NZ In Tranzit

The Maxwell Smart Way? The generous width of the Dilworth-Maxwell Street corridor, as well as the naturally slowed traffic created by car park buildings, suggests opportunities for an elegant, lanes unimpeded, busway and mostly car-free cycle lane through Christchurch's inner western suburbs. Depending on specific scenarios two or even three lanes could be built left of these parked cars allowing a spacious an attractively designed and landscaped multi-platformed bus station. A joint committee of ECAN and the Christchurch City Council are proposing to build a new bus station on Riccarton Road.  The building plans can be viewed at the Council site  HERE , and show an attractive lounge area with cafe in a space that appears to about the size of a large village or school hall. A consultation is being held and if you wish to make a comment you can do so via the website. It will be of benefit if making a submission to first to look at the  Frequently Asked Q...

As I have said on past occasions,  it is only by looking at the sort of money being spent on public transport infrastructure in Auckland and Wellington that one can really measure just how successful  infrastructure progress in Christchurch has been over the last decade..... By this token today's NZ Herald has done another expose of the comparative state of public transport infrastructure planning in Christchurch!  Obviously the case for funding public transport infrastructure of the northern cities IS stronger - but 15 times stronger?? Come Onnnn !** Incredible. ** Stripping out the public transport projects (and part aspects) only from these figures I get a very conservative figure of $5.1 billion  for Auckland public transport infrastructure and a (very generous?) guestimate of $100 million on Christchurch public transport infrastructure (as per last posting). Despite (greater) Auckland only being 3.5 x the size of greater Chri...

An entrance veranda of Knox Church, captures the city's Gothic revival roots in modern form It is to be hoped with an almost entirely new council elected that the Christchurch metropolitan area public transport system will be placed in "catch up" mode. Many of those elected have strong proven records of service on community boards - one is a former three-time city Mayor - or socially orientated organisations, . The pre-dominance of left leaning coalition People's Choice candidates, hopefully will also bring some greater sense of common purpose, which seemed to missing in the last fairly disparate and unreadable bunch of individuals.  In Christchurch public transport was on the "up and up" between 1992 and 2003, an inspiring turn around, but apart from a few new bus routes to outer areas, and cross town, very little more has been accomplished in public transport in following decade, if measured by the standards of many other cities.  So far t...

East side of road I am impressed with the new bus mall or transfer station [not sure of exact description] at Northlands Shopping Mall.  It is about five years behind when it should've been built; it is pretty basic in facilities but is it is also only intended to be temporary (OK, OK, I just can't resist humour in this blog).  Light rail advocates often talk about the way the permanent infrastructure of rail lines embedded in the ground etc give light rail a greater appeal and status, and attract business away from other areas towards the vicinity of the line. Certainly these simple but solid shelters immediately lift the public profile and status of bus use in Christchurch, give a more metropolitan air to the suburbs. The "super bus stops"  might be nothing fantastic in themselves but do draw a new line in the sand, so long needed in Christchurch.   West side of the road Sure they are not perfect, The shelters have no immediate toilets but the...

Planned Panmure Bridge and Eastern busway (Auckland) ** More details below When I started as a Christchurch  bus driver back in 1977 it was not uncommon to sit in a slow moving, stop-start, queue from "Nancy's corner" (Riccarton roundabout) to well past the main shopping centre and mall. It was possible to lose 10 minutes just in that queue (about one and a half kilometres) when the entire section of route from Cathedral Square to Church Corner - about 8 km of multiple traffic lights and queues -  was scheduled to be achieved in 16 minutes. That was in the bad old days, when bus usage was in decline and the cost per passenger carried rising, and there was scant regard for passenger's needs, the environment, or attracting people out of cars. In 1996 and again in 2010 attempts were made to create bus lanes on Riccarton Road, the shop-keepers (rightly I would say) saw this loss of parking as likely to directly effect the attraction of punters to their sho...