Hard News: The Waterview Bore
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Actually, if you Aucklanders feel it’ll make life better turning the city into (more of) a mini-LA, go right ahead.
Well, I can’t stop pronouncing loftily from afar, so go right ahead yourself.
This is a motorway that has been under construction since the 1970s, and it does play an infrastructure role. I’m very glad that the more destructive options for the final stretch of it (which this is) were rejected under protest, and delighted to see more dedicated cycleway as part of the bargain.
I’m also looking forward to the SH16 causeway upgrade being completed (the crumbling cycleway will be fixed as part of that), but like Matthew, I’m very frustrated by the lack of provision for a bus lane.
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Richard Stewart, in reply to
OK to be fair that is the proposal.
We'll just have to wait and see what the finished article looks like, but I can't help thinking that it will be akin to keeping the facade of the Queens Head Tavern while bastardising the surrounding landscape. -
This the the cycleway proposal.
We missed out on the sweet bridge at the Pt Chev end, but it's not bad.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
provision for a bus lane.
If they were doing it properly they'd provide for a full separated busway, like the Northern Motorway's got. The Western Line deviates a long way from the motorway by the time one gets up through Te Atatu and on into the north-western hinterland, and bus priority is the only way to get people from those suburbs anywhere by bus in a realistic frame of time.
In the future, and probably not too far into the future, there's going to have to be an NWBW that's the same quality as the NBW, particularly with all the development going on around Hobsonville. NZTA isn't even being particularly smart with their plan because it'll cost a lot more to retro-fit a busway to the causeway than it would to at least provide for one now. Welcome to a country where the ruling party's outright loathing of public transport actually costs money.
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I don't think Aucklanders want to drive in their cars any more than any other city dwellers... far from it. But the lack of choice is incredibly limited. Trains cover part of the city, buses get squeezed out - bicycles are fine but my ride of choice (scooter) just became too dangerous over the years and having been killed three times I refuse to go on the motorway on one at all, which meant I had no alternative but to buy a car.
I've got a photo of Auckland taken in the 1930s showing untold ferries arriving and leaving from the CBD - today we're lucky if we have more than a handful and typically they're aimed at tourists or the islands. I was stunned to learn I couldn't get a ferry to Takapuna and the only choice for me was to drive over the bridge.
Give us some [safe] alternatives and we're likely to take them up.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
I was stunned to learn I couldn’t get a ferry to Takapuna and the only choice for me was to drive over the bridge.
Not quite. You can ferry to Devonport or Birkenhead and get an onward bus to Takapuna.
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and Diplomatic Protection Squad boys are going – it’s not a cheap thing keeping someone at Scott Base for 4 days….
I assumed it is to protect Key from being in the dangerous situation of being asked questions he can't run away from.
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Sacha, in reply to
ah, maybe the fainting was practice
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Is it pessimistic of me to not feel too bad about the omission of bus lanes, because within a few years car volumes will have dropped enough that there will be lanes to spare for buses?
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
It's not pessimistic, it's just a bit naive. For one thing, until that happens the buses are left stranded in traffic. For another, the buses will remain stranded in whatever traffic there happens to be, and if there's a crash they will be just as stranded as all the other cars. The NBW has, as far as I'm aware, a perfect crash record, which is far more than can be said for the motorway beside which it runs.
We're never going to have no traffic unless there's an apocalyptic event, at which point the timeliness of bus services will be the least of our worries. It's going to be a long time before reliance on private cars diminishes so far that buses will have consistent, rapid travel times along the NW motorway. Ignoring current reality in favour of some hopeful future is right up there with National saying they're building the Roads of Dubious Significance in preparation for the future where we're all driving electric cars in such numbers that they will cause congestion even in the complete absence of internal combustion-driven cars.
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Paul Brislen, in reply to
sadly the one-lane road from Dev to everywhere else precludes any hope of doing that. I dropped someone at the ferry once after a meeting at my office - took us nearly an hour to get to Dev from Takapuna. One way.
We have all this water, why aren't we using it to move people about I wonder.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
a perfect crash record
Wow. I'm sure if you had bus drivers like the ones in the capital that might change - Go Wellington apparently has a "10 strikes" policy for its drivers.
(On the plus side, they're all very nice, but they do tend to run into stuff a lot. I think the new buses are slightly narrower to try and reduce this).
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Roger, in reply to
When the motorway network was originally sketched out in the 1950s it was accompanied by huge expansion of the tram network.
Actually Matthew it didn't. I have a copy of the 1955 Master Transport Plan for Metropolitan Auckland and while it has pictures of trams in it, it makes almost no mention of them at all; and certainly none whatsoever in the recommendations. It does mention busses, and recommends that all of the motorways be built with drop off and pick up terminals on separate lanes at high use destination and origin areas (no bus lanes though).
In general it looks at road traffic that includes busses and trams, and rail traffic. It ironically misses the point that at that time busses and trams carry 50-60% of all passenger trips, yet only use 7% of the road space... so why would you need so much more road space?
On rail it states that the ring route to connect the CBD to the Northwestern line should be delayed until Auckland's population reaches between 700,000 and 1,100,000 people!
The Waterview Tunnel is, at least, following roughly along a line from the 1950s plan.
Again no, the 1955 plan has no route between the Mangere Bridge (where the motorway was to end) and Morningside. This came latter.
Overall even by 1955 the Transport planners were addicted to an orgy of road building without much consideration of anything else.
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Interesting how Auckland's transport and urban planning deviated from Wellington's last century - post includes a 1940s Ministry of Works map of what could have been. Note that the new motorway from Onehunga goes over the land reserved for the Avondale-Southdown rail link (hence the network of public parkland through Mt Roskill).
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I went for a ride and took some pictures for y’all.
A panorama at the south end of the tunnel, and a look from the footbridge at the north end.
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Looking each way at the Oakley Creek diversion at the south end.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Note that the new motorway from Onehunga goes over the land reserved for the Avondale-Southdown rail link (hence the network of public parkland through Mt Roskill).
And who'd want to give that up now?
The strange thing is how Pak 'n' Save got permission to build a great big supermarket right on the reserved corridor.
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Sacha, in reply to
some pictures
See what you mean. That's more prominent already than I expected.
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A few comments:
1) Yes the tunnel goes underneath the waterfall (maybe not directly) and underneath Oakley Creek. Very little impact there.
2) The Avondale-Southdown railway line may actually be needed (or at least the western section of it) a bit earlier than was previously thought. It'd be a pretty cheap extension to the rail network post CRL that could generate significant rail patronage. So I think we should expect a two-track railway line through there in the future. Pak N Save is just outside the rail designation.
3) Waterview Connection was always promoted as the "last piece of the motorway network". It will be particularly interesting whether that stays true over time or not
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Sacha, in reply to
And who'd want to give that up now?
You mean the parkland or the motorway?
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Sacha, in reply to
Pak N Save is just outside the rail designation
Goes through the firewood yard next door, doesn't it? Recall someone (you?) writing that already using some of the old designated land for the motorway means houses will need to be demolished to fit rail through now.
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Sacha, in reply to
post CRL
Yes, worth empahsising that without the Core Rail Link being built first, other network extensions like Mr Roskill or airport or Shore lines won't work.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
You mean the parkland or the motorway?
The parkland. I was thinking you meant War Memorial Park, etc -- and the various reserves around Oakley Creek at my end.
Alan Wood Reserve of course, also, where the motorway extension is going now, but that was a pretty rough park. I'd generally be on my own riding through there,
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Here's a bigger version of that panorama.
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Sacha, in reply to
Alan Wood Reserve
Don't know the area, but wondered where the kids from around there will gather and play now.
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