“Too Busy To Deal With It!” While I do not mind getting quoted on transport Tweets I do mind when Auckland Transport says the following: Auckland commuters to face delays … Continue reading This Is What Auckland Transport Thinks of You – The Rail Passenger [UPDATED]
Construction to start 2016 From Auckland Transport City Rail Link contract awarded 07/04/2015 10:08 a.m. The City Rail Link (CRL) takes another significant step forward with the announcement today of … Continue reading And So it Begins: Contracts Awarded for Phase One of the City Rail Link
By now you would have seen the reports doing the rounds of a brawl breaking out at Britomart Station on Saturday night after the Christmas in the Park, and Raggamuffin events were concluded.
You can see the Herald report here:
By Sam Boyer, Mathew Dearnaley 6:10 PM Sunday Dec 14, 2014
Dozens of marauding youths brought Auckland trains to a halt last night as hundreds of people converged on Britomart to get home after Christmas in the Park.
Police and security guards closed access to the Super City’s main railway station soon after 11pm after 30 to 40 youths climbed on top of turnstiles and began pushing and shoving each other on the platforms.
A video on Facebook captured some of their behaviour, showing them taunting and making aggressive gestures to the guards.
A heavy sign was thrown across the turnstiles at the guards before police arrived to restore order.
…..
Source and full article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11374116
The gates at Britomart themselves were the device as well as the guards and Maori Wardens that kept that brawl from spreading out of control.
But questions of the police need to be asked especially after a video emerged on Facebook showing the brawl going for five long minutes and still no police on the platform level. So to the Commander of Waitemata Police:
The video is here: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=857078164313656&pnref=story
This not the first time the police have failed to respond to such incidents at a pubic transport stop or station.
Our public transport is meant to be safe so people especially families will use it but if the police can not do its job in deterrence and busting of such disturbances it does not give confidence to the rest of the City and tourists when we do hold large events. Furthermore the main platform level is a dangerous place if bad behaviour occurs on that level. Falling onto the tracks sober will hurt as is, falling onto the tracks drunk and no control is not going to be a pretty sight especially if head hits the iron. Also train movements is enough to put things at higher risks of an accident before control manages to bring all such movements to a halt.
I have noted this is not also the first time Christmas in the Park has resulted in drunken behaviour either. That situation faces a very easily solution: either we tell our peers to get themselves back in order or face Council dropping the ban hammer on the event. A pity a few spoil it for the rest so we might be wanting to better self police our peers before an authority does it for us with a blunt instrument…
As a comparison the NRL 9’s earlier this year was a very busy event but no reports of major issues as we saw on Saturday night. So Auckland can get its collective self together…
And so then who will be held to account for this ball dropping?
How it benefits Auckland I posted this in Facebook earlier this morning on how the City Rail Link benefits Auckland. It was in reaction to a Rant/Rave piece … Continue reading A Simple But Not Exhaustive Explanation of the City Rail Link
I received my usual updates on Twitter about whether the electric trains are running or not after facing Day 11 of being grounded since power infrastructure faults became significant two Sunday’s ago
And this is what greets me
The 5:16pm main peak service from Britomart to Onehunga coming out of the Newmarket tunnel heading towards Britomart
And just a few moments ago as I write this
The second main peak service the 5:46pm also got away on time as well.
So our electrics are back after 10.5 days being grounded. The catch is will they hold out or will that fault return? We wait and see.
But sections of the network are still closed Must be a habit from my previous life in Transdev when you pick up the blast of a DC locomotive train … Continue reading Trains are Back
On the 31st of January of THIS YEAR (so no more than three weeks ago as I write this) I wrote a post that was indicative of not being a good look for Auckland. It was called “OH MY – Not a Good Look For Auckland” and illustrated some embarrassment a local had when showing much-needed international investors around Britomart Station:
Made a big mistake yesterday. I showed some international investors around the waterfront yesterday knowing it would be vibrant with Anniversary day regatta on. All was well until they wanted to go see our train station (which was Britomart). What a “disaster” that turned out to be.
They stood there for about 5-10min taking it all in, watching as the same people were at the ticket box with one person working (at that particular ticket box (The station platform level one on the other side of the gates where the “Onboard Fare is usually paid)) trying to sort something out for five minutes. As a result people were coming and going from the waiting queue annoyed.
The investors were not impressed at all and said that what they seen of Auckland doesn’t impress them as a viable city to invest in. They said love the wide open spaces, weather etc. but just doesn’t stack up as commercially viable.
The post continued to go on about the three Rail Ticket Machines in the Britomart Central Post Office end failing and not dispensing tickets causing queues and frustrations at the ticket office as passengers tried to purchase their ticket, pass through the gate line on the platform level and board their train BEFORE the train takes off!
Well three weekends later we have EXACTLY the same situation to the point it has been occurring every weekend since mid-January: all three rail ticket machines at Britomart failing causing queues and frustrations at the ticket office as passengers tried to purchase their ticket, pass through the gate line on the platform level and board their train BEFORE the train takes off! And again the machine service technicians were called and again they refuse to come out until the Monday morning peak services to service the machine!
So today – Sunday and being the beautiful weather that it is we are going to have this due to the three Ticket Machines being offline until tomorrow: “queues and frustrations at the ticket office as passengers tried to purchase their ticket, pass through the gate line on the platform level and board their train BEFORE the train takes off!”
Now how many more times will I be repeating this until Auckland Transport pulls finger and gets a technician service that is meant to do what it contracted to do: FIX THE FAULT WITHIN TWO HOURS OF NOTIFICATION – NOT WAIT UNTIL MONDAY!
Although while Britomart was offline, technicians were spotted replenishing the Sylvia Park Rail Ticket Machines yesterday – an improvement to Anniversary Weekend when the machine wouldn’t be serviced until the following Tuesday!
Time to flick an email to the Council Accountability and Performance Committee and file a LGOIMA request on the rate these so-called advanced machines keep “breaking down” and the level of service we ratepayers are paying to having the machines serviced!
Wonder if I will be writing this exact same post next weekend? iPredict Contracts anyone?
Some feedback from a reader (who has asked to remain anonymous which BR:AKL will do as requested) on their experience with our rail system down at Britomart over the recent Auckland Anniversary Weekend:
Made a big mistake yesterday. I showed some international investors around the waterfront yesterday knowing it would be vibrant with Anniversary day regatta on. All was well until they wanted to go see our train station (which was Britomart). What a “disaster” that turned out to be.
They stood there for about 5-10min taking it all in, watching as the same people were at the ticket box with one person working (at that particular ticket box (The station platform level one on the other side of the gates where the “Onboard Fare is usually paid)) trying to sort something out for five minutes. As a result people were coming and going from the waiting queue annoyed.
The investors were not impressed at all and said that what they seen of Auckland doesn’t impress them as a viable city to invest in. They said love the wide open spaces, weather etc. but just doesn’t stack up as commercially viable.
While I am here: Every time I go into Station Square in Newmarket to show potential investors/tenants the vacant shops I pray there are humans (besides the unemployed and school kids hanging around during school hours I might pray but the poor tenants are mental wrecks waiting for the last four years for the trains to arrive every thee minutes and what was it like 17,000 people using that station.
Well after another anonymous reader fed to the blog some statistics from the Anniversary Weekend I am not surprised that our friend above was rather disheartened and the investors spooked off.
The statistics I am referring to is how many Rail Ticket Machines had some kind of fault in them. 37 faults on 31 machines out of an approximate total of 57 rail ticket machines across the Auckland rail network over the long weekend. The faults can range from:
So 31 out of 57 machines had either one or more of the above listed faults in the weekend. To make it worse, if you call it in to the AT-HOP help desk the technician won’t come until Tuesday to “fix” the issue (I kid you not).
Now to make life harder, those with AT-HOP cards who would tag on and off like I do when travelling by train would have faced numerous tagging posts “offline” meaning you need to go find another tag post. I knew of a couple of stations (I went travelling on the train in the weekend “exploring”) that had two out of three of their tag posts offline. Again call it into AT-HOP help desk and the technician comes out Tuesday.
What on earth happened over the Anniversary weekend when Auckland had all the tourists in. I thought we were meant to make our good train system that – good; not bloody difficult and spooking off people.
Groan – the amount of work to advance the good system into an Advanced First-Class system just keeps piling up and up and up with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Come on guys – I know you can do better 😦
With added resilience now added into the Auckland rail network through crossovers at “major” stations and the Westfield Junction Fly-Over, attention now focuses in getting rail stations into the best strategic places as possible with the best “facilities” possible to attract and sustain high patronage numbers. Again some of the ideas about to be mentioned in these posts have been mentioned before, I am so-called “reposting” them here as I personally like the ideas and the fact they just need reposting to emphasis the point!
Currently on the Auckland Passenger Rail Network the station locations and patronage levels are somewhat scatty with some stations well placed and attracting patronage, while others do more of a disservice to network and can actually put people off using the network. Meaning some of our stations are not in the best locations and need to be moved to better suit the Auckland populace. There are currently three such locations – all on the Southern and Eastern Lines where the; removal, moving or adding of stations be considered doing in better enhancing the “catchment” and attractiveness of those currently or wanting to use our rail network. So lets take a look at the Southern and Eastern Lines starting from the south and moving towards Britomart.
No need to mention the adding of the Paerata and Drury Stations (complete with Park and Rides) as that is being currently covered in an extensive report by Auckland Transport which can be seen over at my PUKEKOHE ELECTRIFICATION CASE post. So moving along to the next section of the network that needs attention – which would be between Papakura and Manurewa Rail stations on the Southern/Eastern Line.
Click for full resolution
Again Click for full resoultion
Time to travel between stations currently:
Current Facilities and nearby Amenities at the stations currently:
Google Maps and the Council GIS viewer currently do not show the current stations in their current form, so until I make a trip down – no pictures as of yet.
So we have the situation with Te Mahia and Takanini Stations of what and where they are, and what state they are in. Now as I have alluded to earlier South Auckland is due to undergo significant urban growth per the Auckland Plan over the next thirty-odd years. The second graphic above had a red line drawn in it that show the extent urban growth can take during the life of the Auckland Plan – which means we could be looking at well over 35,000 new residences and businesses in the area over the next twenty years at least. Now putting two and two together (and disregarding Auckland Transport is apparently going to upgrade Takanini within the next five years – which I think is for the platform only (so no Park and Ride)) you have a situation of large urban growth near the rail corridor and two dilapidated stations that have bugger all facilities, bugger all catchment area, and bugger all future with little scope of being able to fully upgrade the stations with facilities like Papakura and Manurewa. So what do I propose?
Well I propose the following
In short I propose the following”
Why This?
These next round of graphics and annotations explain Spartan Road and Walters Road Stations
You can see where I have placed the new stations – close to current residents and business as well as future residents and business. Remember Te Mahia and Takanini Stations will be closed.
The size of land for the Station, Park and Ride, and Bus Interchange is just over 2 hectares in size. The brown lines show possible eastern shuttle bus connections for the station. A new proposed road linking Randwick and Spartan Road Station (via crossing the stream) is also placed. This new link would allow ease of access for residents to get to Spartan Road Station and possibly the industry in the surrounding area. Those living in the northern part of Conifer Grove (wedged between the Motorway, Walter Stevens Drive and Great South Road) have the choice of either Spartan Road or Walters Road Station.
Again click for full resolution
Walters Road is bit more unique in the fact it has technically two Park and Rides, as well as two bus interchanges – one on each side of the rail line (the sizes are 1.16ha and 0.44ha respectively). This would be owing to no road level crossing being built at the station site (we are trying to reduce level crossings) nor a road bridge being built that could be justified in the cost department. If the bus interchange and/or park and ride was only built on one side, it would me a 1.5km “detour” to get to the relevant side with the park and ride and/or interchange – a rather self-defeating exercise. Furthermore you would cause bottlenecks down Walters Road by buses and cars trying access the park and ride and/or interchange if it was built on one side only. To add further weight behind building a Western and Eastern Park and Rides + Bus interchanges is the fact that Walters Road would be a station serving a fast growing area being right next to a new commercial development and within easy reach of new residential development. The Western Park and Ride + Bus Interchange would service all residents and businesses on the Great South Road side of the rail line, while the Eastern Park and Ride + Bus Interchange would service residences and businesses between the rail line Mill Road (Red Line on first graphic). Also Papakura currently has two Park and Rides (one on the western side, one on the eastern side) which are both heavily utilised – so there is a very close by success story of building two Park and Ride facilities that would be utilised well. The Eastern Park and Ride + Bus Interchange would also be my new “home-station” where I would catch my trains from to head north.
One final note having Walters Road Station with its dual Park and Rides + Bus Interchanges; the area between Manurewa and Papakura East (Red Hill) is due to undergo significant urban growth over the next three decades. You are looking at tens of thousands of new residents as well as many new businesses and civic institutions for which Papakura Station (and Takanini for that matter as well) could no simply cope if we are looking at making mass transit accessible to our new residents. Takanini is a dunga and does not have the room for a large supporting facility (Park and Ride and Bus Interchange) to make any station upgrades viable. Walters Road Station (including Park and Ride and Bus Interchange) is bang smack in the middle of a catchment area that has existing residents and businesses as well as future urban growth. Walters Road Station would be on land that can support the required large-scale support facilities (Park and Ride and Bus Interchange) as well as being connected to two access roads that run both major arterial roads that can be or already are traffic light controlled for safety reasons. So in that sense getting Walters Road Station right is absolutely critical if it is to be a key lynch-pin station that would attract existing and new people to Auckland’s fully integrated mass transit network.
Varies significantly and I would need to consult both an engineer and a planner to find out the true construction costs as well as the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) factors and the works and operational effects on these four stations are significant.
The entire post is a justification on this project. The new running times would also most likely be the following (for diesels, running times for the electrics are unknown as of yet):
As what would happen to those who use Te Mahia and Takanini? For Takanini Station users two choices are available: car, walk, cycle, shuttle bus to either Spartan Road or Walters Road Crossing. For Te Mahia Station users they would use Manurewa or Spartan Road Stations and get there by car, shuttle bus, walk or cycle. So the alternatives are readily available and would present little disruption to existing users.
To build both Spartan Road and Walters Road Stations with their supporting facilities, the new road link bridge between Randwick and Westbrook Road (connecting to Spartan Road) and demolish both Te Mahia and Takanini would be an estimate of two years as Block of Lines (closing the network in that particular section) would be required.
And so while that is the Papakura – Manurewa section of station additions and removals there is one more on the Eastern Line before reaching Britomart that could be up for a move down the line. That be moving the current Meadowbank Station closer towards the Meadowbank Tunnel and renaming it Selwyn Station. But that I shall cover in the upcoming THE RAIL EFFICIENCY PROGRAM #5B post.
But in the meantime what do you think on basically moving two stations to better locations and adding support facilities such as Park and Rides, and Bus Interchanges. Comment below
*Note: To make it clear; when I refer to Park and Rides I also mean including Kiss and Ride as well as Cycle Lockers as part of the Park and Ride Facilities.
Actual and Useful Information for Auckland Train Users – From 7th January 2013 As I have been hammering away on Facebook, Twitter and my “ARE YOU READY FOR A … Continue reading “New Fare” Information – For Auckland Trains
Talking Southern Auckland 