Bust lanes
Bus lanes, despite seeming a very good idea, are not.
Drive down the Albany motorway and the reasons should become clear.
First, spending all those millions shifting hundreds of cubic metres of earth next to the city's twin rivers of cars to enable yet more road vehicles to enter town is misguided. If we really believe that we are approaching or have passed Peak Oil, why are we encouraging vehicle use? The swathe of land being carved out should be used instead for a new electric railway corridor, trains being fed to stations by regular buses. The station could be under QEII square, or, say, on the Tank Farm, with a light rail link to Britomart. Another light rail link should also go under Albert Park through to Newmarket.
Not so long ago, you would not have found a bigger advocate for motorways than me, but we needed them 20 years ago. Sure, we have to finish the Auckland motorway loop, but we should start now on building a rail loop next to it.
Second, if you remove cars from the motorway by way of buses, one of the effects is to speed up car traffic, so encouraging the vain, the selfish, and those with carparks to continue driving in, only with less stress. And don't even mention congestion charges to me. If we had decent trains, our elected reps wouldn't even be considering them.
Turning the bus lane into two rail lines, of course, means adding width to the bridge. This would mean that a walking and cycling lane would have to be added too. Can't do it, I've heard. Figure it out. It's embarrassing we can't walk over our own bridge.
While we're at it:
- If we're adding to our rail network, we need to extend the western line to Kaukapakapa, and our southern line out to Onehunga.
- While we're at that, look at subsidising a ferry service from Waiuku on the Awhitu peninsula to Onehunga. I have heard there's already one going from Port Waikato somewhere to Onehunga.
Oh, and if we are going to have bus lanes in town, they should be able to be used by cars with 3 or more people, and - yes - taxis with passengers.
Enough? For now. But NZBC invites your suggestions, no matter which city you live in.
Drive down the Albany motorway and the reasons should become clear.
First, spending all those millions shifting hundreds of cubic metres of earth next to the city's twin rivers of cars to enable yet more road vehicles to enter town is misguided. If we really believe that we are approaching or have passed Peak Oil, why are we encouraging vehicle use? The swathe of land being carved out should be used instead for a new electric railway corridor, trains being fed to stations by regular buses. The station could be under QEII square, or, say, on the Tank Farm, with a light rail link to Britomart. Another light rail link should also go under Albert Park through to Newmarket.
Not so long ago, you would not have found a bigger advocate for motorways than me, but we needed them 20 years ago. Sure, we have to finish the Auckland motorway loop, but we should start now on building a rail loop next to it.
Second, if you remove cars from the motorway by way of buses, one of the effects is to speed up car traffic, so encouraging the vain, the selfish, and those with carparks to continue driving in, only with less stress. And don't even mention congestion charges to me. If we had decent trains, our elected reps wouldn't even be considering them.
Turning the bus lane into two rail lines, of course, means adding width to the bridge. This would mean that a walking and cycling lane would have to be added too. Can't do it, I've heard. Figure it out. It's embarrassing we can't walk over our own bridge.
While we're at it:
- If we're adding to our rail network, we need to extend the western line to Kaukapakapa, and our southern line out to Onehunga.
- While we're at that, look at subsidising a ferry service from Waiuku on the Awhitu peninsula to Onehunga. I have heard there's already one going from Port Waikato somewhere to Onehunga.
Oh, and if we are going to have bus lanes in town, they should be able to be used by cars with 3 or more people, and - yes - taxis with passengers.
Enough? For now. But NZBC invites your suggestions, no matter which city you live in.
posted by Mark Broatch at 5:08 PM
7 Comments:
I quite agree. Personally I think there should be a complete moratorium on any major new roads on the grounds that by the time they are built the problem will have been solved by the enormous cost of petrol as we hit peak oil.
Transmission Gully seems a case in point. Final completion is a decade away so why bother building the thing.
Actually, I think we should invest in building a bullet train (French TGV, etc) up the length of the North Island. We would probably be able to do Wellington central to Auckland central in about the same time as flying but without using the fossil fuels. It would have the bonus of speeding up rail freight as well.
Of course there are large geographical problems to engineer around.
I think you could possible convert the bus lanes to electric overhead trolly buses at some stage or another, probably in about 2150 given Auckland glacial decision making process, which seems to consist of one Auckland mayor or another declaring a dire transport emergency and demanding more roads. Then Barry Curtiss or Bob Harvey and the green lobby say we don't need more roads and anyway why should Waitakere/North Shore/ Manakau help pay for them even if we did. Transit then weighs in with a catastrophically doom laden worst possible cost plus scenario where it seems it would be cheaper to build roads paved with pure platinum. The rail lobby responds demanding that we build a miniature version of the London underground at cost roughly double Transit's worst case roading costs scenario, and the government then declares "well if Auckland can't decide we can't fund it." Kerry Prendergast, standing on the steps of Te Papa with the NZSO playing in the background and NZ Ballet providing entertainment, declares not enough is spent on Wellington and Auckland should sort its own problems out, with the mayors of Christchurh and Dunedin nodding furiously in agreement in the background. The Auckland chamber of commerce, already counting the profits to be made, wails that the cost of doing nothing is now measured in quad-squillions and the best solution is tolling everything at a price guaranteed to make their members very rich indeed and turn the CDB into a deserted tumbleweed wasteland. Finally the government, in dispair at the imbroglio of a Byzantine decison making process that is largely its own creation in its desire to stop Auckland ever speaking politically with one voice, throws a few hundred million at a bus lane while everyone else lapses back into a glowering and scowling lassitiude.
The bus lanes are all in the wrong places: in suburbia where there's maybe one bus an hour. Where they are needed (most CBD streets such as Queen Street, Albert Street, Symonds Street K Road etc) where there are buses every couple of minites, they are absent. Why does New Zealand gets its transport policy always back to front? It's the only copntry in the world where motorways are inside cities only instead of between cities. Tney are meant to allow rapid transit between centres, in city centres they are just clogged up magnets for traffic by people who think they can drive from one suburb to another and encounter a freeway.
Love the bullet train idea, Sarge. All it took France was a will and an awful lot of euros. Yeah, I suppose once they're finished they'll be easier to convert to something more useful, Sanctuary. Yes, Uroskin. Why are the bus lanes always empty?
Some good ideas here.
I too have noticed that in NZ the Mways are in the city centres rather than bypassing cities or connecting them.
As for electric TGVs not using fossil fuels? Does that mean we should have them fuelled by clean, green nuclear power!!
I still believe Auckland's problem lies in the endless towing and frowing over roads v rail getting nowhere.
Furthermore, at one time we had right-wing governments cutting back on roading to balance the books and it was the easiest way to cut evil government spending.
Then we have lefty governments who cut back further for ideaological reasons.
Then we are left with a congested mess, be it Auckland or Britain and the problem gets so worse you just have to do something.
However, each time you delay a roadscheme, its price just shoots through the roof.
And then the cost becomes a major factor, there is more delay and more expense.
I actually believe it is not a case of one or the other. Yes, we need more roads and motorways but we need more trains and buses too, especially for a fast growing city like Auckland.
As for peak oil, I would say that at $70 a barrel the oil companies are searching like crazy for all the fuel they can find and come 5-10 years from now, the world will be awash in oil.
Peak oil will come eventually, I admit, but by then technology will have a solution.
Perhaps electric cars will be more viable by say 2015-2020. We still needs new roads. People will still want the freedom of private cars. It is just that 10,20,30 years from now, they may not be petrol driven.
the northern busway is designed & constructed to handle rail in the future
once the mway links and arterial bus lane routes are connected then it will work much better
the tgv idea is probably never going to work for AKL WGTN but would work at lower speeds up to 200kmh for AKL HAM, WGTN PALMI
we had better find plenty oil in the southern basin if we are going to afford a high speed rail .....
Very interesting to see that there is blogging happening about the electrification change over from fossil fuel vehicles in New Zealand to electrified transportation.
I've already been writing to our countries politicians for may years about SPssATV's Solar powered semi submersible all terrain vehicles, almost giving away the top secret designs I've got on the drawing board for a transportation system that starts with solar power and wind power and converts electricity from these two sources directly into a motor housed purposely right within the wheel arch.
leaving out the bit that make this system unique, yet revealing that the eventual vehicles would be directed to small to medium transportation conversion.
Building super highways in the form of Maglev roads with on ramps and off ramps at the various railway stations when the super highway is built right along side the main trunk line to make use of it's electrification that already exists for SPssATV's inaugurations until the system is broadened to run on solar and wind accumulation of it's own.
We will then be travelling at speeds in access of 600kph between cities over these super highways and having on and off ramps that allow the new vehicles fitted with "Angstromega unit's" to use these new express ways, and on exiting, continue on as a normal urban transport to your final destination.
This will all be possible without the use of railway stations for the existing trains or parking spaces for any vehicles along the way.
No change overs from, this taxi to that train, to the next form of transport.
Even small water ways would be no obstacle such as Auckland to Waiheke Island or Wellington to Picton just drive on through and come out the other side and drive on in the same vehicle.
Do we as New Zealanders want this? Yes we do! Can I make this possible now? Yes I can.
Does the government or auto manufacturers come bashing down my door after I tell them about Angstromega units or SPSSATV's? No they don't.
Angstromega units are still on the drawing board and the prototype is still in the early construction phase, the part where I get some money to buy the various parts to construct the Angstromega unit for the first time.
when will it all be a reality well to those I've told I've stated 2050 would be approximately when the complete structure could be close to completion for the whole of New Zealand.
So what am I doing right now?
I'm sourcing the motor that will drive the first prototype for one of our universities.
So that I can house it into the first "Angstromega unit" with it's own unique configuration to make this system all possible.
And to show how little ol` Aotearoa still has what it take to make globally needed realities to avert human's global warming from fossil fuel emissions.
Starting with materials and developments at the top of the development sciences to arrive with a system for transportation and many other engineering advancements that will change the worlds way of thinking about transportation and construction, robotics etc. since the wheel's was first use for transportation and engineering at large.
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