Hard News by Russell Brown

Some more details. Yeah, I used a filter on one. It looks nice.

I definitely welcome the end of roadworks along the only viable route to the city for me. Should be better for both car and bike.

Although I probably don't get much direct benefit from the tunnel, the indirect benefits could be good. We'll see. Traffic expanding to use available resources is a bit of a problem.

Traffic expanding to use available resources is a bit of a problem

Yeah. Induced demand could be a serious problem.

It's strange that it doesn't really afflict public transport.

N27 - living in an antediluvian era?

and what's with all the 'infinity symbols' or are they the moebius strips that define Auckland traffic - once on that road you can never get off...

Need a few pictures on those walls

Still trying to work out why kids of all ages were able to walk through the tunnel, but when you bring your bike next week you must be at least 16...

liability. legal adulthood, new health & safety act, etc

Any word on if the cyclists (like me) can check out one or two of the over-passes at the Pt Chev end, as well as the tunnel itself?

Seeing the engineering work slow and up-close that you’ll only ever be able to speed past (or park in? :D ) later was definitely cool… but so would being up on a flyover and looking down….

I was, at first, somewhat miffed that we couldn’t walk all the way through…. but considering the monotony of the design… we saw enough that just seeing more of the same for another 2km would have been a little boring as well as taxing for some… So it probably wasn’t a bad option in the end…

It's strange that it doesn't really afflict public transport.

Induced demand works just fine for public transport, but the mechanism is the same as for powered mobility aids - people use it when it's more convenient, so anything that makes it more convenient will induce demand. Sadly much "public transport improvement" doesn't address convenience, being focused on making it cheaper or easier for the operators, or providing limited services to new areas.

What works, and is known to work work is "very 10 minutes, as much of the day as possible". If people can just wander down to the stop when they want to, knowing that a bus/train/rickshaw will be along soon and will take them where they want to go, that's convenience.

I'm curious to know how the mobile app revolution is affecting that convenience factor, because I can see how it would. Plug your destination into google maps and it says "if you leave in the next 8 minutes you can walk to {station} and the train will take you there at {time}". Convenience not through more trains or buses, but through knowing what is going on. My train-dependent housemates all live and die by the Sydney transport app, because that has live running times and knows about trackwork etc. Our kitchen is 12 minutes walk or 9 minutes panic away from the train station :)

Wellington has 90% of that, with the 10% being that the only simple way to access real time bus data is on Metlink's clunky-as website - I think it should be possible to feed Google the data and Google would tell you when to leave home.

Also, Wellington has overloaded buses at peak times in the inner area - a lot of the time several go past before one has room. And the pricing is counterproductive - the buses out in the burbs are empty-ish, but you pay more to travel there and less in the CBD - a flat rate would remove this and be way easier to implement as no need to tag off.

I'm not sure of the politics, but in most of Oz google etc seem to have reasonably good access to PT information. They don't get trackwork in Sydney sometimes is the only thing I've really noticed (but I am an occasional user).

Also, Wellington has overloaded buses at peak times in the inner area

Sydney has that with trains. Albeit only on stations within easy cycling distance of the CBD and in areas where the council has built good bike infrastructure (I know not everyone can ride a bike to work). Oh, except where the state government has overridden council and removed said cycle infrastructure.

In response to rail overcrowding the right-wing state government is privatising some of the lines and the new operator has promised to run new trains more often. New, smaller trains... half the passenger capacity per train but 50% more often means 2/3rds the number of passengers per hour. For some reason we are not excited by this, plus we get "buses replace trains next 12 months" at some point, turning a 30 minute trip into town into 60-90 minutes depending on traffic.

The Sydney tunnel story you might like is that a PPP built new road tunnels under Sydney then went bankrupt, so the state government bought the tunnels cheap. That's how a PPP should work :)

We had looked to get tickets for the walkthrough, but with the spouse booked for surgery & recovery, I didn't feel like going without her, so I'm experiencing the tunnel walkthrough vicariously.

I'd been leaving my car in North Shore, visiting spouse in ward first thing before catching the Northern Express to work. Then returning after work to spend time before visiting hours ended, before driving home.

I have to say that the Northern Express bus(way) is outstanding, and I'm saying this as a first time user of the Northern Express comparing it to my usual West Auckland bus service. It's convenient & efficient. When catching it for the return trip from the CBD (lower Albert St) during peak time, the buses depart as they fill up. It takes under 20 minutes to go from downtown CBD to Smales Farm & we're whizzing past cars as we go. I kept asking myself why we couldn't have a similar system for the West Auckland's Northwestern motorway.

The Northern Expressway absolutely makes it more convenient for commmuters, but even that doesn't go far enough as shown by the Park & Ride carparks filling up early every day. Aucklanders are willing to use public transport, so long as it is set-up properly to be more convenient & affordable than sitting in your own car, stuck in traffic.