North Shore bus way
North Shore’s new bus way got off to a mostly positive start this week (although the Herald’s highly scientific evidence was less than affirming). The Auckland Regional Council is predicting that the bus way will take over 2000 vehicles off the northern motorway during rush-hour.
I feel kind of sorry for the North Shore cyclists who are not allowed on the new bus freeway. As a Wellingtonian there’s not too much more fun to had at peak hour than hurtling down a green busway with a stiff Wellington breeze at your back, all the banked up traffic to your right watching you skim by, and a Number 3 Karori-Lyall Bay bus chasing from behind, bearing down on you. Luckily buses have to stop regularly for bus stops so our audience of beached cars always misses out on the impending ‘splat’.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I am all in favour of bus lanes, if it gets more cars off the road and makes my journey (by private car) quicker then bring it on.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Ditto.
Can’t see a problem with bikes on them, either. You would have thought it would have been easy to add a bike lane at the side.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:21 am
From the photos it could have been a couple of metres narrower without any trouble - the “break down lane” is not wide enough to park a bus in, making it a bit redundant. And that, boys’n'girls, would leave room for a one-way bike lane
I don’t like the idea of letting taxis or bikes into the bus way. In Sydney there are a few busways and those are closed to all traffic except buses. Moore Park is one, there’s a bigger one in Western Sydney somewhere. They work really, really well, I used to use the Moore Park one every now and then and it was always the fastest part of the journey.
Adding bikes would be really, really ugly. Bikes are faster than rush hour traffic, sure, but the whole point of the busway is that buses to 80kph+ on it. Bikes can’t do that, so they’d just stuff it up for everyone. Much as I’d like to be able to use it, it just doesn’t work.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am
>the whole point of the busway is that buses to 80kph+ on it. Bikes can’t do that, so they’d just stuff it up for everyone
Mine can. But then it does have an engine… and I’m not allowed on the bus lane either, despite being a relatively low carbon footprint, high-occupancy vehicle
The problem with bicycles on the busway is you’d have to get them over the bridge somehow. Short of a majorly expensive bridge overhaul, I don’t see this as a solution. More value could be gained by decentralising Auckland and stimulating the development of commercial centres in the suburbs. (I live on the Shore, work in the city. Although I could find a job closer to home it would pay a fraction of what a city job does.)
This would also help those among us who aren’t up to a 50km/day cycle to work and back! Besides, even if I could do it, cycling in would at least double my travel time, plus shower time etc. Bicycles are great, but don’t solve everyone’s travel problems.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Rainman, is that really true? Most motorbikes I’ve seen get crappy mileage compared to a decent car full of people. If you’re the sort of selfish wanker that can’t bear to cooperate with others, then yes, your motorbike is one of the least awful ways to get to work. But since I’m sure you’re not, public transport beats your motorbike hands down as far as the environment is concerned. For speed and convenience the motorbike is hard to beat. FWIW, the most I’ve ever ridden every day is only 30km, and that made a fair dent in my spare time - two hours a day on the bike. These days I’d probably go electric assist on a recumbent bike, so I could cruise at 40-50kph on the flat straight bits. That’s still cheaper than most motorbikes plus I can park it at my desk.
Getting bicycles into Auckland CBD is one more reason why I don’t live in Auckland. I’ve visited for a few weeks at a time twice and been thoroughly frustrated at the difficulty of getting around, even when staying with cyclists. Their visits to Christchurch and Sydney have been eye-opening. Sydney is not great, but compared to Auckland… it’s bearable.
Decentralisation has proved nigh on impossible everywhere as it goes against what draws people to cities - the non-linear benefits of scale that cities provide. Unfortunately people who don’t need those benefits often pay for them anyway… I work right in the centre of Sydney for a company with no customers in Australia. If we were on a railway line 30 minutes away everything would be cheaper and easier for almost everyone involved, but the boss would not have a prestige office to manage his other investments from. So it’s ego-effective and somewhat tax-effective for him to rent an office for 20 people here instead of in (say) Hornsby or Strathfield. Unfortunately we are relocating to Ryde, where public transport means buses and we still haven’t found anyone who likes working there. Everyone apologises or commiserates…
February 6th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Although the Herald’s survey wasn’t scientific it did produce the same results that scientific surveys of public transport almost always find. The time spent exposed to the elements at each end of the journey and the stress caused by the unpredictability of the service outweigh the health benefits and small amount of time saved for most people. The latter point challenges the belief that congestion is a major problem.
On the other hand, the ARC’s claim that the bus way will take over 2000 vehicles off the northern motorway during rush-hour doesn’t even make any pretence at being scientific. Wishfull thinking at it’s purest. The only bit that has a scientific basis is the assumption that each of the seventy buses an hour will be half full of former car travellers and half full of existing bus travellers. Surveys on Australian busways have found 50/50 split of passengers. Scientific studies have found that rapid transit has exactly the same impact on peak congestion that adding extra lanes would have. After a few weeks or months enough of the drivers who have been avoiding the motorway during the rush-hour will have changed their travel behaviour in response to the initial reduction in congestion that rush-hour congestion will be as bad as ever. Congestion on alternative routes will be slightly less and so will congestion in the hour before rush-hour.
It is a park and ride scheme and thus eliminates only the least environmentally unfriendly portion of those car journeys - the bit when engines and cats have warmed up and are using half as much fuel and producing one-fifth the amount of NOX.
To make matters worse, the busway is definitely among the five most expensive highway projects per metre of roadway in New Zealand’s history. Ten times more expensive than adding two extra lanes to the motorway and only 20% cheaper than the Otira Viaduct. The viaduct may have delivered even greater environmental benefits than the busway due to the transfer of traffic from the Lewis to Arthurs highways, as evidenced by state highway traffic counts. Due to the nature of the zig-zag, replacing it with the viaduct improved fuel consumption Darfield and Kumara by 1% even though the highway distance was reduced by just 0.5%
February 6th, 2008 at 3:42 am
It would be a nonsense to let cyclists onto it given that it feeds onto the Harbour Bridge, which cannot take bikes either (and retrofitting the bridge is not at all practicable, bike and walkway will have to await a new harbour crossing). The busway should be a tollway for other traffic, priced at a level that maintain free flow conditions, this would not negatively affect the bus performance, but would save time, fuel, emissions for vehicles on high value journeys (and reduce congestion on the parallel free lanes).
February 6th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
frog, I can only presume you have not actually seen the busway if you suggest bikes should be allowed on it. It is not a bus lane, as you describe bikes using in Wellington. It is a specialised road designed for high speed transport, with no exits only stations. It’s more like a light rail track (except it is a road and not a railway).
libertyscott’s suggestion of opening it up to general traffic is equally non-sensical given its’ design. Yes, toll lanes would reduce congestion as would multiple occupant lanes as work in Sydney, but the busway could not be a toll lane, it is too specialised a design - it is not extra lanes at the side of the motorway as libertyscotts post seems to suggest.
I’d like to see bike buses though, which would solve the problem of getting bikes across the harbour bridge. In San Francisco the buses have a rack on the radiator grill at the front of the bus that you can hang your bike on, but they only take one bike per bus. I’d like to see buses with a whole section where 8 or 10 bike racks could be fitted.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
stuey,
libertyscott has pretty much got it sussed.
http://www.busway.co.nz/index.php/The_busway/HOVS
February 6th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Moz: “Most motorbikes I’ve seen get crappy mileage compared to a decent car full of people”.
Sorry for the late reply - I missed your comment first time round.
I suppose it depends on how decent the “car full” is. My bike is a medium sized cruiser (I don’t own a car so I chose one I could use both for commuting and for long distance trips) and I’m getting a bit over 4.5l/100km when commuting - and it’s a 10 year old bike not particularly tuned for economy. That probably compares badly to a medium car with 5 occupants, but would kick a one-occupant SUV into touch - and I see a lot of those on the motorway each day, trickling along at 20km/h or less. Total emissions-wise, I’m confident I’d beat most cars as my trip only takes half the time or less.
My previous bike was a little 250 and that was about twice as good as my current bike. Some 150cc scooters get down to 1.5l/100km, I believe. Of course, a 1800cc cruiser, or a litre sports bike ridden by someone with an enthusiastic wrist, will both be crap consumption-wise.
I’ve been trying to find bus fuel economy stats but can’t find anything definitive. I suppose a full bus will be pretty good per passenger, and the busway will minimise the number of stops, but suburban routes must surely be quite poor with all the stopping and starting. Those things are heavy. Anyone know of any NZ studies on bus fuel efficiency?
And, to your other points: no, I’m not a selfish wanker (well, not about transport, anyway
) and did catch the bus on a regular basis until I took a job that required me to be mobile cross-town on at least an intermittent basis. That is still not practical with Auckland’s public transport system, and taxis just cost too much.
And good luck with that Sydney thing - rather you than me. Hate the place. (Although the trains are pretty good).
“These days I’d probably go electric assist on a recumbent bike”. Sounds interesting, didn’t know those were commercially available. Can you point me to manufacturers?
February 6th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Are comments on this blog moderated? I’ve just posted a response to moz but it hasn’t showed up. When I try to post again it gets picked up as a dupe by wordpress. What gives?
February 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
There is some filtering and moderation to try to keep spam out and comments from offending in American idiom. Some pretty nasty NZ idiom gets to slide. The inclusion of too many links also triggers the filters. I don’t know all the details but the filtering is mostly automatic and you have to wait for someone to clear the filtered traffic to see your post.
It catches all of us once in a while. Some more than others.
We’ll just have to wait a little while.
BJ
February 7th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Thanks BJ. I think the most filterable things in my post are quotes and they got through OK earlier, so I would assume that’s not the problem. No links either. Perhaps I should post it para by para and see where it sticks…
February 7th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Here goes, first part of post:
Moz: “Most motorbikes I’ve seen get crappy mileage compared to a decent car full of people”.
I suppose it depends on how decent the “car full” is. My bike is a medium sized cruiser (I don’t own a car so I chose one I could use both for commuting and for long distance trips) and I’m getting a bit over 4.5l/100km when commuting - and it’s a 10 year old bike not particularly tuned for economy. That probably compares badly to a medium car with 5 occupants, but would kick a one-occupant SUV into touch - and I see a lot of those on the motorway each day, trickling along at 20km/h or less. Total emissions-wise, I’m confident I’d beat most cars as my trip only takes half the time or less.
My previous bike was a little 250 and that was about twice as good as my current bike. Some 150cc scooters get down to 1.5l/100km, I believe. Of course, a 1800cc cruiser, or a litre sports bike ridden by someone with an enthusiastic wrist, will both be lousy consumption-wise.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:26 am
So far so good, here’s the second half:
I’ve been trying to find bus fuel economy stats but can’t find anything definitive. I suppose a full bus will be pretty good per passenger, and the busway will minimise the number of stops, but suburban routes must surely be quite poor with all the stopping and starting. Those things are heavy. Anyone know of any NZ studies on bus fuel efficiency?
And, to your other points: no, I’m not a selfish w*nker (well, not about transport, anyway
) and did catch the bus on a regular basis until I took a job that required me to be mobile cross-town on at least an intermittent basis. That is still not practical with Auckland’s public transport system, and taxis just cost too much.
And good luck with that Sydney thing - rather you than me. Hate the place. (Although the trains are pretty good).
“These days I’d probably go electric assist on a recumbent bike”. Sounds interesting, didn’t know those were commercially available. Can you point me to manufacturers?
February 7th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Mysterious. Ah well, got there in the end. Hope my other copies don’t come through now… if they do, I apologise in advance!
February 7th, 2008 at 3:01 am
rainman, The only bus fuel economy figures I have been able to find are from the US. Converted to imperial gallons they range between 2mpg and 4mpg depending on the route characteristics, such as hilly or flat, urban or CBD. They all have a/c and some are bendy buses.
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/rclean/images/cainit/davis.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/fleettest/pdfs/38158.pdf
By comparison Commodore sized cars generally achieve between 15mpg and 20mpg for the Federal cold start urban cycle fuel economy test. Thus a bus needs to carry five people for every mile travelled to match the fuel efficiency of a single occupant car. According to Ecan Christchurch buses average 16 passengers per trip (both inbound and outbound), but only half these passengers would have travelled by car had the bus not been available. Thus each bus trip removes eight cars from the roads. But without knowing the average length of the bus passengers trips it is impossible to measure the actual fuel reduction. If the average passenger trip is half of the route length then there is actually a fuel increase compared with SOV commuting, based on the fuel economy differences given at the start of the paragraph.
I think marginal utility theory would argue that if the buses are running to meet a socio-economic need then only the increase in fuel use due to the extra weight of each additional passenger would be taken into account. Thus the bus is always more economical than all of the cars it displaces.
But if you’re looking for a silver bullet solution to AGW then buses aren’t it. At least not till peak oil prices people out of their cars - and the busway is converted to a trolleybusway
February 7th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Although this might be that magic bullet.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0705-bus_of_the_future.htm
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/success/lightweight_ buses.pdf
February 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Never liked conventional buses much. ELECTRIC buses are a different thing entirely. Also a bus has the size and mass to carry a real H2 system, or even run on wood-pellet fired steam for that matter. Things that are very difficult for a car to carry and run are easier for the larger dedicated use vehicle.
Then again… my daughter likes horses.
respectfully
BJ
February 7th, 2008 at 6:50 am
So THAT’S where the DeLorean engineers went
February 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Thank you Kevyn, in fact if I remember correctly some of the original benefit/cost analysis of the busway saw it having great benefits, but only if it also was an HOV facility. I’d rather it was a tolled than HOV, as evidence of HOV lanes changing behaviour is low, and on many US HOV lanes they are becoming overcrowded as demand isn’t properly managed. Tolling the lanes would manage demand.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:23 am
libertyscott, I really can’t see this government introducing Lexus lanes.
Unfortunately this government’s abhorence of anything remotely Rogernomish meant they threw the Roading Advisory Group’s entire decade of research and public consultation out solely because the RAG final report recommended that roads should be nationalised and earn a profit.
RAG had identified and recommended the cornerstone of sustainable transport but the government chose to throw that baby out with the bathwater. Replacing RUCs and the petrol tax with GPS tolling of all roads is the key. When you have that you can charge what it actually costs to use a particular piece of road at a particular time, for both travel and parking. There is the spin-off benefit that companies would have precise records for calculating FBT on non-company use of company vehicles.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Kev - one leetle downside to the Otira viaduct is that trucks have pounded the West Coast side of SH73 to a pulp since it opened. They run B-trains and loads of pine logs (!) over t’hill - crazy stuff (especially if you’re stuck behind one…). Incentives always drive behaviours….
And the progression in getting people out of cars can also go - car - scooter. Especially now that cool stuff like the Piaggio MP3 is out there…
February 9th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Transit knew that was going to happen because of the age of the pavement and the fact it had not been built for trucks because they couldn’t actually use the highway with the zig-zag. Unfortunately after they built the viaduct the govt decided to reduce the West Coast’s share of the road fund to levels not seen since the great depression. So the plans to realign the highway through Arthur’s Pass National Park weren’t completed by 2005 as intended. In fact it’s not even in the current ten year plan. I don’t know what plans Transit had for the highway below Candy’s Bend apart from the new Oitra underpass. With the 40% increase in the construction price index swallowing most rural regions share of the 75% increase in road charges under Labour I think we’re going to see a lot more complaints about tis sort of highway destruction. In fact pavement fatigue increases exponentially with pavement age so deferred maintenance becomes incredibly expensive incredibly quickly.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Power assisted recumbents are not really manufactured, but many recumbent manufacturers offer power assist as an option. My first preference would be for a standard low racer bike with suspension and a front hub motor, probably a Heinsmann because they can be rewired easily for higher speed (and more power, they’re available up to 1000W but obviously only the 200W ones are legal in NZ/OZ). Whack a decent LiPo battery under the seat and you’re off.
If I really wanted fast and dry I’d go a http://www.trisled.com.au Sourcerer race trike and a wheel motor from one of the solar race teams. And hope I didn’t get caught, frankly. Because those things are built to use 1kW and run up to 120kph, and I can pedal the Sourcerer to 70kph fairly easily. So give me a 300-400W sustained boost and I could be out there in traffic… 70cm high, 50cm wide but out in traffic at 100kph. Which is why I’m reluctant to actually go that route if there’s much traffic…
February 11th, 2008 at 4:56 am
moz, You do seem to be crossing the line from moped to motorcycle. Soichiri Honda took a similar approach in post-war Japan, but with petrol motors rather than electric. Maybe history will repeat in a post-oil world?
June 11th, 2008 at 7:58 am
At least they are investing in public transport to try and improve it. Unlike in the UK where they are just taxing private cars like crazy and the money raised seams to be going into some black hole never to be seen again.