As promised I visited the newly opened Grafton Station today. Somewhat hilariously in the 5 minutes that I was there I came across two other public transport enthusiasts who were also there to check the station out. Generally my overall impression was that it’s an impressive little station – and has been thought out very carefully. There are stairs linking the station with both sides of both Park Road and Khyber Pass Road, there’s a bus stop sitting right out the front of the station for easy transfers and there’s a multitude of displays showing when the next train is due to arrive. While at the moment the signs only reflect the timetabled times, in due course they will be switched over to being real-time information: which is what we need at all our train stations really.
Here’s just after I stepped off the train. Note the display showing the times of upcoming trains:
This photo looks down at the station from the stairs leading up to Park Road. The murals on the wall to the right give the station a bit of a local identity which I like:
This next photo shows the station entrance from Park Road. I find it quite a welcoming entrance, and I also like the fact that it sits right next to a bus stop (note the real-time information sign for the bus stop, which wasn’t quite going yet, but anyway).
And Steven Joyce gets his name on another plaque at a railway station. One of the great ironies in life is that because projects often take longer than a political cycle you get some strange people opening projects – like John Banks opening Britomart when he had campaigned so hard against it, or Steven Joyce opening all these train stations when he’s shifted so much money away from public transport and into building state highways.
All up I must say I do find myself impressed by this station. While it’s not as fancy as Newmarket or New Lynn, it’s been done very cleverly with stairs linking to all sides of the surrounding street network, with the bus stop right outside it and with so many displays that will eventually show us exactly when the trains are arriving. I really value smart thinking when it comes to public transport and I think we have achieved a damn good outcome because of some smart thinking here in Grafton.
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It sure looks good and they seem to have done a good job, as you said they have made some smart decisions by putting the stairs to all sides of the road etc. It really is an exciting year with so many project coming up for completion at the same time, its a pity that it can’t be like this every year.
Is there any news on the plan for the site next to the station on the corner of Park Rd and Khyber Pass?
The last paragraph is my sentiments exactly… The little things like having a station this well planned, with a bus stop on bus lanes outside can lead to some great outcome (if we get the political organisation we need), I think Mt Albert is the next Station to push for… I would love it if all stations on the nextwork are upgraded to this standard over the next 5 years with adjacent bus stops… I hope the stops on the Onehunga branch are this good…
Matt L,
I think that land is part of the lion breweries site. Once they move out the whole area to the east of park road will be redeveloped – I am not sure what the mix proposed is going to be, but it could mean this station ends up being a very busy one. I would hope the developers will be smart enough to realise the importance of the train station next door.
I heard today, at the Grafton Residents Association meeting, from someone who apparently talked to a foreman, that the site on the corner is to be turned into a car park. Sigh.
At least that COULD be used for park & ride purposes, and it can quickly change into something better once they come to their senses.
There are some pretty big plans for that Lion Breweries site. Apparently once you get a few levels up the views are pretty amazing. I think we can expect a whole range of different stuff there – offices, apartments and some retail. Hopefully it’ll be great.
I wasn’t talking about the lion breweries site but the one on the other side of Park Rd, there used to be a furniture store there before it was bowled to enable them to build the station. Max I agree it would be a shame to put parking in.
Ah, I see where you mean. Haven’t been back to Auckland for a year – didn’t even realise they had knocked down that building. Maybe they will look to sell the site to a developer when things start to pick up again.
I would imagine that kind of site right next to some busy arterials and a train station would be fairly valuable. Too valuable to simply become a carpark I hope.
I would have thought a prime piece of land overlooking the harbour, right downtown, next to trains, buses and ferries would be too valuable to be turned into a carpark yet that’s what’s happened on Quay street.
But that site seems like a pretty useless spot for a carpark – what would you be parking there for? Surely the council could’ve have bought it and turned it into a park….
As for the Lion Breweries’ site this is a description from a year ago of what is planned
“Its property investment division, AMP Capital Investors, is expected to apply to Auckland City for a plan change, allowing the land to be rezoned from industrial use so a mixed-use development can be built there.
Large offices, dozens of shops, hundreds of apartments and thousands of carparks are expected to appear on the site in the next few years.”
Ahhh good old Auckland land development….
I agree rtc. It all sounds so promising till you hit “thousands of carparks”.
There is nothing wrong with “thousands of car parks” if they are appropriately priced, i.e. so high the bus and the train are the most attractive option..!
“Surely the council could’ve have bought it and turned it into a park…”
Apparently it is owned by Ontrack. Then again, all this info, including about a car park being built here, is only third-hand, from someone I don’t know – take it with a grain of salt. But it may just be true anyway.
As for the Lion Breweries site – fat chance they will be able to squeeze thousands of car parks in there. I have worked on traffic modelling in the Newmarket area. It is stuffed. Can’t see a large car-centric development go in there at all, unless they do some major roading upgrades. And where would they do those? They can’t exactly widen the rail overbridges, or Broadway on the Newmarket side – the only way to keep cars flowing and Newmarket a place to live would be to have a tunnel underneath the town centre. Not something that AMP is going to pay for.
So they will, by necessity, develop something less car-centric, is my opinion. As they should.
That’s interesting to know about the traffic, thanks Max. It would be a shame to focus the development around cars when the area has such good links to public transport. Hopefully those looking at the plan change will want to make an example out of it.
I understand that traffic is actually not their main worry at the moment – rather the fact that the Dubai-based co-funding for the project fell through. So they may be waiting for the markets to recover and/or go for something less grandiose than what they once intended. Again, second- and third-hand info, so lets see what happens (nothing will for a few years, is my guess).
I hear it’s very, very hard to get exemptions to minimum parking requirements, what are the chances of a redevelopment of the Lion site scoring one?
“I hear it’s very, very hard to get exemptions to minimum parking requirements”
I totally disagree with that. In recent years, it has been easier on large projects to get less car parking than to do the minimum that Council theoretically requires. Big projects also attract (attracted, soon they will be gone) the likes of ARTA to comment, and they favour less parking. Newmarket also has an almost finalised Plan Change which reduces parking requirements.
Your corner shop or dentistry practice, yes. Council can be pretty rigid on parking for them, because after all, a dairy should REALLY provide lots of parking to encourage people not to walk there. (/sarcasm off).
But any big development like the ones I have worked in recent years, or projects like the Lion Brewery – they have lots of traffic engineers, and as long as the developer is cool with it, they can relatively easily “under”-provide.
I would love to see the Central Connector routed *though* the brewery development as a TOD and keep the buses of Khyber Pass, however that would take an awful lot of co-operation betweeen ARTA/ATA, Auckland (City) Council and the private developer.
Nick R – in the end that suggestion would cost us more valuable space for roads (whether there’s cars on them or just buses). Even as a traffic engineer, I wonder why would we cover up even more of our precious CBD land (for that is what Newmarket is) for traffic?
Also, the Lion Brewery site is nowhere wider than ~120m, and all of it along a bus corridor, with a major train station at one end. Why reduce those marginal walking distances even further?
The site is 300m + meters long, and 100m wide, perfect. Those working, living, playing (bars and night clubs planned) can walk up to 300m to Grafton or 200m + to Newmarket’s Northern course, when it gets built. If I was an invester I would definitely plough some money into this, its close to the CBD, right on Newmarkets doorstep, has excellent transport links, rail and bus.
What I had in mind was a short busway running alongside the rail line, with the new development going over the top. I understand your point regarding using up valuable city land, but I’m thinking more like a bus route in lieu of basement carparking.
The point of the exercise would be (apart from avoiding two major intersections and a perpetually congested arterial feeding the motorway to give a traffic-free route from Newmarket to Grafton), to have a high quality bus stop at the central focus of the development. There is a huge potential for development there, and there are already some large office buildings along the northern side. Having a transit station at the centre of the development (rather than outside, over the arterial road on the side of the exposed footpath) would really help cement public transport as the easiest way to get there.
The new station is excellent, but while the site may be alongside the Central Connector route it isn’t particularly accessible to it, there is more to access that the distance as the crow flies. As it is now there isn’t a single crossing of Khyber Pass alongside the site, so getting to the citybound stops is difficult as it involves a walk around to the intersections at either end of the 500m long site. Khyber pass also lacks the width to allow much in the way of indented bus bays or large shelters or other street furniture. I can only assume that is why Auckland City stopped the Central Connector proper at Kyber Pass, they couldn’t find a satisfactory way to get the same standard of bus provision along what will always be a busy but constrained arterial/motorway feeder road.
Ok, I admit this is already a pretty damn good scenario for Auckland and I shouldn’t let ‘the perfect be the enemy of the good’…. but then again why not strive for world’s best practice at such a key site?
Interesting idea about an underground bus link… I’m sure the developer would jump at the chance if Auckland Transport offered to pay for it…
I went past this on the train to the Blues game on saturday. I agree it looks like a great addition to the network.
Um, Nick R – nothing you said really convinced me this was viable (or even very desirable). A link (especially if “underground”, i.e. covered by buildings) would take up at least a 10m strip of space on the ground level, where this development will have shops and amenities. So, no, Jeremy, even if AT offered to pay, I don’t think the developer would go for it. Developers are all about maximising activity area. Ground floor is king, too.
Getting back to the proposal, feeding buses into the proposed “underground link” at Park Road would be difficult, with left turns off and right turns out onto the rail bridge within less than 30m of an existing intersection. You’d have to signalise that in conjunction with the other lights, in all likelihood, and even then I am not sure it would work (and cojoined signals are not automatically better).
At the eastern end, you would have to return to Khyber Pass Road at Suiter Street or Kingdon Street – exactly where the worst spot is for buses as they enter Newmarket. Again, nothing gained, except having to do two more 90-degree turns on the total route.
Further, you are comparing apples with crab apples. You argue that Kyhber Pass bus access/provision/bus stops are crappy, and that they would be much nicer if newly constructed within the development. Well, I have consulted on developments of this size before, and Auckland City will, at the least in my opinion, make them pay for revamp of their whole street frontage. Including footpaths, a major eastbound bus stop (on their site land) with all the bells and whistles, probably somewhere opposite Melrose Street. Then they can use the plentiful development contributions to upgrade the western stop on the opposite side themselves (or make them do that one too).
I disagree also with your comments on the Central Connector stopping at Park / Khyber. That is only true technically, not in practice. While the intersection lights of Park / Khyber will hold up buses, true (but that exists everywhere), Khyber Pass already HAS bus lanes all the length up to Melrose Street (approximately).
So in the end, all they would need to find to get good PT access was a good way of crossing the road to the westbound stop. I dislike signalised crossings, but a lot of other things can be done to make that easier. In the best scenario, maybe they could be made to do a nice-looking pedestrian overbridge, which also serves as a gateway statement.
PS: One of the things they discussed was a bridge (maybe pedestrian only) crossing the railway line onto Carlton Gore Road. They or Council would have to buy some properties on that side first, though.
Oh, and sorry for being so negative. I do enjoy a good pint of advocatus diaboli sometimes 😉
Nick R – I tend to agree with Max here, with the whole site being covered by development the transport links are already in place, it would be great if you were able to convince the developer to give away the corner of his land by the intersection to give a bus only left lane turn, straight into the bus lane so it is truley continuous and left turning buses don’t need to wait around at the lights. By adding a bus lane down the railway corridor you would be forced to put in a new set of traffic lights which means right turning buses would still have to wait just as long and would hold up alot of other traffic around the place. Plus it would be alot of money for minimal gain.
See, a bus left turn lane would be something that Council might just be able to swing with the developer. Especially once these people see how their car traffic fails to fit into the Newmarket traffic environment. At that stage, the horse-trading starts.