Weekly Roundup 11-April-2025
Another Friday, another roundup. Autumn is starting to set in, certainly getting darker earlier but hope you enjoy some of the stories we found interesting this week.
This week in Greater Auckland
On Tuesday we ran a guest post from the wonderful Darren Davis about what's happening with Kiwirail.
Wednesday saw Connor gettng cross about Auckland Transport's last minute redesigns of Project K.
For Thursday Matt ran through the big Easter shutdown of Auckland's rail.
This weekly roundup, like all of our work, is brought to you by the Greater Auckland crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like to support our work, you can join our circle of supporters here, or subscribe on Substack!
AT's response to the Project K changes
Auckland Transport got back to us on a number of questions about their last-minute changes to the Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project. Since Connor's post on Wednesday, we've been hearing a lot more about these changes, including that the wholesale change was due to complaints from just 3 people. AT's response feels to us like they're treating these locals as more important than everyone else.
Auckland Transport sent us the following:
Project K – the Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project – will deliver transformation to the streets around the new Karanga-a-Hape station. The design continues to prioritise walking and cycling movement to and from the station.
The design includes significant pedestrian priority improvements, together with changes for other modes, including vehicles, to enable smooth access to and from the new station and maximise the benefits of the City Rail Link investment.
Mercury Lane, between the Station and Karangahape Road will be transformed into a high-quality pedestrian priority shared space.
Cross Street will remain open to one-way traffic enabling access and service for the station and adjacent homes and businesses.
East Street will become a slow-speed street with two-way traffic flow, raised pedestrian crossing, chicane and speed humps.
The existing dedicated cycleway on East Street will be replaced by a new separated cycleway on Mercury Lane linking to Te Ara i Whiti – The Lightpath and the Canada Street cycleway.
Auckland Transport developed changes to the design of the project in response to concerns raised by business owners and residents in the impacted area, during and following the public consultation on the design.
We now recognise that we need to take time to discuss and confirm the way forward, given the high level of interest. We could have done better at managing this process. We know we need to more clearly explain the rationale for proposed changes. We will involve the Local Board and stakeholders before confirming these plans. We will continue to hold Community Liaison Groups, which we have been doing regularly, to engage with people in the area.
We know there was strong support for the original design. We have taken that into account, alongside the specific feedback from locals about the aspects that impact them. Where changes have been made that add vehicle access, features have been added to ensure pedestrian safety is maintained as more people use the area.
AT needs to balance the needs of many groups – those who will visit, those who live in the area, and those who own businesses. To have a thriving K Road precinct also means having streets that support businesses and residents who need access by all modes. We need to consider circulation and loading spaces for delivery trucks and vans, and customers’ vehicles.
During the consultation, Karangahape Business Association, on behalf of its members, gave feedback that supported changes to the street layout to prioritise traffic accessing the local area, rather than traffic passing through. AT knows that construction over many years, and wider economic conditions, have made things tough for businesses. We take it seriously when local businesses tell us projects could impact them.
City Rail Link will bring transformational benefits to the city, especially areas near the new stations. However, this process will not be complete on opening day. The stations will attract ongoing private development and further changes to the area in the years to come, helping make the precincts more active and vibrant. Developments are likely on Canada Street, Cross Street and East Street, so some of the design changes were made to ensure we can make future changes easily.
Lovely Rainbow over the CRL Maungawhau Station
An interesting commute
A new series by 1news looking at how different people commute, starts off with a bike to boat trip.
Each week 'My Commute' will look at how different Kiwis get to work each day. First up, Julie Hill a journalist (and fiction writer), who commutes from her home in the inner-city Auckland suburbs to Waiheke Island. Here's how she does it.
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I wake up just before dawn, which is when my master summons me to prepare his breakfast and if it’s not a specific flavour of Purina he'll sulk. I try not to wake my boyfriend but usually fail. I make a pot of coffee, try to finish showering before it boils over, get dressed, ride my bike down the hill to the ferry building. By that time the sun is rising and Tāmaki Makaurau, you’ve been an absolute smoke show the last few mornings.
Who knew road cones weren't the issue
Brooke van Velden announced the governments new 'road cone' hotline for people to complain about 'excessive' cone usage (the Mayor probably has it on speed dial already). Problem is the industry say its pointless, and there is already ongoing work to change how traffic management occurs around projects. Also, amusingly John Major's government did this in the UK in the 1990's and it seems to of been pointless over there.
But work had been underway for months in the road cone space to reduce their usage. The industry bodies behind that work say they fully agree with van Velden’s objectives, but fear the move could promote the very risks she is looking to reduce.
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An industry steering group came together in April 2023 to brainstorm a new code of practice for traffic management in New Zealand. Included in this new framework were new rules around road cones, which would allow work sites to take a risk-based approach to their distribution rather than following the broad-brush approach used for the past three decades.Clarke was one of the representatives on the steering group, and said the new rules began to roll out at the end of last year. So when van Velden took the national stage on Monday and directed public ire over road cones towards a self-reporting portal, Clarke was frustrated.
He described the traffic management company as the public-facing result of a construction company or council’s decision to undergo a given project, and said they had no control over how long these projects took. “It’s like asking the public to say, ‘Well, tell us about all the slow building projects you see out there’. It’s going to do no good,” Clarke said.
He told Newsroom the changes van Velden wanted to see – changes the industry supported – were already in progress.
New cycle and walkway linking Lower Hutt and Wellington discussed here
Otago Academic released an app for playgrounds
Dr Bronwen McNoe from the University of Otago released an app showing more than 3550 playgrounds across the motu.
Created by Dr Bronwen McNoe, of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, the app contains filterable detailed information and photographs of every council managed playground in Aotearoa New Zealand.
“I thought this would be really valuable for parents and caregivers. The app can tell you which playgrounds offer good shade, as well as a wealth of details on play equipment such as pump tracks and flying foxes, and amenities such as public toilets and barbeque facilities.
“A great feature is that all this information is filterable – if your child loves diggers, you can easily find all the playgrounds in New Zealand that feature diggers,” she says.
Great video on the cost and failures of roads
Some game-changing urban design ideas
12 different ideas from Street Art Utopia, what's your favourite? Swings at bus stops seem very fun.
Some road safety articles
First in New Zealand, tsunami drills failed because the person in charge was dealing with a car crash
Head of community support and partnerships John Filsell conceded it was unacceptable to have an emergency system so dependent on one person.
"The supplier was providing immediate response to a motor vehicle accident outside their property at the time of the test," he said.
"We recognise that it is not acceptable to have a system that relies so heavily on one individual, which is why discussions are underway with our external supplier to ensure there are sufficient safeguards in the system to reduce the risk of this happening in the future.
"We are also currently reviewing the role of sirens in the tsunami warning system for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. The issues experienced on Sunday will form part of that review."
Second, Bologna released a report on the results of implementing 30km/h. You'd hope the Minister sees this before increasing speeds here.
Third, after the car crash outside Auckland Uni last week, one of the victims Auckland Professor Vinod Suresh is alive, but dealing with serious injuries.
Christchurch charging for parking got rid of the moochers
After Christchurch City Council started charging for parking around Hagley Park, numbers of people parking there dropped. Funnily enough, this didn't mean less visitors to the gardens, but those parking and walking into town went somewhere else.
Might be something to do in Auckland? Perhaps overnight in the City Centre or for Park and Ride?
The Christchurch City Council is making less than half the revenue it hoped to by introducing fees to 620 car parks around the gardens.
While a much emptier car park could indicate fewer people are visiting the gardens, figures provided to The Press show that is not the case, and people who use the grounds say they have stopped seeing people taking advantage by parking their cars there just to walk into town.
That's it from us, have a great weekend!