Posts by Angus Robertson
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The tunnel is a pretty cheap way to double the capacity of the existing rail network, when you think about it. If you think about it, which you appear unwilling to do. Assuming that a line to Howick/Botany is attached to the Eastern Line rather than the Southern Line, all the trains would have to come into Britomart anyway. And even if it did go to the Southern Line, would services go to Mt Eden or Britomart? Why divert trains up to a nowhere stop at Mt Eden where they can't change direction when they could go right to Britomart which is where most passengers want to go anyway? A line to the Shore will absolutely come into Britomart, so you haven't changed anything there.
They would proceed from Papakura to Mt Eden to Henderson. West Auckland is not a "nowhere stop".
Putting a line from Britomart to the Shore would increase the number of tracks leading out of Britomart by 100% (doubling its capacity).
For all your anger and hatred aimed at the CBD tunnel, it's the most cost-efficient way of increasing capacity of the existing network. And once that's done, it becomes feasible to add lines into densely-populated areas that currently don't have any train service. It's also a pre-requisite for rail to the Shore to tunnel out the other end of Britomart.
I'm not angry and feel no hatred for it, it is however still a waste of money, because the existing network is a joke. Our network serves too few Aucklanders. Let's not gild the existing sow's ear to the tune of $1.5 billion +.
Putting a subway in the CBD would be politically difficult, perhaps suicidal, because our train network is so lacking. Can you think of a scheme more likely to piss off the Northshore, Manukau, Waitakere, Rodney, Franklin? I reckon you could find one, but it might take a while (maybe an Olympics bid).
As a first step to improving public transport, it is the one most likely to be a last step.
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In the 'burbs, they can be much further apart.
Our 'burbs houses probably average 10 or 15 km from a station. Adding line to reach more of these potential customers can be done much more cost effectively than tunneling under Albert Park.
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I thought your whole argument was that these stations could be getting off points for the CBD and thereby alleviate the congestion to Britomart. Instead you seem to be saying that simply by passing through these stations (maybe even hopping off for a look around?) on the way to Britomart will clear the bottleneck there. Hmmm.
Some of the trains would not be going to Britomart, they would be continuing south or west. People would get off these trains and on to buses for the Uni, AUT or Uptown destinations.
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Yes, stations. Britomart is a terminus, a stopping point. Grafton and Mt Eden aren't designed for tens-of-thousands of passengers an hour, they're designed for hundreds, at most, because they're meant to be points along the way not destinations.
Mt Eden could be expanded at a damned sight less expense than boring a 2.5 km tunnel trough solid rock. And if we did that then guess what - not all train services would need to terminate in Britomart. The Mt Eden rail line is closer to K'road/Uni than Britomart, but all the CBD interconnecting bus services (including K'rd) converge on Britomart creating an unneeded bottleneck. Renovating Mt Eden station could take a third of the passenger load off Britomart, because half the CBD is close enough to Mt Eden. And allow further trains to be run in from the burbs.
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How exactly do these stations that are not in the CBD service the CBD?
Use a bus or take a train to Britomart.
Nice brisk walk never hurt anyone, eh?
It has killed considerably less people than cutting back on the provision of good pensioner housing, on council sports fields or on improvements to sewage networks. To be fair its killed more people than cutbacks to any grand mayors entertainment budget or our potential hosting of the Olympics. But spending $xbillions on a useless rail loop to nowhere means sacrificing some of these things (and I'd bet a considerable sum it won't be affecting the entertainment budget).
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I don't agree Angus. "Going somewhere" is not just where the outer ends of the network go to, it's also where the inner ones are, and 2 kilometers is a pretty big walk, particularly if your starting point is the bottom of Queen Street and your destination is anywhere uphill from there, which describes most of the central city. A city rail loop would make a big difference to the viability of the network, far out of proportion to having more stations and lines out in the suburbs.
Ben,
Save yourself the walk try using a city circuit (free) or a link bus.
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Angus is wrong. The CBD loop would add a lot of extra capacity to the Auckland rial system by removing the bottleneck at Britomart. This single project would essentially double the capacity of the system, allowing extra trains to run on the existing lines and making them considerably more attractive to the people near them. There is bags of information about this over at the excellent Auckland transport blog of Josh Arbury.
A - There is lots of other existing spare rail capacity at Mt Eden and Grafton stations which can potentially be used to service the CBD and this can be utilised for $xbillions less than a tunnel through NZs most expensive realestate. BTW these stations are already through stations. Not everybody wants to travel to the port end of the CBD, yet all the trains run to and from Britomart causing a potential bottleneck at Britomart. We could spend $billions on clearing that totally unnecessary bottleneck by digging a white elephant useless tunnel going nowhere new or we could stop making all the trains go to Britomart.
B - If you want a through station at Britomart it could just as easily go somewhere useful by tunnelling north under the harbour and hook up with 500,000 Aucklanders who do not currently find railway lines "attractively" near them. As opposed to the proposed CBD line which will service virtually no additional customers.
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It's pork.
Central Auckland is already provided with excellent rail coverage. An additional rail loop in the CBD would merely put 3 additional stations in central Auckland where there are already stations at Britomart, Mt Eden and Grafton. Each of the proposed new stations will be placed within 1400 m of an existing station. This study (pdf) of Singapore's MRT system shows their design criteria was for station catchments to be 2000 m radius allowing for walking and utilising feeder services (like our loop buses), meaning that Singapore has worse MRT access than the Auckland CBD. Singapore has 52.4% of transits carried out on public transport, we don't. The problem therefore is not a lack of access to public transport in the CBD and this tunnel project would be nothing more than unadulterated pork more capable of moving Aucklanders firmly against public transport than moving them physically.
Where Auckland's rail network screws up is that it doesn't go anywhere. There are no trains to the airport or North Harbour or Howick. Aucklanders don't use rail because they mostly live and/or work far far away from any rail line. If we are going to expand Auckland's rail network we should try to do it somewhere useful.
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I am currently on the brink of taking the solemn vows of the middle classness - a first mortgage. And maybe someday I'll reach the realms of the upper middle classes - a second mortgage. But all the time I keep thinking what if I just keep renting, then I could have a sweet F6 Typhoon.
But the other day I came home, and parked outside the neighbours' house was a huge shiny Holden Monaro with a personalised plate that said "FD H8R". It gave me a warm glow, followed by a trickle of cold remembered fear. It might be a mixed blessing, but it's something I hope I never lose.
If you place a polite note under the windscreen wipers they'll move the eyesore before it degrades community values.
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I agree with George they need to pick a good local, because they are also running against the legacy of Chris Carter who for all his faults is the man who won Te Atatu even though the electorate swung well right of the Labour Party. He was the local MP respected enough that Te Atatu chose him despite him being in the Labour party and now their guy is in the process of getting fired for speaking a certain amount of truth (though in an underhand way) about Phil Goff's leadership.