Every Picture Tells A Story...

In the last few weeks I have been out walking, or just commuting home from work, and wonder why  the council isn't doing more to help bus users.

The easiest way to tell the story is in photographs;

Whilst walking from Belfast one Saturday afternoon I snapped this rough shot of a B-Line bus approaching Northwood.  B-Line Saturday services are meant to operate every 15 minutes apart. services alternate with a bus to Belfast (edge of the city area) and then the next one, 15 minutes later to Rangiora (a satellite town) via Belfast; next one 15 minute later just to Belfast .. and so on.

The important thing to note here is not the bus but small berm ot ornamental grasses and lancewood trees and the distance from where I was standing on sloping berm and the shorter word Belfast on the destination screen. According to my photo file download this was photographed at 4.34pm

Less than a minute later, as I near the ornamental berm the Rangiora bus goes past - the photo file download says it was taken at 4.35pm.  One must infer one of these buses is 15 minutes late and quite possibly, people in Sydenham or at PM or Papanui  had an unexpected  25 or 30 minutes wait for a "service every 15 minutes" to come along. Indeed it is possible some missed connections they hoped to make -  now 30 minutes behind time. What this tells me - something I already know anyway - is that the bus lanes in Papanui Road are hugely ineffective on Saturdays!!  There is a very simple reason for this. A rather timid local government approach - and one largely avoiding reality -  has made no provision for bus lanes to operate on Saturday. 

Despite the heavy traffic all day long on Papanui Road on weekends, the council appears to have no effective strategy to support buses maintaining schedule.

But what about week days? No better? Here is another photo taken from of two buses queueing through several light changes in Victoria Street in a weekday evening; heading out from central Christchurch, on the same route. 

It mystifies me that if it is expected that Christchurch will recover, and grow, and one day be half a million people, and then one day three-quarters of a million etc - and this intersection is always congested (it was congested when I drove buses 22 years ago!!) - why no attempt being made to create enough lane space for buses before the rebuild started. Or now when parking bays could be built in, leaving the left hand lane itself, parking vehicle free for free flow of buses and cars making a left hand turn, why isn't a bus lane approaching the lights being planned.

Perhaps the game plan to eventually bring buses up Montreal Street and then around onto Bealey Avenue?

But even so at the moment and probably for a long time to come, if not forever, buses are not being given the support here that is clearly available - in other words CONE POWER! (it's everywhere!!). In a city where there is a world-record breaking number roadworks on scores of roads and corners, and slow, temporary lane signs etc, why is it the council not moving to create a temporary bus and left turn only lane at the top of Victoria Street?  Look at all that space in the photos above and below - all for just two parker vehicles.  And people standing in the aisles of some trips now patronage is coming back can look out the window and yes, they get the picture, - pro-active support for  bus users does not appear to be a high priority in this city, everybody else comes first.

In reality the bus laning of Papanui Road really falls short of its potential, because the three major choke points, Victoria Street, Merivale and Papanui shopping centre were "politically" impossible to bus lane. 

Although all areas have alternative parking in side streets or formal carparks, shopkeepers and businesses where people just pop in to pick up  dry- cleaning, a prescription, the convenience stores and takeaway foods especially, all rely upon at least the illusion some parking outside the door is available. 

Here's another picture that tells a story  - takeaway food outlets shoulder to shoulder at Papanui. This strategy of buying or renting fast food outlets, in one long line, is commonplace all over New Zealand nowadays (indeed there is a another similar row of takeaway food outlets, behind the KFC sign to the left). These are special zones with special needs and I wonder if these are really being addressed. Maybe heaps of research and planning work has been done in this area already but a quick flick through the city plan failed to find a designated policy. 

I believe if Council planning actively supported such zones, much of the sting would be taken out of opposition to bus lanes. These areas - as designated takeaway or short stay service zones could be much enhanced by establishing bold signage,well branded short-stay parking zones (15 minutes max) at the threshold area of adjacent side streets, and also by increasing bike stands, rubbish receptacles, outdoor tables, wind shelter, lighting and security cameras. 

Ideally any new zones are built back from the road itself, with frontal parking, as a few already, though provision might be given these to have a large permanent shared frame signage system (as at Malls) on grass berms, to maintain profile to approaching traffic. In the case of existing takeaway and short-stop "zones", or potential ones, each could be analysed for a range of factors and at least some modified, to try to achieve a desirable outcome for vendors, customers, on-road traffic and public transport.   There are various pros and cons with such zoning, but viewed across a decade or two, I believe simultaneously supporting and regulating the location and road frontage of these zones will be of absolute importance in winning more road space for free flow of public transport. 

As the city grows there will be need for a range of bus lanes - not just the grand production ones covering a whole corridors, a little too precious with their multiple signs every few metres, but limited operating hours and effectiveness.  Along with part-time bus lanes I believe we could do with a few "stents" on our arteries - that is short lengths of full time bus laning,. Bus Lane at all Times. Or Bus Lane (arrow ahead) and Left hand Turn only 

When-ever an arterial road is congested or blocked all all different times of the week and even evenings  -  the main sticking points will be almost certainly be intersections and traffic signals. With a stent buses can still slide up to the lights and get a few seconds priority take off or can slide into a bus only lane or bus stop immediately across the intersection. So back to Papanui Road and the fact Metro has created an attractive unified branded service - the B-Line - which is struggling to hold schedule with so little support in the way of effective infrastructure. 

I believe there are four obvious stents (full time bus lane sections) that need to be looked at

(a) As above - Victoria Street from Dublin Street Corner to Bealey Avenue. Building this now is a clear statement of city support for lifting the status and service quality of buses, and means any future  fast food sort of set up will have to rethink how it uses the location. Part of such a stent might be a permanent car park (there is already a temporary one, visible beside the black SUV in photo above).

(b) At Papanui Road & Rugby Street an enormous hypocrisy goes on - and did so well before the earthquakes - and that is that Rugby Street is not actually a very significant secondary through-corridor, but just a rather a fashionably quiet leafy street with multiple traffic slowing devices. It wouldn't surprise me if 5000 cars (and trucks)  a day were using this street to access multiple private schools, Rossall Street and the city west, in rush hour there is almost a continuous flow of vehicles turning in and out of there (see green car etc in photo below). This suggests the traffic signal system should be adjusted to have a further set of lights at Rugby Street itself, coupled with those at St Albans Street (similar to the set up at Clyde Road and Riccarton). to help cars negotiate moving in and out of Rugby Street. Intelligent light would keep a central pool free of queued traffic This would create, the structure to enable a bus queue jumper signal system, not only in the lane here but also across the road heading in the opposite direction. Buses pulling away from the signage ahead would have a few seconds advantage to enter the main traffic lane through Merivale, or when heading into town. Again, a "stent", full time bus lane on the short stretch of Papanui Road between Church Lane and Rugby Street, would empower better access through Merivale with intelligent signals, whilst also supporting reality - the city layout can not support the fiction that Rugby Street is not an important connecting road, particularly as the alternative is a long queue and a prolonged right-turn traffic signal phase off Papanui Road into Bealey already slowing other traffic and buses even further. 

(c) A further "stent"/full time bus lane (and left turn lane for cars) is surely warranted on Papanui Road between Hawthorne Street and Blighs Road, one of the main queuing points on Saturdays as on weekdays. This effects almost no residents, and alternative parking is easily found on adjacent side streets or the other side of Papanui Road. I see no reason that Stent could not extend past the BP service station (with its vast forecourt does it need street parking) Animates etc and up to Blair Street - all these premises  have their own parking and/or Blair Street itself.

(d) A stent from outside the Postbank near Langdons Road corner to the front of mall  bus stops at Northlands (as previously described in this blog posting ) embodied in purchasing a few metres to widen the road shown here to include a permanent bus corrider

In all cases as well as the words "At All Times" or "Full Time Bus Lane" on the road itself or adjacent signage, simply painting the standard dotted yellow line "No stopping" on top of the green would discourage far more casual parkers, than present part time bus lane signage ever does. 

Papanui Road with a mix of part time lanes and stents at key choke points would have far more grunt, and around the clock. This is a bus corridor with a bit of grunt, seven days a week or even busy evenings. 

Every car driver is used to multiple different traffic signs and in different combinations, the green road makings, the yellow lines discouraging stopping, would be self evident. Indeed it is interesting to rarely see people driving in bus lanes even when they are not operative, and short stretches might be to their advantage, it becomes habit to respect bus lanes. 

Added stents offer a different picture of public transport than that the city paints now. When buses are given the space, status and authority to command a bit of road exclusively for themselves then the whole image of buses begins to change, suddenly like rail or light rail, they are perceived as a unique system in themselves, not just another vehicle on the road, but the fastest and most convenient form of city transport for many types of journey. 

Our public transport good. Really? Compared to what...?

....they have no idea how appallingly bad public transport is in New Zealand if measured against any genuine vision of reducing car use in New Zealand

Imagine if school committees by law had to be run only by people who had never had children themselves.

Imagine if members of the hospital board skited they not get sick, had never had a day in hospital ...but one day after several years in office, finally jokingly agreed to do a one hour visit to the wards for a photo shoot.

It is vaguely nauseating.  They may be genuinely nice people, but equally, genuinely ignorant, oblivious. So bloody patronising.  Do as we say not as we do.

Throughout New Zealand there are regional councils, district councils, community boards fill of genuinely concerned nice people playing at organising bus services, services that they have no intention of using on a daily basis.

Most of them are so little interested or versed in public transport they have no idea how appallingly bad public transport is in New Zealand if measured against any genuine vision of reducing car use in New Zealand. Or making New Zealand 100%  tourist friendly, 100% retired person supportive, or keeping thousands of "still too young" younger teenage drivers off the road.

They rarely have a regional or urban threshold criteria of significance, no road map of building a public transport network step by step, to reduce car use. Most of these councillors could not tell you how many bus services operate through their area, or between their home town and the next town or city, because organising a totally committed professional public transport system has never entered their head.

Instead these elected councillors rely almost entirely upon the wisdom of public servants, administrators and planners, to tell them what they what do. Professional public transport people -  few of whom ever spend half a day on a cold rainy day,  getting across town to and back, to buy groceries. Well they wouldn't would they, the bus service is too cumbersome and slow!

Sure. a few paid planners and transit authority workers might commute to work on buses, but very few I image  go to visit their brother and his family on Wednesday night or catch three buses across town [because they have to] to get to a desired night class at a local high school, or go for a picnic in a country area or catch a bus home from a social evening on Saturday night.  In fact, I don't even have to imagine it. I just have to watch the last two bus routes from an outer terminus departing for the city simultaneously.

I just have to read the timetables and see because no attempt has been made to create an integrated pattern it will take one and a half hours to travel ten kilometres, because transfers do not match. Might as well bloody walk.

I just have to listen to a taxi driver today tell me his niece, so eager for work, took a job cross-town (Kaiapoi to Lincoln!) and it took her four buses and to ten o'clock at night to get home.

Yet we have all the computer savvy and GPS knowledge to make that a one hour and ten minutes journey every hour!

On Monday morning these same planners and administrators are right back writing spin about creating more effective public transport. In the council the conversation is....oh dear, how can we get people out of cars  (excuse me Betty, can we talk about this on the drive home?)



As long as we have a vision of a bus service being like the sort of bus service we had growing up we have no concept of what quality public transport could really do for society!

Note;  Originally post February 2011. In April 2013 I changed the title and this unexpectedly  elevated it back to the top of the queue. BTW -  This particular blog posting has now had 4944 page views - let us hope some of  these reading it are politicians!

Joining the dots - why is the Northern busway concept ignored year after year?

Crossing Cranford Street might also be achieved by a bus-bike only ramped overbridge

Bob Parker recently spoke of land use being intrinsic to good public transport. Yet  Council seems determined to ignore the most useful potential transit corridor of all

In the last decade there have  the massive investments made in rail and busway systems in Auckland and Wellington - pro-rata spending many times more dollars per population on public transport than Christchurch, most of this sourced from national taxes. This was because these cities had identified their rapid transit corridors and developed projects ready to fund. 

To date Christchurch has not identified a single segregated rapid transit corridor and even its minimum budget policy of part-time bus lanes on nine route corridors (except for the busiest and most congested choke points!) is miles away from completion,  transfer stations promised years ago are non-existent, and there is no regional commuter system beyond the immediate metropolitan satellite towns. 

Arguably the city has lost some of its best opportunities and chances to develop by wasting months trialling an inappropriate "bus boarder" technology. This strange experiment (obviously hopeful in saving bus lane costs and political battles with property owners adjoining lanes) delayed implementing bus lanes by about 18 months and - predictably - lost transit funding opportunities, always more inherent in a Labour /Green Government.

Then the city lost sensible leadership on public transport with Bob Parker's fantasy about light rail, a very very expensive system (usually much more so per kilometre than conventional rail) that is usually only found in cities and regions with millions of taxpayers and high density areas (at least three or four times greater than Christchurch). Public transport is based on identifying need and then choosing an appropriate technology - this transit 101 level thinking escaped our idealistic but poorly informed  Mayor and the disease appears to have permeated down into administration.  

Th city lost many opportunities to implement appropriate technologies, at relatively low cost . Among (a) putting a bus only tunnel under the new motorway at Annex Road with potential for a further bus only structure over or under the railway yards (b) ensuring the Barrington Street overbridge was built wide enough to include bus lanes for The Orbiter (2 million passengers a year and growing, back then) through the Lincoln Road intersection choke point (c) holding onto Edgeware Pool site, shifting or removing parts nearby council housing (3 sites) to build a bus corridor  and buying a dozen houses to link the top of Colombo Street to Rutland Street and Grassmere. I would guess a busway (including mini-stations) for less than $100 million - that could carry huge amounts of people from the north directly into the city at one quarter the time of a peak hour car journey on Papanui Rd or Cranford Street. This last loss is particularly serious.

Anyone who has actually seriously looked at rapid transit corridors in Christchurch - the two main foci being access to the north (existing and new subdivisions, and north Canterbury) and access to the South (Hornby Templeton, Rolleston, central Canterbury etc) can not avoid seeing there is only one logical transit by-pass route north that offers door to door direct service - a busway via Caledonia Rd or Colombo Street then straight through to Rutland Street and Grassmere Street - option one continues and crosses into Sawyers Arms Road (also servicing Northlands Mall) - option two then turns right  at the current farmland beside Grassmere Street  and runs across to and over or under Cranford Street, across past Winters Road residential enclave and under QEII beside the cycle subway. 

Weighed against all other factors this corridor is;

 (a) located in the best area. covers the biggest spectrum of northern and far northwest areas, Belfast, Kaiapoi and Rangiora. Prestons and Parklands are the only large northern residential areas that are a bit far east to directly benefit 

(b) it is the least disruptive corridor requiring very few property purchases, perhaps only a dozen or less. This is very low when compared to the 329 properties bought in Auckland for the AMETI scheme, or over the scores purchased over the years in Christchurch for Brougham Street, Blenheim Road or the recent motorway extension in Christchurch. The remaining houses will benefit greatly from opportunity for new and enhanced parks, green space, associated walking and cycleways - and of course easy walking or cycling to Edgeware, and frequent rapid buses to City and Northlands and elsewhere. A corner  or one side of the road in Massey Crescent might be needed but the existing large trees could be integrated into a green parkway between St Albans Street and Edgeware Road. This also brings an attractive green space into close conjunction with this commercial area at the south end. Fencing, hedges, landscaping would be used to shield and protect privacy and ensure residents got benefit rather than disadvantage from this big upheaval. 

(c) it supports the needed intensification of housing by the associated redevelopment of an old areas Bealey Avenue to St Albans Street into attractive higher density (working age) and because of service frequency and covered stations, higher density retirement villages areas near  Rutland St - Grassmere Street. Housing blocks between Colombo St and Caledonia Road could have road access from Colombo St, leaving the east side of Caledonia road entirely for buses and bikes. Shops on both sides of Edgeware Road could be extended across to Caledonia Road and the point where the busway starts (and busway station), also creating added car-parking near Trafalgar Street exit.

(d) It costs relatively little by comparison to any rail mode and could be spread across other budgets (such as Parks and Reserves for the reconstituted Paparoa Park) as well as getting reasonably good  funding from Central Government on the basis that such a corridor is equivalent to a commuter rail line in Wellington. The moving sideways of the tennis club could allow rebuilding of the community centre/tennis club/small young families pool as one project 

(e) It can be built for enhanced bus technology, including articulated buses and super quiet hybrid or fully electric buses for the core 18 hours - 7days a week service, yet it is a bus based technology easy to integrate within existing systems, or support back up or complement with conventional buses. During peak hours direct services from other areas or Rangiora etc might also use the corridor with only limited stops, such as at Edgeware. Most additional services operate in a small spectrum, before and well after school hours and weekdays only.Busways de facto can cover unlimited area, as well as a busway specific "all stops service".  This said, creating this route corridor it also allows for the remote possibility of conversion to light rail in in decades ahead, the corridor already secured.

(f) A high usage , quick and direct, bus corridor is a fundamental component in the central city revival, given that congestion in cars turns people away from using the city in favour of suburban malls. This access could be 12 minutes from Belfast at peak times when cars take from 25-40 minutes to make the same journey - hugely competitive and attractive!! And especially for big events.

I suggested this concept to Mayor Garry Moore in 2005, to all the council candidates in 2007, to ECan planners etc, I have campaigned for years in letters to the paper and in this blog but not once have I ever heard a single politician or administrator say "Let's investigate this concept"

Join the dots;  city-Bealey-Caledonia Road- parkway-Rutland Street-skirt the new elongated Paparoa Park - Grassmere Street (a) Northlands and North west (b) turns right across or under Cranford street, through to an underpass under QEII Drive serving Redwood, Highfield, Belfast, North Canterbury.  Conventional bus services continue to serve Cranford Street and Papanui Road.

Join the dots...what is it that makes it so hard for our councils to move beyond talk and actually do some hard analysis and actual planning of a genuine rapid transit system? 

in any study of all options, if one ever gets done (and we are not talking just bus lanes with their limited effectiveness and success)  this proposal must rate highly for potential, for all the reasons above. 

Yet it has been a decade without ANY response of any significance, it drives me dotty!



More About the Edgeware area and its bus corridor potential

Legend; Pink streets = just to accent street pattern; Pink blocks = Council owned older housing complexes; Blue = (top) tennis club (bottom) former Edgeware Pool site; Red = bus corridor - exclusive to buses, and (on separate path) bike,skate and pedestrian movement on the attractively landscaped  parkway section between St Albans Street and Edgeware Rd.

The City has remarkable opportunity to purchase something less than a dozen properties; re-jig that land and its currently owned land (pink) and semi-public land (blue) into an attractive, elongated park; cycle, busway, corridor; sell the old library site and build a new community centre/recreation centre (new tennis facilities, even a small family pool?); and rezone for new intensified housing area (in the immediate busway area, and also between Caledonia Road and Colombo Street),with added shops across to Caledonia Road/busway entrance and more shared car parking between shops and community centre. 

Alternate plan. Put some fancy tiles and trees around the Edgeware shopping area. 

More About Busways

Van Hool bi-articulated bus in Europe - photo Wikipedia

Building a specific bus corridor means special strengthening and smoothing of streets upon which buses operate, for journey comfort and to eliminate any vibration for local residents. The corridor would typically have a branded dedicated service running 6 am - midnight every 15 minutes, all stops, and with top market hybrid or fully electric buses. But it might also have other express buses in rush hour, coming in from other outer areas via the same corridor. These extra buses would operate only in peak hours, only on business days, before and after school hours, and not on public holidays and weekends; running non-stop (all traffic signals on this corridor, such as Innes Road, favour the buses) or serving key stops (Edgeware station/Metrostar transfer point only etc) - they would essentially have very little impact on local areas.  In a busway most of the stops are actually miniature stations accessed by Metrocard payment (the fare) so when buses pull in the passengers load through all doors simultaneously. Unlike Papanui Road or Cranford Street, along the suggested route above,  there is not only room to build miniature stations, but also the longer door level platforms to handle larger articulated buses - used on a specified route only, these could even include Government agreement to vehicles over 18 metres and carry up to 150 passengers. 

Auckland's northern busway now carries 2.2 million passengers a year and over half of all commuters accessing the central area by the public transport.

SEE ALSO - Wheels Missing on Highfield's Green Energy Claim

A parkway to Rutland Street - a green way to make Edgeware a vital community hub

Quirky little locals in search of something special for Edgeware !!

So far there have been a number of suburban centre plans, as part of the post quake rebuild. I've seen Linwood, Selwyn Street Shops, Lyttelton and Edgeware and at least amongst these four there is little to impress. Essentially a bit of fancy paving, a courtyard or two, a few building height designations. Clearly planners are working under some sort of budget restraint or orders to keep things low key.

In the case of the inner city suburbs such as Edgeware and Stanmore Road they seem to be planning for the 1980s type road conditions. Opportunities to buy a couple of metres frontage on empty sites were not taken up, despite the chance this gave to provide quality cycle lanes, or bus advantage corridors, or just a wider more attractive street. It is obvious, that a few fancy roading services are not going to stop these areas being heavily impacted by heavy traffic in the years ahead, including traffic trying to dodge impacted traffic on nearby arterial corridors,  such as cars using Colombo Street at Edgeware to avoid longer queues on Sherbourne [even 15 years ago when I had a car,  it was usually faster to get from St Albans to my son's school, Cashmere High School straight down Colombo Street than using the non-flowing smoothly Durham Street one way system!] 

Anyway this city will grow to be 500,000 and then a million people over the next century and Edgeware is sure to be one of the key higher density areas. And if public transport stays as minimal as now inner suburbs will be smothered with car queues most of the day, a combination of their own greater density and people from outer areas driving through them. A vital city centre relies upon quality rapid transit access - but this can also benefit inner suburbs along the way - offering residents fast access in either direction.

Putting Edgeware on busway linked to northern work zones such as Northlands, Airport OR Belfast, Rangiora etc AND to through to City, Addington, Middleton, etc is a superb way - strange as it may seem - to consolidating its central community hub at Edgeware itself.

This because quality commuter public transport systems attract intelligent commuters, in turn better paid and educated and more likely to invest in buying apartments, spend more in local shops, invest time  and energy on local school committees, sports clubs etc. And with less focus on cars streets are friendlier, streets are more interactive, community returns despite the massive destruction wrought by that steel monster the car.

An important face would be the Edgeware Parkway - a beautiful green river of trees and shrubs and facilities flowing from where the busway exits Caledonia Road - crossing Edgeware Road - and enters the area currently occupied by the derelict Edgware Pool Area, a large number of older houses, three older single storey Council Housing Complexes, a tennis club and some tight old fashion streets, before passing along the edge of the Massey Crescent SAM zone and emerging at Rutland Street.  This is an area crying out for redevelopment and in particular some quality three or four storey apartments. These could be built subtly placed in a big tree park like setting as well as rebuilding new council apartments. A new combination community sports hub and recreation hub incorporating outdoor and indoor tennis court, squash courts, a small open air family pool (for under tens essentially) slightly to one side of the present tennis club location, would allow room for a bus transfer station. This would offer enclosed waiting facilities and - east-west meets north-south routes transfers, between The Metrostar and 28 route and whatever mini orbital route replaces the currently unattractive 118 route, and access to a branded high frequency busway route, plus diverse express or limited stop peak hour only buses. Viewed from either Rutland Street or Edgeware Road end it would be a lovely graciously curving high quality sealed busway [only] lane snaking through an attractively landscaped area -  and a few metres to one side or other (or perhaps both) also a similar bike/skate and pedestrian way. 

Buses coming straight through from Northlands or Rangiora and Belfast, would come down Rutland Street, glide through the Parkway and down into the city via Caledonia and Durham Street, large numbers would pass through in peak hours, with the main (18 hour a day, 7 day a week) dedicated buses likely to be electric or hybrid, and articulated , running relatively quietly in these inner areas. Unlike Papanui Road or Cranford Street (still serviced by other routes) these buses would not fight traffic congestion or lights, all roading and signals being in their favour. Rather than "bus stops" they would have small stations with bus door level platforms about every kilometre apart and admission to express buses (by any of the three doors) only by Metrocard (pre)payment to the loading areas/enclosed lounge. Likely stations Rutland Park; Rugby Park; Massey Crescent; Edgeware. With a straight run and limited fast load stops, running times Belfast to city would be less than 15 minutes (at all times) and from Northlands a mere ten minutes. This is where public transport lifts itself out of the 1980s where it more or less is at the present (despite some added high tech features) and creates such a quick integrated movement network, that it really starts ti replace car use. Shopping and services in Northlands, Edgeware, City would vary greatly in style, but all be very accessible, whichever direction one came from. 

Yes,  it would involve the purchase and demolition or removal sideways or off site, of about 10-15 houses. Nothing like the several hundreds now taken for various Auckland projects -  but ALSO avoiding these far bigger Auckland type disruptions in 10-30 years time. There is a lot of knee-jerk about putting people out of house and home, but it is getting a bit passe when most people buy and sell houses every five or ten years, essentially as a form of making money/increasing their wealth along the way. Those dislocated get averaged out current value  and set sum for dislocation (usually $5000 I believe). But if prior investigation identified general criteria of genuine suffering - say for example some one more than 15 years in their house and over 65 who is clearly anchored in that neighbourhood, then social and financial support could be given to either relocate the house itself or the person in the same area. With Massey Crescent - avenues of huge trees on both sides of the road - I find them literally a bit over the top! -  some houses on the western edge might go, but essentially the Edgeware Parkway could pass along the back of most of them, utilising park areas to integrate these trees into the visual grandeur of the Parkway.

The suburban area of St Albans central  has good prospects to be a good solid, socially middling, sort of higher density, medium rise apartment area, with a lovely, slightly quirky  "personality centre" (Bailies Bar is a very solid, classy start to this sort of rebirth!), a local centre not "malled" to pieces by too many same-old same old-chain stores. And with a great community centre/sports hub/bus transfer station somewhere near the current Edgeware Pool site built alongside the gracious curving river green parkland, the smooth Parkway, more car parking nearer the shops. Mostly green and landscaped but including a short stretch of dedicated bus way and separated bike-skate- pedestrian tracks.  Unlike Abberley Park, which is a sweet wee thing of a park, but a little side-lined in location to Edgeware shops,  this Parkway would give Edgeware a spectacular immediately accessible GREEN HEART and relaxation area. Not least a corridor  one linking directly up into areas around Rutland Street, otherwise not directly connected, making Edgeware a far more true centre and village hub of the area.

At last - $5 Billion plan to improve Canterbury transport woes

2004 " This is just an early indication of our long-term future if we do not act now to avoid the transport headaches facing Auckland today.....This is why the Christchurch City Council has developed a long- term transport vision to avoid such a future. This long-term plan is made up of various strategies, all focused on a single vision for Christchurch, a transport system that supports a quality of life second to none......

"Other council work during this period will include improvements to bus stop amenities across Christchurch and to develop a citywide programme of suburban interchanges or mini bus exchanges at popular metro interchange points where different routes meet.'

From The Press July 1st 2004 - Metro More Attractive by line... "Christchurch is acting to prevent the sort of traffic problems that clog Auckland."   

2013 The Palms Bus transfer point?? Near the intersection where bus routes travel in about eight different directions -  a shabby freezing cold, windy bleak spot, exposed to accelerating car traffic, 200-300 metres to other stops - scattered around the area - and operating in a route/timing pattern almost entirely antagonistic to transfer needs . 

Year after year the bus users of Christchurch get a double dumping of crap facilities like this and the endless crap spewing out of the mouths of the spin doctors in elected or imposed Councils

However Jerry Brownlee (of all people!! ) appears to have a great plan to improve Christchurch public transport woes! He's got his boys workin' on it...

Canterbury is 12% of New Zealand's population but for many decades has never received anything approaching 12% of the "public transport dollar" particularly for capital works. Basically fair weather or foul, business as usual or catastrophic earthquake, the Canterbury tax payer has continued to pay out to subsidise  public transport in Auckland and Wellington regions.

When Wellington spent $90 million on the Waikanae commuter line extension and $31 million "new" carriages and a five station upgrade on the Wairarapa Commuter Line (with combined populations far less than South Canterbury) it didn't even enter the head of the Mayors of Timaru, Ashburton or Christchurch to shout "Foul ball". Nope. Of the $121 million spent by the rail authority 12% = $14.4 million came from Canterbury pockets.

Indeed NZ in Tranzit estimates approximately over $300 million dollars of "public transport dollar" has been milked from Canterbury and sent north in the last 15 years to fund close to $3 billion worth of transit infrastructure  up North. 

But can these woes be improved?

Yes -  it seems these woes can be improved.

Indeed  the transit woes of Canterbury can be improved and made greater by a factor of several hundred per cent!!.

Under the auspices of Minister of Transport Jerry Brownlee NZ Transport Agency has found there is still heaps more the Canterbury taxpayer can fork out, while shortchanging transit funding in Christchurch worse than ever.

While our Minister of Transport hogties future public transport in Canterbury with a minimal $100 million spread over three years, NZ Transport Agency and Auckland city authorities  are lining up Auckland  for a massive $60 billion transport -  roading and public transport  - spend up over the next 30 years.

Even allowing that the Auckland figures includes roading costs as well as public transport compare these figures -  the $33 x million per year for three years public transport in Canterbury (or was it just Christchurch?) compared to $2000x million per each year for 30 years for Auckland.

Obviously road taxes and possibly tolls will cover  much of this but it is also equally obvious that given Auckland population isn't THAT MUCH larger than Christchurch (less than four times bigger and only likely to widen that ratio slowly, if at all over many years) nationwide all taxpayers including  us here in Canterbury will also be forking out.

Astounding stuff - and apart from a few poorly informed  mumbles from Jim Anderton at the last local body elections -  not a single politician in Canterbury prepared to get up and fight for a decent 21st century quality public transport system!!

After 20 years of ECan/Council  hype we are STILL NOT MOVING towards completely segregated busways, an integrated network, a region wide commuter network and a city building commuter rail system, - indeed almost every obvious (and budget effective) opportunity in this area over the last 15 years has been thrown away!! For God's sake we haven't got decent bus shelters at major hub points - see photo above for the combined productive genius of two councils over almost 20 years!!

Minimal and poorly planned, timed and executed bus lanes with major choke points that still buses leave queueing and passengers missing transfer connections, unsupported by roading or land use changes and lack of mobility moderating technological support, failure of public transport to sustain growth etc, did not start with the earthquakes, that disaster has been building for years!!

There is an old saying that "You put your money where your mouth is" - but no significant** investment in public transport infrastructure in Canterbury has been made in 20 years!!  Post quake extra costs and rebuilds absorbing the $33 million per year, will certainly ensure that this will remain true.

 And if Canterbury forks out its usual 12% of tax that is the best part of $5 billion heading north!





** a few million dollars on part-time bus lanes, and a budget [original] bus exchange that quicked bogged down because it was built without growth potential, and built for less than the cost the remote Auckland suburban  rail station Swanson (about $20 million) does not really do the term "significant"

Parking for 2 cars - In Christchurch more important than 2 million bus passengers?

Aldwins Rd Looking eastwards

Aldwins Rd looking westwards

Anyone catching buses in Christchurch nowadays knows what a bloody mess it as become, with many patrons having to spend two-three hours a day getting to-fro work, just to ensure they won't miss transfer connections.  There is no point heading out from home now "only" an hour before you have to start work, a lecture or be at an appointment -  if you have to make transfers or rely upon cross town services - there is a huge chance services will be so far out of kilter - up to 20 minutes late - that you'll miss connections and be putting your job at risk or missing that appointment. Where as most motorists are having to allow an extra 15 minutes in their journeys to allow for road and drain repair works and ensuring traffic hold ups, bus passengers may have to double journey time, on journeys already three times longer than the equivalent car trip. 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know why Metro lost such a staggering number of passengers following the earthquakes (despite very small numbers leaving the city, and almost everyone back at relocated work and study locations within eight weeks of the Feb 22 2011 high velocity mega-quake ). Nor why regrowth of the bus system, outside one or two selected routes, is so slow to come back, when you see pictures such as those above. 

This is the Aldwins Road approach to Eastgate, the scene of continuous road works and large scale sewer replacement works now for over two years.  Were Metro and Council transport officers "in" on the planning the traffic flow patterns for here, or dozens of similar major long term projects? One can only suppose so, but perhaps they just attended to say "Yes Bill, sure, we'll deviate the buses here and there as necessary, thanks for the schedule of planned works."

OR did they say "This route is vital - before the earthquake we were carrying nearly two million trips a year on the Orbiter - tens of thousands of people depend upon it each week, not only to get around the city but to transfer to and from other routes. This Aldwins Road corridor is also used by other routes. It is imperative if there are to be major ongoing roadworks on this route that we keep bus-flow channels open absolutely as far as possible. If these buses get out of kilter, they can all start clumping up and services run 15-30 minutes late, which can mean an extra 30 -60 minute wait for some transfer passengers further down the line. We are not just talking impact on the services in Eastgate area here - we are talking of adding in city wide delays, screwing everyone around. That sort of thing, unreliability, just absolutely kills patronage and will cost or  waste millions.if transport dollars. Also, the more people we can get out of using cars, the shorter the queues and delays for motorists at these same bottlenecks."

Did I just hear a Tui laugh? 

My guess (with plenty of clues city wide) the thinking is this is not the time to be using emergency powers or council initiative to be taking parking lanes away from people!!  [We saw that in Harper Avenue in the months after the big one!]. And God forbid - just for buses to use? That sure would be crazy  - of course we know it would only take a few thousand dollars to install some concrete footings and overhead signage which can bolted and changed by an overhead truck over the months and years ahead  as roadwork patterns change, for cars direction as well as buses, but no, we are not even going to go there.  

The buses approaching this intersection often took two to three light changes to crawl up from Linwood College (Harrow Street /Linwood Avenue Corner), as much as eight minutes to go 500 metres. At 6.15 pm in the evening, not even the very peak of the rush hour.

Despite plenty of side street parking - or "temporary long term" potential to keep road work signs out of lanes when not needed as a traffic deviation device - just two cars were given complete dominance of this lane.  It says everything, a city that will not commit to quality public transport. 

Inactions speak louder than words!! As usual. Thousands of times each week.

The Edge where the world divides? Are we going to make genuinely effective modern public transport or just talk the talk?

To celebrate the launch of the new Edgeware Neighbourhood Plan (sure to focus on making attractive environments for queuing points for cars !! And on the track record to date - nothing for buses, certainly no transfer friendly node for the Metrostar and 118, 28 bus), to "celebrate" I reprint a posting I did back in April 2010, when my readership was very tiny.

This suggests any rational analysis of cost-benefit bus rapid transport would have to say that the least disruptive, by far the most direct, logical, and multi-beneficial northern rapid transit outlet tofro the city centre, that does not involves scores of house demolitions would need utilise the Rutland Street Corridor. This can be  linked to Edgeware in the south by an enormously enhanced green housing, busway, bikeway etc redevelopment, running through to Edgeware Rd, and in the north under (or over) Cranford Street and QEII drive to Redwood, Highfield, Prestons and areas north beyond) - giving buses a direct bypass of all the heavy road use corridors. A huge boost to the central city rebuilt - Belfast to city in about 12 minutes, irrespective of how busy the roads! A bus system actually competitive with car use in many situations !!

Going Fast - A busway lost ?
(reprinted from 18 April 2010)

I have been campaigning since 2002 to have local public transport planners and civic authorities investigate the potential of corridor through St Albans towards Northlands for a busway alignment and direct cycleway to city. Originally I sent letters to the newspaper, in 2005 I sent a beautifully prepared simple clear document with maps to Garry Moore (then Mayor) and to ECan our public transport parent organisation. In 2007 I circulated an extended version of the same scheme - now with a busway corridor right up to Belfast -  to about 35 candidates to the local body elections. One or two were polite enough to say "How nice dear".  In that time Ecan investigated rail twice (ridiculously expensive and unsuited)**. 

Never once have I heard the slightest squeak from any corner that busways were being seriously looked at in Christchurch.

Obviously once built this corridor would be there for all time, so to speak, could not be built out however big or high rise the city became. It seems a good investment before the options are built out, for instance larger modern flats built right in its flowpath, costing a fortune to uproot. With two Council housing complexes and the Council owned Edgeware Pool site in the most obvious pathway options for relatively cheap redevelopment of the partly run down area were manifold. 

Amazingly what could be an 8 minute journey by bus direct from the central city to Northlands, some of it through attractively landscaped green bus (and cycleway) only boulevards, not only bypasses all the heavy congestion on Papanui Road or Cranford Street but can be achieved with minimal social impact, expense in building or operation. 

This busway centred route network could be operated by a branded service, every 15 minutes, supplemented by key stop only express buses coming from Styx,Belfast, Redwood, Kaiapoi, Rangiora etc. in morning and evening weekday peak hours. Other services would continue to travel via Northlands and Merivale of course, for those travelling to those areas.  If it ever became viable to operate light rail then this corridor would already be built - and indeed could be built precisely to allow for that future option. (It is almost an industry standard now to build a busway as a precursor to light rail in overseas cities). Never once have I heard the slightest squeak from any corner that busways were being seriously looked at in Christchurch.

During these eight years Auckland received $200 million from the Government to build their Northern busway; and then a further $20 million towards their $46 million Central Connector busway. (and zillions more for rail).  During that period that period cities all over the world from the huge (Beijing building 20 busways) and sprawling (Johannesburg building 270km of busway) to those small and closer to Christchurch in size and demographic patterns -  such as Halifax, Ottawa,Winnipeg, Gatineau, Calgary etc in Canada -  were investigating and building busways, typically a mixture of on-street bus lanes and bus-only separate corridors, bus-only shoulder lanes, underpasses etc.

One of our nearest neighbours, Brisbane has built the most sophisticated busway in the world, in one section buses travelling to a bus station at third storey height and other points into underground stations and trenches that completely by-pass congestion. The Gold Coast's planned light rail corridor - 17 km and $1.8 billion (and rising) is estimated to be accessible to 20% of the population. By contrast the Brisbane busway [also of course very expensive!] runs for several hundred kilometres of route - by virtue of the fact that 117 different bus routes feed into and get the benefits of the segregated corridor system. A system that benefits everyone. Something, obviously a bit more modest in size and engineering could obviously be looked at for our city. Never once have I heard the slightest squeak from any corner that busways were being seriously looked at in Christchurch.

This week I posted off a submission to the Metro Strategy 2010 Review. Above is the alignment of the Northern busway I see as possible. Given express buses would not stop between the Supa Centa and Bealey Avenue (or only stop at key stops) and the actual distances are not huge, it would take around 10 minutes Belfast to the city by bus in peak hours! Not only a huge saving in commuter hours but also of course, greater economy in bus use and driver hours per kilometre. 

The submission is a parting shot really because the Northern motorway coming down past the east side of Redwood is already planned and has as far as I know, no provision for a bus only lane to cut down the side and then through onto Grimseys Road. There is a cycle subway under QEII Drive at the bottom of Grimseys Road but I have never heard of any bus underpass planned. The area east and immediately north of Paparoa Street School and the Rutland Street Reserve, farmland and floodplain, which could be reconstituted into an attractive park, cycleway and skirting the edges on a fenced embankment, a busway corridor, has been subdivided and presumably sold off. 

The Edgeware Pool site - which coupled with a couple of older single storey Council Housing complexes - gave great potential for an exciting redevelopment of the area and an Edgeware bus station has been sold off. Ironically a far better, combination neighbourhood integrated recreation centre including pool and slightly re-sited tennis club could have really empowered a future high density neighbourhood AND made busway possible.

We have not only missed the bus, or tomorrow's light rail corridor - as a city we are too stupid to even realise it! 

Somewhere in between city hall's preoccupation with light rail fantasies and building heritage tramways and Ecan's narrow vision of a good conventional bus system, a gift handed to the city on a plate got thrown out, a potential to lever up tens of millions in Government funding was ignored, a great public transport makeover of a partly derelict area was never seen, great opportunities got washed away. Without a squeak. 





This illustration below comes from a later blog posting I believe now it would be more logical to use earthquake rubble to build a beautifully graduated busway ramp, not only behind the park as shown here,  but up and over Cranford Street rather than under



In this scenario - The current Rutland Park (which runs in a rectangle west-east) is converted to an elongated north-south (approximately) park with cycleways and stream and walkways and a inconspicuously fenced on busway on its own embankment; one arm to Northlands and Sawyers Arms Road - the other running over or under Cranford Street and ditto QEII to serve Redwood, Highfield Prestons, Belfast and the northern rural towns with a very quick journey to cuty centre and beyond. Needless to say any land close could be designated higher density (rather than just congested key points like Papanui) including a central retirement village friendly zone around Rutland Street  

A customised Google map of the same project


** Since 2010 I believe rail would be viable but only in a comprehensive "figure eight with spurs" network linked to extensive off road cycleways. See multiple postings