The new bus network as proposed in the draft Regional Public Transport Plan received a large amount of support from the general public so it is a good bet that it will become a reality. The biggest changes it makes is that it relies on more people transferring to get to destinations but in return a much larger number of high frequency routes are able to be provided. The map below shows all the routes which will have a frequency of 15 minutes or better from 7am to 7pm, 7 days a week.
The network is expected to start rolling out later this year and will take around 3 years to complete. One of the key requirements to the success of the system will be around the interchange points and making it as easy as possible for passengers to change. Some thing we touched on this this post. One of the places that will be most difficult is at Te Atatu where the route/s that serves the peninsula intersects with the route/s that travels down the North Western motorway.
Auckland Transport, and presumably the NZTA, have been working on the how to solve the problem and they have come up with a solution. It involves building a bus interchange on Titoki St within the existing motorway designation. AT describe the project as:
A bus-to-bus connection facility in the vicinity of Titoki St is planned, to be delivered alongside the NZTA Te Atatu motorway interchange upgrade project.
The interchange will
- provide a high quality, safe bus interchange facility that allows easy connection between the proposed bus services;
- ensure a high level of pedestrian safety is provided for, particularly school children;
- provide a facility in a location that allows for efficient bus movements and minimisation of delay and diversion to buses that will use the facility;
- develop a facility that operates effectively and safely with motorway and local traffic that will share its environment;
- minimise the impact of the interchange on immediate residents through good design;
- provide a facility that would be compatible with any future proposals for a North Western busway in the motorway corridor.
About the design they say:
- A bus interchange bounded by the northwestern motorway Te Atatu southbound off-ramp, Titoki Street south and the eastern boundary of number 34 Titoki Street ;
- Introduction of a bus-only right turn facility from Te Atatu Road into Titoki Street. Note: The left-in-left out changes to Titoki Street-Te Atatu Road for general traffic will remain;
- Provision of a separate bus-only southbound off-ramp from the north western motorway into the bus interchange;
- Changes to the northwestern motorway off-ramp/Te Atatu Road intersection to include a bus lane between the two right lanes and left turn lane. This would provide for bus-only straight-through movement back onto the southbound on-ramp;
- Bus-only lane off Titoki Street into the interchange. The location of this entry point is opposite 7 Titoki Street.
- Provision of a safe pedestrian environment in the vicinity of the interchange including safe crossing points across Titoki Street from the underpass and Te Atatu Road.
- Design elements that are aimed at mitigating motorway noise impacts in a manner that is equivalent to that which would be delivered by the NZTA motorway upgrade project in the absence of the bus interchange.
The image below shows what is planned along with the houses that may be affected (the ones in pink are most affected.
Compared to the fairly large Northern Busway stations this is quite small and an example of what it may look like is the Springwood Bus Interchange in Brisbane
I guess my the only real concerns is for westbound buses which need to exit the motorway, cross the motorway to get to the bus interchange then cross the motorway once again before heading further west. AT are now consulting on the project so see here for more info. There are also two public days to talk more about it next week so if you are interested, make sure you pop along. Also there is a bit more info at the end of this presentation.
While I don’t expect every interchange point to be like this, it is a good start by AT and hopefully we will see this kind of attention to passenger detail more common across the rest of the network.
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Nice post. I had wondered why the designation went around those houses. I remember seeing concept drawings for a station on the westbound side but nothing in this area.
Good to see real stations going in but it also shows how road based transport [private and public] uses so much land. So many houses are being ripped out of west Auckland at the moment for movement infrastructure… principally so we can build ever wider roads to access new houses further out…. an irony and a net added cost that is never seen on any BCR or balance sheet….
And really? West bound buses are going to leave the motorway, cross the bridge, stop, loop back across the bridge and re join the motorway? This is from an organisation that justifies spending billions and billions by projecting small possible time savings for car users, how much time will be lost for bus riders heading out west by this manoeuvre? And will there be more stations like this on this route? So how many times will a bus leave the motorway on its trip out? There is no possibility of centre bus lanes?
I guess the only way to upgrade this into an RTN will be to duplicate the station on the other side, not a bad outcome actually, just means a longer walk for locals at one end of the journey rather than two equal sized ones. But will there be the space left for this possibility?
I concur this is a dumbf**k idea to do this.
Bus users going west will lose 5 minutes easy a peak times doing that silly little dance to off load.
Better putting a bus stop on the westbound side of the motorway and an overpass to link the two together for pedestrian use.
As you say Patrick if these were car users, they’d get the red carpet treatment, but as they’re only PT users, no they get the “side entrance at best” treatment…
There appears to be the suggestion of a pedestrian walkway across the motorway, even more clear when you look at the larger images on the AT page. However instead of building another station on the other side, wouldn’t it just be easier and probably cheaper to build a flyover across the motorway from the station to the westbound buslane. Buses could then come off at Te Atatu, turn right on to Te Atatu Rd, across the motorway then left into Titoki St, drop/pick up passengers then straight ahead to a flyover and back on the motorway. Only a little time lost and we can make use of the bus lanes that are going in. A flyover like that may only end up costing $10-20m which is probably peanuts compared to what a station or busway would cost.
Dunno Matt what if the there were two smaller stations with no turning, between the off ramp and motorway lanes, one for each direction, with the perpendicular buses stopping on the bridge above. Passengers would just have to go up or down between ‘platforms’, much less land required as no bus would turning, and the bus movements would be greatly simplified, vastly quicker, and much less turning and starting and stopping.
What is the advantage in a station with all buses leaving their route to get to it and with much less clarity about which bus heads in the direction you are going?
If you look in detail at the maps you will see that the buses only get intermittent priority everywhere, and in particular when doing the time consuming crossing over where they will have to mix it with general traffic including crossing the right hand lanes to the left…. pretty sure this isn’t a service I would want to sit through all the way from the city to new suburbs out west. Any idea how many of these stations on one side this route will have?
I guess if they switch sides each direction will be equally inhibited by these stations….
I don’t wish to irritate my more bus enthusiastic colleagues, but with design like this you’d have to conclude that NZTA are actually trying to make the train look more attractive out west!
Despite its rambling route….
The only other interchange on SH16 that I believe is being investigated is one on the corner of Triangle Rd and Lincoln which is of course on the other side of the motorway. One of the things I think we will struggle with in getting a busway implemented is that there are a lot more bus lanes going in on SH16 as part of the WRR. With some tweaks like flyovers (ugly I know) to get buses from one side to the other for stations, we could end up with the route operating very much like a dedicated busway for a fraction of the cost of one.
See my comment above, why would that model be more expensive?, it would occupy less land.
I would think less expensive spend and land required only 175m further along the road at Tatau way for the bus interchange.
Quite, Patrick. It’s extraordinary that AT/NZTA in all their motorway madness can actually sit there and describe this motorway-widening obscenity as something that will be ‘a facility that operates effectively and safely with motorway and local traffic that will share its environment’ and something that will ‘minimise the impact of the interchange on immediate residents through good design’. It’s not about ‘sharing’ (and caring); it’s about destroying and dominating the environment so that even more cars and trucks can go faster. And if that’s ‘good design’ then I’ll eat my hat. This language is amazing. Are we so mesmerised by the private motor vehicle that we fail to see how its infrastructure is totally and completely destroying that which it penetrates. This is pure tokenism; what’s worse is that we applaud this pathetic and entirely inadequate gesture to an alternative mode of getting around.
Glad to see you guys like my design.
Cheers.
Can’t stand the heat? Get of the kitchen son.
Thanks Richard for confirming you are Dan, we had long suspected that was who you really were.
Wow, you’re not exactly trying to win friends…
I thought it was rather clear who I was.
Interesting development and seems sensible to complete this while developing the interchange but yes not sure about how afternoon buses work. The websites says morning buses is more the priority that’s why the site was chosen but maybe they need dual stations with one on the Te Atatu south side. Duplication does seem a waste though.
Te Atatu south has more housing density if that is another consideration.
As a Te Atatu resident, I am all for an interchange, however I know for a fact that residents in Titoki St are not at all happy with this design. And before anyone screams NIMBY, think for a second what they have already given up for the motorway rebuild. Is this the best location? Any pros out there keen to have an objective look and provide alternatives? I know AT did some research into alternatives but I’m keen to know what others think. Not counting Titoki out but just want to make sure, for the sake of the Titoki St locals, that we cannot do better. There is a public meeting in Te Atatu on Monday 25th, and AT are going to make another presentation of the interchange plans, if anyone is interested. Let me know if you want more details.
I wouldn’t want to see the interchange on the parkland. This area definitely needs protection.great asset to the area.
I think we are all for this interchange, just want to make sure that it is done right, in a way that works for the local commuity as well as all the people down the line too.
I can’t help but feel they are approaching this problem the wrong way, and various independent iterations of bus priority, stations and interchanges. They should be looking at an end goal of a full busway along SH16, and then work toward plugging in the various elements as and when they are required?
How does this station fit in with a busway that might exist in ten years? I’m not sure that it does.
I don’t think you will be seeing a busway out this way anytime soon. That would likely be some 30 years away.
My understanding is that if there were to be an entire busway put through a complete new station would be built.
Despite what you don’t think it’s in the Integrated Transport Programme, so not thirty years away.
And thats exactly my point. What is to be gained by building bus stations only to demolish them and replace them with new bus stations when a busway is built. Why not build the required interchange stations in the right place now, and link them with sections of busway and add new stations as the need arises?
Hmm, it says in the transport plan that it will be a second or third decade project, so 30 years sounds rather appropriate and not 10.
I don’t see why you need to act so angry about it. I was simply saying that I think the busway is a long way off. Given the CRL is meant to boost the rail network by so much they may not ever need a busway for 50 years or more.
CRL is great at serving the south-west, which has a majority of people. However to get to rail-line from the North-West it is very out of the way, and this area has dreadful public transport services. Also note the MP for this area will almost certainly be a senior government minister well within a decade, and they have been very vocal of this project. So likely to jump up the queue with central government support.
And I’m simply saying I think you are wrong, no need to get so defensive. Sorry if I upset your delicate sensibilities!
Second decade starts in 10 years, third decade ends at 30. So at the very worst case it might be 30, but equally the best case is only ten years from now.
However if you look at the programme of green fields development in the Westgate to Honsonville area, and expansion out to Whenuapai, Kumeu and Waimauku, it’s clear they can’t leave it thirty years. There will be new development in the northwest equivalent to adding a Dunedin out that way well before thirty years is up.
There is no rail to the northwest (or the north shore) so the CRL isn’t really any use there, which is precisely why a NW busway is a good idea. Have you seen the City Centre Future Access study? There are some maps there that clearly show the various catchments of what would an wouldn’t be served by rail rapid transit.
The CRL is much more important to the west, east and south, particularly the southern growth areas, however remove buses from these areas does free up more space on city streets for buses from the north, northwest an isthmus arterials.
Why is it that people always say converting the northern busway to rail with feeder buses is all the northshore will ever need, but then when it comes to west Auckland it needs two separate routes? Why do people think feeder buses work so well in the north yet so poorly in the west?
The other thing to look at is where the busway is actually needed. From waterview west it’s rather superfluous as the buses have such an easy ride. The real issue is where they need to crawl along great north road into the city.
Feeder buses work well in the north because you have every single route feeding in to a single corridor with a single crossing to the rest of the city. Although I will point out the programmed busway on the upper harbour bridge, so it is a case of feeders to two corridors on the two crossings.
To the west and north west it is the same situation, feeders to core corridors collecting onto constrained crossings. In this case there are two pinch points, the ithsmus at New Lynn and the NW causeway. This is why we need good interchange stations at the likes of Te Atatu, so people can get to the ‘NW Express’ under an efficient service delivery model.
FYI out south there are three points, Onehunga, Otahuhu and Panmure. The Otahuhu interchange and AMETI busway take care of the latter two. Overall the isthmus is ringed by six pinch points, where eventually we will need six RTN corridors. Four of these are built or under construction, it is only the NW busway and SW/airport corridor that need to be done.
The western rail line works very well for west Auckland but it actually runs on a generally southwest alignment for most of its length through to New Lynn and beyong. That’s not very useful for the Northwest and Upper Harbour, a very circuitous route. By the time it takes you to go on a feeder sideways to the rail line you’d be most of the way to waterview. It’s a bit like saying everyone from Howick should catch a bus feeder down to the rail station at Manukau to get the train to town, although not as extreme.
The short answer is that the west is a wider area than the Shore, which is more able to be serviced from one spine, with the southern end (Devonport) having a direct link (ferry) and another oblique route at the Upper Harbour Drive, which of course will feed into the NWestern route.
There are two wests, the southern one has rail and the northern one nothing.
I don’t really see what the number of points has to do with how effective feeder buses are. Looking at a map the single rail line out west does a great job for most the area except for west harbour and hobsonville. Unlike the northshore where half of it is miles from tshe busway. It seems quite a large waste of money to spend some $1billion on a western busway just to serve those two places whilst taking out a heap of houses on the way. And even then, you have still left the most congested part along great north road alone.
I did use to have big hopes for AMETI however from what I have seen its turning into a land development project with the road and the buslanes being a nice to have.
To West Harbour and Hobsonville I would add Westgate, in particular the huge greenfields development zone north of Westgate and along the back of west harbour, and of course the likes of Royal Rd, Triangle and Te Atatu on the northwestern itself. From those areas the NW motorway runs directly into town, while the rail line is both fairly far away by bus feeder and has a more circuitous route bu rail once you get to it. The rail line is great for the southern part of west Auckland, a busway would be great for the northern part.
I’m not sure where you get one billion from, the ITP has it as part of a $450 million cost for a constellation – Westgate – Waterview busway, and the bus lanes from Waterview to the centre already exist, although they could do with some improvements. The Westgate to city bit might only be some $250 million.
Given just widening the causeway will cost over $200million I think doing the rest of the route that will requiring buying a heap of houses and a bunch of new bridges $1billion sounds about right.
Also, if you think great north road is so great with it’d buslanes and intersections why do you think a busway will be so much better than buses on a free flowing motorway. It’s seems you targeting the section that has the least problems and leaving the slow section as is.
Indeed Gt NR will not offer Class A ROW but with uninterrupted bus lanes and signal priority it will offer a very high level of reliability and speed with the ability to serve local stops. It will be important for the long services not to stop too often however.
Thing is that GtNR needs to be understood in parallel with SH16, there is an advantage for both gen traffic and buses for the buses to be on the GNR but only with real priority.
My view is that for now bus shoulder lanes on the NW will work so long as they are not intermittent or involve long delays at stations (as above). Then the case or otherwise for upgrade to RTN can be made…..?
Why do you want to widen the causeway again? NZTA are already widening it and including shoulder lanes for buses. Given there is basically nothing between Te Atatu and Waterview to stop for the express lanes will be fine. The reason for a busway upstream of the causeway is so that people can actually access the bus corridor without running piles of local and mainline buses through every motorway interchange along there, potentially doubling them all back on each pass too. The motorway interchanges are far from free flowing, and will be even less so with dozens of conflicting bus movements an hour through them.
Your concern could equally be leveled on the northern busway, why build a busway from Constellation to Akoranga and skip the slow street section along Fanshawe St and Sturdee St? How could you do it without widening the causeway from Akoranga to the bridge, or without a new crossing right? Yet the Northern busway works well, yes it uses shoulder lanes and mixed running from Akoranga to Fanshawe, and has a ‘slow section’ from there to Britomart, yet it still works well.
The key thing the northern busway allows is offline bus interchanges that are largely unaffected by congestion at motorway interchanges, they are the key difference over the previous arrangement of shoulder lanes.
Ah I’m on the same page as you now, I thought you were wanting a busway all the way from waterview like what the plans show and what people were campaigning for before.
Certainly having an off line busway from te atatu to westgate would be great. I will FYI that they are making bus shoulders all the way along here but yes I agree that an offline busway and stations would be miles better.
In regard to fanshawe st, this is pretty much the final destination where peoplewl start to want to get off every few hundred meters so it’s rather appropriate to go to dedicated bus lanes.
It would be a busway of sorts from Westgate to the City, but only in the same sense that the Northern Busway runs from Albany to Britomart.
Anyway I’m happy to call it a BRT corridor rather than a busway, with a mix of full busway, shoulder lanes and street lanes where appropriate.
In a perfect world it might be a full two lane busway all the way from Kumeu to Downtown, but we can get probably 80% of that benefit for 20% of the cost by building the right stuff in key places, and of course over time we can extend and expand at problem points. I think the key thing is to have a longer term goal, not just fix the immediate Te Atatu interchange issue but also design a station that works well for BRT along the wider corridor.
Nick, I think your idea of a mini-Akoranga would work. I had a conversation with a Titioki resident today and if the bus access were via a dedicated road similar to the Akoranga station she thinks it would be ok. Their main complaint is the proposed changing of their street, which was to become (traffic wise) a very quiet street with the motorway rebuild only to discover the AT proposal changes the traffic flows with the potential for 19 buses an hour turning into Titoki St. I think the noise issue is a reaction to the fact that the AT proposal is very vague in details whereas the NZTA documents for the motorway expansion, via the RMA process, are very specific about noise mitigation etc.
Why in a perfect world would we want a busway going all the way to Kumeu? We already have a railline going there and in about 10 years time we will also have buslanes on the motorway doing the same function. Why go to such huge expense to duplicate and existing rail line just so you can pic up a few passengers from Te Atatu north?
Dan, I think you need to take a train ride to Kumeu (does it still operate out there?) to see what a long way around it is compared to a much shorter trip using SH16. Also have a look at what is in store for Te Atatu Peninsula in the Unitary Plan. There are more than a ‘few’ people using bus services out here and 15 minute frequencies, in conjunction with an interchange, is quite likely going to have a positive effect on usage. Have you walked down Titoki St to imagine how the street will be affected? Waited for an hourly bus on the weekends?
Kumeu is the centre of a huge greenfields development area, it will need rapid transit in the future.
Yes the old north Auckland freight line does indeed pass through Kumeu, but the existence of a rail track doesn’t automatically make it a very good rapid transit corridor. It would perhaps be handy for getting to Henderson, but it’s very indirect for getting to the central isthmus and the CBD.
Kumeu to the city via SH16 is 25km. Via the rail line it is 46km.
Why a busway over shoulder lanes for the Northwest in a perfect world? Same reason for a busway over shoulder lanes on the North Shore. A Busway would be ideal as it could function as a rapid transit line servicing the whole coridor, one Northwest version of the NEX operating in both directions, very frequent service stopping at regular station locations along the way. Shoulder lanes are only really useful for express buses from point to point. You’d need a whole mess of them to service each locality from Te Atatu to Kumeu.
So no comment on my proposed rail line to Albany? I would have thought that would be a sure fire winner.
Its not going to be a winner because it is so obvious Dan. But on another point you have actually made a bit of sense here. I guess what we are actually wanting is a fully seperated busway or possibly rail in 50 years time, but by building what we can when we can over the next 30 years we can make the service better in the mean time with a slow trickle of investment.
SB we’re all in agreement about that; must improve the near term in reachable ways. Two things to keep in mind as we do this of course; to do it as well as possible, you know the 80:20 thing Nick refers to on this thread. And we must keep in mind both the medium and longer term needs, and especially not close off options or make the next stage needless more expensive [same thing really]. We have a terrible track record in AK of showing no imagination about the future, whole swaths have been planned and built thoughtlessly over the last sixty years. Look at SE Auckland; what a needlessly unplanned place and now such a big problem especially transport wise.
What do you mean SB? Why would a new rail connection to the Northshore be such a bad idea?
I’m of the opinion that if you want to slowly build towards something you should build towards something you actually want and need. As it is the motorway bus lanes that are getting built wil likely provide 80% of the benefit of a full busway down this route,a at about 1% of the cost. Long term wise I see a busway along SH16 as largely a waste of money.
If we were to give the same sort of RTN coverage to the Northshore we would be need at least 2 more likely 3 busways up there.
Bryce the one group of bus users that this north-side offline station does benefit are Te Atatu Peninsular residents. They are not that much delayed by leaving the motorway here, and when they have they find themselves on the right side of that barrier. It’s the commuters with the longer trip west that will be delayed and annoyed by this, as well as Tat South locals who will then have to re-cross the motorway, either on foot or in another bus. Now as all these bus movements on the bridge are in general traffic and involve lane changing and traffic conflicts they are therefore both subject to and causative of congestion and intersection blocking, hardly smart for any user of this enormous investment.
Nick’s solution above above is clearly better for both general traffic and bus users.
As for Titoki St residents. First they lose 20 household of their community. They will also get a whole lot of accelerating buses in their neighbourhood, but then they will also have a way way better and convenient bus service a couple of steps away.They will also find their street parked up all week with park’n’riders.
Dwelling supply is being reduced on the finite land of the Peninsular by 20, anyone know what the total is? 2000? If so that’s 1%, Well anyway it’s 20 households who presumably like living there now on the market. I think your house value [or rent] is going up Bryce. Good thing then that town centre is zoned for more intensity in the UP. I already think it’s a great little near island to live on but with more people and commerce at the village, and a re-design, it will be even better.
Same of course has happened in Waterview, another place of older more inner living with a finite land area that has had the dwelling supply reduced by government fiat, in order to speed vehicles. The same government that believes only in sprawl. Seems like an absolutely perfect way to contribute to inflation in value of closer in dwellings…. yee-ha, the great Kiwi financial drug- the housing casino.
I like Nick’s idea. I also think more room could be gained by removing the Eastbound traffic loop and feed general traffic onto the right turn lane (where the bus/T2 lane is now) much like Lincoln Rd. The T2 / bus traffic could then use the Northbound left turn on ramp for bus station / motorway access. I do sympathize with the Titoki residents in that up until now, they beloved Titoki was to be a low traffic volume, residential street but now face significant volumes of bus traffic.
“Dwelling supply is being reduced on the finite land of the Peninsular by 20”
As a minor point – this land was already in the NZTA designation for the motorway interchange – so the 20 units/houses were lost at the time the widening of SH16 was consented, not through the interchange. I think the original idea was to put some landscaping and/or noise bunding here.
If we got rid of the East bound on-ramp loop that exists on the interchange we could free up a bunch of land for a bus interchange closer to the bridges. The traffic that would normally come down the left lane from Te Atatu South could be fed into lanes to turn right (as per Lincoln Rd) and merge with Tat Pen traffic (like most intersections in Auckland). This would free up quite a bit of lane room under the bridge as well, thus potentially, using my rough estimation, enough room for bus lanes instead of vehicles. I’ll try and draw a picture of what’s in my head and get back to you.
Serious delay for westbound motorway buses AND 300m detour for north south buses.
Sounds like overkill to me.
Cheap and cheerful solution with NO detours: motorway buses stop directly under the bridge; north south buses stops directly on the bridge; stairs/escalators are built to serve the various transfer directions. Some widening of the bridge may be needed.
Delays? The bus frequencies will be shifting to one every 15 minutes rather than the current 1/2hr to 1hr. That’s vastly better than today and the only way to achieve that is to have a transfer system with the interchange.
“Some widening of the bridge may be needed.”
Which is your answer. That costs a hundred, or possibly several hundred million right there. Not kidding at all.
And no, you cannot do it WITHOUT widening under the bridge. The very minimum you would need would be the width for a bus bay and a passing bus lane, and a motorway barrier (because you need protection to mainline traffic rushing past on the median-side for the slow buses and the passengers getting off under the bridge). And a footpath next to the buses of course. Say 10m minimum, each side of the bridge. You have about 3m for a bus shoulder right now. You’d have to totally replace the bridge abutments, and then add new columns. Easier to build a new bridge than do that.
You also need bus stop facilities ON the bridge, though in a 50 km/h environment that would be easier to provide / require less space.
It would be a GREAT idea to have a bridge/underbridge solution as you and others suggested. But only if one was rebuilding BOTH bridges (at the moment there’s one old one that is staying and a new one that is being added). And had some money to spend for serious PT, which AT don’t have (say hi to Wellington).
OK. Alternative: north south buses stop on the batter just short of the bridge (so they can merge onto the bridge without widening it**). Motorway buses stop just beyond the bridge. Thus the stops are paired in the north east and south west quarters of the diamond, with short paths between them. To handle the other transfer directions (north to west and vice versa, and east to south and vice versa) you would want either a pedestrian overbridge, or the north south buses stop again just beyond the bridge, with footways underneath the bridge. I admit all this is not ideal in terms of the amenity of the waiting environment.
** If necessary the bridge is traffic calmed in some way so that the speed difference with general traffic is safe for a merge.
I think some responses have been a little harsh on AT. NZTA had secure the consent and the land they wanted for the motorway well in advance of AT identifying the need for the bus interchange. The bus interchange idea has only emerged with the new network ideas which was released for public consultation late last year. I suspect AT is playing catch up with NZTA and trying to shoehorn in a solution.
Another problem for AT is funding, as the Central Government has reduce the funding available for public transport infrastructure even though spending money on infrastructure such as this interchange will mean a much better service without such a large increase in operating costs.
I note that the AT web site state there will extra direct services in the peak periods. I presume this mean that in the afternoon peak periods the outbound service will stay on the motorway and there will be extra services directly to Te Atatu peninsula at 15 minute frequency. It seems the real advantage of the Te Atatu interchange is that it enables AT to offer better service to Te Atatu area at off-peak times and weekends without having to fund a lot of extra bus services. which may not be that full. The current bus service to Te Atatu peninsula is very poor. The challenge for AT will be to create a safe environment that people feel comfortable to use this as a place to make connections.
It may not be perfect but I think AT is trying to do something which will improve the effciency of the bus network and offer better service in the absence of a full blown busway on the Northwestern motorway.
Yeah I agree with Patrick I think.
Put two small stations either side and link. Presumably they could be linked via the road bridge, with lift access, canopies and possibly Perspex noise walls?
The extra time for west bound buses will be psychologically infuriating for the passengers. (Well it would be for me anyway). I used to take a bus route when I lived in Manchester. At one point the route would almost double back on itself to access an interchange. It would only add five minutes, and I knew how long the total trip would take. But it was still frustrating.
Absolutely agree. What a completely idiotic design that will end up penalising westbound bus travellers hugely.
Yes, exactly, the impact of turning off your route then doubling back is a disaster. No car user would put up with that. Nick has it exactly right: what is the long term ideal, then work back from that. Ignore the autistic idiots who have no view beyond the present.
I think the should build two interchange stations, one at the north side of Te Atatu with good east facing access to the motorway shoulder lanes. The other at the southside of Lincoln Rd with good access to some bus lanes on Triangle Rd up to Westgate. Then link the two with a two way busway, including a structure over passing the motorway. Yes that’s more expensive than the bare minimum option, but the advantages are manifold. For a start you get two good bus interchanges in the right places, with no split platforms nor any doubling back. Secondly you have zero bus movements through Lincoln interchange, no traffic delaying buses, no bus phases to delay traffic. At Te Atatu you could have almost the same, the peak (inbound) buses could skip the interchange entirely, while the outbound buses would still pass through it. It would be identical to the operation of Akoranga station, where the busway proper joins the motorway.
So it would be bus lanes on Triangle Rd, busway from Lincoln to Te Atatu including offline interchange stations, then express on the motorway shoulder to Pt Chev and possibly further.
You could even start with the stations as phase one, then build the flyover busway as stage two when everyone gets pissed off with the traffic delays and doubling back. Overtime the two way section could be extended back to Royal Rd an onward to Westgate.
Wow you guys really hate the design don’t you. The idea behind having one offline station is that you don’t get people walking around and crossing the road all over the show. You also don’t need to have local buses only needing to stop at one stop.
Whats probably of more note hear however is that the design of the interchange is completely unknown at this stage as it will be a D&C contract meaning the contractor my decide to do something completely different.
Sorry, I was meant to say that with one station local buses only need to make one stop rather than two.
Was that in response to my suggestions? I agree a single un- split interchange station is the way to go, and the proposed location is appropriate. I just think the doubling back through the interchange is a bad idea for both buses and traffic, and there needs to be better consideration for integration of the whole NW corridor.
One poInt though, local buses stopping twice at well placed online stops could possibly still be faster than once via a circuitous offline stop.
Uhm, no. Because whatever consent the D&C contractor gets will still limit him to a variety of pretty strict limits, including WHERE he can build the thing. Overwise, we wouldn’t even need to go through a consent process, dan again…
Regarding location & a future busway – NZTA is claiming that the location was driven by a busway assumed to be on the north in the future – though technically, they don’t say that it WONT require demolition anway in that scenario – they aren’t claiming it is “compatible” with a busway…
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/network/projects/sh16-causeway-upgrade/docs/clg-minutes%E2%80%93200213.pdf
Starnious, I do these projects for a living and know full well that the form of the interchange could change substantially. The entire point of D&C projects is to allow invitation once all the issues and constraints have been identified.
AT’s proposal is just crazy. Having a stop on either side of the motorway is the only logical way to go. Why plan to build such a user unfriendly design? This is one of the reasons people don’t like buses
It’s being built like this because it’s an add-on that is being designed not to interfere with the primary aim of this project which is simply to increase car capacity, don’t kid yourself that NZTA see this as anything but some PT-wash to make a massively expensive motorway building frenzy appear slightly less so.
totally agreed, but looking at this plan on the AT website seems as though this planned: http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/improving-transport/te-atatu-interchange/Documents/te-atatu-plan-2.pdf
Have a few other issues with the bus layout in this crazy motorway intersection design. For example coming from Te Atatu Peninsular buses turning right don’t seem to have any traffic light to enable them to turn into Titoki, good luck with that!
Eastbound buses will have to cross Te Atatu Road but they only have several pieces of buslane here, and have to fight with general traffic coming from the the off-ramp and wanting to head to the Peninsular. No doubt they will get stuck in a jam here. Then will have to wait for lights to cross Te Atatu Road, and even then only join a T2 lane, not a bus lane. Why citybound traffic from Te Atatu Peninuslar need 2 lanes plus a T2 lane I really don’t know. Need really good traffic light pre-empotion for this to work at all, and to work properly need to bite the build and build a big over-ramp from the station straight to a dedicated motorway on-ramp lane. This is what happens in Brisbane. I really hope this is long term planned for and possible anyway.
Interesting looking in Springwood, currently only has one way seperated busway, but planned to upgrade to 2. However in this case there is space on North side to build a 2 lane busway. However with the North-Western I don’t think this will ever be the case due to constrained corridor, especially along the causeway section, so each busway will have to stick to its own side of the motorway.
The space would come from removing a general traffic lane – all of this angst would be completely unnecessary if we actually had same people in power. Several billion is being spent on upgrading this motorway, that’s a massive amount if money, and basically no care is being taken to provide any sort of upgrade for non single occupant vehicles, it’s scandalous to be honest.
Have you not seen all the T2 lanes, wider footpaths and the fully upgraded cycleway?
If this is the best that AT and NZTA can come up with I fail to see how the planned rejig of bus routes is going to provide a more usable bus service than what we have currently except in the innercity areas.
I think we should be a little gentler on AT here, NZTA have all the power and have been goaded into whatever quality of Transit amenity gets through. Then there is the genius and talent of their consulting engineers….
I’ll have you know it’s AT that had driven the entire design and operation of the thing. NZTA has had almost nothing to do with it.
As to why you need to be so offensive all the time however, I do not know.
Oh my darling dan, perhaps, just perhaps, it is your behaviour that provokes the react you receive…. any self-awareness there?
Ok well I’m sorry about that. If you can point out what it was that I said that provoked you to start insulting me indirectly while you talk with others please point it out. And yes I’m aware the direct insults as well. Most of the time just saying hello seems to set you off however.
Ok, well let’s start over, and we all should remember that tone is hard to pick up in text so intended meaning isn’t always received. For example I am deeply sincere in hoping for creative solutions to the very real and often conflicting problems in detail as we roll out what is a revolutionary change in priorities in movement infrastructure and systems in Auckland. New challenges should be stimulating shouldn’t they?
As you say above this design may change substantially so we are just hoping that it is possible for this to happen in ways that improve outcomes for all users, and chiefly, as both Nick R and I say above, a model where bus movements through these busy interchanges are reduced.
I agree in general there, however I’m more of the opinion that a busway along this route well never be all that worthwhile.
If it were up to me I would be making a new rail line that departs Henderson, heads out the back of Massey through the new Westgate extension and up the upper harbour highway to Albany. Then places like Te Atatu can have there own bus service that races straight into the city or off to Henderson / New Lynn.
Dan, under your proposal, we would never get the 15 minute, all day frequencies that the interchange proposal will give us. Bring on the 40% busway that Nick is proposing.
Who is the “we” you talk of. Te Atatu north would get the same bus frequencies regardless of our two options.
Nick can feel free to chime in here but if the bus services for the area were to be kept as they are and as you are suggesting, with dedicated services all the way to town etc, there will be no 15 minute frequencies. Frequent buses plying the NW motorway and local feeder buses dropping users of at regular intervals, knowing that a bus will be along soon, will be fantastic. The NW is a carpark twice a day and the additional lanes being added will be a very temporary fix. A BRT route is the answer.
Bryce is right, the frequency is only possible because of the simplification, here is Nick from below:
“Mr A Traffic, that express plan is fine if the only concern for the bus system is getting commuters to the CBD. However the whole strategic focus of public transport has changed in the latest RPTP. It is now about having frequent and dependable PT to most places all over the region, all day seven days a week. The model is basically a metro system for Auckland, albeit operated mostly by buses at street level.
Let’s take Te Atatu again. Sure there are plenty of people to get to downtown, but there is also trips to Henderson as the existing major regional centre for west Auckland (and a large train station for interchange to the likes of New Lynn), and Westgate as the planned growth area for employment and retailing. We need to get Te Atatuans reliably to all of these places. With a direct express model you would need three sets of routes, one each from Te Atatu north to the city, Henderson and Westgate. Down in Te Atatu south you’d have to add in another set of express buses going to the city and Westgate, although the south side could catch the same bus to Henderson as it passes through. So the problem is you need five different and unique bus routes just to service two average sized suburbs. It becomes prohibitively expensive to run five routes at good frequency all day, especially when the potential pool of paying passengers is relatively small.
On the other hand, with a interchange at Te Atatu only need two routes, one from Te Atatu North to Henderson and return, the other from Westgate to the city and return. By virtue of a quick connection (in some cases), a single bus running through both Te Atatus can get both sets of locals to those three different locations, while the main route along the SH16 corridor can service every suburb between Westgate and the City, much like the northern express.
So one route doing the work of five expresses, which means for the same resources you can have five times the frequency, which all by overcomes the problems of connecting. So it suddenly becomes perfectly affordable to run a bus through Te Atatu every ten minutes in both directions, all day and most of the night, seven days a week.
Instead of having to wait for an hourly bus that takes you to Westgate, or the other hourly bus that takes you to Henderson, etc etc, you simply go to the bus stop and catch the one frequent bus route that comes every few minutes , and transfer at the interchange to another frequent bus of you want to go east or west, or simply stay on board of you want to head south. The people from Te Atatu south do exactly the same, using the same bus.
It just allows such greater efficiency, so much more out of a fixed pool of resources than trying to run direct service from everywhere to everywhere.
I will just add that at peak times there will still be some direct services to the city, of you’ve got a mostly full bus load all going to the same place it makes sense to just take that bus the whole way.”
Good to hear someone on the project is paying attention. I wonder if AT has considered that maybe it’s just really hard to create an interchange for 4 bus routes (8 directions of travel) on top of a motorway interchange? Maybe whats proposed is the only feasible answer to completely the wrong question. It really isn’t such a good idea to try to shoe horn a bus interchange into a patently hostile pedestrian environment like a motorway interchange in any case. Nothing to do in between interchanging buses. Poor personal security as there are few other pedestrian attractors in the area. Close to zero walk-up traffic for the buses. Impossible to design out time-consuming u-turns / doglegs for buses. If I had the power to choose I’d chuck the bus interchange in near the Edmonton Rd / Te Atatu roundabout, demolish the countdown and create a mixed use urban regeneration development based on integration with buses (long term vision) and good proximity to motorway (short term carrot) and whammy there you have it, an integrated transport and land use development with growth potential. Oh, and hi everyone!
The very point of interchange stations like this is to deal with the community severance caused by the motorway. Indeed there will be very little walk up so feeder buses running perpendicular to the main ROW are the best way to serve these communities with Transit. And the detailed design of these has a huge impact on the utility of the Transit system they serve, and they are not unusual internationally, the Perth rail system for example relies on these for much of its ridership.
We all agree that Transit with stations right at the heart of important destinations and away from wide and unpleasant to cross barriers like freeways are preferable but if the corridors for these services were never planned or protected then its inevitable that motorway corridors are going to be have to be used to service badly planned sprawl-burbs with transit options.
Like most Transit planning in Auckland this process is an attempt to make the best of a less than ideal situation. Cheaply.
That’s not the point of it at all. The point is to work with the new bus network that has high frequency routes feed into by local buses.
Err?, same thing, not really sure that you’re reading what’s written much of the time; the point is indeed ‘to work with the new bus network that has high frequency routes feed into by local buses’, which is exactly what I wrote above…. just a little more fully.
Err? I suggest you read the very first sentence of what you wrote again. The part where you told us what “the very point” of the station is. Not really sure if you read what you write much of the time.
Thanks, there are indeed instructive examples in Perth. Check out the train / bus / park n ride interchange at Stirling Railway Station. THAT’s how you do a PT interchange over the top of a motorway interchange. Surely that’s the ideal at Te Atatu? Except: its got a massive footprint, its grade separated, it’s still a huge community severer, and they had an existing RTN going through it. Plus it’s Perth so they’re laughing all the way to the bank thanks to extraction industry. Any bus stops at the interchanges for services along SH16, without grade separation, will kill the quality of service. And does the Te Atatu community really think that adding more transport infrastructure on their doorstep will lessen community severance?
I think AT should treat SH16 as a express route with no stops, and with the express services originating at interchanges in urban growth nodes. It fits with the feeder and high quality trunk pattern they are seeking, but the interchanges produce agglomeration benefits too. Patronage comes from getting frequent services to where people live, and then getting them to their destination fast. I cant see how any Te Atatu proposal can help achieve that.
Have a read of Nick’s suggestion above. It’s true we have neither the land nor the budget for a Stirling like solution here, nor the designation yet of an RTN. But the RLTP does flag that it is a future likelihood so we ought to be not closing off options, nor doing things that are likely to limit ridership nor make any upgrades too expensive. But of course it is a compromise situation.
Te Atatu peninsular being virtually an island will always need some kind of portal to faster more frequent services down this spine as well as a crosstown link, so the the route planning looks really sound to me, just a question of some creative solution on the space constrained and busy interchange.
Best hopes for top quality performance from the professionals charged with making this plan work for all concerned and as future proofed as possible.
Nice to hear from a traffic engineer that doesn’t react emotionally to suggestions of different solutions and approaches….
Mr A Traffic, that express plan is fine if the only concern for the bus system is getting commuters to the CBD. However the whole strategic focus of public transport has changed in the latest RPTP. It is now about having frequent and dependable PT to most places all over the region, all day seven days a week. The model is basically a metro system for Auckland, albeit operated mostly by buses at street level.
Let’s take Te Atatu again. Sure there are plenty of people to get to downtown, but there is also trips to Henderson as the existing major regional centre for west Auckland (and a large train station for interchange to the likes of New Lynn), and Westgate as the planned growth area for employment and retailing. We need to get Te Atatuans reliably to all of these places. With a direct express model you would need three sets of routes, one each from Te Atatu north to the city, Henderson and Westgate. Down in Te Atatu south you’d have to add in another set of express buses going to the city and Westgate, although the south side could catch the same bus to Henderson as it passes through. So the problem is you need five different and unique bus routes just to service two average sized suburbs. It becomes prohibitively expensive to run five routes at good frequency all day, especially when the potential pool of paying passengers is relatively small.
On the other hand, with a interchange at Te Atatu only need two routes, one from Te Atatu North to Henderson and return, the other from Westgate to the city and return. By virtue of a quick connection (in some cases), a single bus running through both Te Atatus can get both sets of locals to those three different locations, while the main route along the SH16 corridor can service every suburb between Westgate and the City, much like the northern express.
So one route doing the work of five expresses, which means for the same resources you can have five times the frequency, which all by overcomes the problems of connecting. So it suddenly becomes perfectly affordable to run a bus through Te Atatu every ten minutes in both directions, all day and most of the night, seven days a week.
Instead of having to wait for an hourly bus that takes you to Westgate, or the other hourly bus that takes you to Henderson, etc etc, you simply go to the bus stop and catch the one frequent bus route that comes every few minutes , and transfer at the interchange to another frequent bus of you want to go east or west, or simply stay on board of you want to head south. The people from Te Atatu south do exactly the same, using the same bus.
It just allows such greater efficiency, so much more out of a fixed pool of resources than trying to run direct service from everywhere to everywhere.
I will just add that at peak times there will still be some direct services to the city, of you’ve got a mostly full bus load all going to the same place it makes sense to just take that bus the whole way.
Thanks Nick, nice to have some more explanation of the concept behind the service pattern when trying to understand the proposal (not that I need to really). The benefits of this approach as opposed to other project locations or service patterns is not really covered in the consultation material on the AT website and isn’t clear to a bus service lay-person from Matt L’s article posted above. Maybe it’s buried in a strategy document somewhere but there wouldn’t be any harm in reiterating it when talking about specific projects that are needed to support the overall strategy.
The best term for what Nick is describing above is the application of a Radical Simplicity.
With high frequency and clear route legibility, combined through connections, a new freedom of movement and access is made possible.
Here is the philosophical underpinnings from Jarret Walker, Abundant Access:
http://www.humantransit.org/2013/03/abundant-access-a-map-of-the-key-transit-choices.html
This is The New Network, and it is going to be quite a ride for all while it is rolled out over the next few years. At the same time as new trains and integrated ticketing…. Not going to be easy, especially as these change all involve both physical as well as operational changes. Watch this space!
As a user of bus services to the Northwest, the last thing we need is yet another interruption to what are already indirect and extended journey times. There are simpler solutions to the lack of connection between Rosebank Road and Te Atatu. Such as extending the 221 etc services that terminate at the end of Rosebank Road, along to Te Atatu Road and looping back. Looks like incremental planning rather than the big picture.
Actually Geoff, the planned interchanges, combined with the new network plan, may give slightly longer ride times, but overall trip times will almost certainly be reduced for most passengers due to less waiting time for a bus. If I plan to use the bus after 7PM or on weekends, at present the services operate hourly to town and almost not at all to Henderson. Under the new set up a Te Atatu bus will be around every 15 minutes and then drop me off at the interchange where I catch the next bus to town or I catch a Henderson bus, also running to a 15 minute schedule. So, if I want to catch the bus at 7:15 say, I will no longer have to wait until 8pm to get on thus making the service useable.
There’s a housing shortage in Auckland, so what’s the solution? Knock down more houses and build a big bus-stop.
I bought a house on Titoki St 3 years ago and didn’t sign up for this. People who buy next to Eden Park or Western Springs know what they’re getting. I didn’t. I bought a house in a nice, quiet suburban area. There was no mention of there being a bus-stop that will service up to 26 buses an hour. I’ve lived in houses next to bus stops before. They make noise and they smell. And no amount of ‘clever design’ or speed limits will mitigate this. It’s all very well saying bus drivers will be limited to certain speeds to as to reduce noise, but we all see bus drivers speeding, jumping red lights and breaking numerous other road rules on a daily basis. In addition, the bus doesn’t even have to be moving in order to create noise and smell. Simply sitting idling creates a low, rumbling noise.
I am also not looking forward to the increased parking, traffic flow and pedestrian flow once the terminal is operational. It means more noise, more rubbish, more vandalism, and people undoubtedly using my front garden as a urinal as they alight from buses and walk home late on a Friday or Saturday night. Titoki St is quiet and suburban and totally unsuitable for this type of project. What’s wrong with Te Atatu Rd? What about where the Z petrol station is? What’s wrong with where the pony club is?
Andrew, your statement that houses are being removed for the bus stop is incorrect. They are being removed to make way for the new motorway off ramp as part of the Te Atatu motorway interchange works.
Andrew – the proposal includes some rather massive noise walls. Like 3m plus high, and directly next to the bus stop (which improves their ability to block the noise). I am not an accoustic engineer, but I suspect the comparative noise effects would be similar to the previous motorway off-ramp-and-berm proposal. I suggest you submit on the proposal to make sure the noise protection is up to spec.
Regarding your comments about the other types of nuisances, I can understand those concerns, though I don’t necessarily agree they outweigh the other reasons why an interchange should be in location X (especially since this is an interCHANGE – i.e. you won’t have hordes of people tramping past your frontyard. They just get out of one bus, wait and board the next one). You also need to consider the negatives for people if PT is NOT provided for: mainly extra cars, extra air pollution, extra severance from more and more motorways and wider and wider arterials? Having good PT requires infrastructure like this.
As was claimed by Matt L – so let me clarify. If the bus terminal does NOT go ahead, what happens to that land then? You’re saying it stands empty? So they’re knocking down houses for no reason? Or you’re suggesting that the motorway off-ramp will go right to the boundary of #34 Titoki St (which is the proposed fenceline for the bus exchange)?
Andrew, here is link to an NZTA presentation a from last year – before the interchange idea was suggested. You should make yourself familiar with it.
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/wrr/docs/20120813-te-atatu-residents-ratepayers-presentation.pdf
As you can see in the document that Bryce posted (thanks Bryce), the houses are being demolished to put the off ramp through them. The section of land that the bus interchange is proposed to go on, would otherwise be empty with probably some landscaping.
Actually they had planned extensive landscaping there, not just some. The plan was to build a mound so that it looked like the side of a hill to completely block out both the sight and sound of the motorway and ramps.
Correct. The noise mitigation measures are quite clear in the resource consent conditions.
Matt L – your condescending comments (“you have to laugh…”, etc) re pollution and noise are obviously from someone who has never lived next to a bus stop.
I can hear the motorway from my house – just – but it is essentially white noise. It is a constant background hum, easy to ignore. This is totally different to the low, rumbling bass-sound created by the engine of a bus. If you ever have a noisy party going on in your neighbourhood, what can you hear? Not the vocals or the treble, but the bass. It’s these low frequencies that annoy, come through your walls and drown out your TV. So your comparison of buses v motorways is flawed.
I have previously lived on East Coast Rd on the North Shore, right next to a bus-stop and the same thing happened there. It’s a busy main road, but I was never annoyed by the traffic noise (i.e. cars driving by), only by the rumbling noise of buses which would sit idling for 10 minutes at a time, invariably with squeaky brakes and noisy hydraulics. And buses braking and accelerating make far more noise than cars cruising along.
And the same goes for smell. If you’re walking down the road and a sweaty jogger passes you, you probably won’t be able to smell them. But if you go and stand still next to the jogger, you’re going to be breathing in their BO. And – again – I have personal experience of this from East Coast Rd. If I’m in my yard having a BBQ, I cannot smell the traffic driving by. But if a bus comes and parks up, engine idling, it stinks.
So please consider that before making such flippant and dismissive comments.
And before you accuse me of bias – you’re damn right I’m biased! And personal experience has given me every right to be. I’m not complaining for the sake of it. My concerns re noise and pollution are legitimate concerns based on personal experience.
Yes I have lived next to a bus stop and the stops saw more buses on them than this interchange will (top of Symonds St). Buses never seemed to be much of a problem, more of an issue were heavy trucks or cars with loud mufflers. There was a big advantage though and that was that I didn’t have to walk far if I wanted to catch a bus to a number of destinations and that is going to be the same with this development.
The quality of buses in Auckland have improved remarkably in the last few years and will likely continue to do so as more new buses come on stream combined with stronger requirements that all new buses need to meet. Developments in alternatives like electric buses are being developed rapidly and could improve things even further. Why not fight to ensure that only the best quality buses get used on routes that pass through the interchange?
Well spoken Andrew. A few of the guys on this site tend to forget that the city is made up of living breathing people who have their own hopes, desires and values. They tend to treat anyone who does not sign up for their plans as NIMBY’s and often morons.
They made a post just yesterday about how they hate such people yet I’m sure we can rest assured that if such things happened next to them they would be all up in arms. Intact things don’t even need to be next to them and they still get up in arms, the Karaka Weymouth bridge being one such example.
Great – let’s do that then. Trees and grass are definitely preferable to 26 buses an hour.
But then this makes a mockery of Matt L’s comment along the lines of (I forget the exact quote) – “you have to laugh at people moaning about noise from buses when they live right next to a motorway off-ramp”. You’ve stated that there would be extensive landscaping put in place to reduce noise and visual pollution… so in fact the motorway off-ramp option would make far less noise – hence would be preferable. There’s nothing to laugh at – one option (landscaping) would be far quieter than the other option (a bus exchange).
Ahh there is extensive landscaping and noise mitigation measures being proposed in the bus interchange plans too or did you not read that part?
Matt, I can assure you that what NZTA had originally proposed and what is in the bus interchange plan are 2 very different ways of mitigating noise. A grassy, planted mound compared to quite high gabion stone walls.
Andrew, the noise mitigation from the motorway rebuild still has to meet the existing requirements, its just the mechanism that varies.
Bryce, he has already said that the noise from the motorway is not the issue, it’s the intermittent noise of buses coming down his street.
Also worth nting out. Noise affects are measure d over a 24 hour period, so really loud sounds at infrequent intervals doesn’t show up in assessments.show
snow flake – accoustic engineers DO factor this in. Louder, intermittent noise are in fact considered. Even if the measurement “shorthand” usually tends to use values for average noise.
What im saying is that instead of the original landscaping mitigation that was originally planned it will become the high sound walls due to the bus stop needing extra space. A visual change.
Sorry Starnius but you are dead wrong there, well almost. They do take it into account however 19 or 26 buses passing by your house during the peak hour make almost no difference in terms of the 24 hour sound evaluation.
I
Yes – trucks are also a problem. I work near Ports of Auckland and they’re defeaning as they rumble at low speeds through the city. But that’s got nothing to do with Titoki St. They’re not planning a speedway or truck-stop on the Peninsula. If they do propose either of these, I’ll fight against them too!
In regards Symonds St, I would suggest that your apartment had better noise insulation as buildings in the city often do. Houses in Titoki St are invariably wooden 1950’s weatherboard bungalows. And when you decided to rent/buy in the city, you knew what you were letting yourself in for. You don’t buy/rent an apartment in Symonds St and expect to be able to have quiet BBQ’s on your deck or for your kids to be able to ride their bikes outside on the pavement. You expect a bit more traffic noise, pollution, puddles of vomit on the pavement, etc. That’s why I bought in a (up until now) nice, quiet suburban street.
Fair comment about the buses – that will be my next fight. But let’s be realistic: replacing the entire fleet will be huge money, will take years, and the best buses will go to the more affluent suburbs – as is always the case. That’s why we still have huge overhead power pylons in our neighbourhood, where as you don’t see these on Auckland’s North Shore. Presumably as the flash new electric buses are introduced, it will be the CBD and Shore that gets them first. Out West, we’ll still have the noisy smelly ones for another 10 years. It will be like Air New Zealand. The flash 777’s do the LA route whilst people still fly to WLG and CHC in crappy old 737’s.
About the buses, I wouldn’t be so sure that it will take years. As mentioned, most of the buses that have been brought on stream in the last few years have been dramatically better compared to what we used to have. Many of the bus companies have started invest in their fleets which is making a difference.You notice this a lot with the new ADL buses that NZ Bus are using.
Also lets not forget that the two key, high frequency routes that will use this interchange are being considered by AT to be some of the premium ones. AT also want this bus interchange to be an example of the kind of network they want to develop so they are likely to be more receptive to ensuring that the routes are served by high quality vehicles.
Even better – I’ve seen the pictures. Kindly define “extensive” for me… Because a few trees and a wall is slightly less extensive than my preferred option. In a quiet, residential neighbourhood, where you can literally hear people speaking to each other 50m away, especially at night, you could wrap each bus in bubble-wrap and you’d still be able to hear them.
We can literally hear babies crying, cicadas, and our neighbours closing doors and speaking at a normal conversational volume at times. You can hear toilets flush. That’s how quiet our neighbourhood is. So no amount of creative landscaping is going to prevent me from hearing 26 buses.
Hi Andrew – sorry, but your comment “no amount of creative landscaping is going to prevent me from hearing 26 buses” points out to me what is wrong with this attitude.
First off, you don’t live in a remote countryside. You live in a suburb of the largest city of this country, and 80m away from a motorway (I would argue that Titoki Street has not been “quiet” for the last 40 years – not in any sense that any accoustic engineer (or anyone living further away) would accept). You also don’t have a right to your situation not changing. As simple as that. You live in a city (and even if you lived in the countryside you don’t have a right to things not changing) and change is part of the human condition! What you arguably have is
a) a right for things ot change TOO fast – which is why I mentioned the motorway that has been there for 40 years – you can hardly claim that you went from some backwoods utopia last year to roaring engine noise rattling your windowpanes apart next year…
b) a right for things not to deteriorate to a degree that is unhealthy or makes your live hell. Which is why noise walls (not landscaping, which does jack against noise) are being proposed, and noise standards have been agreed and required in the consents. Yes, you may HEAR the buses, but not to a degree that is considered harmful.
It is part of city life that external factors impact on us, and that these keep changing. I respect people’s right to oppose such change, and to speak their mind during the approvals process, but that doesn’t mean that a proposal should be stopped, even if it impacts people negatively. There will always be negative impacts. Civilisation is about mitigating these effects in a reasonably fair way.
I lived at 26 Titoki Street from 1956 with my parents and sisters. My dad put a time capsule in the walls of the house and I would love to be able to retrieve this before the house has totally gone. Can anyone give me any idea who would be the best person to contact about this? I have emailed Auckland City Council..no reply as yet.
The land is owned by the NZTA at the moment, so you could contact them.
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/about/contact/index.html
Thanks for that, Steve. I have emailed them so hope I get some sort of response.