Media Articles

[eurokiwi78]

Interesting article on scoop, i agree wholeheartedly with the issue.

Complete denial:” Wellington’s unique and unresolved transport problems
December 29, 20140 comments
by Brent Efford
Many Wellington citizens are concerned about combatting the ‘roads of national significance’, adapting to a post-carbon future, and providing a real transport choice for car commuters.

Just because it has at last undergone a long-overdue renewal of its rolling stock, the Regional Council likes to kid Wellingtonians that our urban rail transit system is now “world class”. It isn’t – in fact our railway fails to be a real transport choice for most because it lacks that most essential of attributes: continuous rail services which traverse the dense CBD. This deficiency, and the lack of any intention to fix it, is internationally almost unique, and leads to rail use being about half of what it could be.

Whatever its political form, “Wellington” is functionally a metropolis of nearly half a million, very highly focussed on its CBD (c 50% of regional employment, and most other travel-generating activities). Some 75% of the population lives north of the Railway Station and when they choose to drive (the incentives for which increase enormously due to the ‘roads of national significance’ programme) they cause the congestion which is the excuse for further road building, flyovers, tunnels etc – and the consequent under-investment in providing real (sustainable) transport choices.

(Greater) Wellington is one of the most constrained and ‘channelled’ metropolitan areas in the world: a CBD in a strip around a single designated main street (the Golden Mile), bounded by hills and harbour, only about 5 blocks wide and 2 km long. The CBD is very dense – not quite ‘Hong Kong’, but certainly in western terms and proportional to the overall metro density, and the site of the metro area’s fastest-growing residential area.

This extraordinary CBD is connected to its hinterland by an equally extraordinary single corridor for both private and public transport only about 100m wide. This bifurcates into only two corridors with parallel motorway and rail routes for the remainder of the metropolis and land transport beyond. This situation is a product of unalterable geography and won’t change; only the density of the feeds into the transport spine will change – forecast to be up (in the case of road) and down (in the case of rail) after the RONS projects are completed.

There are also important traffic centres on the other (south) side of the CBD: regional hospital, the airport (in most cities the airport is the target destination for rail transit) and growing employment and residential areas.

I don’t know of ANY metropolis in the world which has similar constraints and geographical circumstances. Certainly I know of no other with such propitious circumstances for the development of unbroken electric rail as its PT spine and indeed this has been a recurrent aim for 135 years (vide my ‘Rail penetration of the Wellington CBD: the search for Solutions’ conference presentation).

Bizarrely, despite the above, Wellington is also one of the most motorised metro areas. First in the world for motorway length per resident, and third for the provision of CBD parking, according to Prof Peter Newman. Yet the policy makers are insistent on increasing both motor metrics, while leaving the reach of rail unchanged. This is the nub of the issue.

Wellington is also the only metropolis that I know of with a rail transit system which doesn’t penetrate its CBD and officially regards this as an acceptable permanent state of affairs. We all know about the political support and priority which is being given to overcoming Auckland’s identical issue in contrast to complete denial in Wellington.

Brent Efford has a background of over 30 years of (mainly, light) rail advocacy, including being a co-author of the 1992 seminal Superlink report, a Winston Churchill Fellowship and other overseas study tours and conferences and currently being closely in touch with multiple overseas light rail advocates and other sources, producing an emailed newsletter KiwiTram and being both the NZ Agent of the Light Rail Transit Association and Information Officer of Trams-Action (the remnant of Transport 2000 which produced Superlink etc.)

[KiwiRob]

This is a bit of misreporting as well. I though any half decent journalist would have known Wellington has been all electric forever.

Wellington rail is undergoing a transition to electrification and is expected to complete its transition to Hyundai Rotem's Matangi electric trains by late 2016.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news ... d=11380019

[Daniel]

Interesting article on scoop, i agree wholeheartedly with the issue.

Complete denial:” Wellington’s unique and unresolved transport problems
December 29, 20140 comments
by Brent Efford
Many Wellington citizens are concerned about combatting the ‘roads of national significance’, adapting to a post-carbon future, and providing a real transport choice for car commuters.

Just because it has at last undergone a long-overdue renewal of its rolling stock, the Regional Council likes to kid Wellingtonians that our urban rail transit system is now “world class”. It isn’t – in fact our railway fails to be a real transport choice for most because it lacks that most essential of attributes: continuous rail services which traverse the dense CBD. This deficiency, and the lack of any intention to fix it, is internationally almost unique, and leads to rail use being about half of what it could be.

Whatever its political form, “Wellington” is functionally a metropolis of nearly half a million, very highly focussed on its CBD (c 50% of regional employment, and most other travel-generating activities). Some 75% of the population lives north of the Railway Station and when they choose to drive (the incentives for which increase enormously due to the ‘roads of national significance’ programme) they cause the congestion which is the excuse for further road building, flyovers, tunnels etc – and the consequent under-investment in providing real (sustainable) transport choices.

(Greater) Wellington is one of the most constrained and ‘channelled’ metropolitan areas in the world: a CBD in a strip around a single designated main street (the Golden Mile), bounded by hills and harbour, only about 5 blocks wide and 2 km long. The CBD is very dense – not quite ‘Hong Kong’, but certainly in western terms and proportional to the overall metro density, and the site of the metro area’s fastest-growing residential area.

This extraordinary CBD is connected to its hinterland by an equally extraordinary single corridor for both private and public transport only about 100m wide. This bifurcates into only two corridors with parallel motorway and rail routes for the remainder of the metropolis and land transport beyond. This situation is a product of unalterable geography and won’t change; only the density of the feeds into the transport spine will change – forecast to be up (in the case of road) and down (in the case of rail) after the RONS projects are completed.

There are also important traffic centres on the other (south) side of the CBD: regional hospital, the airport (in most cities the airport is the target destination for rail transit) and growing employment and residential areas.

I don’t know of ANY metropolis in the world which has similar constraints and geographical circumstances. Certainly I know of no other with such propitious circumstances for the development of unbroken electric rail as its PT spine and indeed this has been a recurrent aim for 135 years (vide my ‘Rail penetration of the Wellington CBD: the search for Solutions’ conference presentation).

Bizarrely, despite the above, Wellington is also one of the most motorised metro areas. First in the world for motorway length per resident, and third for the provision of CBD parking, according to Prof Peter Newman. Yet the policy makers are insistent on increasing both motor metrics, while leaving the reach of rail unchanged. This is the nub of the issue.

Wellington is also the only metropolis that I know of with a rail transit system which doesn’t penetrate its CBD and officially regards this as an acceptable permanent state of affairs. We all know about the political support and priority which is being given to overcoming Auckland’s identical issue in contrast to complete denial in Wellington.

Brent Efford has a background of over 30 years of (mainly, light) rail advocacy, including being a co-author of the 1992 seminal Superlink report, a Winston Churchill Fellowship and other overseas study tours and conferences and currently being closely in touch with multiple overseas light rail advocates and other sources, producing an emailed newsletter KiwiTram and being both the NZ Agent of the Light Rail Transit Association and Information Officer of Trams-Action (the remnant of Transport 2000 which produced Superlink etc.)

This guy Brent Efford is this loony-toon who's been trying to push for Wellington to convert to tram-trains for about 20 years.

He calls Wellington a "metropolis", doesn't that say it all?
Not trying to belittle Wellington or anything, but look at its actual population. Erm "nearly half a million"?! Not quite...

[john-ston]

Not trying to belittle Wellington or anything, but look at its actual population. Erm "nearly half a million"?! Not quite...

Although with a CBD workforce of nearly 100,000, Wellington behaves a lot more like a city twice or three times its size.

[Andrew]

The writer totally stated his lack of knowledge in the first sentence: 'adapting to a post carbon future'! What complete and utter nonsense. Our transport future will still be built around carbon for the next century at least. There is an abundance of oil located but not even planned to be extracted yet. Try the huge deposits in forner Soviet republics, Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia for a start. Why would any country reject this cheap source of fuel? They won't.

Much can be done to improve Wellingtons transport through the CBD with what is already there. Has this guy Brent ever actually used the public transport system ? I'm guessing not as if he had he would identify the greatest problem. It's poor planning in the buses travelling from the station through the CBD. The simple and cost free change to limited stops from the station to Courtney Place would revolutionize the system.

At present EVERY bus stops at EVERY bus stop . Crazy, slow and a major contributor to congestion along this route. The other is the idiocy if running services like the bizzarly named 'Flyer' (which is anything but). This and other services parallel the rail services to the detriment of both.

[eurokiwi78]

Much can be done to improve Wellingtons transport through the CBD with what is already there. Has this guy Brent ever actually used the public transport system ? I'm guessing not as if he had he would identify the greatest problem. It's poor planning in the buses travelling from the station through the CBD. The simple and cost free change to limited stops from the station to Courtney Place would revolutionize the system.

At present EVERY bus stops at EVERY bus stop . Crazy, slow and a major contributor to congestion along this route. The other is the idiocy if running services like the bizzarly named 'Flyer' (which is anything but). This and other services parallel the rail services to the detriment of both.

Ive got to agree with that, every once in a while when the buses get diverted along the quays for roadworks or special events what normally takes upto 18 min from courtenay place to the railway station takes about five or six.

Id like to see fulltime buslanes along the quays, chaffers & blair for all the newlands/mana services, airport flyer, eastbourne buses etc, with only one or two stops. Plus free transfers and an easy connection between them and rail adjacent the bluebridge terminal. At the same time id build a bridge or subway to link the waterfront to the station, crossing the defacto motorway is a pita.

The removal of probably a good ten - twelve buses an hour along the golden mile would ease congestion for all those buses a little bit whilst providing a frequent enough service for transfers between rail & bus.

[greenwelly]

Capital train crashes into tree

and

Wellington commuters stuck on crashed train

I'm really beginng to dispair over Stuff's headline writers,

I'm pretty sure that the train has not lept off its tracks and collided with a stationary tree...
and I'm fairly sure that the train while disabled is still majorly intact

[grunter]

Capital train crashes into tree

and

Wellington commuters stuck on crashed train

I'm really beginng to dispair over Stuff's headline writers,

I'm pretty sure that the train has not lept off its tracks and collided with a stationary tree...
and I'm fairly sure that the train while disabled is still majorly intact

I'm fairly sure that the article does not say that the train lept of the tracks and crashed into a tree- but it has crashed into a tree. As such it is a crashed train, and pending power safety proceedures, passengers were stuck on it. The headlines are not wrong.

[eurokiwi78]

News from FIT Wellington and Generation Zero
A proposal to help reduce traffic congestion around the Basin Reserve and also provide rapid public transport from the Railway Station to the Airport is being presented to the Regional Transport Committee today.

Making sure we get Fair Intelligent Transport for Wellington is the aim of a group of Wellington professionals who want to see a change in the dominant ‘private motor vehicle culture’. We want to live in a healthy, safe and vibrant city designed for people, not cars. We want a reliable, low-cost, fast and convenient public transport system that takes people where they want, when they want and will complement better walking and cycling facilities.

“FIT Wellington in collaboration with Generation Zero, has concluded that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal will be a waste of money; it will not go to the airport; it will not be rapid; Lambton Quay will be even more congested; it will not reduce emissions; it will not cope with expected passenger growth” said Michael Barnett, FIT Wellington convenor.

“FIT Wellington has proposed an alternative light rail (tram) system from the station via the hospital, to Kilbirnie and the airport. The proposal is described in a report released to regional mayors today (8th September). This tram proposal will significantly reduce bus congestion along the Golden Mile and around the Basin Reserve; reduce emissions; offer great passenger growth potential; and is affordable. It complements the important ‘do-them-now’ bus improvements already proposed for the Golden Mile.”

“If we start planning now, we could have a world-class light rail tram service between the Railway Station, via the Hospital, to the Airport by 2030, for an estimated cost as low as $450 million” said Mr Barnett.

The FIT Wellington study of tram systems around the world has shown that cost estimates and assumptions presented in the Public Transport Spine Study were inaccurate and are no longer appropriate.

An outline of the proposal, including several options routes, can be viewed here.

Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz

[MacRiada]

Second train fatality on Christmas Eve
A second person has been killed by a train on Christmas Eve in the lower North Island. The person died after being hit by a train on the Kapiti line, between Mana and Paremata north of Wellington at about midday on Thursday.

This is the second train death on the day before Christmas, with another dying in the early hours of the morning after being hit by a train near Palmerston North.


At 12.30pm police said they were still investigating the cause of the accident. Kiwirail spokesperson Julie Buchanan said all train services between Mana and Paremata had been replaced by buses while emergency services inspected the incident. Trains were running between Porirua and Wellington, but passengers should expect delays on the Kapiti Line. The fatality happened just south of Pascoe Ave, and not at a rail crossing, she said. "It was seen as a trespass, they were on the tracks where they shouldn't be." The train driver had been let off work "immediately" and was going to be given counselling.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ne ... istmas-eve

It is a summary offence to trespass on the rail corridors, why are the police not up holding the law?

If they did their job, these people might still be alive.

[scooter]

Second train fatality on Christmas Eve
A second person has been killed by a train on Christmas Eve in the lower North Island. The person died after being hit by a train on the Kapiti line, between Mana and Paremata north of Wellington at about midday on Thursday.

This is the second train death on the day before Christmas, with another dying in the early hours of the morning after being hit by a train near Palmerston North.


At 12.30pm police said they were still investigating the cause of the accident. Kiwirail spokesperson Julie Buchanan said all train services between Mana and Paremata had been replaced by buses while emergency services inspected the incident. Trains were running between Porirua and Wellington, but passengers should expect delays on the Kapiti Line. The fatality happened just south of Pascoe Ave, and not at a rail crossing, she said. "It was seen as a trespass, they were on the tracks where they shouldn't be." The train driver had been let off work "immediately" and was going to be given counselling.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ne ... istmas-eve

It is a summary offence to trespass on the rail corridors, why are the police not up holding the law?

If they did their job, these people might still be alive.

1) What makes you think this person might want to still be alive? Suicide by train is an unfortunate reality, and given the time of year and the age of the deceased I'd venture this was no accident on his part as sad as that might seem. I know that stretch of line well and to be hit where he has takes an effort to get there

2) Police have far more pressing concerns than to be patrolling the rail corridor

[DFT7008]

This is a bit of misreporting as well. I though any half decent journalist would have known Wellington has been all electric forever.

Wellington rail is undergoing a transition to electrification and is expected to complete its transition to Hyundai Rotem's Matangi electric trains by late 2016.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news ... d=11380019

I had thought that for a short time they did have steam suburban services to Johnsonville just after the line further north was shut

[john-ston]

I had thought that for a short time they did have steam suburban services to Johnsonville just after the line further north was shut

It would have been for over a year between 19 June 1937 (when the Tawa Flat deviation was fully opened) and 2 July 1938 (when electric train services started).

[Flippikat]

Hmm.. interesting alternative route for light rail. Thoughts, anyone?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/996637 ... light-rail

[pete]

What advantages would Light Rail offer. Trams were scrapped all over the world for very good reasons. They lack flexibility, are capital expensive and so slooooooow (when on the road). They disrupt traffic and and .... need I go on?

Better in my opinion to use something like Londons Boris Bus when heavy rail is not an option.

[locost_bryan]

What advantages would Light Rail offer. Trams were scrapped all over the world for very good reasons. They lack flexibility, are capital expensive and so slooooooow (when on the road). They disrupt traffic and and .... need I go on?

Better in my opinion to use something like Londons Boris Bus when heavy rail is not an option.

Have a look at Melbourne Tram Route 19. At 10.2km, it's about the same distance as Wellington railway station to Wellington airport. Google maps says it takes 30 minutes by tram and 29 minutes to drive via the M2. Admittedly, other Melbourne tram routes can take up to double the driving time, but Melbourne buses aren't any faster.