Auckland - the city where big stuff is easy, small things hard

Monday, 18 November 2019

OPINION: What struck me most as I walked with 10,000 other lucky Aucklanders through the first 600 metres of downtown rail tunnel at the weekend, was how quickly it had come about.

It was only nine years ago that the first mayor of the amalgamated city, Len Brown, lifted his voice in his inauguration speech to say: 'We will build an inner city loop.'

You could almost hear the derisive snigger of certain cabinet ministers at the time, and yet here we were walking through stage one of the biggest public transport project ever built in New Zealand.

Vision, determined lobbying and the courage to make a council-funded start before the Government was fully on-board, is making a reality out of the most transformative urban project since Auckland's Harbour Bridge opened 60 years ago. 

**READ MORE:

* Plans for 'pop-up' busway on Auckland's northwestern motorway

* Auckland motorway bus lane upgrades slow due to funding

* Faster bus trips possible if Auckland motorway bus lanes are OK'd

* Auckland Transport prepares big push on key bus routes**

So why, I wondered, has it taken almost as long for the Transport Agency to almost get around to a modest paint-and-tarseal project that could transform long-haul bus commutes from the west and northwest?

The Minister of Transport last week said officials at NZTA and Auckland transport were working on what's being called a 'pop-up' busway along the northwestern motorway, the arterial to the rapidly-growing northwest of Auckland,and running across the ends of major local roads to Te Atatū, Massey and Henderson.

Good news you might think? Not yet.

A personal declaration: I have commuted, largely by bus, from the rural northwest for much of three decades, and have been a regular and largely ineffective letter-writer seeking small pragmatic improvements to what is far from a First World service.

One of my unsuccessful pleas had been to connect the scattering of priority shoulder bus lanes along the northwestern, where buses weave in and out of the general traffic, as the bits of bus lane start and finish.

Following the major widening and rebuild of the motorway, just being finished now at the outermost, Westgate end, the shoulders are wide enough in most places for the bus lane, but NZTA in its wisdom has chosen not to designate them as such around interchanges.

One section, purpose-built as shoulder bus lane in 2011, was intended by NZTA to remain closed to buses until the full motorway project was completed.

Auckland Transport finally twisted an arm at its sister agency, but only after the lane sat idle for a couple of years.

Late last year, somehow, NZTA had warmed to the idea, aided by Auckland Transport, that it could make a continuous bus lane at low cost, and over last summer trialled some ideas on the northern motorway.

Detailed work continued until a meeting involving Mayor Phil Goff, Transport Minister Phil Twyford, officials, and councillors including 'westies' Penny Hulse and Linda Cooper from the Waitākere ward.

Hulse and Cooper did some table thumping, arguing that with light rail for the northwest seemingly on the back burner, action was needed on a short-term alternative for a designated growth area..

Thus the pop-up bus lane idea was born: unimpeded bus lanes, with low cost interchanges at several points to connect to other services.

This plan is grander than NZTA's work, and Stuff understands it's envisaged as taking up to five years, rather than the months for the bus lane tart-up.

Both are good ideas, and the paint-and-tarseal plan would be an ideal starter while the more complex pop-up proposal is worked through.

However, it is conceivable the City Rail Link's expected completion in 2024 might almost beat a long-overdue upgrade of  bus priority to the west.