It’s Friday and here are some of the things that caught our attention this week.
This Week in Greater Auckland
On Monday. Matt asked if the upcoming Regional Land Transport Programme will be another debacle.
On Wednesday. we ran a guest post from Nick Reid on why the CRL will fail immediately – in a good way.
Wayne on Procurement
Mayor Wayne Brown wrote an opinion piece in the Herald about the cost of infrastructure projects. Like with most things from him, his views are a mixed bag: some seem accurate while others not quite so much.
Inevitably all construction projects in the public sector take longer to finish and cost way more than expected and always way more than private sector to do these things.
Since I became Auckland mayor, council has had to deal with a billion-dollar blow out on the already late and expensive City Rail Link and there is a current debate over ludicrously expensive pedestrian crossings. On top of that the recently opened “gold-plated” Holiday Highway from Puhoi to Warkworth, while much appreciated, could and should have been done way quicker and at least $400m cheaper which would have meant that it got way further north past Wellsford.
There are two main reasons for this: Wrong people and wrong procurement processes.
Where I think he is most accurate is on our procurement processes:
In my view, what happens under public works programs is detailed design work is commissioned and there is always scope creep as people who aren’t actually paying for it want more than originally needed. Then it goes to tender and the price comes back way over the budget.
To make matters worse, current tender rules require the council or government department to publish their expected cost which is usually way in excess of the sum derived from the value for money approach. This signals to the tenderers that they have plenty of room for profits provided they come in under the published figure, resulting in everyone patting themselves on the back, the contractor for a big profit and the council for apparently saving money when in fact they have squandered public funds that never should have been spent.
But I’m not convinced by his examples:
Wait till you see the elaborate City Rail Link stations. They are more like cathedrals than places when all you want to do is catch a train!
Have a look at the Holiday Highway to Warkworth. If you compare what we got with the section of the same motorway between Albany and Silverdale which carries way more traffic you will note that the Holiday Highway is much wider than the Albany section, it has much wider central strip and shoulders which instead of cheap grass have hot mix seal on bits that nobody drives on, it has guard rails everywhere, and even the bridges are much wider than the bit you actually drive on, meaning very expensive elevated bridge works that will never be used. There are huge cuts through hills that had no reason to be so wide and the extra unneeded cuts cost hundreds of millions that could have been better spent elsewhere.
I do think the CRL stations need to be more than a bland box in the ground. It’s also worth noting that these general designs have been the same for years, and existed well before the most recent cost increase – which has been driven largely by the impacts from COVID and inflationary pressures, such as the increased cost of labour and materials.
As for Puhoi to Warkworth, how much of that is due to a change in design standards since the Silverdale section was completed nearly 25 years ago?
The latest CRL milestone
Speaking of the CRL, they’ve just finished laying all of the track for the project:
Auckland’s City Rail Link project has completed installation of the second and final railway line below the central city.
The newly laid 3.4 kilometres of track will carry trains underground north from Maungawhau Station at Eden Terrace and connect with the two new central city ones – Karanga-a-Hape and Te Waihorotiu – and downtown’s Waitematā Station (Britomart). CRL’s southbound line was installed last year.
“There’s plenty to celebrate for our project teams, and for Aucklanders,” says Dr Sean Sweeney, Chief Executive for City Rail Link Ltd. “Completing the two tracks brings us one big step closer to the next phase of the project – testing trains inside the tunnels mid-year, and from there handing CRL over next year to Auckland Transport and KiwiRail, who will operate and maintain it.”
CRL Ltd’s main contractor, Link Alliance, and railway infrastructure company, Martinus New Zealand, installed the track on what is one of the steepest sections of railway in New Zealand. From Maungawhau the line drops 70 metres to Waitematā, which sits below sea level. At its deepest point, CRL runs 42 metres underneath Auckland’s busy Central Motorway Junction.
The final section of the northbound line was installed near Te Waihorotiu Station.
[…..]
The focus for 2024 shifts to train testing and the fit out of the stations and tunnels, alongside landscaping and urban realm enhancements. The fit-out programme includes the installation of lifts, escalators, security systems, CCTV, electricity, signalling and communications.
Rail Fails continue
Staying on the rail network, the recent string of disruptions continued yesterday with a signal issue in the morning, and the cause ….
KiwiRail has revealed this morning’s signal failures across the Auckland rail network were caused by an IT staffer doing unsanctioned work on the rail’s firewall.
[…..]
In a statement this evening, KiwiRail general manager Jon Knight said an IT staff member was doing a diagnostic on the firewall that protects its train control system this morning after a potential problem had arisen.
“This type of work has to be done at night, when services aren’t running. There are clear processes in place but these weren’t followed,’ Knight said.
He said the system lost connection to its infrastructure in the field and switched into safe mode, stopping all trains as a safety precaution.
Signals across Auckland went down for 13 minutes, resulting in affected services being delayed by between 10 and 40 minutes.
“The staff member was looking into it with the aim to resolve any issue… The matter will be investigated further,” Knight said.
This isn’t even the first time that I’ve heard about Kiwirail IT staff playing with the system at peak times, resulting in network wide signal issues.
The extent of the recent disruptions has also been revealed.
The fresh set of delays and cancellations came as it was revealed that between January 15 and February 22, there were 1303 AT train trips cancelled. This is three times higher than in previous years.
The top three causes were track speed restrictions (including heat restrictions) with 306 cancellations, motor point issues on 189 and temporary train manager shortage with 184.
Cancellations peaked between February 5 and February 11 with 386 cancellations that week.
Ferry Frustrating
Meanwhile, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish Auckland Transport from some sort of comedy routine. More than once this week they’ve cancelled ferry services over a couple of days because they’re busy.
Due to high passenger numbers, the following ferry services between Downtown Auckland and Devonport are cancelled:
• Downtown to Devonport 18:00
• Devonport to Downtown 18:15 pic.twitter.com/0gHZBwp5iw— Auckland Transport Travel Alerts (@AT_TravelAlerts) February 21, 2024
Queen St Fines
Newshub has reported on how many fines AT have issued on Queen St within the Essential Vehicles Area.
But it has generated a lot of money for Auckland Transport, too. Documents obtained by Newshub under the Official Information Act show $5.6 million was collected in fines between July 2022 and November 2023.
In total, 80,890 fines have been issued, but only 37,912 have been paid. That means Auckland Transport is yet to receive another $6.4 million.
When asked if it’s fair during a cost-of-living crisis, Auckland Transport’s programme director for city centre transport integration Graeme Gunthorp, said the level of fines is set by the Ministry of Transport.
“That is the only mechanism which Auckland Transport has in order to make our buses work efficiently and reliably. We don’t have the privilege of changing those up and down, similar to parking fines,” he told Newshub.
I get frustrated with news organisations always pushing enforcement like this, as if it’s some sort of revenue-gathering exercise.
At the same time, AT have done a really poor job of implementation here. As we’ve highlighted a few times before, the signage that does exist is often confusing and not always that obvious, especially if visibility is blocked by a bus. A lot more could also be done to divert traffic away from Queen St much earlier, such as at Mayoral Drive, to help prevent this issue.
Somewhat related:
Dublin is about to get even better:
"Ireland’s largest city is beginning a process of replanning central streets so that private cars and commercial trucks will be allowed access only if their final destination is downtown."https://t.co/EoyYBnhuzS pic.twitter.com/w8PupwfxIx
— David Zipper (@DavidZipper) February 19, 2024
BUS SOTP
A newly remade bus stop in Te Atatū Peninsula hasn’t even got its electronic information board up and running and it’s already hit a snag, with the painted text on the road misspelling the word ‘Stop’.
The new bus stop, part of Auckland Transport’s (AT) work in Te Atatū Peninsula to improve public transport in the area, was added some time in the past four weeks by AT’s contractor, Fulton Hogan.
[…..]
“This mistake is very minor and will be fixed tonight if the weather allows. It will be re-painted at the contractor’s expense, with no cost to AT.”
A Useful List
From Scotland, this looks useful for a lot of advocates.
One-page, plain-English summaries on aspects of transport planning from robust peer reviewed studies, released fortnightly by Prof Adrian Davis of Edinburgh Napier University’s Transport Research Institute.
Our aim is to improve public policy making and practice by making robust academic evidence freely accessible to local government transport authorities, advocacy groups, and public health practitioners working across Scotland and beyond. Our concise, de-jargonised summaries address a range of sustainable and health promoting aspects of transport, from behaviour change to infrastructure interventions.
Stadium Access
We’ve had a bit of discussion about new stadiums for Auckland recently, but there’s been some broader discussion about stadiums that caught our attention.
Following Taylor Swift’s concert in Melbourne last week, it seems Americans were shocked by one thing: where does everyone park??
Someone posted an aerial shot of #TaylorSwift playing to 96,000 people at the MCG – her latest crowd ever.
Americans however are more blown away by the fact that people didn’t drive to the stadium. pic.twitter.com/xVk4yuArqO
— Chris in Bangkok (@bangkokaussie) February 18, 2024
By comparison, here’s what so many American stadiums look like.
the swifties MCG discourse got me looking up the parking situation around american stadiums. how the fuck do these people run the world pic.twitter.com/ObpVAoRrLa
— Alex McKinnon (@mckinnon_a) February 19, 2024
And here’s a good video on how Melbourne gets so many people to and from big events.
On Housing
There’s something in common there ….
https://twitter.com/statisticurban/status/1760065232809193980?s=61&t=QWUD_fnqMBgy7gYWLGShyw
Developer Mark Todd and Mayor Wayne Brown are right. Quoted at the opening of the Greenhouse on Williamson Ave this week:
A prominent apartment mogul has joined Auckland’s mayor in taking aim at developers who create subdivisions on the city’s rural edges, allegedly to make a quick buck.
[…..]
“The more residents in the CBD, the better. We actually have all the roads and the infrastructure here, as opposed to Drury where if we’re not careful we’ll be paying to subsidise,” Brown said.
“When you have growth in our city [at the edge], the government collects more GST and tax, but the council, all we get is more cost.”
Todd was also passionate in his views that development should be focused in the central city, rather than in the rural south, when speaking to a reporter.
“We have no shortage of high density land. We don’t want to be developing in fu…..g Drury, it’s so wrong.
“All the money [there] is in rezoning the land, and building the houses is an afterthought, and the city is left picking up the legacy of bullshit development.”
Todd was referring to developers who buy land in Auckland’s future urban zones at a low price and then apply for a plan change to make it’s zoning available for housing development, substantially increasing its value.
“And, it’s all those rapacious money grubbing … those big old developers …you know who they are,” he said.
[…..]
Todd said there was a century’s worth of development to be had along the eight train stations between Grafton and Avondale in the west, as well as Meadowbank and Glen Innes in the east.
“I don’t care if Drury has got a train station,.. that’s not where the focus should be, they should say if you want to be a property developer, you’re not doing farms any more.”
Great resilience project – but cycleways are paying for it
The Ngauranga to Petone project is great, but let’s not forget it’s primarily about building a seawall to protect the rail line and motorway. And yet, because it will have a cycleway on top, it’s being paid for out of the national cycleways budget. This one project has taken up so much of that budget that it’s left almost no money for any other cycling infrastructure around the rest of the country – and the new government are likely to slash the cycling budget going forward.
We're starting to build 54 engineered reef "pyramids" as part of the reef enhancement work we're doing to restore the diverse marine life under the Ngā Ūranga ki Pito-One (Ngauranga to Petone) section of Te Ara Tupua. pic.twitter.com/rVb5C2FT3z
— Waka Kotahi NZTA Wellington (@WakaKotahiWgtn) February 20, 2024
Have a great weekend.
Processing...
The RONS projects were designed to a higher standard (flatter grades, wider safety areas etc.) than the existing geometric standard. This has given a much safer and more trafficable route however with a trade off in extra cost.
and I would assume future proofing it a bit so extra lanes wouldn’t require massive work
Future proofing is a nonsense concept and a recipe for high project cost.
Unless you can see the future and quantify the scope of work don’t futureproof it. Project Management 201.
+1, people don’t understand net present value (NPV) which kills future proofing
No need for the tone but I would have thought leaving room for additional lanes is perfectly forseeable…seems to that planning for growth on major highways is exactly what they should be doing.
“I would have thought leaving room for additional lanes is perfectly forseeable”
If one extra lane is “forseeable” why not 2 extra lanes, or 3 or 7?
Better NOT to build more than the current need and preserve capital for more climate-friendly modes.
Never mind about what you ‘would have thought’ or even what you do think right now, transport capital is limited and best spend where we get best bang for the environmental buck.
Safer than what, Brent?
Safer than travelling by train? By air?
How’s the BCR for those RONs these days?
Given that we have to stop burning stuff very soon, what is going to power the vehicles that travel on them?
What is the pavement going to consist of?
We,Auckland certainly dodged a bullet with Taylor Swift, one can only imagine the debacle,that would have ensued with concerts at Eden Park. Any time l have attended events at Eden Park,PT,train,has been excellent inbound,but a absolute failure outbound, Uber being the most practical,and surprisingly cost effective choice.
I’ve only ever had one shocking experience getting to and from Eden Park and that was a long time ago( and was more to do with significant issues earlier in the day i.e. someone was killed on the tracks). hanging the system so that the west bound trains leave from Morningside was a game changer. The recent football world cup games(all sold out games) were all excellent experiences. The organisation of the trains was first rate leaving.
Eden Park was only sold out for the Womens Football because they reduced its capacity.
Eden Park, in its usual football/rugby format, has a nominal capacity of just under 50000.
The crowds during the tournament were:
Switzerland v Spain 5 August 43,217
USA v Portugal 1 August 42,958
Norway v Philippines 30 July 34,697
Spain v Zambia 26 July 20,983
Argentina v Italy 24 July 30,889
USA v Vietnam 22 July 41,107
New Zealand v Norway 20 July 42,137
In saying that, I wonder how many of the Eden Park nay sayers have actually been there. Kingsland train station is 200 meters away, Morningside 700 meters. Extra trains are put on for big matches. It all seems to go smoothly.
While a fan of the Quay Park proposal, I don’t get the hate for Eden Park.
As you say, the train stations are close and bus routes convenient. If people think the viewing experience is not great, try Stade de France – you might as well be in another postcode if you aren’t in the first tier. And location? I give you Olympic Park in Sydney and a tortuous 45mins train ride back to the CBD, the closest place for a drink. Eden Park stands up pretty well considering.
My issue is with the governance and concert restrictions.
Buses to the Shore are usually pretty good both ways.
“Due to high passenger numbers, the following ferry services between Downtown Auckland and Devonport are cancelled”
That makes absolutely no sense at all. You cancel things because of low numbers, not because of high numbers.
I know AT is not a business and I shouldn’t be applying business logic to it’s but that’s plain stupid and would only make sense in Soviet Russia; “there are too many people queuing for bread, make less bread”.
Something is systemically wrong here. And what’s worse when they publish PR like that, it’s obvious they don’t get it.
The only logic I can see is that the “high passenger numbers” meant that there were delays with embarking / disembarking, and thus delays for the sailings accumulated until it made more sense to cancel some nominal services rather than have all of them delayed for hours (because really, it is the same 1-2 ferries, you can’t run them much faster to “catch up”).
But even if my guess is right, this is a very poor way of communicating it (as well as a systemic issue if demand is greater than capacity to a level that this causes such domino effects).
Exactly!
When so many businesses in NZ are facing sales drop and having to take drastic measures (eg the Wharehouse selling Torpedo7 for $1) to be in the situation where you have excess demand and you just walk away from it is inexcusable.
Amanin has it right. Without employing packers to case people off and onto the ferries, they can only shuttle full, as fast as possible. If that alters the “schedule”, it would be better just to update passenger information with next two predicted departure times than run late until one scheduled trip drops out and announce that in this weird way.
This is exactly what happens. Boarding is so slow that it takes > 30 minutes to get from Downtown to Devo. Single file over one rickety gang plank, via the back of the boat, with insufficient bike storage creating a tangle and multi deck ferries requiring steep stairs and boarding having to wait until disembarkation completes. No plans to introduce multiple automatic gangplanks to wide, side doors on single level, right sized double ended ferries with simultaneous boarding and disembarkation because unlike Vancouver, Auckland is broke
“there are too many people queuing for bread, make less bread”
That’s literally capitalism.
“There’s too many people queuing for bread”
“Keep making bread, and we’ll charge more per loaf”
The destination boards at the stations only display the next two trains.So between Puhinui and Otahuhu all it displays is one train running late and one train cancelled but what we really want to know is what is happening will the next scheduled train run etc. I was standing at Otahuhu wondering if I should take two buses or wait for a train to take me to Panmure.
I think this is where a lot of the confusion arises from. I forgot I could have looked at my AT app but I wonder if it would have helped or just added to the confusion. I was caught out earlier in the week when a scheduled bus didn’t show up on the app but a bus turned up anyway as soon as I started walking back to get my car.
Maybe the destination boards could scroll so more information could be pasted on the traveller.
Probably a silly idea but I would remove those boards and make people use the app. I found it excellent to use…bring able to see how far away the next bus was on a map was awesome. Didn’t use it for trains just buses though
AT hop app was useless on Wednesday, app still showed services every 10 minutes but in reality trains were only running every 20 minutes. Only way you knew was the voiceover announcement at Britomart
I was on those ferries with my kids, and yes it was the embarking process that forced cancellations; moving a few hundred people via a few zig zagged gangplanks takes more time than the actual time crossing to Devenport.
But that is not Fuller’s fault.
That is an infrastructure issue compounded by enormous cruise ships docking and restricting ferry manoeuvring space.
And of course that bikes and pedestrians have no other option to cross the harbour.
So we can point two middle fingers squarely at Waka Kotahi and Auckland Transport.
RIP Efeso, may you continue to inspire us to be better humans
It’s just ridiculous, spend all this money on new ferry berths, etc and the whole service is worse than it has ever been.
Aren’t things generally meant to improve over time?
The cruise ships can just piss off, polluting eye sores that cause huge disruption for local people. Yet some seem to think they are the CBD saviours
Quite right, Barry. Hugely polluting and about to go the way of the dodo in a few years.
Building infrastructure to cater for international tourism is the height of folly. Numbers will plummet.
They need the setup like in Amsterdam for the Devonport ferry. Whole width of the ferry opens up, they all, with half them on bikes pour out.
The SeaBus from downtown Vancouver to their north shore is the way to do it. Ticket hall and barriers first, with a countdown timer showing the next departure. Then entry is like getting onto a train through a number of doors all along the side. There are outer doors as well, to keep people away from the boat and the water until it is in position. Disembarking starts on the other side of the boat, just before the doors open for embarking, so disembarking and embarking are simultaneous.
And docking is very fast because it doesn’t require thrusting backwards and forwards to get into position, whilst manually tying up to mooring posts with ropes. The Vancouver SeaBus ferry sits into a wharf that wraps right around and I assume there’s some mechanism that catches hold of the boat.
There are a bunch of pretty average videos on YouTube if you haven’t seen it before and what I just said isn’t making sense. It would save between five and ten minutes on every single trip, compared with the current way of doing it, where more than half the trip is docking, mooring, disembarking, embarking…
Why can’t we have nice things too?
OK this video is a bit better and shows pretty well how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMO_WsBWfuA
I was thinking Venice ferries. About the size and shape of a bus with similar seating, pull alongside a floating pontoon platform, load people off and on in a couple of minutes and depart Iin the same direction for circular routes around the city. Can load either side so can stop on both sides of canals without having to turn around. 2 crew. 5 minute frequency on some routes. Some go quite far, e.g Burano almost as far from Venice as Waiheke from Akl. Ticketing works the same as any of the bus systems in other cities.
Our ferries are like small cruise ships with elaborate loading and unloading, cafe on board and feel so slow to berth. Venice ferry would have stopped, disembarked, re-embarked and departed before an Akl ferry had finished rotating, reversing and tied up.
Akl would be so awesome with a fast service like this doing 2 direction circular routes around the stops on the Waitemata, plus some express services like Hobonville to the City.
I wonder what the tidal range is in Venice and Vancouver is compared to Auckland. Also we have had to fit our terminal onto existing wharves which were designed to handle shipping not purpose built for ferries.
Looks like Auckland is about 2.2 metres today and Venice is only 0.6 metres this would make a big difference in the type of floating pontoons and boarding ramps required.
Royce, Vancouver’s maximum tidal range looks to be somewhere between 3 and 4m, from what I can google, which would make it similar to Auckland (though I can’t see it stated directly anywhere, nor specifically for the ferry terminals). They might well be docking into a large floating pontoon, given how the inside (ferry) and outside (dock) doors have to align.
Oh hey totally realise Venice and Auckland are massively different places. It’s interesting to sometimes think about how we could possibly be inspired by other systems. Maybe if we took the concept of small, light, lower cost vessels, rapid disembark/embark, and high frequency circular routes as a concept it could have some potential.
Hey maybe not though. I guess that would be the light railification of water transport.
Venice wasn’t designed for ferries either and has had to be retrofitted. One of the big ferry hubs San Zaccharia was traditionally where the big ships berthed. This one has longer jetties to the platforms. Others around the city are just on the side of canals without the jetties, but those are much more sheltered.
https://universes.art/en/venice-biennale/2015/tour/san-marco-castello/san-zaccaria
Queens Wharf is a clusterf*ck.
It was supposed to be a “public space” when the port gave it up but like a lot of things in Auckland, it’s trying to be lots of things to lots of people and not doing any of it very well when they all use it at once.
Take over Captain Cook Wharf and that can be for cruise ships. Leave QW for ferries, even expand to the Eastern side. Get rid of the Cloud and for goodness sake, put in some grass.
Design standards certainly have changed since Albany to Silverdale was built 25 years ago. Also, every mm has to be designed and constructed per design nowadays. As someone who worked on the project, Pūhoi to Warkworth lost a heap of time thanks to COVID lockdowns, so yes, it could have come in $400m cheaper and been built earlier, but those conditions and the subsequent supply chain shortages pushed everything out.
Rest of his opinion piece is spot on though. The tendering process is too long and flawed. Scope creep contributes to extra costs. Consenting is an absolute arse for big projects (it took 4 months to cut down 3 small Pohutukawa trees in Auckland recently), and anyone can hold up a billion-dollar project for months. Sector experience on the client boards is minimal (one of the agency heads called an excavator a roller on a site visit). Estimated costs are embarrassingly incorrect (iReX), and everyone in the sector knows it. Finally, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are required for a simple traffic management shoulder closure for a day.
KiwiRail’s clownery makes me want to go off like Slim Pickens in _Blazing Saddles_. “What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here? I paid you people to lay some tracks, not jump around like a bunch of Kansas City f-words!”
Another Blazing Saddles fan!
One of the best anti-racist, anti-whacko-religion movies of all time. Lampooning and surrealism with onion-like layers of meaning;
“Hedi Lamarr? No Hedley Lamarr.”; reference to one of the most amazing anti-Nazi Jewish women of all time.
I got my youngest daughter to watch it with me recently. She was reluctant as it was self-evidently a politically incorrect movie. She loved it and pointed out meaning that had escaped me (the Yiddish scene where Mel Brooks, in full war bonnet, plays a Native American).
I had a ferry cancel on me due to being too busy (not a regular user), so I looked at the journey planner and it was going to be slightly quicker to take the bus to Devonport than wait for next ferry. Unfortunately the journey planner didn’t tell me there was only a one minute window for my connection at Akoranga and it was a 30 minute wait for the next bus when I missed it due to NEX being 1 minute late. And it also didn’t tell me that on a Sunday every pensioner in Devonport headed to Takapuna and came back on the bus I caught, and there are about 1000 stops between Takapuna and Devonport. So what was meant to be a 15 min ferry ride ended up taking over 2 hours. Its laughable now…
Pedestrians being hit at night is responsible for almost all the rise in fatalities in the US since 2010:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nighttime-deaths.html
I can’t remember if this was discussed here when it came out in December, but it would be interesting to see the trends of stats in NZ similarly broken down by age and time of day, and how this has changed over time.
Some people might not want to hear it, but we cannot have an honest conversation about the factors influencing property prices without including the huge increase in demand that is being driven by (effectively) uncontrolled migration.
“by (effectively) uncontrolled migration.”
Probably not the answer you were hoping for*, but I can only bitterly laugh when someone calls NZ’s situation “uncontrolled immigration”. This country takes almost no legal refugees/asylum seekers, has very very few refugees/asylum seekers enter sneakily (too far away), and our legal immigration system – whatever you think of the numbers allowed in – is HEAVILY slanted towards the rich and educated coming in, and everyone else can piss off.
*Yes, immigration affects housing prices. But guess what? Restrictive zoning for intensification and a tax/economy system heavily geared towards flipping single house villas instead of building houses and apartments does so much more. There’s countries that have had massive population increases over the last decade that far outstrip our countries small changes, and they don’t have anything like our house price increases.
Signed – a former immigrant who got lucky that he fit the “are you worthy to enter” criteria and then managed to get onto the housing ladder before it became totally insane.
Second that. The hoops Immigration NZ makes applicants jump through are plentiful. Got a job with constant stakeholder contact both in written and spoken form? All your theses were written in English? Well, then you will be able to take this NZD 400+ English test.
You are not in New Zealand? Well, travel to one of two doctors in your country to get your medical examinations that could be done at every hospital and most GP offices…
That sounds a lot like a talking point imported from the US that doesn’t make sense outside that context.
Our lack of land borders more or less guarantees our immigration is 100% controlled.
Some reports claim that the signalling stuff-up in the morning was sorted within the hour but Western Line trains were delayed in the afternoon – for an unspecified system failure. The 1.33 city-bound service from Baldwin Avenue was delayed for 40 minutes. Once again the information board was all over the show with two different arrival times displayed and the expected arrival counting down then to 2 minutes then increasing to 4 minutes and yo-yoing a couple more times before the train hove into view. As a small bonus I wound up in the same carriage as an AT engineer who was regailing his colleague with interesting information about the CRL, including: driver training in the CRL will start in June (previous advice was 1st July); the first two of the new trains have arrived from Mexico and are already at the Wiri stabling facility which now has twice the capacity to cater with an enlarged fleet – the rest of the new trains are due next year.
Construction of the additional train stabling sidings at Wiri Depot is underway but is not scheduled to be completed and commissioned until the end of June. I understand that some of the new CAF EMUs will initially be stabled at Pukekohe
Went pass the new Pukekohe station today and they are starting to lay the tarseal on both Platforms , Platform is about 80% complete and today they started to lay it from the Northern end
And this showing the works at Drury
And here are the Platforms at Pukekohe
I asked Auckland Transport why the screens at Britomart don’t show the imminently departing trains.
They responded promptly and told me the big screen and mid level screens don’t show trains departing in the next 2 minutes, because they don’t want people running to catch those trains due to health & safety.
How ridiculous is that? Is there any other city in the world that doesn’t trust its commuters to run and catch a train?
Now I will always run down the first set of stairs to see if there is a train still on the platform.
This is exactly the same in London on the tube FYI
Screens at station entracnes and in big stations with interchanges do not show the next departing trains, presumably for that exact reason
“I do think the CRL stations need to be more than a bland box in the ground”
This is one of my pet peeves. It seems most train stations of any size in auckland like Britomart, Newmarket, puhunui and these new ones on the crl are designed to be train stations only. There might be a kiosk or two but that’s about it.
A good train station in Asia is essentially a shopping mall with trains going through it. Much more utilitarian and profitable than nz stations which are seemingly massive tributes to the glory of rail and the city.
The development above Aotea is by a Malaysian developer so hopefully a better outcome there.
Those that design them only go near them on opening day and that is to get the freebees .
That last article re the “cycleway”, yes sucking out all the limited budget and it’s so much more than a cycleway.
A top we should be continuing… options for Auckland new stadium.
Quay Park stadium and the flaws with the idea. Beautiful design, but not placed in a good area. It’s a terrible idea to be placing a stadium at Quay Park because of convenience, rail standings at Quay Park, Auckland Strand station and taking away opportunity to build more rail infrastructure in and around Quay Park.
If Quay Park stadium was built, it be inconvenient for commuters travelling via rail cause of the long walk to the nearest entrance to Britomart station. Not good for people who have mobility issues. Spark Arena is 10-15 mins walk from Britomart Station, if a stadium was placed at Quay Park, it be at least 15-20 mins walk from Britomart Station, be longer cruise ship passengers coming from Princess Wharf & Queens Wharf, be 25-30 mins walk since you pass Spark Arena, in-which isn’t ideal for commuters or people who have mobility issues wanting to attend events.
Auckland Strand Station would be gone, cause of the stadium. Services like the Te Huia & Northern Explorer can’t go into Britomart cause their diesel fumes. Where would Te Huia & Northern Explorer end up? Britomart got rid of the ventilation fans years ago to blow out the diesel fumes. Quay Park Stadium would prevent opportunities to expand the Heavy Rail network at a time where we need more Heavy Rail services around Auckland. It prevents the expansion of the ‘Eastern Approach Tunnel’ into Britomart to create four or more future lines like North Shore line or more Intercity lines like to Tauranga, Rotorua into Britomart in-future.
The rail standings at Quay Park would be gone for Auckland One Rail to facilitate their rail stock. Meaning nowhere else to place standings in central part of the CBD. There’s a reason why there’s a rail standings placed at Quay Park, in-case of example ‘Southern Line’ needing to terminate at Otahuhu instead of Papakura, like last week, you wouldn’t be able to ride the train and have to use bus every time their rail works or fixes. Also there’s early morning services from Britomart for those needing to get to airport or other places like work in Auckland, if the rail standings gone would result in early morning out of Britomart to rescheduled later in morning, not ideal for some folks.
.
It would make more sense to do Eden Park 2.0 and demolishing North Harbour Stadium, to make-way for 30,000 seated stadium located at Waterfront opposite Britomart Station since it be more financially feasible to operate and host more events than North Harbour Stadium. Demolishing North Harbour Stadium would be like transferring asset (land), transferring ownership so you can purchase new land but instead you’re profiting more, feasibly operational than North Harbour Stadium and not making net losses anymore! Aucklands needs two stadiums located in Central Auckland, one small scale sized stadium (Waterfront stadium/30,000 seated) and one big sized stadium (Eden Park/70,000). Auckland a new 30,000 seated stadium right at the Waterfront, for Football (soccer) future A-League team, some Rugby League (Auckland Warriors), Rugby Union(All Blacks lower tier matches) and Eden Park but expand north, east and west stands, with capacity 70,000 seats, hosting rugby (Auckland Rugby Union/Blues Rugby/All Blacks matches), Cricket(Auckland Cricket/Blackcaps, concerts, national teams in Football(Soccer) and Rugby League.
For a Waterfront 30,000 seated stadium, we don’t need it to be an ‘iconic’ or a ‘landmark structure’, but we do need the stadium to be ‘World-Class’ structure. We do need the exterior of the stadium to give bit ’wow factor’ to spectators and people outside the stadium. The stadium be less than 2-3 mins walk to Britomart buses trains & ferries over Quay Park. A fan base right outside the stadium can be created too, due to the location and land space available. Building Eden Park 2.0 would be 40% of the cost of a 70,000 seated Waterfront or Quay Park stadium starting from scratch.
A Waterfront stadium 30,000 seated and one big sized stadium Eden Park 70,000 seated stadium, would make more ideal and logical sense for Aucklanders and tourist who visit from abroad or domestically due to geographic locations and connectivity.
I think the idea is to have a station probably underground at the new stadium as well so solves most of your issues you raised. Someone did a post here on this idea a few years back.
I hope the Aucklabnd Ratepayers are not expected to pay for what would need to be designed for, the largest one way peak passenger numbers on the network, so extra wide platforms, and very high capacity escalators.
And all built below sea level, in challenging ground, on a very constrained site, all for just a few hours use a year.
Wonderful how these private enterprise promoters are expecting huge public funding for dubious public benifit.
Clearly you’ve haven reading…. Doesn’t include any new underground station. Station will always remain at Britomart no matter what!
The idea is to base a 30,000 seated Waterfront Stadium next to Britomart since it be convenient for spectators from inside stadium and outside stadium. Later in-future expand Britomart underground platforms to accommodate more rail lines.
I think the plans are to build over the rail infrastructure there. The stabling would remain (and allows for regional trains for big events). The emerging area would be serviced by Britomart and The Strand, the latter as a new station on the Eastern line.
It’s also easily serviced by key bus routes; Tamaki, Inner and Outer Links and NX
If we treat those bus services as rapid transit (given frequency and priority, somewhat) then it would effectively be serviced by 7 lines (western, southern and O lines to Britomart, Eastern line to the Strand, tamaki inner and outer links…. plus NX.
I say to expand platforms at Britomart. We don’t need any expansion of the existing ‘The Strand’. The existing strand must go and move all the regional trains to Britomart since Britomart is the ‘Transport Centre’ of Auckland. Tamaki, Inner and Outer Links and NX is far more easily serviced more from Britomart since you’d also got the ferries, got Lower Albert street buses, Queen ST buses and Customs Street Buses.walk from Britomart to Waterfront stadium be 2-3 mins walk from the Waterfront stadium 30,000 seated stadium while a Quay Park would be 20-25 mins long walk.
Makes much more sense to build a Waterfront stadium 30,000 seated and one big sized stadium Eden Park 70,000 seated stadium.
From Britomart to that Quay Park stadium idea is 1.2 kms so more than from Orakei to Meadowbank so would deserve it’s own station. Currently they dawdle through there so slow wouldn’t notice an extra stop. Would be worth making a station or two work for there for either Southern/Western/Onehunga (maybe on the tight curve) and/or Eastern line underneath that could be used outside of events as well.
Good point actually.
Maybe start with the Strand stop under the stadium, for the Eastern Line and regional/events trains.
Then when the rest of the area is developed for commercial and residential, a stop on the southern/western/onehunga line just south of Te Taou Cres, on or before the tight curve.
With such brilliant PT access, parking could be kept to a minimum (emergency services, disabled).
Yes, be like that Melbourne stadium!
Once the CRL is up and running, Britomart won’t even be the busiest station; that would be Aotea. And there just isn’t the space at Britomart for additional platforms, let alone stabling.
The Strand already provides for this and eventually that area will have 2000 apartments and a commercial precinct. It will need it’s own station.
Whether the station should be 30k or 70k is a different matter. Personally I think we only need one at 50k that can be scaled down to 20k (e.g lower tier seating only).
Sorry, the stadium (70k or 30k)
And Quay Park a 25min walk? Are you talking about the Sunken Stadium?
I was talking the Quay Park proposal. In an article behind the NZH firewall, it suggested that the Sunken Stadoum is highly unlikely because it costs twice as much as the others and requires more council money (apparently the rail line and roads would need reconfiguring/reconstruction)
am i the only one who thinks any new stadium anywhere on the waterfront would be a BS idea?
much prefer ngati whatua orakei’s Te Toangaroa masterplan for the Quay Park + redeveloped ports area. park and plaza space over the rail corridors, surrounded by dense development for living, working, shopping, eating etc; with the old port wharves also dedicated to mixed use and public/cultural spaces. that’s more people friendly, and the quay park surrounds would definitely better suit the Strand station for regular patronage.
would y’all rather have a big sunken station in the waterfront, or a whole new set of beaches and parks right in the heart of the city? i know i’d prefer the latter
expand Spark Arena, Eden Park, Mt Smart stadiums maybe. or find somewhere near Manukau/Puhinui/the airport to chuck a new big stadium in if we really must host another commonwealth games or olympics
The world, and even Auckland, is littered with unused or very underused stadiums. Stadiums very largley paid for by the public at the bequest of politicians wanting personal monuments.
The same cannot be said of the incredibly durable public transport rail infrastructure that we hav4 inherited from far sighted earlier generations. Infrastructure that is inncreasing in its value in contributing to transport solutions in our ever more crowded urban environments.