Category: Transport Planning

Looking at Transport Planning and Design

A Look at the new EMU’s

·

The Middle Carriage

 

For those who do not have Twitter this is what the middle carriage looks like when boarding from a typical station platform

Auckland Transport ‏@AklTransport 11m
New electric trains aren’t far away! The middle carriage has platform-level boarding for wheelchairs, prams & bikes. pic.twitter.com/kG6HHdyjz6

Source: Auckland Transport ‏@AklTransport  11m

New electric trains aren’t far away! The middle carriage has platform-level boarding for wheelchairs, prams & bikes. pic.twitter.com/kG6HHdyjz6

No doubt AT will have more pictures coming soon

 

NZTA Announces Expert Panel on Cycling

·

Lets Talk Cycling

 

From NZTA in response a Coroners report in Cycling in NZ:

Expert panel on cycle safety announced

28 Feb 2014 09:22am | NZ Transport Agency: Auckland and Northland

The NZ Transport Agency has selected a group of ten New Zealand-based experts to develop recommendations for making the country’s roads safer for cycling.

The Transport Agency was asked to convene the panel in response to the findings of a coronial review of cycling safety in New Zealand, released in November last year by Coroner Gordon Matenga.

NZ Transport Agency Director of Road Safety Ernst Zollner said the agency had canvassed the views of a wide range of stakeholders with expertise in cycling and road safety as part of the process of establishing the panel.

“There is a huge amount of passion and a great depth of knowledge on cycling and cycle safety in New Zealand. We’re looking to harness that passion and knowledge to encourage cycling as a transport choice by making it safer. This panel is tasked with developing a comprehensive and practical set of recommendations for central and local government to achieve that.”

The panel is expected to meet for the first time next month and will aim to deliver its recommendations by the end of September.

Mr Zollner said the Transport Agency and other members of the National Road Safety Management Group would also continue existing work to improve the safety of cyclists in New Zealand by investing in separated cycle paths, improving the safety of roads and roadsides, making intersections safer, reducing vehicle speeds in urban areas to reduce the risks that motor vehicles can pose to continue existing work to improve the safety of cyclists in New Zealand by investing in separated cycle paths, improving the safety of roads and roadsides, making intersections safer, reducing vehicle speeds in urban areas to reduce the risks that motor vehicles can pose to pedestrians and cyclists and promoting safe cycling through a range of education programmes.

The Transport Agency recently launched a Share the Road education and advertising campaign designed to personalise and humanise people cycling so that motorists see beyond the bike. More information is availablehere.

New Zealand Cycle Safety Panel – Profiles

Richard Leggat (Chair) 
Auckland

Richard is the Chair of Bike NZ and the New Zealand Cycle Trail and is a board member of Education NZ, SnowSports NZ, NZ Post and Tourism NZ.  Richard is an enthusiastic recreational cyclist and is actively involved in his children’s sport. Following an economics degree Richard worked for apparel manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin before switching into the finance sector and working as a share broker initially in Christchurch, followed by four years in London and then Auckland.

Sarah Ulmer
Cambridge

Sarah is the first New Zealander to win an Olympic cycling gold medal, which she won in the individual pursuit at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, setting a world record.  When she left Athens at the end of the Games, Ulmer held the Olympic title, the Olympic and world records, the Commonwealth Games title and the Commonwealth Games record for the 3000m individual pursuit.  In mid-2011, it was announced that she would be the official ‘ambassador’ for the New Zealand Cycle Trail.  In the 2005 New Year Honours, Ulmer was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to cycling. 

Marilyn Northcotte
Kapiti

Marilyn has more than twenty years of involvement in cycle skills training, originally in Canada (CAN‐Bike I and II, Cycling Freedom) and has also trained in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.  Marilyn has developed and delivered cycle skills and road safety programmes for adults and children in a variety of settings and regularly undertakes work for councils, cycle advocacy groups, schools, holiday programmes, Police and community groups, as well as offering one‐to‐one training.  Marilyn heads up the regional cycle skills training programmePedal Ready.

Mike Noon
Wellington

Mike joined the Automobile Association in September 2005 as General Manager Motoring Affairs.  Mike started his career with Mobil Oil NZ where he held the position of Marketing and Communications Manager.  Immediately prior to joining the AA, Mike worked as a consultant specialising in tourism, issue management and communications.  Before that Mike worked with the Office of Tourism and Sport, and as its Director saw through the establishment of the Ministry of Tourism.  Road safety is a particularly important issue for the AA, and it has lobbied strongly on issues like young driver training, cell phones, alcohol and drugs and road engineering.

Dr Hamish Mackie
Auckland

Hamish is a human factors specialist with seventeen years of research and consultancy experience in a range of areas where the interaction between people, their surrounding environments and the things they use are important. Over the past eight years Hamish has focused on self-explaining roads, high risk intersections, school transport and other areas where a ‘human-centred’ perspective is essential.

Simon Kennett
Wellington

Originally a power systems engineering officer, Simon helped to found ‘Kennett Brothers Ltd’ in 1993, a business devoted to cycling books, event management, trail design and construction, and strategy development. In 2004 he co-wrote and published ‘RIDE’ – a history of cycling in New Zealand. In 2007/08 he coordinated the Cycling Advocates’ Network networking project under contract to NZTA. Since 2009 Simon has been the Active Transport and Road Safety Coordinator at Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Dr Alexandra Macmillan
Dunedin

Alex is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Health at the University of Otago’s Department of Preventive and Social Medicine. She also holds an honorary senior research position at the Bartlett – University College London’s global faculty of the built environment. She trained in Medicine and is a Public Health Physician. Alex’s teaching and research focuses on the links between urban environments, sustainability and health. Her PhD included futures modelling of specific policies to successfully increase commuter cycling in Auckland. In London, she extended this work to understand the factors influencing trends in cycling in London and Dutch cities.

Professor Alistair Woodward
Auckland

Alistair is Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His first degree was in medicine and he undertook his postgraduate training in public health in the UK. He has a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Adelaide, and 30 years’ experience in road safety and injury research. He has studied the epidemiology of head injury, the effectiveness of helmets for cyclists, the relation between vehicle speed and injury severity, the effects on health and the environment of increasing walking and cycling, and the health impacts of transport policy. He initiated the Taupo bicycle study, which has followed 2,600 cyclists for eight years to learn about factors that promote and inhibit everyday cycling, including injury.

Axel Wilke
Christchurch

Axel holds an ME (Civil) from Canterbury University and has been active as a traffic engineer and transport planner in New Zealand since 1998. He specialises in urban traffic engineering, traffic signals, road safety, intersection design & modelling and industry training. He is a director of ViaStrada Limited, a traffic and transportation consultancy specialising in sustainable transport based in Christchurch. Clients of ViaStrada are mostly road controlling authorities in New Zealand, but some work (mostly research) is undertaken for Australian clients, for example Austroads. Axel instigated professional industry training, and the Fundamentals of Planning and Design for Cycling workshop has been taught since 2003, which is part of the curriculum at Canterbury University. Advanced courses were added later, and he has taught nearly 1,000 attendees in total. 

Dr Glen Koorey
Christchurch

Glen is a Senior Lecturer in Transportation Engineering at the University of Canterbury. He has a particular interest in the areas of road safety and sustainable transport, including speed management and planning & design for cycling. Glen is a Member of the Bicycle Transportation Research Committee of the US Transportation Research Board and over the past 15 years has investigated many aspects of cycling safety in New Zealand. His wide-ranging research and consulting experience also includes sustainable transportation policies, planning & design for walking, crash data analysis, and the design and operation of rural highways.

——–ends———-

Source: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/about/media/releases/3223/news.html

 

The panel reports back in September. I wonder what they will come up with.

 

Jostling Over Roading Projects

·

So This One or This One

 

Cruising through the media outlets this morning I saw this pop up over the East-West Link verse the “Holiday Highway.”

From the NZ Herald

City business lobby prefers freight route

By Mathew Dearnaley 5:30 AM Wednesday Feb 26, 2014

Group says Onehunga-East Tamaki truck corridor more urgent than Govt’s pet road.

Auckland’s main business lobby says a freight corridor through the industrial belt from Onehunga to East Tamaki is far more urgent than the Government’s $760 million “road of national significance” to Warkworth.

But the Auckland Business Forum has admitted erring in a submission on the extension of the Northern Motorway from Puhoi, for which it says predicted economic benefits are far below what a freight road beside the Manukau Harbour would deliver.

The submission claims incorrectly that there are estimated benefits of $4 to $6 for every $1 which the freight link may cost to build – even though a route has yet to be determined, and a likely price is unknown.

That compares with just 60c to $1.10 which the Transport Agency expects to gain from the motorway extension from the Johnstones Hill toll road tunnels to the northern side of Warkworth.

When questioned by the Herald about the southern freight road estimate, business forum project co-ordinator Tony Garnier said it appeared to be incorrect and would need amending in evidence to a board of inquiry hearing in April into the agency’s planning applications for the northern project.

…

You can read the full article over at the Herald site.

 

I am wondering though if there is simmering tension with the allocation of limited funds and resources to large road projects.

That said we could make the limited funds stretch further with some more sane projects such as these two here:

In other news the combined Governing Body and Local Boards are meeting in the Aotea Centre today to ‘set the scene’ for the 2015-2025 Long Term Plan – the master Council budget document

 

 

News from Auckland Transport

·

Some News from Auckland Transport

 

Two releases from Auckland Transport, one on customer service and the other on public transport patronage:

 

From AT on the Customer Service Group:

‘Customers the focus’ at Auckland Transport

Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 – 16:53

The Board of Auckland Transport today established a Customer Focus Committee (CFC), which will drive continuous customer service and customer experience improvements throughout the business.

Mark Gilbert (pictured), who has a background in senior management that incorporated marketing and customer service roles, will Chair the committee.

He says it will provide oversight and advice on a range of initiatives from project planning and market research to implementation. A major priority is an increase in public transport patronage. “Our overarching vision is to put an excellent customer experience at the heart of everything we do” he says.

“We aim to provide outstanding customer service, every time and be a trusted and positive contributor to the lives of all Aucklanders.“That means a greater emphasis on customer needs and wants no matter what part of the organisation or its services they are engaging with.” The CFC is a full committee of the Board, with all AT Directors invited to attend. It will meet monthly, beginning in March.

—-ends—

 

And on the Public Transport Patronage (AT’s report is below the presser):

Jump in Auckland public transport patronage

Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 – 16:40

January saw a jump of three point three per cent in the number of people using public transport in Auckland. The number of trips on rail was up seven point six per cent in January compared to the same month last year.

Auckland Transport’s Group Manager, Public Transport, Mark Lambert says the increase for rail is pleasing considering the disruption to services in January because of on-going work to electrify the rail network.The Northern Express bus service saw a rise in patronage of seven per cent, while the number using all other bus services was up just under five per cent compared to January 2013. Auckland Transport has been running promotions to encourage more people on the North Shore to use the Northern Express. Ferry patronage was down in January. One of the reasons for the drop in the numbers using ferries was the poor weather over the holiday period.

On an average weekday some 236,000 trips are taken on public transport in the region and Aucklanders are now travelling on more than 200,000 AT HOP cards.

 

The Accompanying Report

 

How About Some Savings and Adjustments Before New Taxes

·

NZCID Not Really Making its Case Palatable with Auckland Citizens

 

The New Zealand Council of Infrastructure Development (NZCID) commissioned an independent “review” into an apparent lack of city shaping infrastructure. The report by the international consulting firm SGS Economics and Planning is embedded as a PDF at the bottom of this post.

Below is the subsequent press release from NZCID on the “review:”

Study identifies “lack of city shaping infrastructure investment”

Friday, 21 February, 2014 – 17:51

An independent review of Auckland’s planning framework by international consulting firm SGS Economics and Planning released today identifies a lack of city shaping infrastructure investment as the principal impediment to achieving a quality compact city. The report recommends that the productivity benefit from investment, demand management and urban intensification needs to establish the case for expanded co-investment and policy reform by Central Government.

“We commissioned this study to gain a better understanding of how successfully programmes, policies and investment plans developed over the past three years by the Council are delivering on the Auckland Plan vision to make the city the World’s Most Liveable,” said Stephen Selwood CEO of the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development.

“SGS found that governance reforms have equipped Auckland with the most evolved metropolitan governance structure of any city in Australasia.

“Auckland has a united voice on regional issues and has the critical mass to make trajectory shifting decisions in its own right.

“The Auckland Plan sets out a compelling and demonstrably achievable vision for Auckland’s spatial development.

“However, SGS found that the Auckland Plan objective of a quality compact city was unlikely to be achieved without increased investment in city shaping infrastructure, identification of the means to fund that investment and policy reform to support road pricing and value capture mechanisms.

“On current plans there simply is not sufficient investment in transport infrastructure to support a transition to an efficient and competitive higher density urban form, Selwood said.

“To reverse many decades of low-density, motor-vehicle oriented growth will take much more than the city rail link and other projects prioritised in the Auckland Plan.

“This finding helps explain why transport modelling of future land use and transport investment completed last year showed Auckland’s congestion worsening significantly over the course of the next thirty years, even with all proposed investment committed.

“But rather than retracting the compact city vision, SGS call for analysis of the productivity benefit that is expected from urban transformation. Where the Auckland Plan vision can be shown to boost national productivity, GDP and aggregate tax revenues there is a strong case for co-investment from central government. Increased economic performance more generally also substantiates the case for new funding sources, such as road pricing and value capture, which are key to achieving the Auckland Plan vision.

“Better understanding of these benefits may also help foster community and local board support, which has so far been an impediment to the scale of intensification proposed.

“We hope that this report will stimulate a joint Government and Council work programme to identify the productivity dividend that can be achieved through optimal investment in city shaping infrastructure. In NZCID’s view, this requires vast improvement in integrating transport investment and land use development, including more targeted densification to support major investment in public transport, and implementation of road pricing and value capture mechanisms.

“While the united Auckland Council is making great progress, stronger alignment and unity of purpose between central government and the Council is needed if the productive potential of Auckland is to be truly realised,” Selwood says.

Source: http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/study-identifies-lack-city-shaping-infrastructure-investment/5/182215

—ends—

 

Long story short I rather have some savings done first with our gold-plated transport infrastructure investment program (the Integrated Transport Program) before we start playing around searching for new “taxes.”

Transport Blog spells out the case with their Congestion Free Network case on how to achieve those savings that would not require such extra taxes as the NZCID are promoting. Further more the Congestion Free Network while being cheaper actually helps de-congest Auckland’s Transport network where the current ITP proposals that have a current $15 billion funding gap (and what the NZCID want (the ITP)) while congestion still gets worse in 2030…

I wonder if NZCID like the Chamber of Commerce are annoyed after the East-West Link gold-plated proposal got scaled back significantly after people power convinced AT to do that scale back. Suppose we will never know as such.

 

The SGS Review

 

AT February Agenda Out

· 1 Comment ·

And a lot of it is behind closed doors

 

Auckland Transport had released their monthly agenda onto their website. They have both the Open and Closed Agenda which you can see below:

Open Agenda

Love to know what this Customer Focus Committee is. Suppose we will find out soon enough

The Closed Agenda

Yes that is quite a lot on the closed agenda. I have noticed Mill Road is back up so I wonder what is on the table this time. Unfortunately it is the Confidential Section of the report so unless it is leaked we won’t be knowing any time soon.

The individual items from the open agenda: http://at.govt.nz/about-us/our-role-organisation/meetings-minutes/

 

[Update] I saw this in the usual email post from Transport Blog this morning in regards to the AT Rail Strategy which I have mentioned before:

From Transport Blog

The other paper gives is the forward programme for the board showing what is coming up for them to discuss/decide on. Naturally the next few meetings are more fleshed out than those 4-5 months out. Some projects that I picked up were.

  • In March the closed session will see papers on AMETI, Mill Rd, Dominion Rd, integrated fares, replacing parking ticket machines, selling the diesel trains. At the capital review committee a few weeks before three is also a paper on AT’s rail strategy.
  • In April there will be closed session discussion on the seawall in the city centre, SMART (rail to the airport), Mill Rd (again), AT’s rail strategy, Papakura – Pukekohe electrification,

Next month (I’ll need to follow-up with Peter Clark) the long-awaited Rail Strategy should be released which included the Manukau Rail South Link Business Case Study. All eyes from Southern Auckland will be watching to see what AT come back with for the link the South is patiently waiting for.

Source: http://transportblog.co.nz/2014/02/24/ats-feb-board-meeting/

Slowly getting there with the Manukau South Rail Link
Slowly getting there with the Manukau South Rail Link