Posts by Angus Robertson
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Josh,
Head slap moment, I have been a bit thick. Of course having two ends pointed south will double the capacity of trains from the south, because they can come in both ends. Unless there was demand for 20 trains from the Shore that extension would not increase capacity by an equivalent amount.
Second half of above comment still applies though - how can you reduce car travel by increasing the intensity of an urban centre whose predominant modes of access are motorways?
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Josh,
Let's say we build a North Shore Line. Then we can continue some of those trains through to the North Shore, but that doesn't help us get that many more trains to Britomart from the south, west and eastern lines. In fact, 20 trains in is about one every three minutes and it's not possible to run trains at frequencies too much higher than that. Would we want all 20 going to the North Shore? I doubt it, which means we'll still have to turn around a large number of trains.
But once any train has got to Britomart its effectiveness for any peak period is effectively over and there is no point in turning it around.
In Auckland we have a rush of just over 2 hours each morning and afternoon. We need to maximise transportation at these times, during the rest of the day the trains run less than 1/4 full. So during peak hours we need to maximise capacity to the City. The rest of the time is adequately covered by current services.
You suggest this peak capacity is best achieved by sending trains looping back to Swanson or Papakura, but each of those is a round trip of 2 hours. The rolling stock can only make 1 trip in the right direction and 1 in the wrong direction each. And you'd end up with all the peak hour trains sitting at points south of the city (Otahuhu) when the afternoon rush starts.
I suggest the exact same increase in capacity could be had by sending trains through to the Shore. And because the trains will end up parked north of the city they are then well positioned when it comes to moving the bulk of people south or west in the evening.
What the CBD rail tunnel does so well is provide two ways in which trains from the west, south, east and Onehunga (read: Airport in the future) can access Britomart and the CBD. They can either access via the existing tracks from the east, or they can access from the new portal around Mt Eden. My preferred service pattern would link the west and south lines together, and link the east and airport lines together. How that would work is shown in this post.
The other thing a CBD rail tunnel does so well is make the CBD a much nicer place to work. It will allow intensification of land usage as much of the transit load will be removed from city streets, which have become a lot more crowded recently with the building of high rise apartment blocks where each of the residents have there own car (they need their own car because this is Auckland where large swathes of the city are almost bereft of PT). A rail tunnel under the CBD will mean more jobs in the CBD which would be a very good thing in a city with an effective centralised PT system, but this is Auckland which does not have an effective PT system.
This is Auckland where 225,000 people living in an extremely close physical location to the CBD are forced to use an 8 lane motorway to get there. So what do you think will happen when we intensify jobs in the city? Will it equate to more or less usage of the bridge? How is it justifiable to highly intensify CBD employment when a full half (or more) of Auckland can only gain access by motorways?
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Our dishwasher doesn't seem to have a 'poach' setting, Angus (that will teach us to to buy cheap appliances). What do you recommend?
Lots of very well wrapped about tin foil, otherwise the coffee starts tasting of salmon.
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How does that increase the number of trains on other lines that can use Britomart, though?
It mostly doesn't.
However in each scenario you have an equivalent pattern. One stream of trains approaching from the east to disembark their passengers before departing to the west with another stream of trains doing the same thing going the other way. This pattern (irrespective of where the rail actually goes) gives a doubling of Auckland rail capacity, alleviating the choke point that is the Britomart dead end.
An inner city loop is cheaper and a Northshore line will be able to mitigate a traffic jam that has occured daily for the last 30 years. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
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$2000 for a dishwasher? I hope it cooks breakfast!
Poached salmon.
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Also, how would a rail loop encourage people who can't use it to the CBD?
By make getting around the CBD a lot easier, by providing transport that doesn't rely on crowded city streets, you make the CBD a more attractive place to be.
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Only if it links back to the Western Line, though. Otherwise it's just two tracks going to a single line that doesn't link to any other part of the network.
Or it is double tracked all the way out to Albany (long skinny loop) or forms a branched loop somewhere on the Shore (Albany & Takapuna loop).
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Whilst we're here what is the bigger problem with Aucklands traffic?
Excuse me it I am incorrect again, but I have always assumed that the biggest congestion problem with Auckland stemmed from the proximity of the CBD (with its rush hour) to both the port and SH1/the bridge which are vital to commerce. There are many possible solutions to this including moving jobs out of the CBD, putting in a second harbour crossing to primarily take either commercial or rush hour traffic and moving the port.
What I don't see as a solution is further intensifying the amount of employment in the central city, without doing any of the other stuff first. This proposed subway loop will increase the capacity of the rail network to handle commuters from the South and West (which is a good thing), but it also attracts more people to work in the CBD and some of these people will be commuters from the Shore or East Tamaki. These people cannot access rail services so will make the bigger problem worse by commuting in cars or on buses.
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Matthew,
...tunnelling solely to get to the Shore simply means that it doesn't take that third, but it also doesn't add to the existing lines.
Tunneling westward makes sense because rail would need to follow the northern motorway and that means crossing to Birkenhead which is west of Britomart. This would double the number of tracks out of Britomart and thus double the capacity with this new capacity coming from the Northshore.
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Ben,
You're talking about a whole new train line, going from South to West? Is there a proven demand for this?
I mean like people would go to a stop at Mt Eden/Grafton and then link bus into the city and yes I do think there might be some demand for commuting to the city. (Plus if I've got this right a tunnel would require an extended station at Mt Eden/Grafton anyways.)
It comes from me looking at the existing rail network and back of the envelope seeing what could be utilised for cheap additional capacity? If you can see another way of obtaining more capacity the existing rail network better then I'd go with that instead.
Andrea,What makes you so convinced that it would be a failure?
A supercity is a big diverse electorate, most of whom cannot access the rail network and will be asked to pay for this anyways. That isn't going to go over well with them. So this needs to be either rammed through over their objections or they need to be involved into rail with a network they can access.
Got to go play sport now, it has been a good informed debate and I do now think a tunnel would be a good feature of an extended Auckland rail network. You've convinced me of that much, but still think it is a chancey step to take right now.