Knee-deep in central Christchurch history?

I have been very busy researching some early Canterbury history lately, for a very specific project (only marginally related to public transport) making regular blog postings a little more difficult during this month gone and February.

One bit of background reading I was doing is "The Early Days of Canterbury" compiled by Selwyn Bruce and published in 1932. There is still a copy available to borrow from Christchurch City Libraries. This history scanned back across the previous 80 years, I presume the author/editor was himself fairly elderly at the time.

Here is a description, page 57-58 of a facet of what is now the central business area of Christchurch - one that I have never heard described before anywhere.

It is certainly is of great interest following the great damage caused in the 10,000 earthquakes, particularly to buildings built on areas once swamp only compacted in the last few centuries or since settlers arrived or beside waterways. I quote; -

    "The large gully which ran across the grounds of St Michaels parsonage, [presumably adjoining said church on Durham Street, near Lichfield St] wound its serpentine course in a north-easterly direction across what today is the hub of the city, and carried a large body of water emptying itself into the Avon near Manchester Street. In winter time this gully resolved itself into a deep creek only negotiable by boat and one of the advertisements in an early issue of the "Lyttelton Times" invited application for the position  of ferryman across this water-laden gully, and stipulated that preference  would be given to a man of sober habits.

    Tuam Street west, therefore, developed both as business and residential areas, and many of the early early settlers erected pretentious  homes in Windmill Road (now known as Antigua Street) [and in 2012 all industrial now, north of Moorhouse Avenue]

   A son of the proprietor of the White Hart hotel [in High Street] records the fact that in order to obtain meat from the butcher, whose establishment was on on Oxford Terrace, near Cashel Street, he had to go along the eastern bank of this gully through the fern and tutu, as far as Manchester Street before he could get across the stream."

Eighty years after these words were written I thought I'd see if I can find the original ad for the ferryman in the "Lyttelton Times" (on Papers Past). As usual what you are looking for can be devishly difficult to find even with a range of keywords (but will often pop-up later while searching for something else!). Perhaps because the scan is of old, uneven, blotched (at times) 19th century type face, in my experience Papers Past will miss many keywords entered on some scans. In the event I did not find such an ad, but did find some reference to central city area gulleys ...

From the Lyttelton Times October 7 1857  - "Several contracts were let last week.  In the town of Christchurch, the contract has been let for metalling the junction of the North and Lincoln Roads, or Oxford Terrace from the Papanui Bridge to the Scotch Church [sic - St Andrews, which stood for many years opposite the Hospital at the top of Antigua Street]. This piece of road has been formed and thereby much improved, hut the metalling is necessary to give substance to the road and to obviate some of the unpleasantness of the dust which arises from the sandy soil on a windy day. The gully between Skillicorn's and Fisher's store is also to be immediately improved by being filled up.  


Both the two properties named, if being those presumed, fronted onto Hereford Street, one each side of Columbo Street. It seems either the city still had this large gully cutting crossing its centre diagonally,  or,  and I suspect more likely,  the original gully had been filled in but over time the full had compacted and sunk creating a minor gully in the Hereford Street/Colombo area ...still rather weird, but Christchurch was of course built on in an area of much swamp.

Central Station Bus Station fast, effective, open and attractive in style

Christchurch; after a month or two in operation our post-quake temporary "Central  Station" Bus Station appears to be fast and effective for bus movements.  The design is simple and attractive and open in style.

This latter aspect probably well captures the preference and mood of local citizens! Even if the existing Bus Exchange was not demolition material the public enthusiasm for waiting in enclosed spaces (accessible through tunnel corridors) with several floors of car-parking above is at an all time low in a city where the earthquakes just keep on coming.

Unlike the previous Bus Exchange, which quickly grew to small and had buses queuing to get in and out at peak hours, the new "Central Station" has a simple grouping of bus stops into four main groups, with room for several buses to pull in and out at each and room for buses to move easily past each other.

In a previous blog posting I  suggested that a portacom bus station was a degrading of bus facilities, and sure to last more than 2 years (particularly given the council's six year record of inaction on far simpler suburban bus transfer stations). I wrote, ...." buildings "never designed for use by thousands of people each day have great potential to create a shabby refugee camp status [with] unpleasant windswept platforms". I think there is still this capacity - when earthquakes subside and the normal bitter southerlies and freezing rain of winter  returns - waiting and movement facilities may become rather miserable and forlorn.

In other blogs I chucked off at the lack of integration in our previous bus exchange which was without an adjacent cab rank, had no news and snack food kiosk, cafe or food outlet, nor long distance coach and shuttle stops, left luggage facility etc (comparing Hamilton's NZ Transport Centre and even small town Oamaru facilities). I have even mentioned the desirability of including a small supermarket (as per Wellington rail station, and elsewhere) in any new bus station.

Plenty of casual bike park space and security hoops

Well this is only a temporary bus station, with more platforms and in the opposite direction eventually to come in any larger permanent design not least to avoid travelling around several needless blocks. This was  a hugely clumsy, inferior and off-putting element in the last Bus Exchange and is still so in the temporary one as at current, for north and westbound services. Spending the first five minutes of a journey from the city sitting in traffic queues heading in the wrong direction of one's journey maybe ok on an long distance coach but is the sort of thing that does enormous damage to urban bus credibility and brings buses into contempt and lesser use by commuters.

And temporary that it may be it does offer pleasant landscaping with large potted trees and shrubs, bicycle spaces and a bus stop opposite the station on Tuam Street being used by at least some long distance shuttles and coaches (though I notice also that InterCity Coachlines have set up office in a portacom office on Bealey Avenue in a position not even so easily accessible by most urban bus routes).

Also arguably Christchurch's premier and best coffee wagon - outside cafe tables included - Escarto  Espresso has tucked itself into a niche created between bus station and the large new car park (all of Christchurch is a large new carpark!!! ...this  recent You Tube says it all. (may need a wee nudge at start up)

Joking aside, heaps of cheap parking is sure to negatively impact upon patronage, particularly as lack of bus priority measures **will give bus travel no great advantage over the heavy traffic at peripheral entry points to the CBD such as Lincoln Road  or Moorhouse Avenue). Facilities at the new Central Station themselves are not bad, but will probably need upgrading before winter to keep out cold winds from the shelter buildings and provide greater shelter for boarding queues or tickets to be presold by groundsmen under cover. While several overhead veranda style waiting areas ("three seasons" quality?) are great for room to move, or even move further away from unwanted neighbours,  it remains to be seen (or experienced) how effective mesh walls and other design elements are against Christchurch's trademark colder winds.

Underlying all this for me is the new Central Station embodies the truth that the most sophisticated technological systems are those that carry out complex functions with simplicity, so simple they can be taken for granted, go unnoticed.

Perhaps the politicians were too busy to interfere with their grand schemes and ill informed opinions and left those who are professionals in transport planning and infrastructure just to get on and do the job!


** See second part of this posting - "Protecting our public transport corridors - Not" for an example.

Christmas Gifts for Auckland - rejected by Christchurch?

 You'll probably need a magnifying glass to spot The Orbiter bus in this congestion under the new Barrington St motorway over-bridge - a small hint of things to come under present council policies??

Has anyone noticed something rather strange. The road on Barrington Street under the over-bridge on the new southern motorway extension has no room for bus lanes.

This is a piece of infrastructure built for decades to come, even for the day when the city may have a million people. It would seem common sense to have added an extra couple of metres each side combining with the cycle lanes to ensure buses [or even possibly] light rail trams always had guaranteed free flow access.

However we don't have to look ahead fifty or one hundred years to see how lacking in vision the current council leadership as the key local stakeholder that could have pushed NZ Transport Agency to add provision for bus lanes.

Barrington Street to Riccarton Road (via various name changes - Barrington Street, Whiteleigh Avenue, Clarence Street) is one of the busiest stretches of road in the city and very slow and congested in peak hours already - and was so well before the earthquakes.

I say "already" because to the current congestion mix add the completion of around 6000 workspaces and this just in four office parks alone*, let alone all the other work spaces likely to be developed in the vast semi- derelict area around Woods Mill. On the typical current peak hour loadings of 1.25 commuters per car another 4,800 cars to this area peak time business days [the mind boggles]; add the completion of the southern motorway which will doubtless bring thousands more into this area from southern and south-west suburbs via the Barrington Street off ramps, seeking to access Addington, Riccarton etc; add the planned removal of one way streets in the central city which  also likely to greatly increase traffic use of adjacent roads that skirt the central city [as the red zone closure has clearly revealed] ; add a further cherry on this glutinous cake mix - conversion of Rugby League Park into a major sports zone, the "new Lancaster Park", which along with the existing 8000 seat CBS sports/concert/expo stadium and the Metropolitan Racetrack will guarantee thousands of cars also in the evenings and weekends.

I say "already" as well,  because although Barrington Street at this point is only currently used by one bus route, The Orbiter, by any standards it is a very successful bus route, with 12 buses an hour travelling along this stretch of Road, Barrington Mall to Riccarton Road (or vice versa).

According to a 2009 report, when Christchurch buses were recording over 17 million passengers a year, The Orbiter was carrying 12% of all passenger trips, which means around two million passenger trips per annum.  This is with only minimal infrastructure support - lanes, traffic signal priority, bus transfer stations or integrated stops with other services and schedules  - the sort of structure greatly boosting bus use and bus status overseas. This suggests 3 million passenger trips a year could be an achievable goal with better land use and council support and better scheduling off peak.

Even so, rwo million passenger trips per annum is about one sixth the the total annual patronage on the Wellington commuter rail network, which carries around 12 million passenger trips a year.

Or it is about one fifth of the rapidly growing but hugely funded  Auckland commuter rail system

As a professional organisation led by our most generously paid and equally professional CEO Tony Marryat will be fully aware from monitoring overseas trends, technology, funding availability etc in other cities (to ensure we get the best possible transport system and comparable benefits pro rata from central Government) almost $600 million has been spent on the Wellington rail network and commuter system in the last decade and well over a billion in Auckland. 

It appals me that it appears to be beyond the capacity of our council to have levered up an extra couple of million in the NZTA $246 million motorway extensions to give a very successful bus route the same sort of infrastructure support that rail gets.

Apparently the council leadership is unaware (but professionally unaware, that's what we pay for!) of the worldwide trend to give bus services the sort of infrastructure support once only enjoyed by rail. Cities all over the world [including Auckland] are building bus lanes (many permanent and curbed from other traffic etc), segregated cut throughs, shoulder lane bus corridors, on-street and entirely segegated busways, under passes, overpasses, bus trenches and tunnels, and in some cases high speed guided busways.

Well yes we do have bus lanes, part part way being painted on some roads and even The Orbiter route is to get some long overdue council support in the way of lanes or signal priority in a 2013 review. This said the 23 year project (1996 - 2019!!)  to introduce a mere nine painted bus lane corridors of the lower order technical standards  would be judged by some to be rather less than dynamic progress!! Many residents will die of old age long before the part route bus lanes - slightly - speed their journey.

So presumably the same council planners must have been fully aware the bottleneck planned for Barrington Street would cut directly into bus lane potential and either ignored this or got knocked by those up stairs, possibly those busy building light rail dreams.

So let's forget any earthquake excuses for being late for school. This motorway project was planned years ago, funding for these bus lanes was probably there for the asking when first planned in the Helen Clarke Labour Government era.

Also planned years ago - the strategic mass transit plans of Auckland (mid 1990s) and Wellington (early 2000s) that have shaped the extension and upgrading of the commuter rail and busway and bus systems in these two cities over the last decade. And - wait for it - won hundreds of millions in tax payer finding (I estimate pro rata over $250 million from Canterbury taxpayers!)

Auckland continues to reap the benefit of (belated) visionary public transport planning with record growth in public transport use and Santa dropped another hundred million in presents in the Auckland bag just before Christmas, according to this Transport Auckland press release.

Ironically Auckland planners even have the forsight to build a bridge specifically for a busway which itself is not yet built (mostly funded by taxpayers).

Auckland is a city three and a half times the population of Christchurch, so it is only fair that it gets about 30 times the funding per capita for public transport projects than Christchurch. Yeah right, good thinking!

I think it is time this city got real. Not only will Barrington Street - Whiteleigh Avenue need to be four or even six laned (probably with minimal on street parking in bays) but it needs full time exclusive bus lanes, guaranteeing whatever the time of day, peak hours or evening show crowds, buses deliver on time every time. And the sooner the better seeing the way new apartment buildings and motels built to boundary are squandering hope for our future!

We accept hundreds of kilometres of footpath sit empty most of the time - what is such a big deal with having full time bus lanes, also empty much of the time (sign of a succesful bus lane if you can;t see a bus!) but always there when needed. Is it so much to ask a few kilometres that have the status of being for buses only. why must we degrade buses to the back of the queue. 

To my mind there is very little point running in running our current, randomly co-ordinated,  largely 50 year old style bus system that costs $68 million dollars a year (half from fares) to deliver poor results and attracts very small portion of the population, even compared to similar size cities elsewhere.

We must start giving buses the infrastructure support to have consistent free-way  - same running time every hour - as is happening in other cities, notably with on-street or segregated bus rapid transit corridors.

Most of all Christchurch needs a genuine gutsy committed "mass transit" strategy, a dedicated prescriptive identification of mass rapid transit corridors, NOW before more are lost or compromised, something which appeared to be noticeably missing from the Urban Development Strategy however thought through it was in other areas.

This includes specified commuter rail corridors from outer areas, with equally specifically defined express busways corridors to areas beyond or between rail, and identified high frequency conventional bus corridors also with supportive infrastructure.




* According to a report in the business pages of The Press August 5 2008, "Addington Building Boom", planned projects allowed for ultimately 1500 at  jobs at Hazeldean Business Park; 1500 jobs at Show Place;  and WorkStation55 (Princess Street) capacity 2000 workers. Several other developments were listed (to five storeys and obviously hundreds of workspaces) but precise worker capacity not quoted. Note- The full text of this article appears to be now available on line only at ProQuest ANZ

** The highly congested Whiteleigh Avenue stretch is also served by the new 40 Middleton bus route.



SEE ALSO - Full time (24/7) bus lanes introduced in central Wellington's Courtenay Place

Happy New Year - Despite Everything!!

Last New Year's greeting from NZ in Tranzit included a photo of rather pensive and doubtful Charlie Chaplin in front of one of Christchurch's venetian gothic style buildings.

I like to think it summed up a mood of our city, still getting severe after-shocks, such as on Boxing Day following the 7.1 richter scale earthquake on September 4th 2010. Nobody died and so few were injured in that first huge pre-dawn quake it seemed too good to be true. And alas it was. On February 22nd 2011  a smaller but far more violent, intensely localised quake, hit directly under the city itself in the lunch hour, causing massive damage and injury and killing 182 persons, most of these in two older high rises buildings that suffered catastrophic collapse. The building behind Chaplin in the aforementioned photo, suffered irreparable damage and has since been demolished, as with many other historic buildings, almost all in fact, destroying much of the city's strong heritage character.

Over 8000 quakes (about a third strong enough to be noticeable and some of these quite violent) later the future remains uncertain, especially for residents in the eastern areas. The pattern appears to be periods of receding shakes followed by sudden new large shakes, months down the track. We have to live with this, believe there is light at the end of this tunnel, what else can one do.

The thoughtful pose of the young girl in the advertising on the back of this bus in some vague way echoes the inner mind expressed in the Charlie Chaplin picture, but in this photo above youth and hope exude; there is a future; caught on a moving bus it symbolises for me the promise we can move forward.

Well let's hope so!  Happy New Year to all readers!

Public transport - Let's get our priorities right!

(Sorry 'bout the long break ....too much eating, drinking, walks and craic... and all the other good things of Christmas...alas a few unexpected nasty earthquakes too!)


A few months ago I tried to put together a more or less hierarchical listing of the functions and roles of public transport, listed - roughly- from the most important [in most cases] role downwards, through secondary or subsidiary roles

It helps to have a generic template of what is sought, even if unique circumstances and locations cause variations from the basic. For example in towns and small cities easily accessible by car and where life for a working age person would be difficult without a car the foremost priority I identified - transporting people to work and study - might actually come in behind "social roles" of transport  for older and disabled people.

But having a priority ranking also can make the small town organising authority say "Wait a minute - maybe there are people in our community needing transport to work whose needs we could meet that we are failing to see? Are we overlooking concentrated residential areas or work locations - such as a hospital - where a well scheduled bus service could attract workers as well as casual visitors? Or (even better) is there a way we might piggyback a bus service offering work access for 9am-start office staff (often women, younger women without cars) from a reasonably populous outlying area or adjacent settlement and integrate it with existing school bus currently arriving at the local High School 8.35am? A case of weaving together a basic service by virtue of identifying and meeting needs of diverse user groups at every stop or in the pattern of the schedules.

A few weeks back professional transport planner, blogster and most recently published author Jarrett Walker described a similar but very different sort of list, what motivates or detracts people from using public transport.

Jarrett Walker's  list is also roughly, generically, hierarchical .. the primary factors (in most cases) first with secondary factors last

Here is how Jarrett put it in the specific posting on his blog  "Human Transit" (with my unnecessary bolding! )

In a recent blog In Chapter 2 of  Human Transit, I argue that useful transit can be understood as involving seven dimensions or elements.

1.    “It takes me where I want to go.”

2.    “It takes me when I want to go.”

3.    “It’s a good use of my time.”

4.    “It’s a good use of my money.”

5.    “It respects me.”

6.    “I can trust it.”

7.    “It gives me freedom to change my plans

What a marvellous system it would be if every route or schedule,  or integration of schedules, or even bus stop location tried to meet these consumer goals!!!

I suggest read Jarrett's full posting


or buying   or borrowing his book for more insight. 

I personally experienced much of the meaning of Jarrett's comments in his blog posting, about "endearing transport" with the heritage trams in Christchurch....my heart wanted to use them, even bought an annual resident's pass allowing unlimited trips.

But for all the enchantment and good intention to use the trams as part of my regular transport around that area of the city, once was enough! It was impossibly slow, cumbersome, the commentary to a local (and especially to  former sight seeing bus driver) was well known and predictable, the service filled no role as a short hop quick-trip transport. For all my intentions to come back and use it again, the system did not meet my needs in any dimension and no amount of "well wishing" was enough to use it again.

I can imagine that any Light Rail link from the university might get an opening boost, lots of new patrons, but driving to a car-park in Ilam, then waiting 5 or 10 minutes for a stop-start journey into central Christchurch along congested Riccarton Road -  taking twice as long as a direct trip by car....it would soon lose its thrill to most people in nearby Avonhead, or Yaldhurst let alone be of any use to those living  far away in Belfast, Cashmere Rolleston, Aranui or Parklands!

Habit is about honing life's short cuts, the easiest and fastest, the least stressful...farting around going out of one's way just to ride light rail to get to work  is not likely to be widely adopted or is so only for so long.

To say "we need light rail" or "Buses don't work" etc is vague, amateurish sounding and ultimately absurd, a very unsophisticated call - we need public transport that directly addresses the complex needs of people.

Let's get our priorities right!

Christchurch - Sure to Rise? A hill here, an embankment there??

A couple of months back I was walking the section of the Little River Rail Trail with a friend.

This former railway corridor skirts Lake Wairewa on an embankment. At times, I'd guess, this heavy shingle embankment built over 125 years ago is up to 6-8 metres high in places.

"Isn't it amazing," I said at one point, "that all this shingle had to brought by horse and cart. Such an incredible amount of work".

We walked another couple of metres before I exploded in laughter at my own stupidity.

"How ridiculous, " I corrected myself, "Of course they didn't bring it by horse and cart, they brought it by rail as the line advanced and tipped it off rail trucks."

It is a truly sad and tragic way to have gained this,  but one asset Christchurch has gained since the year of horrendous earthquakes is an absolutely humungous pile of broken bricks and masonry rubble.

Most of this is at the Burwood landfill and may just stay there - I am not sure how "clean" this rubble is in terms of things that might leach into the ground, or say PVC cabling and all that sort of stuff. Or how much it can be cleaned if needed. But after World War II the bombed cities of Europe made some very attractive hills and parks by piling huge piles of rubble and covering these with earth and trees.

The photo, sourced from Wikimedia Commons, is one of these, a hill park called  Olympiaberg made from rubble generated in the war-time bombing of Munich.

I have advocated building a freight and commuter rail configuration and includes a spur to planned new housing areas at Highfield and Prestons ....it would not take a great deal, while the land is still in farmland to extend a temporary rail line across the Burwood rubble dump.

This would allow massive amounts of in-fill masonry rubble to be carted long distances (if needed) and used to create new rolling land contours here and there around our mostly very flat or very steep city. In terms of building a new rail link between Redwood and Islington, through or past various existing or planned subdivisions and industrial areas, this would offer ample opportunity to create gentle rising parkland style embankments on approaches to over-bridges. Or to disguise or noise reduce airport facilities or, ditto,a shallow rail trench with a mixture of embankment, trees and shrubs and, if necessary, non-visible security fencing.

Of course this could also effect the view of the Southern Alps (which many people value) for those living too close but then again modest hillocks scientifically positioned could also be engineered to mitigate the effect of certain winds - the colder bite of nor-easters in Sumner for instance, greatly enhancing lifestyle and property values in that area.

The mountain of masonry re-sculpted elsewhere not least could ensure that any new railway line from Redwood to Islington via the airport would never need to have level crossings, greatly increasing speed and safety of rail operations.

A curse of the city's flatness is that grade separated crossings of the triple tracked Hornby-Lyttelton railway corridor tend to be huge,ugly and spiritually and visually divisive of the city. The over bridges at Waltham Road; Colombo Street; Durham Street; Blenheim Road extension; and Sockburn, do little for the felt quality of the city and may have contributed to the decline of Sydenham.

Yet as the city and its economic export engine, the Port in Lyttelton, will continue to grow in size and productivity there can not help but be an inevitable increase in rail traffic competing with cross motor traffic at level crossings such as Wrights Road;  Whiteleigh Avenue/Clarence Road; and Lincoln Road. The lengthy coal trains are already slow to cross and further rail traffic is a guarantee of increased traffic delays or congestion OR MORE over-bridges. Indeed it could probably be argued that the biggest problem with creating commuter rail would be precisely this - add another four trains or more each way per hour - the absolute minimum - and there are going to be a huge number of traffic queues at level crossings, not least at peak hours!

The "just another brick out of the wall theory"  may also have a part to play here too - could a half and half railway trench be built - perhaps dropping nine metres down after heading west from Durham Street with some crossings removed and others carried on over-bridges of much less height than those current? This would create a much less brutal assault on the visual environment, such as a four lane over-bridge, more a graded rise than a sharp ascent, across the railway lines at Lincoln Road one of the city's foremost (and busiest)  arterial roads. Not only could the rubble play a minor packing and embankment role in such a scenario - it could also be used to pack the base of the trench - dug out to five metres, heavy concrete sides but filled with heavily compressed masonry fill to the first two metres or some such to maximise loading bearing and ground consolidation.

Every hour or two another lengthy coal train rumbles through Christchurch bound tofro the export wharf at the Port. How much greater capacity can rail grow - including around 16 coal trains a day, freight trains, local shunts - and then include commuter trains; and how much bigger can Christchurch population and motorist numbers grow -  before  a section of trenching and/or several more grade-separate over-bridges become a necessity?

Another possibility - complementing the easy access of the suggested rail corridors to the new premier sports ground planned for Addington (joining the existing race course and Events centre) - would be the creation of new contoured sports grounds of significant portions, with a doughnut of natural grassed embankments, to enjoy cricket or speedway or cycling whatever.  The combination of rubble transport by rail from Burwood and a future railway station being built immediately close to such a major sporting venue (and able to deliver crowds from every corner of the suggested figure 8 and spurs circuit ) would allow peripheral areas such as Kaiapoi or Rolleston a chance to become host to national events of a sporting codes, just by virtue of the quality of access, size of host arena and attractive relaxed landscaped setting of venue.

Obviously I am not an engineer so some or all of this could be totally uneeded, or unsuitable or absolutely twaddle !! But it does suggest there could be much synergy in a commuter rail line to Prestons being temporarily linked to Burwood forest while rubble is remoulded to enhance multiple greater Christchurch areas!

Rebuilding Christchurch brick by broken brick?  Northern suburbs to get park with a view?Christchurch Sure to Rise?   There certainly seem some interesting possibilities here.

I hope so! I am sure the late Thomas Edmonds (cake products)  would not like his famous slogan being used for half baked ideas!

Light Rail Backers Battle On

Bus Rapid Transit is increasingly giving light rail a run for its money in the USA, delivering far more extensive services than light rail can for the same dollar.

Judging by this Detroit news article headlined  Light rail backers battle on common sense is winning out in that city too.

There are some interesting parallels between Christchurch and Detroit here.

In the past the Christchurch City Council ignored the chance to put a very useful direct bus link between new growth areas in the South West (12,000 new houses are planned for Wigram, Awatea, Henderson and Halswell in the coming decades) and the University, Middketon industrial/office park area,  Westfield and the Airport.

Likewise the chance to link Belfast with the central city in 15 minutes in peak hours  by a busway across from Grimseys Road and down Rutland Street and Caledonia Road into the city never appears to have been seriously investigated, despite wide promotion of the concept to Mayor Garry Moore, city and Ecan councillors and local body election candidates in the middle of last decade.

An obsession with light rail in city hall appears to keep city vision blinkered against other forms of public transport technology.  Notwithstanding the huge and continuing success and patronage growth of the Northern Busway in Auckland (over 2 million passengers a year and a bus departing every three minutes in peak hours) Christchurch City seems to operate in a cocoon without conscious knowledge or understanding of this concept (people often mix it up with conventional buses systems or bus lanes only).

So the parallel is not precise. No councilors are specifically pushing busways as an alternative to light rail. But it is clear  in Detroit as elsewhere $500 million can deliver four busways serving variuous areas including the airport and employment zones, compared to the single light rail line proposed.  (This said most US busways do not include much off road or faster segregated corridor running)

In Detroit there has beem debate pitching regional transport needs against light rail.

One big difference, the Detroit Mayor welcomed the busway proposals, ""A light-rail system 3.8 miles up Woodward doesn't speak to regional transportation, not when 60 percent of the employed of the city work outside the city," he said.

Quite so.

In Christchurch light rail as a concept suitable for Christchurch battles on too.

Responding to pressure the Central City Plan now incorporates conventional commuter rail, using the existing rail corridors but retains the dream of a light rail serving Riccarton Road and other suburban areas. The tram-train concept,  which has been developed in a limited number of locations overseas (where trams use conventional railway lines for part of their route) is invoked in the new City plan.

However it is  unclear whether this has been investigated even in preliminary way - it is hard to imagine that any rail vehicle without a full size body and chassis  could safely operate amongst heavy freight trains, including 8 full and 8 empty coal trains a day,  in a situation where curfews limiting freight movement hours would be virtually impossible.




For further info about Detroit's situation, see also "For less than $500M, a bus rapid transit system could cover nearly 110 miles also this report here, in even greater depth, which also addresses the Detroit economic situation (the biggest city in Michigan is expected to be broke in April next year!)