Weekly Roundup 3-May-2024

Here we are in May already! And here are a few of the stories that caught our eye this week.

This Week on Greater Auckland

On Monday, Matt highlighted that it’s been a decade since Auckland’s rail system was electrified.

On Wednesday, Matt looked at AT’s rollout of new ways to pay for your public transport journeys.

Safe speeds for kids around the motu

In Dunedin, Stuff reports that police are “making no apologies over the use of speed camera vans” to snap drivers speeding in school zones, with one location seeing seven speeders per minute.

[That] was too many speeding drivers for the liking of Senior Sergeant Karl Hemmingsen. “It’s very disappointing that no care or respect is being shown around these speed limits which are in place to protect our most vulnerable and precious members of the community.”

Hats off to this officer for telling it like it is, and to Dunedin City Council for persisting with the programme. After all, the laws of physics won’t have changed since this programme was consulted on a year ago.

Likewise, kudos to Whanganui District Council for delivering safer streets for their tamariki, as reported by the Whanganui Chronicle. Some speeds past rural schools will fall from a completely unsurvivable 100kmh to the Vision Zero maximum of 30kmh. With a nod to the incoming government’s policy direction, it was noted at the council meeting that “economic and travel time impacts” would be “less than minor”, giving council the confidence to prioritise safety. The looks on these children’s faces say it all.

Whanganui District Council is also calling on Waka Kotahi (aka NZTA) to improve safety on state highways in the area:

“With a clear community voice requesting change, now is the time for council to once again carry the voice of the community to central government and demand some action.”

The council unanimously voted to communicate to NZTA Waka Kotahi “in the strongest possible terms” for speed reductions around schools near state highways and for pedestrian protection measures on State Highway 3/Great North Rd.

[Whanganui Mayor David] Tripe said he was “always a man in a hurry” but safety was more important.

Progressing public transport in the provinces

While we’re talking about Whanganui, here’s some good coverage of public transport muse (and public transport muso) Anthonie Tonnon’s grand plans for better bus coverage of the city.

It’s a vision of high-frequency high-ridership services on a par with not just the comparable town of Palmerston North, but with what Whanganui itself used to enjoy back in the day, when Greyhound Buses gave “speedy, efficient service to citizens”.

We liked this quote, too:

“A Toyota Hiace is a great vehicle but it’s designed for intimate groups – your family, your sports group, your band. A bus is designed to make you feel comfortable with people you don’t know.”

It’s not easy being green (and in the path of a zombie mega-motorway)

A timely explainer by Stuff reporter Erin Johnston about the biodiversity of the inner Manukau Harbour, and the natural riches at stake in this government’s revived plans to run the massive (and massively expensive) East-West Link through there.

A lava field, Ann’s Creek [designated as a Significant Ecological Area in Auckland’s unitary plan] is the only place in Auckland where four particular indigenous and threatened plants grow together, Auckland Council’s senior regional advisor flora Emma Simpkins said.

Here, these small plants put down long roots between volcanic rocks.

“It gives us an insight into what our vegetation would have looked like across the region before we all came along and built things over the lava fields,” she said.

The area also has freshwater wetlands, saltmarsh and mangroves, and is home to breeding inanga (whitebait), as well as threatened birds – the Australasian bittern and banded rail.

Regular readers will know that the banded rail (or moho pererū) is only marginally more threatened than the elusive Auckland surface light rail (or terewhiti). Both of course deserve a healthy open-air environment in which they can thrive and reproduce to ultimately repopulate the isthmus.

The week in free PT

Glasgow is looking to trial free access to public transport, starting with a pilot giving 1000 Glaswegians a free ride for nine weeks  (although funding is still pending).

Meanwhile, on the Continent, the free public transport system of Luxembourg is extending its embrace across the border, to offer a fully free ride to any French citizens who commute to work in the tiny country just next door. Now that’s a good neighbour for you!

The secret of Gent

A lovely article with great photos about how the city of Gent halved traffic and multiplied health and happiness. It’s not really a secret. You just invest in the things you want more of, and shift people away from the things that don’t work. In the process, you become politically popular.

How do you slash car journeys from 55% of trips to 27%, and increase cycling journeys from 22% of trips to 37%? It’s a question only Filip Watteeuw, Deputy Mayor for Mobility in Gent, Belgium, can answer. Under his bold leadership, the city has transformed in less than a decade and on a limited budget.

It’s not been easy, and Watteeuw has felt the full heft of the noisy minority. Over the years, he has received death threats and been yelled at in the streets.

Even so, he persevered. Now, the city is buzzing with people walking and wheeling, and pollution levels are 18% lower than they once were. And Watteeuw is still in office, having been re-elected in 2018.

…many people would be surprised that he has survived re-election, given the criticism.

“It’s the other way around,” he explained. “It’s difficult not to be re-elected if you do such things. But you have to do it with full force, with belief, with passion — it’s not just a technical domain. Even when there is resistance, go further.

The dirt on CRL

Another monumental milestone for the City Rail Link:

Work that began with hand-held spades in the ground four years ago came full circle today with City Rail Link (CRL) today celebrating the end of work to shift one massive pile of dirt and then replace it with another at the project’s Maungawhau Staton site.

Removing a large sloping hill in Eden Terrace cleared the way for construction of the southern tunnel portal connecting CRL with the new station and the North Auckland/Western rail line. The hill has now been restored and most of the heavy construction hidden underground.

Special K for CRL: a green light for Karanga-a-hape upgrades

Once dubbed Project K, the Karanga-a-hape Station precinct integration works are set to get under way next month. Designed to complement the new CRL station and the 40,000 people expected to pour in and out daily, the design includes pedestrianised space, new cycleways, mobility parking and loading zones, and new bus stops.

The improvements extend beyond the station entrances on Mercury Lane and Beresford Square, along Pitt St, Canada St, and East St. Construction will take place from June 2024 to October 2025.

Get across (the Viaduct)

The Te Wero bridge, a temporary installation linking the Viaduct to Wynyard Quarter is out of action and likely to be for some time, to the chagrin of everyone up to and including the Deputy Mayor, with local residents and retailers suffering from a lack of connectivity. Business are saying it’s a risk to livelihoods, as it turns out that walking and biking access is vital for business.

RNZ reports that Eke Panuku will trial a free mini-ferry to help people bridge the gap, starting from 11 May.

Auckland Transport will be putting on free Red Boat ferries [with a capacity of 60 passengers] for pedestrians while the Wynyard crossing bridge is inoperable. They will take passengers between Te Wero Island and Karanga Plaza, on the outward side of the marina, for free.

Another option is walking around the basin, which is a fifteen minute stroll, or up to five minutes by bike or e-scooter.

Speaking of restoring local access…

With the (limited) reopening* of Meola Road this week to some through traffic (*conditions apply: detours and stop-go traffic management; bike path is still under construction), Auckland Transport took out a full page advertorial in the Weekend Herald to describe what a major undertaking it has been.

This is not a simple road renewal. It’s a full-noise rebuild of a road built on landfill, as part of a broad “dig once” effort that’s simultaneously upgrading water infrastructure, undergrounding powerlines, greening the streetscape, and improving pedestrian safety, while also adding safe and separated bike lanes.

Of course, some disruption for locals is inevitable (and the January 2023 floods offered a glimpse of the uncontrollable kind of disruption, leaving the road pitted with even more potholes than usual). But this is nice:

Amid the hard work and disruption, crew on the ground have reported back several stories of heart-warming community support. During the searing heat in the height of summer, locals were delivering ice blocks to exhausted road workers, who must work in full safety gear regardless of the temperature. Meanwhile a digger operator had an eager little fan, excitedly waiting every morning for him to start work, watching from inside the safety of his fence with his mum.

The project has another year to go, and once complete will feature a local cycle network on Pt Chevalier Road up to Meola Road and including part of Garnet Road. With the Great North Road upgrade also due to get under way soon, the logical next step for AT will be fixing the gap through Grey Lynn in a quick and affordable way.

In the article, AT’s Director of Infrastructure and Place describes some of the ultimate outcomes of the work:

“A safe cycleway, connected to a wider network of cycling routes, along with improved pedestrian access, will enable more people to access local businesses, parks, and sportsgrounds, by bike or on foot.”

Here’s a photo of some Western Springs College kids already doing exactly that, enjoying the raised crossing they’ve campaigned hard for since early 2019. Before this crossing was installed, they had to take their chances in traffic to get to and from the bus stop.

To come full circle on this roundup, children everywhere need better streets that give them more options and a pathway to a healthier future. Note that the Year 13 students in this photo would have been in primary school when the project was first proposed.

Good things take time, but they really shouldn’t take this much time.

That’s us for this week – any other stories and links, feel free to share in the comments. We appreciate your contributions!

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