Yesterday Auckland’s Rapid Transit Network got a little bit bigger with the launch of the Western Express (WX1), which finally sees a frequent bus serving the SH16 corridor and changes to a bunch of supporting services.
AT say:
These changes are the most significant improvements to bus services in the West and Northwest since the introduction of the existing network in 2017 and will improve the frequency of many bus services to connect people to more places more often.
The bus route changes are partnered with over 7km of new bus lanes, new bus interchanges near the motorway at Lincoln Road and Te Atatū and over 40 new bus stops.
Waitākere Councillor Shane Henderson says the changes will more than double the number of people in the Northwest who have access to fast and frequent public transport.
“The Northwest is growing. By 2046, there will be 37,000 new houses, 11,000 new jobs, and nearly triple the number of people travelling along the Northwestern Motorway (SH16). Currently people living in the Northwest have limited public transport options and when you combine this with the amount of growth, we are seeing huge pressure on the roading network.
“The West and Northwest haven’t been well served by public transport until now. With these changes, more than twice as many people will be in walking distance of a frequent bus route. Improving public transport means more people can use it easily, which helps to free up the roads for those who really need them. Effective public transport can reduce congestion and carbon emissions, reduce the need to use land for car parking, connect communities, improve health outcomes, and provide independent mobility for those who can’t or choose not to drive.”
AT’s Executive General Manager of Public Transport, Stacey van der Putten, says the changes are about making public transport an easier, quicker, and more reliable option.
“The new WX1 and 11 routes will combine to provide buses between Westgate, Lincoln Road, Te Atatū and the City Centre in both directions every six minutes from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.
“Local trips to hubs like Henderson will also be much easier, with more buses more often. The network will be based around not just commuters heading into the city, but also around people travelling across West Auckland. For example, you will soon be able to take a bus to Westgate, departing every 5-10 minutes, at all times of day, seven days a week.
“We do acknowledge, however, that these changes will mean some people will need to take two buses to complete their journey. Remember if you do this, you will not have to pay for two fares if you tag onto another service within 30 minutes. Given the service frequency improvements we are making, we still expect many journeys to be more convenient and quicker than today.”
The Northwestern Bus Improvements are the result of substantial stakeholder engagement and consultation and are seen as the first step towards providing people with more frequent and reliable public transport choices in the area.
It’s great that this has finally been delivered but it is also very frustrating that it took this long given the limited scale of infrastructure changes to support it and that funding was confirmed in 2020 as part of the government’s ‘Shovel Ready’ fund.
And it’s that limited infrastructure that is probably my biggest concern with the project. While there are more of them, the bus lanes are not continuous and the bus stops themselves are bleak and exposed – to both the weather and heavy traffic by being in the middle of a motorway interchange. To be clear, these were never intended to be large Northern Busway style stations but the expectation was that they would be at least somewhat functional and a bit better than your standard bus stop.
Despite that infrastructure, if AT can reliably hit the travel times on it’s timetable then the service could be very popular.
At 35 minutes from Westgate to the City, that’s an average speed slightly faster than is promised for the Northern Busway between Albany and the City, and that route has a large amount of dedicated infrastructure. While a car will certainly still be faster off-peak, with Google suggesting a travel time of around 25 minutes, at peak times this is quite different with Google suggesting travel times of up to 1 hour 40 minutes.
Yesterday in light traffic it seems these travel times were being exceeded but it will be interesting to see how that goes during week.
Welcome to Westgate. It took us almost 29 minutes to go from Lower Albert Street to Westgate in very light traffic. pic.twitter.com/oqsX8elHlf
— NZ Transit Buzz (@NZTransitBuzz) November 11, 2023
Great to see plenty of people transferring between new frequent local buses and the new Western Express (WX1) service today 🧵 pic.twitter.com/OlRtQo96R9
— Malcolm McCracken (@urbanistfromwhk) November 12, 2023
There are also some early indications of tweaks needed to traffic light phasing and bus priority to better support buses. These tweaks are in a number of locations but one example is shown below which for the sake of a few seconds, Malcolm says delayed the second bus by an additional 2 minutes.
The median northbound bus stop at Te Atatū is a nice touch to reduce transfer distances but the phasing isn’t long enough for two buses pic.twitter.com/gLeJLwAstR
— Malcolm McCracken (@urbanistfromwhk) November 11, 2023
I haven’t caught one of the services yet but did see some while out and about yesterday, and combined with some of the other images I’ve seen, another thing that also stood out to me was the buses themselves.
Why are the buses not double deckers? – These changes will take some time to bed in and for ridership to grow so based purely on that, double deckers might not be required just yet. But double deckers are more than just about adding more capacity, they can also act as a bit of an advertisement in their own right – a giant moving billboard, reminding drivers that public transport in the area has substantially changed, so get on board and see for yourself.
Given they’re not double deckers, why are the buses not electric? – Electric bus numbers are growing and while there’s still a lot more needed, flagship routes like this should be a priority to have them. It’s not like AT and bus companies haven’t had more than enough time to plan for this route’s introduction and shift vehicles around to enable this.
Why don’t the WX1 buses have the RTN branding, like the NX1 & NX2? – AT tries to differentiate buses used on Rapid Transit Services, such as the NX1 and NX2 by adding yellow to the front to mimic the design of our electric trains. Perhaps they’re moving away from it, like they are with the AT Metro branding, but if they’re not, then the WX1 services should match this rather than looking like almost every other bus out there.
Overall these services are a better than what we had – though there are bound to be some bedding in issues and complaints from people who may now have to transfer.
However, it is also clear further improvement is still needed and the need for proper rapid transit still exists. National did support a proper busway in their election policy and a few months ago Waka Kotahi kicked off planning for a permanent solution. Let’s hope that work continues with priority.
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Would electric buses make sense for a fast/long route like this one, over other shorter, more stop/start routes?
I think electric has an advantage in slower speed and stop start traffic.
Yes pretty sure it does though I remember the trials AT did with electric buses on some route/s to Warkworth or somewhere like that did better than they expected too.
Sorry, that was my point. It seems NX/WX routes would be some of the last to get electric buses for that reason
Another question I have is: does prioritising electric buses make sense for a motorway where the other vehicles are creating an enormous din and a plume of pollution anyway? Perhaps they make more sense on arterial streets where a road diet and placemaking should create a people friendly environment, with lower traffic numbers and plenty of people walking, cycling and socialising. I think this would be where people would more appreciate the cleaner air and quieter buses.
They still end up in the middle of downtown, where there are a whole lot of people around to get hit by the fumes and noise.
Is there any hope for long-suffering Huapai/Kumeu residents that WK might do something semi intelligent like bus lanes along the shoulder of SH16 between there and Westgate so buses might become a viable alternative to sitting in endless traffic jams?
Four-laning of SH16 northwest of Brigham Creek roundabout is planned. Stage 1 at the far end has started construction, I think. However, the Stage 2 closer to the roundabout has now been deferred to an uncertain future time due to “cost escalation”.
And AFAIK, none of the four laning includes bus facilities.
Given the political uncertainty around public transport,both nationally and locally,right now it would be financially imprudent for any bus operators to “invest ” millions of dollars in new plant,when the existing fleet is less than 10 years old. I,d imagine ,lenders(banks),would be adopting a very cautious approach to any expansionary investment in bus fleets.
The last round of tendering ,locked operators into diesel powered vehicles,which they could reasonably expect 20 years service from,there will be an age clause in the contracts,probably around average age of fleets,but currently there are 25 year old vehicles still operating in Auckland.
Operators would be willing to put whatever vehicles AT want,but to quote Tom Cruise “show me the money”.
From memory the PTOM contracts say they must maintain a fleet with 10 or less years average age and no bus over 20 years old.
In the new Western network map linked to in the article (https://at.govt.nz/media/jm3hnh5b/auckland-transport-west-auckland-guide-timetable.pdf), does anybody know why the Eastern Busway is not included in the Auckland Transit Network map?
Why would you include a busway in a totally different part of town? Maybe I am not getting what you are asking?
David is referring to the Auckland Transit Network diagram on the new timetables which has all the train lines, the Northern busway and even the Airport Link but no Eastern Busway
Probably because it isn’t complete, stage 3 still hasn’t started yest AFAIK
I think it’s because the Eastern Busway is not its own service, unlike the WX1 and NX1. The primary route along here is the 70 – but this runs between Britomart and Botany, only using the busway between Panmure and Pakuranga and so is not on a dedicated route for the overwhelming majority.
Yes it should be added surely, one little line to the right to Pakuranga so far with only one stop (Williams Ave) in between…oh Pakuranga Station isn’t built yet is probably why.
I asked the question yesterday of AT if the buses would be able to use the shoulder/priority lanes outside the set peak times – apparently not. I do hope they keep a close eye on this, whilst it is great that they have shoulder in peak ( with a 60kmph limit) but often outside peak there is enough traffic to surely justify buses getting priority so as to promote others to switch modes.
That’s disappointing, and suggests AT needs to step up with it’s vkr reduction work. In some cities extra motorway capacity has been added for vehicles only at peak time, with the lane closed off peak, so as not to induce traffic off peak and presumably to reduce renewal costs.
On the NW if they’re going to have one lane fewer during the off peak periods, it should be a general traffic lane that’s closed, not the bus lane, for VKT reduction.
Yes and riding alongside NW today saw bus moving slowly along in out of peak traffic instead of having option of taking the priority shoulder.
Sounds like the plan is to have electric double-decker buses:
“The WX1 begins in November this year but we’re already planning improvements to the service in the next couple of years, including brand new zero-emission double-deckers, evening services at every 10 minutes, and a new bus station near Gunton Drive for easier transfers to connecting services.”
The travel times from the Lower Albert Street are far too optimistic. It can easily take 20 minutes to get to the K’rd overbridge in light traffic due to large number of traffic lights (18 has been making those trips for a while now).
On the branding – I’m actually glad they’re not using the “rapid” colours, as the services are not really rapid due to missing bus priority in many places. Not having bus priority on the motorway on-ramps (both Newton Rd and Westgate) is a complete reliability killer during peak, also there’s virtually no priority between Pt Chev and the city (in the citybound direction).
Funnily enough the actual timetables seem to overestimate that travel time off peak significantly. I took the WX1 between Te Atatū and the city yesterday and it took 9 minutes between the interchange and K’rd, when the timetable indicates 23-25minutes so some updates will be necessary.
The design of those interchanges at Te Atatū is definitely not great. Yesterday when my WX1 was pulling in I could see a 135 waiting already (towards the Peninsula). One of the passengers of the WX1 decided to make a run for it (the light has just turned red for pedestrians so there were no cars coming yet), they got about half way through before the cars reach them and they had to speed up even further to make it. But since there’s a separate ‘B’ light for the bus the bus got held up anyway. But I can definitely see people trying to make a dash for it, particularly for the lower frequency services (135 or 149). All those pedestrian crossing on Te Atatū Rd should have been raised.
AT missed the delivery of a number of things for the launch though:
* some bus stops are literally missing (for example bus stop 1606 for route 135 is just a ‘temporary bus stop’ sign on a grass verge, when bus stop 1608 got properly built)
* there are ghost bus stops (for example 5056 – opposite Te Atatū library) – there’s no sign of any infra, the driver just drove past the location)
* all bus stops (at least on Te Atatū Peninsula) still have the old timetables on them (and the old routes).
* the real time tracking doesn’t work for the new buses
* the left hand turn from Hobson St into Pitt st is not ready
Hi Pshem, yes I spoke to the helpers yesterday at the offramp stop who told me they had had lots of people making dashes across the road to try and meet next bus- since this is a spot that I regularly have to report red light running vehicles it will have to be carefully managed.
Totally agree about the optimistic travel times – AT estimates that it takes buses 2 minutes to get from Lower Albert Street to St Matthews. These buses have to go through Wyndham Street, and which at peak hour, can take 20 minutes because of the congestion on that route. Wyndham Street should have a dedicated bus lane because this is a completely avoidable pinch-point.
“Wyndham Street should have a dedicated bus lane because this is a completely avoidable pinch-point.”
OR re-route those buses from Albert St, so they turn right onto Swanson St ( before reaching Wyndham St) , then have them turn left into the left lane of Hobson St. This will also prevent them form getting jammed at the corner of Wyndham and Albert, due to motorists who block that intersection.
Several bus drivers already do this if the traffic is congested.
Looks like Swanson St is more narrow & trying to be a more quiet street so I think an afternoon peak period bus lane could be a good idea for now.
What is the current plan post CRL (or Albert St disruption) plan? It was originally to run all the western buses on Albert St the full length then Mayoral, Vincent to Pitt St (including down the hill I guess, but Queen St down is quite a nice thing now.) It it is to use Albert St then the intersection shouldn’t be an issue longer term.
Just passing the time while we don’t build our heavy / light rail infrastructure, so we can return to the pre motorway 1940s.
But it makes AT appear to be doing something when their budget is being threatened by both local and Wellington politicians; so for now we can consider it a positive step.
We really have wasted the last one hundred years and we most certainly do not have another hundred to remedy this city’s temporal situation.
Trains were the answer and always will be the answer; no ram raids, no DUI, no road toll.
Is the answer too simple???
Totally agree Matiu. Our over-prioritization of road transport and under-prioritization of rail over the past 60 years at least, has wasted so much time and money, and has set us back decades from where as a society, we should be by now, .
While I agree with much of the above, lets not fall into the trap that rail is the (only) answer. What matters is *priority*. Buses can provide a very high quality service – IF they don’t get held up by cars parked (legally or illegally) in their lanes, IF the bus lane doesn’t serve as a car turn lane at the intersection and so on. The ultimate expression of that for buses are busways, but there’s grades below that that are leaps and bounds above what we have now (and which would be much cheaper to implement).
What is holding us back is the “any improvement for PT may not take any space from cars” approach of having your cake and eating it too.
This so called bus way is a prime example. Bus lanes on the easy bits where it doesn’t affect general traffic and almost zero priority where it is really needed. Wait until it’s raining and there are a few crashes to see how inadequate it is despite the media once again highlighting the cost.
AT needs to create a Central Busway from the Civic in Queen Street/Britomart Train Station to Onehunga via the 30 Bus route.
And a Southern Busway from Onehunga to Manukau via the 36 Bus route.
Good foundations for future light rail projects.
“AT needs to create a Central Busway from the Civic in Queen Street/Britomart Train Station to Onehunga via the 30 Bus route”
Solution. Take the red CityLink down Q Street to Britomart. ( or the frequent 18 ) Then take the train to Onehunga
see: https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/journey-planner/
Yes well said Bus Driver. Use the network to move around. Once you have done it once it’s easy.
It’s a bit of a shame that there are so many gaps in the bus lanes, but it’s great to see this finally get built. Now that the service is actually in, it will also be a lot easier to justify incremental improvements too. That could be sections of busway, extended or improved bus lanes, better stops, etc.
Agree. Do the people that design and implement these things ride the buses?
Surely that would be mandatory for a number of weeks, random trips, different weather, school in/out – and then a quick report on the ways to improve noting that clearly getting out of town looks bad through K road.
I mean you could get some uni students to do it for $500 on their AT card
“Do the people that design and implement these things ride the buses?”
Yes, most staff at AT use buses and trains to get around the city.
“Surely that would be mandatory for a number of weeks, random trips, different weather, school in/out – and then a quick report on the ways to improve noting that clearly getting out of town looks bad through K road”.
The planners are normally out on the network as new services are introduced. There are then daily de-briefs on what needs to be updated, changed or modified, followed by a major review after each new service has bedded down.
“I mean you could get some uni students to do it for $500 on their AT card”
AT staff do this at no extra cost.
Barry, sometimes I, like you, wonder if AT staff do travel the routes. For years Wellesley St was clogged in the late afternoon.
And then the really frustrating point for buses like the 82 was the turning lanes on the AT corner. The lack of two left turning lanes onto Fanshawe was just bullshit. And this took years to remedy. And what did it need, a new set of lights and some paint? And a mindshift, that’s what seemed to take the time.
AT’s obsession with cars has served the city very poorly, and now the city will never catch up. Much of the heavy lifting can be done by buses in dedicated bus lanes, but it won’t be nearly enough.
“ Senior transport managers ride Auckland’s troubled WX1 Express bus route”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/133308728/senior-transport-managers-ride-aucklands-troubled-wx1-express-bus-route
but will things change?
The 147 route is ridiculous. Why does it bimble all round hendo when the other services go direct to Lincoln? Everyone west of Ranui has to go for a lovely tiki tour instead of a direct route. This means a 2 or possibly 3 bus trip from west of Ranui if you want to get to the busway directly. It makes zero sense.
My guess is AT wants people to train from Swano?
In a word, yes. Especially if you were going at peak time I would recommend the train and certainly post CRL as it won’t have to go via Newmarket if you’re going to the Central city. Off peak they need to make the train More frequent to make those transfers faster and speed up the dwell times still.
This is such a failure that WX does not mount with 120.
I’m also a bit skeptical about this hype of slightly rebranding 125x, I really hope WX and new 11 will do better than they were doing up until now. Last Tuesday I attempted to get 125x+120 to the Hobsonville and traditionally for Auckland bus service this was a failure: 125 didn’t turn up on time, so I boarded 11c which broke near the city mission, luckily I had enough time to run to the Ferry terminal.
I tried the WX1 yesterday purely out of interest since I use public transport a lot more since I sold my car. The actual trip along the motorway was great although obviously this was a Sunday. I understand people’s concerns with the transfer points in a motorway interchange.
The part I was most disappointed about was the facilities where the route terminates Stop 5941, which I believe should be Stop 5959 where the WX1 starts from. The extra travel would mean a left into Gunton Drive and a left into Kedgley Road – assuming that same bus would run the next WX1 back to the city it would already be in the right place.
The walk itself isn’t so bad on a nice day like it was yesterday – approx 180m if you walk via the carpark (400m if you follow the road – I assume the grassy area closest to the drop off point will be built on eventually). But people wanting to transfer from WX1 to 11W, 11T, 111, 112, 116 in the middle of winter will have a miserable experience.
It’s also confusing for infrequent bus users – if you have to transfer (which most people dislike doing to start with anyway), you should be able to do the transfer at the same stop.
I then caught the 126 to Albany via Riverhead – this uses stop 5972 as does 122, 123 and 125. It would only be 400m extra to have this follow the same route to have it service stop 5959 also.
Temporary stops in Westgate need to leave room for construction of the new Interchange – not ideal until then.
I believe most of those stops are considered temporary, as there is a plan to build an actual busway style station just to the east of that carpark on Gunton Dr.
https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/northwest-bus-station-westgate/
I don’t have any problem with having to change bus stops in a transfer. There are a few transfers I know of where you get to use the same stop (eg I swapped from the 24 to the 27 yesterday), but typically you would need to change stops because the buses aren’t going in the same direction and are not even travelling on the same streets.
On the NW, someone might transfer from a feeder bus that arrives from one side of the motorway or the other, and transfer to a WX bus going either way, too. There’s no way to get all combinations to work at the same stop.
I do have a big problem with the lack of safety for children, though.
It’s going to take some out of the box thinking to create an all-ages solution here.
“But people wanting to transfer from WX1 to 11W, 11T, 111, 112, 116 in the middle of winter will have a miserable experience.“
I think you got off one stop too early. If you get off just after Rotu Dr you can just transfer at the same spot or other direction by crossing the road at the Rotu Dr light controlled intersection.
* sorry you got off one stop too late.
Should national look to build a proper rapid transit corridor along sh16, my main concern is that they don’t take city transport seriously,
You just need to look at the northern bus way extension to see this.
If this temporary bus solution works, I don’t think it’s worth building a proper rapid transit line for a decade or two.
National’s “transport for the future” says “National will run a competitive tender process for the delivery of a rapid transit solution to Auckland’s fast growing North West using an equity financing model. Key decisions about the design of the rapid transit solution, including route and mode (i.e., rail or busway) will be made as part of this process. The National Infrastructure Agency will be responsible for soliciting bids to deliver this major project.”
Well we all know they will just outright take the cheapest option.
That will likely be a bus way, so equity financing, they just going to sell other assets to finance it?
Or will it be a PPP model?
Will the tender include ownership and operation of the corridor also?
For better or worse, Winston may have a few words on this as well. Of course ACT may want it to be self-funding in some weird way that roads aren’t required to be even in their libertarian fantasies, so whatever happens, it’s probably going to be a shemozzle (and the wrong project).
I suspect that Winston won’t be in any way helpful. Wouldn’t we be about to ride surface light rail all around Auckland by now except for him?
I imagine that Northland will have vast numbers of roads built, with a promised BCR approaching 0.2, and Shane Jones will want a regional airport at Paihia.
Ok so they announced this and the Westgate bus exchange in 2019 where it was going to cost $40m – did nothing, zero, zip. They reannounced it in 2021 with a price tag of $100m but as far as I can tell, without the Westgate bit. 2 years later we have a couple of west facing exposed bus shelters a couple more very short bus shoulders (limited to 60kph), and frankly pretty minimal differences to PT travel time to town. Is this seriously all we got for $100m?
“Perhaps they’re moving away from it, like they are with the AT Metro branding,”
The previous AT Metro branding, and the “new network lines” that were part of the overall design were more expensive to produce, install and maintain, as they ran over side windows, and side body panels. Any damage to a side panel on a bus required replacement of the silver “New Network” graphics.
AT Metro also confused many people ( including one of AT’s ad agencies ) as many new potential users thought AT Metro, was an underground service, ie Paris Metro
Tried out some of the new buses today. Plenty of issues already. A view shared by many of the AT ambassadors I talked to at westgate, lincoln road and te atatu road. They include:
*The 120 buses must go via the westgate station. This is very important (though AT don’t seem to care at all about it, even after the proper bus station is built). It only requires a simple modification to the southern intersection at the westgate motorway interchange to allow a bus only exit point at the top of Gunton Drive. The 112 & 114 bus services could then use this also.
*Bus stop “F” (5935) at the Lincoln Road Interchange should not be situated 100-120m from stops D (5931) & E (5933). This could easily have been installed at the offramp.
*Bus service 14 is the only frequent service in the northwest that runs every 15 minutes instead of every 10 minutes.
*The Tawhia Drive bus stops 5990 & 5991 should be situated around 180m back up outside the Pak N Save. They are completely pointless where they are.
*The “Westhills” loop bus service 116 is an absolute waste of time. Patronage will be pretty much non-existant. There is only a single bus stop on Fred Taylor Drive. One driver said there had been no users other than a couple using it to get from Tawhia Drive to Fernhill Drive.
*Bus stops should have been installed on Tawhia Drive 35-40m before the Maki Street intersection. This would mean the drop off only stop on Tawhia Drive outside Farmers would not be needed. Maybe just have a drop off only stop on Gunton Dr or Kedgley Rd. Also, bus stops 5971 & 5972 can then be moved further down Maki Street to where stop 5733 currently is. Then bus stops 5733 & 5728 can be moved further down Maki Street somewhere between Gunton Drive and Kakano Road and therefore be very close to Costco and the development around the Costco fuel station.
*Bus stops for the Te Atatu Peninsula bus service 135 north of the peninsula town centre need to be better located.
*Reinstate the last 14 bus from New Lynn at 12:40am or 12:50am.
AT clearly continue to put no thought at all into the locations of bus stops.
Couple of thoughts.
This “Western Express” improvement is a good interim & pragmatic measure. One good thing is that when they go to upgrade the whole route to a proper busway there shouldn’t be too *cough cough* much disruption. A route can be threaded beside the motorway while this setup carries on. Even the proper busway stations would be off to the side (on the southern side, have some old preliminary designs was just looking at from this blog IIRC). It would also add in a Royal Road Station.
I guess these current motorway bus interchanges make for a very visible bus usage advertisement for queuing traffic now that many main bus routes are directed to & through them.
This is so that Auckland Transport can say to the mayor that Northwest now have PT.
There is no infrastructure for this. That is a huge concern. The buses are not adequately timed and what has been done is to set a good schedule of buses and pretend that all is well and AT is actually doing something for an area that time and time has been pointed out as having been failed by them.
Sadly they havent done a thing. Westgate is still a royal mess.
The interchanges along the road will hopefully improve. Adding bus stops is good but that does not make it an expressroute.
There are to few dedicated buslanes and the buses are frequently stuck in the traffic that we are trying to avoid.
For those living closer to Westgate the best advise is still to get to constellation and catch a real expressbus from there. Generally faster than trying anything involving Westgate and the northwestern motorway.
Bus Stops 5931 and 5061 appear to be not well sited. Considering there is a pedestrian/ cycleway underpass at one location that could be utilised to reposition the bus stop. Might use the railway crossing-type controlled pedestrian swing gates to control the restriction of access to a recessed motorway onramp bus stop. Looking at the traffic data for SH18 Upper Harbour Drive (and the projections for maxing out the Northern bus way and North Western Motorway) A route for consideration for light rail might be Westgate (Bus hub area) to Windsor Park (Constellation Bus station) (14km at surface level and elevated light rail). Might be less expensive than the undersea etc big dig long tunnel system proposed. The Upper Harbour light rail route would also be a part solution for the ageing main Harbour Bridge. In Australia similar is the Parramatta/ Sydney light rail, a LR route/s just built for part of the city.
For transfers you would have to walk further and probably be exposed to more danger. Also you may take up the cycleway space but also those areas maybe where they’re gonna construct the proper busway stations in the future so this interim more costly version of yours, if I understand correctly, will be in the way.
Agree eventually the 120 should be made a light rail route. Firstly, and they plan to once more funding is available, it could be a frequent number 12.
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They aren’t double Deckers because we don’t have any yet. They aren’t electric because we don’t have any yet. And they aren’t branded in WX livery because they get used on all our routes. Not just dedicated to WX DD EV coming 2025
Caught this service home from the city today. No quicker and now I need to change buses instead of catching one. What a complete waste of time.
Which service did you used to catch
I suspect you are heading to either Henderson or Te Atatu. In both these cases there is a lot more frequent buses running so in theory you should save time on average through not waiting at long even with a transfer.
The 13 route from Henderson through the Te Atatu bus interchange and Te Atatu peninsular loop runs every 7-8 mins in peak and the 10 min frequency lasts until about 8pm where it drops to 15 mins. Even weekends is 10/15min frequency.
Bus drivers have reported that there are safety issues for buses coming off the Lincoln Rd off ramp and then after dropping off & picking up having to cross 3 traffic lanes to turn right into Triangle Rd.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/133308728/senior-transport-managers-ride-aucklands-troubled-wx1-express-bus-route
It seems that even AT Transport managers don’t like it.
Auckland needs to do way better than this. There needs to be good alternatives for when the congestion charging is introduced, although the congestion charging should enable buses to travel more quickly. Perhaps. A charge set at $3 is unlikely to achieve much. It will be cheaper than the bus.
Don’t read into my comments that we need to have great alternatives before congestion charging happens. That’s an argument spun to ensure that it never happens. For many, unless a bus stops at their gate, and passes right by their destination PT will never be an adequate replacement. Oh, and they want a seat by themselves, and turn up and go frequency. Just introduce the charge.
I found the Stuff story curious. AT have been aware of the shortcomings of this ‘busway’ since day dot. This is not new information to them. The issues around lack of priority lanes on the on ramps and the motorway itself were identified in the consultations, and well discussed over the last few years on this forum – which AT most certainly reads..
The story felt like a comms job: ‘look at us being all responsive, and listening, and getting our managers out there to make it better’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased it’s getting attention and the problems will maybe get addressed. But it isn’t a problem they’ve only discovered now that WX1 is operating. This was foreseen and has indeed come to pass. The article felt disingenuous to this west Aucklander.