An integrated transport network starts with a detailed ‘vision’ of the built solution.
Amazingly, Auckland only has a vague ‘2050’ doodling on a map, and we build components in a ‘try-it-and-see’ approach. Many of these components will be removed as we wander to a solution without a 100 year ‘Auckland Transport Network Plan’ designed by experts.
Plans are ‘drawn lines on paper’, they're easier to erase and change than anything built. During ‘vision’ detailing, first ideas may be surpassed before construction commences so new ‘lines’ are drawn.
We need to know what our integrated network might look like when it is completed, to place the big ‘building blocks’ where they can be integrated into a coherent network in stages. Instead, we’re wasting money building orphan components that will be obstacles to a functional network.
Once big components of the network are in place, minor mobility routes (cycleways, etc) for travelling that last mile (3km) from home to the transport hubs, can be created alongside the network.
We’ve been building them first instead of last. Bad design starts with bad briefs – prioritising cyclists' wishes before sensible movement of traffic, especially freight, emergency vehicles and buses.
This impedes commuters on our main arterial routes where ease of flow, not congestion, is needed while we add public transport options.
The proof of properly designed public transport is that commuters wish to use it without needing NZTA and AT to create artificial congestion and restrictions to traffic flow, or removing car parking.
Once we have a complementary public transport network, ‘bus lanes’ at peak times will eventually become busways. All these humps and bumps along the route will need to be removed. Building them now at a quarter of million dollars each is ludicrous!
Consultation is not making people more accepting of predetermined outcomes, it is about getting improved outcomes. This starts with healthy conversation about best solutions:
· Why consult non-experts (voters) on four harbour crossing options?
· Is Light Rail the best solution for Auckland or a political fantasy?
How and where would Light Rail and the harbour crossing integrate with existing rail, bus and ferry services and motorways?
· Is the best solution Light Rail or enhancing existing rail integrated with Bus Rapid Transport?
.While the CRL tunnel has ‘gone-off-the-rails’ to be the world’s most expensive train tunnel project per km, it is the needed rail network ‘missing link’ between Britomart and Mt Eden.
.Tunnelled Light Rail down Dominion Road, is “the project Auckland doesn’t want and the rest of the country doesn’t want to pay for,” if I may quote Liam Venter, an urban transit enthusiast.
· Typically, tunnelling is 10 times more expensive than on- ground infrastructure.
· CRL has already cost $5.5b (wildly over original $1b budget). The Light Rail tunnel is four times as long (4 x $5.5b).
· CRL project had two new stations. Light Rail needs 18 new stations (plus land purchase).
· CLR history shows that Light Rail will overrun its $14.6b estimate (or Treasury’s $14.6b risk calculation), for ONE route.
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) would be a more flexible, cheaper and faster to roll-out option. Unlike rail, which can’t be used until that entire route is built, BRT doesn’t require tracks or overhead electrical wiring end to end.
Over 200 cities around the world have shunned Light Rail projects in favour of the faster trip times and more fault-resilience BRT networks provide.
Our Northern Busway works well, and Auckland Transport is building a $1.3b Eastern Busway. There are only two more points of the compass, southern and western.
These fully designed, seamless networks need travel mode interchange hubs.
The Downtown Carpark building is the perfect location for an interconnection. It’s already a regionally significant strategic asset for people across the isthmus and gulf to access the ferry terminal, Britomart train station, the CBD for business and Civic Centre for entertainment and retail purposes.
The short-sighted previous council’s asset sale, ‘isn’t done yet, as the cheque isn’t in the bank’, so...
Sign the petition to protect Auckland’s future interchange hub.
www.change.org/p/stop-the-sale-demolishing-of-downtown-carpark (GAEL BALDOCK)
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29 May 2023