One of Auckland’s most iconic and eclectic streets is set for a makeover. Auckland Transport and Auckland Council today revealed plans for proposed changes

Source: Cyclists, pedestrians winners from Karangahape Road proposals

 

The renderings look very good and the new cycle lanes and pedestrian paths will be heavily utilised especially when the K’Road City Rail Link Station opens up. However, those bus lanes need to be 24/7 given the amount of bus traffic that plies that stretch and the amount of off-peak users on those busses. Something again that will only increase when the CRL is operating from 2023.

 

Manukau City Centre with its wide boulevards are ripe for this kind of transformation as well. Something Panuku Development Auckland will be keeping in their minds as well as mine too.

If I had to pick a road in Manukau that would be the best place to start? Ronwood Avenue given it is both a main bus access link from the north and a pedestrian/cycle link across the east-west access of Manukau City Centre as well. The next road after that would be Druces Road in the south of Manukau as that links Manukau City Centre to a key residential area AND the eastern flanks of the Wiri industrial complex.

Manukau Station Road is another candidate but I would prefer the Botany Line Light Rail Transit system be drawn up and the route protected first to save a case of ripping things up a second time (the build once mantra).

 

Lot’s of potential here with K’ Road and potential that can be translated into most of the Metropolitan Centres as well.

 

Trying the driving mod around the City for the first time was like WOAH (had to turn the sensitivity down).

However, given I did the first drive around in evening rush-hour followed by a standard week night it gave some very fascinating insights to the movement of people and freight.

Congestion in the rush hour was mostly contained to some of the bigger intersections. But the night activity was more of a surprise with the City rather alive. You can’t say Layton City is not a 24/7 city – with a 24/7 transit system.

 

Also FLOODING   In the last post the walk-through photos showed rain had started falling. Well by the time of this post “Flood Warnings” were issued for the first time by Chirper f…

Source: Licence Please: Driving in #CitiesSkylines

One thing you won’t find in Layton City is end to end congestion. Checking the congestion maps regularly most of the roads are in condition green with only a few spots near major interchanges “congested.”

Even at night time in the leisure and tourist districts the roads are pretty smooth running apart from the Casino/Expo Centre sector which has trams, taxis and service vehicles all servicing the area.

Actually and rather surprisingly Layton City really hums at night even on a week night unlike Auckland which seems to go entirely dead…

 

 

Placing the final road link   Wet weather means Cities Skylines time and some serious time at that. Yesterday I worked on two major projects for Layton City as it continues to grow. First was …

Source: The Way-less Travel in #CitiesSkylines

Double tunnel subway system finally works   With the weather being absolutely foul yesterday I manage to tuck in some Cities Skylines to continue work on the City Centre and Downtown area (tha…

Source: Downtown and the City Centre #CitiesSkylines