Midway through March already? The year is flying by. Here’s some things we saw this week that caught our attention.
This week in Greater Auckland
- On Tuesday Matt took a look at AT’s Upper Harbour bus route changes.
- For Wednesday we had a guest post by Malcolm McCracken exploring what else is needed to maximise the value of CRL.
- Thursday saw Patrick examine the government’s investment summit, and what makes a project actually worthwhile to finance.
This post, like all our work, is brought to you by the Greater Auckland crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like to support our work, you can join our circle of supporters here, or support us on Substack!
CRL testing success continues
City Rail Link testing appears to be an ongoing success. Yesterday they announced they’ve now had trains up to the line speed in the CRL of 70km/h. They’ve also tested being able to recover a train from the tunnels by pushing or pulling it with another train.
Also in CRL news, Te Waihorotiu station will have some of its walls lined with artwork by children, and this is now going in.
Te Whau Path sneak peak
A few weeks ago we highlighted a video on the construction progess of the Te Whau pathway. Earlier this week, some locals got a look for themselves.
Yesterday residents of Bridge Avenue and surrounding streets had a guided of the two sections currently being built. It was a great turn out with about 60 locals attending. Amy O’Donnell, Project Manager at HEB Construction, gave a short presentation on the progress of the pathway and then gave a tour along the Horowai Connection (between Bridge Avenue and Roberts Road). Locals were then invited to walk on the Northwestern Connection which links the pathway from Bridge Avenue to SH16 and the Northwestern Cycleway.
Once completed, the pathway will a fantastic addition to the area and one I suspect will be far more successful than anticipated.
Hobsonville Road cycleway progressing to construction
Still on the theme of active modes: Auckland Transport have confirmed the design for the Hobsonville Rd cycleway, saying that it will start construction in the middle of the year. The designs are mostly okay but there are some bits that aren’t great – such as not making any more than minor changes to the intersection with Brigham Creek Rd, which still has the the same design as when this was a rural state highway. Even just putting aside the quality of cycleway design, this intersection is dangerous for people in cars and there have been many crashes there over the years, including some serious ones.
Te Huia to run on a Sunday
Te Huia rail service has been a hit for weekend day trips to Auckland to the extent that plans are underway to add a Sunday service between Hamilton and the super city.
Despite being set up as a weekday commuter service, Te Huia’s patronage has been on the up, according to the latest public transport stats for the Waikato region.
The rise is especially striking on Saturdays with a 42% passenger increase compared to the same quarter of 2023.
Plans are in the pipeline to add a Sunday service to further cement the rail link between New Zealand’s largest and fastest growing cities, officials told the Waikato Times.
…..
Te Huia’s average fourth quarter (Q4) weekday passenger numbers were up 9% compared to 2023, with the train service’s total passenger numbers up 16%, from 17,361 to 20,089 over the same period.
This is great to see.
Quality Air-Quality Outcomes
People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found.
Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.
Sadiq Khan had faced severe opposition to the 2023 expansion of Ulez to outer London boroughs. But on Friday as the report was published, the mayor of London said the scheme had driven down pollution, taken old polluting cars off the roads and brought cleaner air to millions more people.
He said: “When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.”
…..
The report found London’s air quality was improving at a faster rate than that of the rest of England. It said this was particularly notable in outer London, where concentrations had improved more rapidly over recent years and were now similar to the average for the rest of England.
Climate-heating gases have been substantially reduced, with carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to nearly 3m one-way passenger trips between Heathrow and New York saved.
Meanwhile in New Zealand, Newsroom reports:
Environment Minister Penny Simmonds has deferred work on a long-awaited update to air quality rules to 2026.
The regulation updates were first consulted on in 2020. A decision was made at the time to wait for the World Health Organisation to provide its own updated recommendations, which came in 2021.
Little progress has been made since then, despite the urging of the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment – New Zealand’s top environmental watchdog. Newsroom reported last year that the commissioner, Simon Upton, had written to Simmonds to express his concern that just one full-time equivalent staff member was tasked with air pollution work at the environment ministry.
The current regulations were implemented in 2004 and last updated in 2011.
A briefing to Simmonds, obtained by Newsroom under the Official Information Act, shows a decision was taken in June last year to delay further work on the regulations until 2026.
An awesome gift to Auckland
In an extraordinary act of generosity, Auckland philanthropist Rosemary Platt has gifted 5.63 hectares (approximately 14 acres) of ecologically significant land to the people of Tāmaki Makaurau.
In exchange for this gift, Auckland Council has committed to protect the botanical site as a regional park in perpetuity so that future generations can access and enjoy its remarkable collection of trees and open space.
Mayor Wayne Brown says the newly acquired land will become an important destination in the Auckland regional parks network, once it can be opened to the public.
“This is an overwhelmingly remarkable gift to the city. I’m delighted to be able to accept this impressive Greenhithe property on behalf of Aucklanders.
“We will honour accordingly the vision and meticulous work Mrs Platt and her late husband Graeme Platt have put into it since they bought it back in 1983,” Mayor Brown says.
“Thanks to Graeme’s pioneering expertise in horticulture, this property has become an impressive sanctuary of open space and rare tree specimens that are not found anywhere else.
“It has one of the greatest collections of kauri trees in the country, including a forest grown from seed of the great Tāne Mahuta, as well as a genetic replica of the giant ‘God of the Forest’ kauri tree itself,” says Mayor Brown.
HOP Promotions
Spotted this advertising on Stuff – we haven’t looked at the details, but this looks to be a direct impact of AT opening up HOP to more payment methods, something they report has already been used over a million times to pay for buses, trains and ferries across the region.
How far you actually walk when you drive
A good piece on an aspect of driving and parking that people often forget: especially when you visit a mall (one of the attractions of which is being able to enjoy the feeling of a walkable neighbourhood, until it’s time to get back in the car…)
Hand-Made Streets
Another great video from Not Just Bikes on street design.
Have a great weekend.
Processing...
Hobsonville Road Cycleway is long overdue, but this junction with Brigham Creek Road is a real weak point. It is dangerous on foot, two wheels or four; a real relic of a rural road. Not good enough.
My understanding is that it came down to cost cutting in the end as the project funding doesn’t stretch far enough to fundamentally change intersections, but I wouldn’t be surprised if internally AT teams just could not agree on how to change it.
It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that it should have been signalised 10 years ago. Auckland Transport on the other hand will take a few more years yet to figure that out. Meanwhile that require every minor intersection to be signalised at the developer’s cost.
Not more signals, roundabouts would be better. The signals at Westgate Drive/Don Buck have made traffic so much worse.
Please send your donations to AT for the cost of fixing this awful intersection. No money from AC or NZTA for it. At least the cycle safety has funding (first since the motorway was opened and NZTA dumped the old State Highway).
Just another reason AT should never have been created. Waitakere were the worst of the old Councils but even they would have sorted this intersection by now.
I am always suprised people get excited about 50 million dollars being spent on adding 1 kilometre to the walking and cycling network that will only unlock easy access for a few houses. Surely we could do some really good stuff along Te Atatu Road and side streets to connect to SH20. I love the concept of Te Whau Pathway but I do think at some point we need to say ‘this is too expensive, what could we build with that money instead.’
Yeah, and then we get told “Sorry, this road needs all the space for cars, p*** off with your bike lanes.”
This is the precise agony of cycling infrastructure in Auckland. The cheap and obvious answer has been made politically impossible, so instead we get occasional splashy big-dollar megaprojects which get hung around the necks of advocates because “it cost $50 million for one kilometre”, as if we just want as much money spent on our pet thing as possible regardless of results. It drives me absolutely up the wall.
100%. For the cost of the 50 million dollars worth of actually gold plated Te Whau, you could/should build 100km of on road protected bike path.
Now the stupid thing has been started it will be a constant drain on active mode spending while actually achieving nothing.
Completely agree, these pathways really need to be recognised as coming out budgets other than transport. They have a real amenity/leisure quality and it is unfair that they are allowed to devour budgets for multi modal transport.
Although saying that, imagine the nightmare (logistics, consultations, etc) of actually installing 100km of cycle paths around the city….
In this case it hasn’t come out of transport budget- this was from the covid shovel ready funding.
There is a 100 mill between Te Whau and A2NL they have achieved more or less nothing in terms of a walk or biking outcomes. AT has built zero bike infrastructure to complement these.
Building a 100km of bike paths is only hard if you don’t want to do it.
“Shovel ready” project funded in 2020, construction started in late 2024 you mean? Sure so leaving aside the colossal opportunity cost, the next time there money building out this path will end up taking funding?
They could have designed this path without the waves and park hopped more and made things substantially easier and allowed better connections.
But no, some designer and engineers getting cool shots for their CVs was more important.
Te Whau, an actual white elephant.
But you have to admire the creative way these people can waste public funds. “Let’s build a ridiculous path in an estuary. Wait it doesn’t cost enough? Let’s make it longer by adding pointless curves.”
+1 on the curves.
I think at least a few of them are the result of property owners insisting that it be further away from their land, with geotech probably also playing a role, but by all means feel free to put it all down to conspiracy
Hey, like my woman, I like curves but perhaps not too much 😉 personal taste of course. This has a recreational aspect to it so I have no problems with it ; also it slows down the e-bikers from knocking someone over.
Related to Patrick’s article yesterday, in RNZ this morning there’s this; https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/544786/auckland-harbour-bridge-bishop-appeals-for-international-input-on-second-crossing
“The market soundings would involve one-on-one engagement with civil contractors, maintenance providers, investors, and debt financiers.”
So now we’re asking foxes what they think about chicken coops?
The Faux Pas – sorry, Whau Path – is primarily recreational, a Council project, but does also provide a good transport link.
And will if completed give huge numbers of locals with easy access to CRL and WX1. And of course we know there is no interest from agencies to add cycle infrastructure or even real bus priority to Te Atatū Rd. So yes recreational, environmental and cultural benefits plus transport !
If completed lol. This is essentially bike infrastructure that costs as much as light rail. It will need hundreds of millions more to be completed.
Also who do think this would provide access to the CRL or north West bus way for who is currently excluded? Most people living anywhere this will just jump on a frequent bus along GNR to access the pt. The roads out west are toxic to bike on, so are you talking about a tiny catchment of people for who the path is an option, who already could just take the bus?
Tens of millions is being spent on sub 2km of shred path( which connects with zero of the establishment Te Whau path).
It has been designed to have “waves” to slow down cyclists. This massively boosts the cost and reduced to possible connections. The path willl probably need several hundred million to reach New Lynn.
It will provide next zero boost to bike access. A tiny number of people in Tat South will have better access to North West.
It is not far off an art installation.
Wouldn’t like what my man AverageManOnaBike has to say on this. When it comes to the contractor infrastructure building indusial complex, he kinda has a point
That’s actually pretty funny about the waves, I had no idea that this was their function. Wonder what the cost of this was vs traditional speed control measures. Surely bends only makes it more dangerous as now you will have cyclists cornering at speed.
Hand-made streets cause industrial injuries, handling all those blocks. Solved by machine-laying block paving.
A Whau-type path around Hobson Bay, joining up the intermittent segments of boardwalk, would be very pleasant alternative to the hills and Hiluxes of Ōrākei and Remuera. It’d also be a clear connection between Newmarket, Ngapipi Road and Tamaki Drive.
Cost nothstanding, it’d be cool.
It would be very cool and great for both walkers and cyclists! In the meantime I’m waiting (far too long) for the final part of the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive Shared Path to be completed.
Te Whau costs per Km not far off what light rail costs in Europe.
If the top speed in the CRL is 70 clicks, all I can say is “what a waste of money”. Would HAVE been better to give everyone in AKL an electric scooter. Then, we wouldn’t have to waste our time with those dickheads @ Kiwirail AND auckland transport and their CRAP rail service.