Mass rapid transit and high density housing - how Greater Christchurch can cope with 1 million residents

Saturday, 13 May 2023

Leaders in Greater Christchurch have come up with a plan to help the area cope with a doubling of its population in the next 60 years.

It’s morning. You leave your high rise apartment for the cafe below, deciding to catch the 8.30am train or bus rather than the 8:25am to work – you only need 21 minutes to get from Hornby to the city centre.

It’s 2051, and under the cover of trees you wait to become one of up to 2500 people who use Christchurch’s mass rapid transit every hour during peak times.

At this point, 40% of all trips to the central city from Greater Christchurch are made by public transport. The mass rapid transit is used 5.7 million times a year, reducing carbon emissions by around 467,500 tonnes annually compared to 2021.

Cycling is currently regarded as a good alternative to the car to cut emissions and congestion alike. But could mass rapid transit be the transport of the future?

This is the vision of how Greater Christchurch will accommodate a population which is projected to double to one million in the next 60 years, with the use of a Greater Christchurch spatial plan and mass rapid transit.

The plan was approved for public consultation on Friday by members of Greater Christchurch’s urban growth partnership committee, named Whakawhanake Kāinga, a collective of local and central government and mana whenua representatives.

At the committee meeting, Selwyn district mayor Sam Broughton said it marked a time for Greater Christchurch to “move beyond repair and rebuild, but into the future”.

The plan was informed by thousands of residents, developers, and the environmental impact of there being more residents in a city which currently has the slowest peak-hour driving and lowest taxpayer investment into transport alternatives, according to the AA and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency data.

Should the plan go ahead in its current form, key communities along a proposed mass rapid transit corridor will be developed to absorb future population growth. The resulting high density housing would be affordable and accessible, the plan said.

One design of mass rapid transit in Christchurch depicted metro buses or light rail stopping outside of high density housing.

Hornby in particular would be a focal point of development, evolving from its “poor quality urban form” to become the second most important service centre in Greater Christchurch, after the city centre.

Hornby’s commercial core would be strengthened, and surplus industrial areas which surrounded it would be transformed into high density housing.

Up to 100 dwellings per hectare would be allowed in Hornby and Papanui, as well as up to 150 in Riccarton and up to 200 in the central city.

Building those areas “up” rather than “out” would prevent sprawl onto productive land, the soil of which was “a scarce and finite resource”, the plan noted.

There is also an opportunity to blend multi-storey residential dwellings with commercial spaces.

According to the plan, there isn’t enough commercial land to meet demand over the next 30 years, to the tune of a 110ha shortfall in Christchurch and 20ha in Selwyn.

A mass rapid transit corridor – a route from Hornby to Belfast via the city centre – is considered a crucial part of connecting people and places in a growing Greater Christchurch.

During peak hours, a mode of mass rapid transit would arrive at the 21 stops every five minutes, or every 10 minutes at other times. A commute from Hornby to the central city using would take 21 minutes, or 19 minutes from Belfast.

Phase two of a mass rapid transit route would link Hornby to Belfast by light rail or metro bus.

At the Friday meeting, the committee endorsed an indicative business case for the mass rapid transit system and, subject to funding approval, asked for a detailed business case to be investigated.

The business case recommended either light rail, costing around $4 billion, or a metro bus system, at $3b, as the mode of mass rapid transit along the 22km corridor.

For comparison, it could cost more than $4.4b to finish the Central Rail Link, a 3.5km stretch of light rail in Auckland.

The business case said Christchurch’s mass rapid transit would return more value than it would cost to build and run.

Construction could begin within a decade, but timelines could change depending on what came of the business case, the ongoing public transport futures programme and changes to the spatial plan following consultation.

Making it happen, however, would involve strategic land purchases at key intersections and stations, and the removal of some parking on streets.

Carey Ewing, director of community organisation Te Whare Awhero in Hornby, said significant investment in the community would be warmly welcomed, but there was a sense that there was “a bit of a catch-up to do”.

He said busy transport infrastructure made parts of the area challenging to live in and there were concerns about safety and efficiency.

Ewing thought high density housing along main transport networks could be an issue, “because big trucks don’t always live nicely with young families”.

Christchurch city councillor Mark Peters said Hornby’s roading infrastructure was “groaning at the seams”, and would be a significant challenge to address.

However, he said Hornby becoming Greater Christchurch’s second most important service centre was “a natural evolution.”

“Hornby has been a key industrial hub on the edge of the city, [iti is] the first major retail hub you come to when coming from the Selwyn district … a logical landing point in the west.”

He was excited about future developments, but urged there to be more green spaces and canopy cover to go with it so Hornby didn’t become “a concrete jungle”.

Public consultation on the spatial plan begins in mid-June.