North New Brighton bus services could be improved despite system wide cut backs to bus services

It is fairly obvious that bus cuts are on the way in Christchurch, very drastic reductions by rumour.  The services can be hacked to bits, trimmed back in a rough and ready fashion or this can be an opportunity to create better and frequent services, using a limited resource more wisely  Frequent corridor buses with useful "community service tails" as in the case suggested here, offer one alternative 

Palmers Road residents have complained about the lack of bus services from this North New Brighton enclave to New Brighton shops and services. Particularly effected are some using walking frames who face a 500 metre walk. After the earthquakes damaged roads in this area the 84 New Brighton via Avondale service was withdrawn.

David Stenhouse, Metro's new passenger services' manager is quoted in "The Mail" as saying how the affected residents lived with 500 metres of three bus routes. This squared with the policy that at least 90 per cent of residents should be no more than 500 metres from a bus route. "We won't be making any changes to current services, " he said.

One part of me totally agrees with this response. It is good Stenhouse does not mince his words, buses can't go everywhere and it is better not to pretend otherwise or weep crocodile tears. The criteria of a service within 500 metres is in fact very intense by world standards for small cities  - many cities only seek to meet access to public transport criteria of 90%(or less)  within 750-1000 metres. 

The 84 Route loop formerly traversed inside the triangle formed by the Metrostar (Keyes Road) , 40 Wainoni Route (New Brighton Road) and 7 Queenspark route (Bower Avenue) - all 15 minute services. At no point were the roads traversed at any a great distance from adjacent, more frequent, routes. It was also cumbersome, tight and tedious, rarely in my few experiences picking up any passengers in this loop on the half hourly (hourly evenings,weekends) service. Few other routes in Christchurch were so indulgent of a very small sector  - it seemed to be designed (over a decade ago) by an amateur planner bending to the demands of the loudest squeaky wheel, rather than working to effectively meet the overall needs of an area. Hard reality says chop it.

And yet ...

....and yet Stenhouse ignores that Metro's bus service access from North New Brighton area to the New Brighton shops, services, cafes and library is really far from effectively structured.         I know from my industry experience what a large number of North New Brighton residents look to the beachside hub as their local centre and point of identity and yet bus access is far from simple or convenient for most residents.

The three routes serving this area to New Brighton's hub all tend to skirt the residential areas, traversing routes patterns with significant dead-sides, instead of through the MIDDLE of actual residential areas.

Route 60 (via Parklands) instead of travelling through Effingham Street travels first past Golf Course in Beach Road to travel down Marine Parade for 2-3km - I am sure hundreds of beach goers catch buses day and night, 12 months a year - and the seagulls deserve a bus service more than rate paying residents! And  Wainoni 40 route dead-sides against the Avon River embankment all the way (1.5 km) from Bower Bridge.

Metrostar offers 15 minute services  via Keyes Road to a Golf Course and Rawhiti Domain and a new electricity substation (for tourists who enjoy engineering projects). Only the top end of Lonsdale Street gets steady patronage.   However Metrostar, for all its peripheral nature,  is the only service in the large arc between New Brighton Road and Marine Parade - the whole centre of this residential area - that actually serves New Brighton. 

An alternative would be to run 40 route up Bower Avenue as far as the intersection with Palmers Road (which curves around to meet Bower Avenue just south of the roundabout) and then run through and down Baker Street before rejoining New Brighton Road. This is a far less precious, fiddly loop than previously, and importantly connects a much larger chunk of North New Brighton, including Bower Avenue, various side streets and enclaves such as Freeville School. Not only New Brighton, but also the local high school (Aranui) and Eastgate are then linked into this much more frequent route. At the same time for most passengers along Wainoni Road it is remains a straight run into the city - the loopy bit at the eastern end does not effect this and is largely local servic orientated. For some of the day Wainoni 40 is a 15 minute service, the bottom line for a bus service to be widely attractive, not to need a timetable (especially if consistent departure times apply each hour).

               No not the Metrostar, despite the orange route colour! Here this colour is is used to suggest 40 Wainoni route replaces the role lost by the removal of 84 route creating a more frequent and more widely accessible link between North New Brighton and the seaside hub.. This also offers the enclave  west  of Bower Avenue bus access to New Brighton

This makes far more effective use of such a frequent service than running beside a river. Although not every need can be met, looking at the street and alleyway pattern, very few residents will as far as 500 metres from this service.It has no right hand turns across heavy traffic and river end residents of the enclave can still reasonably access stops at the bottom of Bower Avenue or Baker Street or on New Brighton Road sections still traversed.

The Metrostar could remain on Keyes Road or possibly, instead, run via Rookwood Avenue and Bower Avenue, and Marine Parade bringing a big chunk of North Beach into gteater access with this useful (The Palms/adjacent schools, Papanui Road, Westfield, University, Hornby etc) service. This still dead-sides beside a bit Marine Parade and Thompson Park, though providing access from the east end of Lonsdale St, but the combined changes of these two routes offer get very much bigger bang for the buck than the present "empty vessel" hollow shell of peripheral routes.

Ideally Metrostar and 60 would enter New Brighton by looping around Hawke Street and back around to Beresford Street,  better  covering the several schools and access to supermarket and library, and creating a sensible single stop for all services instead of the bizarre fragmentation as at present, a source of great confusion and distress to visitors, and annoying to locals, another sign of ineffective bus management.

It is fairly obvious that bus cuts are on the way in Christchurch, very drastic reductions by rumour.  The services can be hacked to bits, trimmed back in a rough and ready fashion or this can be an opportunity to create more effective frequent services, using a limited resource more effectively. As suggested here. Make some of the frequent service arterial corridor buses work harder at their tail end. Far from losing a service residents in this area - much extended in catchment - would get a better and more frequent service.

KiwiRail See No Prospect of Lyttelton Commuter Rail link

KiwiRail have made it clear they are not interested in integrating commuter rail into the Lyttelton scenario. This is clear in a submission made to the Christchurch City Council Draft Recovery Plan for Lyttelton. 

The core historic commercial area of Lyttelton was devastated by the February 22nd earthquake in 2011.  The city council has just published a summary of the 197 submissions made on Lyttelton's recovery strategy ( access to the full PDF doc is available from a link at the centre of this CCC website page). 

The section on rail access is summed up in the paragraphs quoted below.


"Light rail and train transport options were commonly commented on. There was quite a lot of support for light rail in particular, as well as Lyttelton to central city links. It was commented that it  could be a good tourism venture but it might be costly.

We strongly support the creation of a passenger rail link to Lyttelton.
Infrastructure is in place and with sufficient planning the existing rail link could
effectively be used for both freight and passenger services. This would enhance
Lyttelton’s accessibility for local people, visitors and cruise ship passengers, and
would add to Lyttelton’s viability as a destination (submitter 144).

Kiwirail did however make the following comment:

While we appreciate the Council’s desire to provide better access to the  coastline, it is likely that most (if not all) the existing land capacity we currently  utilise for our operations will still be required to meet future demands. For this  reason, we are keen to ensure that our operational conditions (including the rail  footprint) remain largely the same as they are today (submitter 195)."

This blogster believes the KiwiRail response is (a) predictable (b) totally justified in any quick calculation of cost-benefit ratios. Pursuing commuter rail for Lyttelton is in reality a non-issue!!

I am no supporter of  sloppy or wasteful use of public resources that also bring public transport into disrepute when the same systems if well planned can be so much more practically,  socially and financially cost effective.

It seems to me too many people approach rail options full of fantasies and dreams rather than any sensible calculation of costs, even in the broadest way. Unfortunately few things are so dear to create and can leech public money so rapidly and continuously as a train service failing to attract adequate patronage levels.

I am hardly in a position to do a sophisticated study but below is a few guesstimates based on my knowledge of localities and typical rail costs etc.  I was a local business association representative on Banks Peninsula Promotions, an unpaid BP District Council organisation, keen to attract business/tourists to Lyttelton back in the early 1990s, so these are not new issues for me.

Lyttelton has a resident population of about 3,500 (at most) and nowadays probably an influx of workers well below 500* in any work day, some of these on shift work outside normal hours or visiting (briefly) seamen.  To this might be added 1,400 (many retired) living in Diamond Harbour, Purau etc and 2500 in Heathcote.  To this might be added (generously?) 1000 tourists averaged a day(mostly day or evening cafe traffic trips by city residents) .  Many of the tourist groups will of course already be traveling by car or tour bus, day tripping around,  and cafe entertainment groups will typically also share a car, or be families going to Corsair Bay etc, too far for most from the rail line.

This gives a "top" user possible catchment base of 9,000 - - all added together still below the 10,000 suburban population enclave that, I believe, is normally considered the minimum necessary catchment to sustain a half hourly bus service in a New Zealand city.

Very few commuter rail systems in European cities attract more than 25% of commuter traffic and that is with these offering services every three minutes  (etc) and complex subway and rail networks.  Wellington by far the best patronage of any small rail system in the developed (high car ownership) low density world gets 17% of commuter trips (ostensibly)  - lets say Lyttelton achieved 12% - 1050 passengers a day - on a half hourly service (circa 50 trips per day) that equates to about 20 passengers a trip. However these same passengers will have to walk up the steep hills a considerable distance (far more than with the bus routes) and in most cases, at the other end, get a connecting bus into the city, to jobs, to their holiday accommodation or the bus exchange point to transfer to elsewhere.  Hardly appealing or likely to "enhance Lyttelton's accessibility" as suggested in the submission quoted above.

Operating costs per kilometre for commuter trains are typically double those for a bus service,  though this would probably increase significantly with the sensible, safe, supportive (for elderly, handicapped, tourists] and attractive system of having a guard host-person for every 70 seater carriage unit,  as is done in Auckland. 

Nor is this is not counting the real cost of aggregated annual capital expenditure to be paid off across the years, say three $15 million dollar double DMU units to serve Lyttelton.

It would seem to me to be even be at the very bottom margin of viable for rail, the population/casual use upon the corridor served  would needed to be at least triple the present - and this in a bay and a valley both hugely constricted from significant growth in residential areas or industrial and commercial employment zones.  And this does not even address the added complications of delays, breakdowns and complex schedules needed if the bottleneck tunnel and rail yards must be shared between constant coal and freight train, shunting and commuter trains.

Instead of wasting $45 million on trains, and double the operating costs, for less effective services,  it would be better to build on the strength of Lyttelton's existing fairly high frequency bus services, two routes one (28) to city operating every 15 minutes week day, day-times. Much could be done to improve these - and (a) links to the Diamond Harbour Ferry - bizarrely not even served by the 535 bus route,  nor linked times identified on 28 route timetables (b) a future commuter rail station at Ferrymead and/or Ensors Road (c) The Orbiter at Ensors Road (d) CPIT at Sullivan Avenue and City (d) the tourist and university zones west of the city.   


The potential exists to up Lyttelton (and the other main arterial high frequency routes 3, 5, 7, etc) into a branded service with guaranteed consistent 15 minute services between set hours (notably until 11pm).  This would be particularly important for Lyttelton hospitality trade, the more so if such a branded service linked to tourist accomodation and more concentrated younger singles flatting and hostel residential zones.


There maybe a place for commuter rail in greater Christchurch but commuter rail to Lyttelton would not be a sensible call, now,  or indeed, probably ever.


* I have excluded truck drivers delivering to and from the Port in this guess.

 

Love this paint job - NZ Bus Ltd have also done some fairly spunky designs on other buses in their service, such as the Waka Pacific services to South Auckland areas with flamboyant Polynesian designs. It is great to see buses given that extra bit of style they deserve. This said, celebrating the year of the sheep or the year of rat might prove a somewhat tough design challenge!

An Auckland Transport Media Release has this to say; To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, Auckland Transport together with NZ Bus have produced two ‘dragon buses’ for use on the city LINK bus route in central Auckland.

The dragon branded buses painted in traditional red and gold colours will be unveiled by Auckland Council Cr. and Board member of Auckland Transport, Mike Lee next Monday 12 March.

To encourage more of the Chinese community to use public transport and to make travel planning easier the LINK brochure has been translated into Chinese. It can be downloaded from www.maxx.co.nz.    The Chinese community is the largest of the Asian communities in Auckland with 97,500 living in the greater Auckland area. Nearly 54,000 Auckland Chinese were born in China and are accustomed to using public transport.  

Funny bus shelters!!

Love this picture! (no it wasn't posed) .....photographed in a relatively light south-easterly wind/rain a few weeks back at the temporary central bus station* ....not even sure how this guy managed to sit on the seat itself, which was soaking wet as shown in photo below .....

 

 

It certainly it does not bode well for the oncoming winter. Far more vigorous (and bitterly cold) wind and rain combinations are of course the winter norm in Christchurch. Presumably hundreds will have to stand getting soaked, at least around the legs, or crowd uncomfortably -  "cattle class"as they call it in Melbourne -  into the fairly limited space in the completely covered waiting area.

Isn't it a bit weird or bit rich calling this a bus "shelter"?

At least down in Southland (overseas readers - New Zealand's southern most province - next stop Antarctica) they are honest about the local bus service being operated by a bunch of comics and comedians . Love this  photo too, a school bus shelter spotted while holidaying in Colac Bay.

* Predicted for two years use only -  by the same crowd who predicted by 2012 Christchurch would have nine bus routes bus laned and six transfer stations built and achieved only a 20% success rate. Bets on five, six, seven years anybody?

Eastern suburb bus passengers get food for thought - during the two hour wait - or long walk home

"Foodstuffs has announced it is building a new Pak 'n Save supermarket next to its existing store in Christchurch's eastern suburbs.

The Wainoni store has superficial earthquake damage and Foodstuffs says it will be cheaper to build another store rather than make repairs. The current store will continue trading while the new $25 million development takes shape. Building is expected to start this year."
- Radio New Zealand News Item

An interesting indicator of the revival of eastern suburbs post [we hope "post"] major earthquakes.

Foodstuffs obviously believe even with conversion of some riverside areas currently red zoned and likely to become parks or paddocks (or at least no longer residential areas) there will be plenty of demand for this strategically placed supermarket.

It is a sharp contrast to the Ecan/Metro stance, which has downgraded bus services to this area by over 50%, with residents using this supermarket between 9am and 3pm  expected to wait 30-180 minutes (yes two hours!) for a bus service to the surrounding areas in the middle of the day!!

Does anyone seriously expect the elderly or transport dependent to wait two hours for a bus to and from the supermarket?  With gaps between services this ridiculously large it will mean  taxis or help fromfriends and relatives will still be on the agenda for many east-siders.  This is not a happy way to live - relying on others and having to request help is often humiliating for people whose self respect is closely linked to retaining maximum freedom of movement and independence.

And so much for paying Ecan transport rates!

As for those away from bus routes in Dallington, Avonside, Aranui etc hoping to get to work or school, No service for you at all. What a farce.

Meanwhile Dame Margeret Bazley pockets her $1400 per meeting to oversee the effective operation of Christchurch buses!!

What a bloody insult to those already disadvantaged, economically and by earthquake damages!! What a pathetic response ECan!


 

Enrico Penalosa writes on mobility and equality

A very good article in The New Statesman this week, written by Enrico Penalosa, former Mayer of Bogota - a city the population size of London - which has (according to a Bogota resident who stayed with friends here in Christchurch)  "fantastic cycleways" and a city which showed that buses can do what rail can do, but better, reaching deeper into all areas, running more frequently, without need for huge underground tunnels, and at much lower infrastructure costs.

Penalosa is one of the few politicians in the world to speak honestly and logically about where a civilised world must go  if it is to create effective, democratic, and attractive transport alternatives.

A couple of quotes from the longer article;

" Basic democracy:  if all citizens are equal before the Law as Constitutions state in their first article, then a citizen on a $ 30 bicycle has the same right to safe mobility as one on a $30,000 car; and a bus with 100 passengers has a right to 100 times more road space than a car with one. It is not only democratic; it is the most efficient way of using a scarce resource such as road space.To clarify this let´s imagine a catastrophe leaves us with enough fuel for only 5% of vehicles in a city, to whom would we allocate it? For survival, we would necessarily allocate it to trucks and buses. Now, if what is scarce is not fuel, but rather road space, shouldn´t we do likewise?"

and further along in the article....

"Bicycling is, in some respect,a more efficient way of walking. We built hundreds of kilometers of protected bicycle ways and raised the number of those biking to work from practically nothing to more than 350,000 daily. Riding to work saves a minimum wage earner two months' salary every year. Bike ways protected bicyclists, but at least as important was the symbolic effect: they showed a citizen on a $30 bicycle was as important as one on a $ 30,000 car: they raised the social status of bicyclists. Two projects for bicyclists were particularly significant: Porvenir promenade, a 24 kilometer long pedestrian-and-bicycle-only through low income areas south west of the city; and the Juan Amarillo greenway, 32 kilometers long linking some very low income areas to the highest income areas of the city. Both of those ¨bicycle highways¨ through one of the densest cities in the world are used by tens of thousands daily."

Read the full New Statesmn article here 

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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.