The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

22 Jan 2019

The case of the missing cross-town bus

Last year the New Network for the North Shore went live. Curiously, something is missing. These are the frequent bus routes on the lower North Shore, overlaid on the Unitary Plan map.

Unitary plan map *1, with frequent bus routes superimposed.

The New Network for the North Shore isn’t particularly strong on being a network. The frequent lines consist of 2 completely separate trees, joined up only at Victoria Park across the harbour.

It is clear we have a case of missing crosstown buses here.

The frequent network side note

The lines above are only those which are part so-called ‘frequent services’. Bus lines where during a substantial part of every day a bus will show up at least every 15 minutes. This is an important distinction for a raft of reasons, most notably that you (1) don’t have to plan around the schedule, and (2) it limits the fallout of missing a connection.

Being restricted to a bus every half hour, or worse, every hour, is a serious limitation for people who can’t drive. Imagine a gate on your driveway which you can open only once every hour *2.

The case of the Birkenhead–Takapuna crosstown

This crosstown would neatly tie together a few destinations:

Birkenhead

This is self-explanatory, and anyone living there will have noticed the apartments going up in the area. (a few quite infamously under a recent land slip).

Northcote

I’ve marked a big orange blob on the Unitary Plan map with a question mark. That is Northcote. The orange and brown means a lot of higher density housing is encouraged in this area. In other words, they’re trying to conjure a major town centre over there.

That higher density housing often results in groups of townhouses covering almost the entire lot in houses and parking. It is not easy to design anything nice with the de facto parking minimum of 2 parking spaces per dwelling, which you get in areas without much alternative transport options.

Why can’t we have a big blob of brown on an actual frequent bus line? *4

Smales Farm

Currently an infernally car-dominated suburban office park. It is also where you can catch the Northern Express. You currently have no meaningful access to the NEX from much of the area west of it.

Takapuna

Takapuna, the main ‘Metropolitan Centre’ of the lower North Shore. You can see on that map above it is not reachable by frequent bus from many nearby areas. It just so happens, to much consternation at Greater Auckland, that a new Big Parking Building is planned.

If you want a Metropolitan Centre, it is a smart idea to make sure people can easily reach it. One way or another.

❦

There is a strong case for having this crosstown service.

Maybe the density currently is ‘too low’ to justify such a service. But spot the apartments being built in Birkenhead and Takapuna. Consider it leading infrastructure, like the new big roads anticipating development further out.

(*1)

In full that is the “Auckland Unitary Plan Operative in part planning maps”.

(*2)

Jarrett Walker made this comparison in his Transit Ridership Recipe.

(*3)

This mirrors the old 976 Birkenhead–Takapuna route, which was there, but with a headway of more than 15 minutes. There are a few alternative routes, it could for instance go via Pupuke Road.

The shape of the little Smales Farm detour is intentional. It is needlessly stupid and slow to have a detour to Taharoto Road between Smales Farm and Northcote Road.

(*4)

Open the map of the deprivation index and spot the coincidence in this area.