Happy Friday, there’s been some significant world events this week but welcome to another round-up of interesting stories about what’s happening in Auckland and other cities. Feel free to add your links in the comments!
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The Week on Greater Auckland
- On Monday we announced our expansion to substack!
- On Tuesday Matt discussed Auckland’s upcoming PT Fare increase.
- On Wednesday Matt examined potential PT changes for Whangaparaoa once Penlink opens.
- On Thursday we looked back to Patrick’s 2018 10 year projection for Auckland to think what has or has not changed.
The Longest Commute
As apart of The Spinoff’s Travel Week, Joel MacManus attempts to travel from the bottom to the top of New Zealand without using a car or plane.
My mission is to get from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga as fast as possible using only public transport. Wherever I can, I’ll travel by train. In areas that are too rural or too watery for trains, I’ll take buses and ferries.
Why am I doing this? That’s a great question. Because I like public transport? Because journalism is a wildly profitable industry with money to burn? Some deep-seated desire to inflict punishment upon myself? I’m honestly not sure. I hope to learn something about New Zealand and gain new insight into the country I call home.
When New Zealanders go on their international OE, they almost always choose to get around by train or bus tours. And yet, when we travel around our own country, public transport is usually an afterthought. Decades of underfunding have left our inter-city rail slow, expensive, and infrequent. Flying and driving have become our default.
St Patrick’s Square
A few years ago there was a real issue with people illegally parking on St Patrick’s Square in the city. They put in place a temporary solution with solution to stop the issue – though the image they shared in their board report showing the success highlighted that people just parked around them.
At the time they claimed that they couldn’t enforce parking on a pedestrian mall, which always seemed a cop out, so they planned to turn it into a shared space which would have only made the issue worse.
It seems they’ve now realised this was wrong and are consulting on making some changes to the current regulations that apply to it.
The proposal affirms that the driving, riding or parking of any motor vehicle (including motorbikes) is prohibited in the pedestrian mall at all times with the following exemptions:
- Emergency vehicles.
- Select vehicles accessing or parking in front of the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph for weddings or funerals. This allows for vehicles delivering the bridal party or transporting the newlyweds after a wedding and the hearse for a funeral.
- Cycles and other wheeled recreational devices.
- Vehicles entering the square to park in private car parks that are only accessible via the square. This is for access only and does not allow for the parking on the pedestrian mall. (being the properties located at 43 Wyndham Street, 1 and 2 St Patricks Square, and 39-41, 51-53 and 57 Albert Street)
- Vehicles, with prior permission from AT, accessing or parking in the pedestrian mall for the purposes of maintenance, construction, alteration, refurbishment or upgrade of buildings, structures, or public areas, facilities or utilities in or adjoining St Patricks Square.
This is not introducing a new set of rules, rather it will allow AT to better manage the space and clarifies what is permitted in the square.
Consultation is open till 21 November.
Celebrating investment in South Auckland parks
Good things can happen everywhere in Auckland, and celebrate the results of millions of dollars of investment here.
A Pacific community leader is lauding the improvement of parks in South Auckland, saying it makes up for decades of under-investment.
Apulu Reece Autagavaia, who is the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board chair, says the area has long been over-looked by decision-makers.
“That’s why recently, the local board has upgraded the Aorere playground and changing sheds, Hillside South playground, Othello playground, Ngati Ōtara playground, clubrooms and netball courts, Pearl Baker playground, and new toilets and changing sheds at Te Puke o Tara playing fields.”
Accessibility Fireworks to show travel times
The Accessibility Research Group at the University of Helsinki. has developed this awesome visual showing travel times of different transport modes.
Community fine with 30km/h speed limits, who knew?
Read the comments from this piece about Karori – it turns out communities do love safe streets!
Enter Karori by car and you’ll need to slow down to 30kph twice: once through Marsden Village shops and again when you approach the mall.
But the community doesn’t mind. More than three quarters of residents are happy with the set-up or want the low-speed zones extended, according to the local residents’ association.
The latest drone footage of the Maungawhau Station
Make it make sense – Kiwirail and the bikelane
Grant Shimmin questioning the logic of Kiwirail’s bike lane closure decision.
“Improving your safety by making you less safe” is a paradoxical phrase that seems to me to sum up KiwiRail’s plan for a level crossing you probably didn’t know existed until last week.
For nearly a year residents of Heathcote Valley and other suburbs have been able to get all the way downtown via the newly opened Heathcote Expressway, on two wheels, without having to dice with heavy traffic.
[…]
So it was with disbelief and initial confusion that I learned last week the 1.5km section of the Expressway between Truscotts Rd and Scruttons Rd is to be closed, potentially for twice as long as the cycleway has been open, to upgrade safety measures at a level crossing on Scruttons Rd. The confusion stemmed from the fact that the cycleway passes the crossing, but does not cross it.
Climate friendly travel?
Shanti Mathias asks can travel without damaging the climate (the answer is yes).
Most of all, learning how to travel in a low-carbon way requires a shift in mindset about how and why and where we travel. That means seeing travel by bike, bus, train and sail not as a missed opportunity to go far and fast, but as a pleasure on their own terms.
“So many people think they’ve seen New Zealand, but they’ve just driven through it on the big highways,” Kennett says. “There are places you wouldn’t even call a town that are the sort of places everyone will stop and say hello – that’s something to look forward to.” And just in economic terms, people travelling more slowly and requiring lots of energy are “great news for local cafes,” Higham says, who certainly frequented many when he did Tour Aotearoa.
Wellington Tunnels
The government’s investigation of a 4km long tunnel through Wellington hit an $8 billion speed bump. As such, they’re now looking at two shorter tunnels, with the minister saying:
The option endorsed by the NZTA Board includes a second Mt Victoria Tunnel that will run parallel to the existing tunnel, a duplicate Terrace Tunnel, and upgrades to the Basin Reserve that will reduce travel times and improve reliability for commuters on the North-South bus corridor.
“Commuters in the capital will see a significant benefit in time savings from these upgrades. Those travelling on the number one bus between Island Bay and the Railway Station are forecast to save 9 minutes during morning peak times, while those on the number two bus between Miramar and the CBD will notice a saving of 11 minutes on their journeys,” Mr Brown says.
The project will be consented as a single corridor, with the project delivered in stage
Given construction costs these days this will still be billions and if it does get built, I wonder how long those travel time savings will really last.
And then there’s this from the Herald.
Asked whether he was confident spades would be in the ground on a second Mt Victoria tunnel within the Government’s first term as promised, Brown said NZTA was considering opportunities to begin enabling works in 2026.
“The good thing about this option is that a lot of property is already owned by NZTA along this corridor … there’s a lot of opportunities to get things moving.”
So they’ll bowl all of the houses to pretend they’ve started?
Climate change demonstration blocks traffic in Spain
Some humour in the doom of floods in Spain at the end of last week.
Critics of the demonstration say the event has caused disruptions, inconvenienced motorists and showed a disregard for everyday Spaniards. “It’s selfish. I’m all for action on climate change, but I don’t think this is the way to go about raising awareness to be honest,” one local resident said. “I don’t think the demonstration achieves anything. All it does is inconvenience and annoy people. I think there are better ways to get your point across”.
Have a good weekend.
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The Rosedale station seems to have been under construction for years. Does anybody know why it’s taking so long?
Must be because they left a cycleway un-closed during the construction period. It’s like the last govt, when all the extra cyclists caused so many potholes.
It’s been deferred due to lack of funding multiple times iirc – they pushed it back to 2028ish again very recently
Because it wasn’t funded under the NCI so only the foundations were done. AT had to get the funding required due to limited funding environment, it’s start date has pushed out.
Licence busking on Rosedale Road under the bridge. When enough money has been collected, AT will be able to finish the job. 🙁
Very few people will use it so it probably isn’t a high priority. It isn’t exactly an intensive node.
no actual construction has taken place since the busway extension and shared path opened
I’m yet to find a map of the planned wellington tunnels. From the description its hard to imagine how this will fit, and what changes there will be, as I assume they’re significant. Also hard to imagine the upgrades to the Basin Reserve.
Anyone have a link to a map?
The original Terrace Tunnel brochure from the 1970s can be found here.
https://wellington.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/9112#idx70396
With the rail network to close for 96 days next year and the MoT promising good bus solutions, now is perhaps the time to map out 24/7 buslanes and bus priority on major routes throughout the city?
Oh, and leave them there once rail is back on board full-time…
Humour about an event that killed hundreds ?
Some black humour is too dark to share. Like Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, recovery and adaptation require fast action. The King’s angered reception is understandable. Any city or region that hasn’t suffered a climate event that they weren’t prepared for should take a hard look at what might be coming at them.
Too soon maybe.
Well Yes when they are still recovering bodies and still over 100 missing.
Humour is personal, I suppose, especially black humour. The point is instructive, I think. It encourages people to reflect on how they feel when the media reports dismissively about the minor disruption caused by climate demonstrations.
This resonates with me. Media dismissiveness about climate change is where the lack of ethics and taste really lies. Downplaying the seriousness of climate change -and all the death and loss it causes – is a deliberate approach to preventing progressive change. It affects humanity’s response to the crisis, eg how people vote.
With the rail networks to close for 96 days next year, it is about time to build more reliable cycle networks – this is a missing piece of important infrastructure for people to move around Auckland without relying on bus and train problem.
“up to 96 days of full closures and 53 days of partial closures planned”
More than 1/4 of the year. This is not what would be expected form most countries overseas.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/533207/auckland-rail-network-to-shut-nearly-100-days-next-year
No surprises that the closure of the Auckland Rail Network was announced after Friday’s Greater Auckland Blog was published. Also Simeon’s comment that he had no exact date for the CRL to open. Yeah mate, it will be before October 2026, so you can claim all the credit for the CRL, that your party stalled in getting started in the first place. Now we wait for the costs of the cancellation of the Ferry Contract which being a cynic will be just before Christmas!
Yeah what’s up with this, I thought only west of New Lynn was previously unfunded and not started on. We have had (and on going) late evening and the odd weekend days for work around Quay Park/Waitemata Station & south to Newmarket, so thought that would be done fairly soon? So apart from further western stuff and Papakura to Pukekohe and 3rd main Middlemore etc surely we are good to go?
“Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Acting Auckland Mayor Desley Simpson revealed today that Aucklanders would face up to 96 days without an operational train service across those 13 months, with closures centred around holidays, weekends and evenings.
That’s on top of up to 53 days of partial network closure during that time, during which trains would run on a single line at a reduced frequency.
All up, it would mean Auckland commuters could have either a partially or completely closed rail service for up to 40% of the 369 days between Boxing Day this year and January 26, 2026.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/city-rail-link-update-transport-minister-simeon-brown-desley-simpson-on-coming-disruptions/EZFKRCP4TJD3NAK5HBGDXPERQM/
So either:
1. I’m mistaken
2. Their communications are really bad.
2. They have to do more work than previously announced, keeping it from us.
3. It is taking a lot longer to achieve what they originally set out to do.
3. They have uncovered more work since starting on the rebuild.
4. The current trains, freight included are causing more ongoing damage than anticipated.
5. They increased the scope and / or quality of what they want for CRL.
6. They are dicking us around so we move back to cars.
* They/their mainly referring to Kiwirail
Sounds like they going stuff all over again.
Looked back on the maps I had and still to do was colour coded as a future date from Otahuhu to Puhinui, and to Papakura but seems slightly lighter colour so different stage maybe and also Waitemata to Newmarket.
oh so perhaps I should of looked at the updated page here first:
https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/our-network/our-regions/amp/rail-network-rebuild/
7. It’s part of a long term plan to discredit commuter rail in the eyes of the travelling public so at some point in the future the government can say ‘ oh look, the trains are not being used enough to continue with public funding. We might as well shut the network down and use the money more efficiently ’.
The news is announcing that “No trains will run for 96 days next year” and then says that the lines will be closed from December 26 to January 26.
I’m not a Maths expert, but that does not add up to 96 days to me.
It’s 96 days between December 26, 2024 and January 26, 2026.
96 non-consecutive days
And we folk in Pukekohe were hoping we would get trains back
after the usual three week Christmas shutdown.
Grumpysmurf ;- Pukekohe to Papakura could be the on stretch of line untouched and all trains will be running back and forth , unless they find they made a booboo in the rebuild .
The news that the rail network is going to be shut a big chunk of the year pains me as it seems the traffic in Auckland has gotten worse over the last few months particularly.
David – that is a possibilty, but i think freights, the Northern – Wellington and
Hamilton/Auckland trains would be given priority.
Unfortunately the St Pats Square ‘consultation’ has very misleading framing.
This actually has the potential of turning a valued and precious ped mall into a shared space and as shared spaces don’t have vehicle entry restrictions – will allow the new hotel, and any other vehicle pretty much unfettered access. The hotel would like all the bollards removed for bus access as well, so that would be access all round the cathedral.
The developer came to an arrangement with AT, that no carparking facilities would be provided in the new 51-53 development, and that all vehicle access would stop at Wyndham Street with no vehicles permitted to access across St. Patricks Square.
On that basis, Councils Duty Commissioner determined on 27 June 2018, that the RC did not need to be publicly notified, and the building proceeded.
As suspected would happen as opening day approached, a ‘workaround’ is now being sought, without having to seek a variation to the resource consent.
Which would inevitably be notified publicly.
This is an issue partly of AT’s making as they refused a crossing from Albert St.
The claim that AT can’t enforce on a Ped Mall is a nonsense.
Not being able to enforce legally is quite different to not wanting to, as we see most nights in Vulcan Lane, which now has the no parking signage required to legally enforce, now installed.
And vehicles parked regularly at each end.
None of the St pats Square neighbours, whether they be residents or the Cathedral support this proposal.
CCRG – Akl City Centre Residents Group wrote to elected members. https://shrtm.nu/bV1BrLm