due to the number of many rail lines linking towns and cities.
Actually, driving gives most of us anxiety
It turns out that most of us find driving pretty stressful, according to the results of a study out of Massey University.
Massey University senior clinical psychologist Dr Joanne Taylor says the results of a survey showed 52 per cent of drivers reported mild anxiety, 16 per cent reported moderate to severe anxiety and only 31 per cent reported no anxiety.
But buses are an adventure!
This article features Lower Hutt walking and cycling advocate Karen Yung, who enjoys feeling more connected to her community when she walks or takes the bus.
People who would not usually talk to each other will discuss all manner of things at a bus stop, including the vexed subject of why buses are sometimes late, she says. “I do like the community interactions you have at a bus stop and getting to know the people in your neighbourhood is quite unique.”
Tauranga’s commissioners continue to hold their nerve in the Links Avenue trial
A couple of weeks ago we round-upped the news that Tauranga City’s commissioners were keeping the Links Ave bus lane trial in place, despite some loud community protests about the 1000s of fines incurred. This week’s update is that council will not refund any of the fines, deciding that the signage and information about the trial was sufficient to warn residents.
[Director of Transport Brendan Bisley] said the council could not stop the trial because Links Ave had been identified as a safety concern, and was “likely to result in some serious or fatal accident” without behaviour change.
One resident, a paraplegic man living on the street, didn’t agree with the fines, but noted that the change meant ‘a “far superior urban environment” for him to live in as he was a paraplegic and spent a lot of time at home.’
A sleek mode shift solution over the Wairoa River
Just up the road from Tauranga, we’re big fans of this new, good-looking addition on the Wairoa River Bridge. The bi-directional walking and cycling link connects up trails on the Wairoa River, and has just won at the Steel Construction New Zealand (SCNZ) Excellence in Steel Awards.
Neither the bridge’s deck nor the pier columns offered adequate spare capacity to retrofit a cycleway extension at deck level.
The company instead used lightweight, modular steel construction to add a cycleway to the existing bridge in a safe and innovative manner.
The eye-catching “clip-on” is now in use along the side of the existing bridge for walkers and cyclists.
All of the barriers to congestion pricing in NYC
Congestion pricing is raising its head above the parapet here (the Helen Clark foundation hosted a webinar on it this week), so it’s interesting to see how it’s being implemented – or not – in other places. At the New York Times, writer Ezra Klein has a bit of an urbanist and transport focus, and this piece dives into why it’s been so hard to implement congestion pricing in NYC. The barries to a relatively simple proposal appear to be frustratingly endless.
In 2021, the Biden administration struck a deal with New York. Rather than a full environmental impact statement — which now takes federal agencies, on average, 4.5 years to complete — New York could conduct an “environmental assessment,” which is a bit more forgiving. Still, the process called for 16 months of public meetings and traffic analyses. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority submitted a draft review in February. The Federal Highway Administration replied with more than 400 technical questions and comments.
Being an American bike messenger
In 2018 I won the Cargo race at the North American Cycle Courier Championship (NACCC) in Philadelphia on my Omnium Cargo bike. NACCC is a yearly bike race hosted by a different city each year. I have attended three, the one in Chicago, in NYC and the one in Philly. It is a race where Cycle Couriers come from all over the States and the main race is designed to mimic a typical day in the life of a courier.
The secret to small-scale mixed use
… is small scale landlords. We found this really interesting: cities where there are more and smaller landlords there tend to be more small, independent businesses. Click on the tweet below to read the whole thread.
One trick I learned from Tokyo that helps for understanding any city: when you come across a charming small biz in a sea of generic chains, ask them about their relationship with their landlord. For example, this is the fantastic Alabaster Bookshop, near Union Square in NYC… pic.twitter.com/ujPl4o4EqK
— Joe McReynolds (@McReynoldsJoe) June 14, 2022
This point in particular is worth sharing, an ultimate mixed-use solution:
The #1 source of these unconventional landlord relationships in Tokyo is banned in most of our cities: under Japan’s zoning, homeowners can put nearly any small biz in the bottom floor of their rowhouse, by-right! Any retiree who owns their house is a potential small biz landlord.
Why aren’t people driving less, even though fuel is so much more expensive?
Have you been thinking about this, this month, especially as petrol hovers above $3/litre? It turns out humans are ~surprise~ not the most rational of beings, driven by habit and preconceived ideas about what works for us more than anything else. A couple of smart Twitter threads explored the topic this week.
The first thread explains the psychology of habits, and how hard it can be to change them.
https://twitter.com/ianwalker/status/1536234868627148800?s=21&t=ajugkf_9YzzYM5fWwKjtgA
All this points to three lessons for policymakers:
1. Stop expecting new information, or incremental price changes, to alter ingrained behaviours. Just stop it. Seriously.
2. Look for times when people’s lives are disrupted and GO IN HARD to encourage change at this point. (Policymakers: you already know when all these points are! Moving house, having a child, getting a new job, retiring… We literally tell government when we do these things!)
3. Support new behaviour long enough that old habits can fade away entirely. This will take weeks, or months. “Bike to work day” isn’t going to cut it, because the underlying urge to drive remains intact despite the day off. Same for “Healthy eating week” or whatever.
While the next picked up on the thread, and provided a perfect, transport themed illustration of the principle in action.
Cycling ASMR
Because we all need something soothing on a Friday morning. Just press play on this video, make it full screen, and leave it there on repeat for a little while.
https://twitter.com/_dmoser/status/1534852527061180427?t=OnCboy8wFJYZmsbCuYH1Jg&s=09
Bruce Mau: start with fact-based optimism
An fascinating read on Arch Daily reports on the premiere of a documentary about Bruce Mau, a visionary designer who wants to use design as ‘a means of communication that can transform society at large.’ He criticises the idea of design as being about systems, because –
“we invented this idea that if we can’t resolve it in our system, we’re going to put it outside of the system, and we’re going to call it an externality.” His example was the exhaust from your car; it’s an externality because someone else deals with its consequences. This no longer works, Mau said. “We very intentionally designed it that way, and it allows us to do absolutely horrendous things in the world. You can’t say, ‘It’s not my problem, it’s your problem.’ It’s our problem.” For Mau, what’s needed isn’t change, but action.
The Bruce Mau documentary was in the Architecture and Design Film festival in May, and will be available to stream online in July.
Parking – the hot topic since 1958
Finishing back where we started – the city centre, where, apparently, even back in 1958 they were having to remind people that Roads are NOT houses for cars!. This image was shared by the Auckland City Centre Residents Group.
Have a wonderful weekend!
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What is the deal with Queen Street? Why are the council spending a cent on it if they have a plan to pedestrianise it (as they should do)? They supposedly don’t have any money to build almost anything like cycling infrastructure, they have been cutting budgets due to Covid, but they can spend millions on temporary changes to Queen Street that it seems no one actually wants.
Either do it properly according to the long term plans, or leave it and spend the money on something more worthwhile. We in a climate emergency according to council yet they are pumping tons of concrete and pavers etc on a temporary “fix” that no one wants.
AT has zero plans to pedestrianise it. Their dream is to shove two light rail tracks down the middle of it.
NZ Herald is reporting today that most of the $59million spent on the Light Rail project has gone on experts. Which makes sense- it takes a lot of expertise to take a daft idea and make it so much worse.
Don’t forget to add on the $50 million wasted on the cycle bridge.
Could have bought quite a few dual mode locomotives and fixed a lot of footpaths with that $109 million.
How could we ever forget that $50 million. Car drivers don’t shut up about it.
We could have liberated a lane for a fraction that amount and have real connection in place now, with more or less zero on going cost. Instead we have NZTA buring more money on a ferry they don’t think will work, which will cost millions to run each year after they spend another $50 million on set up costs.
“$50 million wasted on the cycle bridge”
Not having a go at you, but that is a narrative that gets repeated a lot, and I really dislike
It wasn’t wasted on a cycle bridge; obviously there is no cycle bridge across the Waitematā
It was $50m wasted on finding ways to not build an active mode and/or PT bridge. And that is the really the unacceptable bit to me
Or in this case, take a great, obvious, and necessary idea and make worse and 10x the cost.
“Britomart to the airport in sixty seconds” – I haven’t had the chance to use it, but it seems a bit more half arsed than I would have hoped.
Tagging off the train and then tagging on the bus makes it feel more like two different services that happen to meet, not an integrated rapid corridor.
I couldn’t see the seating on the bus but it looked like the usual cramped space with seats facing forwards, and those bag racks at the front are awful and must increase boarding times. If the seats were more like a metro train, then people can just hold their bags in front of them like they would on the train. I have used buses like that in the UK and they feel so much bigger, it is amazing how much better it works.
When will they learn that if they want people to take cheap bus solutions seriously, they need to be as similar to trains as possible. Its the little things that make all the difference: you never queue up at a door to tag onto a train, you very rarely tag on and off to transfer, and you don’t have cramped seating arrangements that favour facing forwards over everything else. As usual it looks like they spent hundreds of millions on tarmac but then cheaped out on the more important details.
ATs transport system involves tagging on/off and transfers. This far from unreasonable.
“I couldn’t see the seating on the bus but it looked like the usual cramped space with seats facing forwards, and those bag racks at the front are awful and must increase boarding times”
Oh.
So if you change from southern to western line at say Newmarket you have to tag on and off? Not to my knowledge…
Do really use PT so seldom that you don’t get the trains have hop readers at stations and busses have them on the vehicles?
Tagging on and off while doing transfers is not a big deal. It’s absolutely something that happens all over the world. In fact, I remember having to do it between trains at shibuya station.
Keep complaining about the fine service that you have not used.
“trains have hop readers at stations and busses have them on the vehicles”
Um I think that was my point entirely. Buses don’t have to have them on the bus, it makes boarding much slower waiting for everyone to tag on one by one. You could tag on before getting on the bus, preferably you are already tagged on once you go into the station (as you would be having used the train).
You wouldn’t expect to tag on in a train carriage one by one beside the driver, so why do it on a bus that is meant to be rapid (other than to save money).
All these little things add up to bus=crap, train=good, yet they are quite easy to fix.
Just because “all buses work this way, trains work this other (better) way”, that doesn’t mean is has to be like that. Our rapid buses should be as close to trains as possible, and that includes all door boarding, pre tag on/off, etc. All of these things speed up the service significantly. AT really should know all of this by now, its embarrassing IMO.
I don’t have to use a service to know that tagging on beside the driver through a small corridor with a big queue behind me is not what I consider rapid.
What about the people using the bus who haven’t tagged on in a rail station? Really you’re making a mountain out of nothing and it sounds like you didn’t even use the bus.
“Buses don’t have to have them on the bus, it makes boarding much slower waiting for everyone to tag on one by one. You could tag on before getting on the bus,’
The reason that the HOP terminals are located on the actual bus makes perfect sense.
1. there are less buses than there are bus stops, therefore requiring less expensive HOP terminals.
2. Maintenance of the HOP terminals can be conducted at the bus depots, without putting bus stops out of service
3. The buses return to a depot each night where the bus connects by WIFI to the HOP network, to enable each bus to download system upgrades and to update your HOP card data
4. Installing HOP card readers at each bus stop would require additional data usage to enable system wide data transfers.
5. If you had a HOP reader at each bus stop, passengers would need to exit the bus, then TAG OFF of their trip by going to the HOP reader on the side of the road.
6. If people did not Tag off, ( of each bus trip, ) then the network patronage data that is used for planning purposes would be useless.
@Bus Driver – For bus rapid transit routes like the Northern Busway it makes perfect sense to follow the example of the rail lines and have off-board fare payment – tag posts in the station buildings or on the platforms.
Off-board fare payment is in fact one of the requirements for true BRT as according to the BRT Standard by the ITPD.
Why don’t you go use it then
The layout on the buses is good plenty of room and wide wide doors to get your luggage through and racks to store it on. 20 seats plus room to stand and plenty of stanchions and rails to assist you as you move around. And nice and quiet with only a faint him from the air conditioning. A good experience in my view.
The corridor looks quite cramped on the video.
I’ve been using the train / bus combo to travel from the airport to the city for the last year – and it works fine. Seamlessly perfect, with one aspect that still needs solving: train availability. Can’t get to the Puhinui from the city if the trains aren’t running. And there’s still no Sky Bus. So, sadly, only alternative was to catch an Uber at a cost of $55. Despite having a full Hop in my pocket. Not impressed.
There is a skybus replacement now, the actual skybus having gone out of business, there is now a new company doing it.
It’s called “Sky Drive” which is hilarious. https://www.skydrive.co.nz/
The British research from the fuel crises of the 1970s and early 80s showed little change in driving due to fuel price increases in the short run and massive changes in the long run. ie demand is inelastic in the short term as people dont actually have much choice and cope by cutting other costs. But in the long run it was highly elastic as people would look to change their job or home to reduce their travel.
We have no reason to think it will be different now.
I was watching a car take of from the lights full acceleration then the brake lights came on so petrol must still be too cheap. But there will be a reaction if high prices persist and it looks increasingly likely they will. I happened to be standing on the platform on wens night when Te Huia went past heading to Hamilton it looked almost full so there are some logical people left in this crazy world. It may take a while for the message to get through but it will. Wouldnt it be great to wipe the smile of the faces of TeHuia detractors. Long distance commuters are the first to react its a pity they are replacing Pukekohe train services with buses though. Also station announcements are telling me Onehunga services are terminating at Newmarket to allow alterations relating to the CRL to be made at Britomart Station. So lose some gain some.
Thank you Miffy.
I keep seeing this “iNElaStiC!!” trope wheeled out.
A cursory glance at the shockwaves it sent through the American auto industry in the 70s, the rapid about-turn to attempt to focus on fuel efficiency, the rise of the import, all immediately discredit this viewpoint.
The whole area seems to be controversial and uncertain. Estimate of the short-term demand elasticity of petrol range from 0 to -0.5, long term 0 to -1.
I find it hard to believe that petrol going from $2 to $3 would not have some impact on demand. To believe otherwise would be to say that all trips are regarded as essential and must be done by driving.
It would depend on whether or not people expect it to stay at $3 or not, right?
I guess there would be some people who no longer can afford to drive as much. As for the rest, there will be a lot of complaints and blaming the government and things, but I would not be surprised if people just suck up the increased cost.
I would probably have had a more optimistic view 5 years ago. Remember back when AT still had a walking & cycling team? Now it doesn’t. I guess that push for cycling came too soon.
It is a different time from the ’70s. Proportionally much more of our city is built after World War 2, making getting around without a car much more difficult. Cycling to school went extinct. It is impossible to have a stop the child murder campaign here, the mainstream response to a child getting killed in traffic is to blame the parents. It’s like we’re too far gone to come back.
Hell I wouldn’t even be surprised if utes still make up the top 3 best selling cars in 2022.
Roeland I’d put money on “utes still make up the top 3 best selling cars in 2022.”
Sadly.
I think most people regard even a five-minute drive for any purpose as essential. Since the onset of Covid it seems driving has become even more entrenched in New Zealand. It’s personal convenience irrespective of the costs.
A focus on fuel efficiency and imports actually completely validates the ideas of short term inelasticity and long term elasticity. If fuel doubles in price, auto companies can’t develop an efficient car for me to buy the same day, it takes years. In the short term, I’m stuck, in the long term, I can reduce my driving.
Yes, that’s what I was saying.
I meant to imply – “discredits the idea that fuel demand isn’t elastic in the long term.”
Depends on your definition of ‘rapid’
The price of fuel shooting up is happening over a period of months. Invasion of Ukraine was only earlier this year, though it seems like it has already been years.
Solutions to the cost of fuel; replacing your car with more economical ICE, HEV/PHEV/BEV or changing jobs to work closer to home or changing home to live closer to work can take a lot longer. Even if you plonk down money for a new Hybrid or EV, the delivery times can stretch out into 2023
Companies take longer, but I can imagine all the local car brands are screaming to head offices overseas that they need low emission ute models ASAP.
I can’t say that I am unhappy with price of fuel; my fuel bill was nearly zero, and remains the same (EV and bike owner).
I do feel for lower income people struggling with fuel bills and unable to make change easily.
But when I see the amount of people who chose to buy things like a large Audi/Jeep SUV within the last few years for driving around the North Shore; I think pressure to reconsider the commute and use bikes, EVs, public transport, WFH etc is a good thing
I just hope that we don’t do what the US did after the oil shocks in the 1970s; once fuel prices stabilized, then people just went back to gas guzzling large vehicle, just SUV’s rather than wagons or saloons
“We have no reason to think it will be different now” – and it would be more different if the government weren’t subsidising fuel while also supposedly trying to get people to use less fuel.
Alternatives to driving are certainly more marginalised now compared to the ’70s.
It may be a structural masterpiece, but the broader context of the Wairoa River Bridge cycleway is an absolute disgrace.
Despite the bridge and the remainder of the Omokoroa – Tauranga cycleway being completed years ago, the final kilometre between the bridge and Bethlehem (where cyclists can join Tauranga’s urban cycle network) has not even been started.
This means cyclists are forced to travel along a narrow verge beside a high-speed section of State Highway 2. Families heading out for a ride along the cycleway must get a real shock when they find that this section requires them to take a life threatening risk if they want to reach their destination.
I won’t get into the full details of the issue (although I know many of you will be familiar with the ridiculous situation), but ultimately it boils down to the usual story of NIMBYism and anti-cyclist tropes masquerading as more noble causes. But regardless of what caused this mess, the most important thing is that the situation is resolved before lives are needlessly lost.
At peak hours that part of SH2 is bumper-to-bumper, so cycle commuters aren’t in too much danger from high-speed traffic.
Weekend cyclists are less lucky, and being disproportionately older may be reluctant to use the route.
It’s a bit odd because logistically there’s very little preventing a protected lane from being added to that stretch of road; it’s wide and there are no points of conflict with businesses.
Another “bridge to nowhere”,reality cheap,though. I guess that if you clear the big hurdles first,then the lack of connectivity becomes very apparent, and in 10 years ,it neatly becomes a network.
If you move here and you expected local communities to actually exist you’re in for quite a culture shock.
People are basically either behind a 1.8m wall, or inside a car. You may encounter them in places like malls, but the catchment of malls is too large to have any chance of forming a community. If you are in a position where you can talk to some local people regularly you’re very fortunate.
Further to my dig at the Japanese Motor Industry on Monday this from the Petrol Head diehards at Ferrari;
Ferrari has been working tirelessly for years to engineer its gas-fueled supercars into the perfect combination of deft handling and raw power. But EVs have been a distraction lately, sauntering into the garage and elbowing the jukebox like they’re the Fonz or something. That’s since forced the company to release a few hybrid models, which now make up 20% of its sales.
But even Ferrari has had to admit that it needs to move faster. So it’s now hoping to launch its first fully electric car in 2025, as well as make 40% of all sales fully electric within the following five years. And it’s just laid out a plan to do just that: the company is turning its flagship Italian factory into a hub for battery-powered cars, as part of a $4.6 billion investment that aims to make 60% of its models electric or hybrid by 2026.
They have no choice really when Europe and the UK have banned the sale of dirty fuel cars. They would seen be in dire straits if they didn’t change.
Some thing new to see a couple of days ago was this AT video showing plans for the new Northwest Bus Facility:
https://youtu.be/fvbAMxtnvVo
Seems like overkill and more like a facility for buses to layover compared to something we would need it we just ran services more often so we don’t even need somewhere to wait.
All those carparks seem to be really well served by public transport.
They’d really struggle to find a less accessible, less walkable part of Westgate/Northwest.
It looks like this perfectly placed to have easy access to the motorway, which it never will, otherwise the location seems horrendous
the Westgate Station has to be ‘perfectly placed for access to the motorway’ because that’s where the busway is, and hopefully in future the NW LRT will be. Just like many of the NX stations, it’s there as an interchange to be fed by local buses coming out of the resi suburbs, not as a walk-up station. The car parks you’re complaining about are all part of the (all about the car as usual, sigh) Westgate shopping complex, nothing to do with the station – and busway users won’t be allowed to park there as they’re private.
Wish that unopened/always empty carpark was developed into shops or housing instead. The North West Shopping Centre is a classic of the build big shopping services ( and community library) on green land but with no PT access and with only the distant promise of housing to come and wonder why it in future becomes difficult to persuade people out of cars.
The public transport interchange is in the right place. You have to put it where the northwest line and a future upper harbour line will cross.
The shopping centre is in the wrong place. They could have put it anywhere. It is not a big deal for car drivers if it is a few km away from the motorway. By putting it where it is now they have made the PT station and thus the entire regional PT network useless. Because there is nothing at the end of the line.