Archive for November 2009
Things are still going well, and I’m still enjoying the (mostly) lower stress levels of hardly driving, and still enjoying the benefits of getting work done on the move.
I say mostly, because things can get difficult for workdays or non-CBD events that extend beyond around 8pm. Getting home can be slow, and sometimes I’ve caved in and accepted the offer of a ride, usually to a point along the bus route to home.
That isn’t happening too often tho, so I’ve decided to continue on for December, and I have purchased the December Monthly Discovery pass.
I’m under budget for the month too. I’d allowed $60 (four hours) worth of Cityhop car travel of which I’ve had to use none so far. I’ll carry that allowance over to December.
We’re planning on using a Cityhop car to get to the Airport next month as it’ll be far more direct from our location than either airport bus, and cheaper than a shuttle.
The plan is to pick it up the night before at the overnight 6pm-8am rate of $30, load it up, then next morning drive into the airport and drop it off at Cityhop’s Airport depot.
The December per-workday cost will be higher. I have 14 workdays in December as opposed to 21 in November so the per-day cost is a significant 50% higher.
Since I won’t be using this pass after December 18th, it’s up for sale on Trademe for delivery from that date to help offset the cost. Would this be useful for anyone?
I’ve given up trying to use the laptop on the bus as its hard disc protection system kicks in almost constantly, slowing the laptop right down. It just doesn’t like the bumps. The train on the other hand is far smoother, and I’ve now also used it on the ferry.
I’ll have to see if using it on the Northern Busway is less bumpy than your average road when the opportunity arises.
Whoops, this update’s a bit late. Sorry ’bout that.
Last Wednesday I attended CBT’s discussion session with Supercity mayoral candidate Len Brown. That went well and I was encouraged by what he had to say.
Details can be found on the CBT forum.
Briefly discussed was the idea of subsidised parking.
For readers who have come from CBT, you’ve all seen this before as Josh Arbury has already posted it and some of us went to Julie-Anne Genter’s presentation.
However I believe some people from my work and a couple of friends are reading this too (hi!) – you may find this video of interest. It’s called “How free is your parking?”
Think for a second … How much of the land and buildings that make up Glenfield Mall is used for retail, and how much for carparking? How much would that land be worth? Are we using it efficiently? How much is that land worth, and what else could we be doing with that land if we didn’t park our cars on it?
Here’s an aerial view of the land use in the Manukau CBD (also by Josh Arbury).
Green is public space, red is buildings (retail, office, any productively used land really) and grey is roads and carparking. Note that this doesn’t even count motorway land:
I bet you’ll never look at a carpark the same way again.
Right: Passengers boarding the Northern Express service – at the front and back to speed things up. Clever.
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Today involved travel on the Northern Busway to Constellation Station.
This is my first real use of the Busway this month, and involved a return trip to an address near Constellation.
Busway services were excellent, but I hit one snag.
My journey originated from my regular Northcote client, and there is no bus connection between Birkenhead Transport’s services and the busway unless you cross the Harbour Bridge – twice.
And for non monthly pass users that’s crossing a two-stage boundary – twice.
Instead I hitched a ride with a teacher and friend of mine to Akoranga Station on her way home and continued from there.
There was originally a plan to make use of the service tunnel under the motorway where the toll plazas once stood, to provide a bus station there for transfers with Birkenhead services, with platforms on opposite sides of the motorway linked by the pedestrian tunnel.
The locals for some inexplicable reason got all NIMBY and the station was cancelled. They did not want a scruffy bus station in their neighbourhood. (That the busway stations are anything but scruffy and have been a phenomenal success seems to be beside the point?)
A shame, because it really lets the services on the southwestern North Shore down. Their only link is an infrequent and indirect bus to Takapuna, which has a poor busway “link” of a 400m walk from its nearest point to Smales Farm Station.
These photos and this article (extract below) were in this week’s KiwiRail staff newsletter…
Looking east from Glenveiw Rd along the NAL through Glen Eden station with back to back masts through the Glen Eden Station area.
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Well I’ve made it through two weeks now of delivering without wheels.
So far it’s ended up better than expected.
Most of my travel these past two weeks has been related to the school I contract to in Northcote.
So far the biggest highlight has been working on the move: I was surprised how easy this was on the train, and it is even possible on the bus. I’m using my Toshiba Portege R500 laptop combined with my 3G phone to get online. I have access to my e-mail and job/support tracker, as well as some remote access to clients while on the move.
The Portege has been good but I’d imagine you could do just as well with a modern netbook too.
I think I’m actually getting more work done this way than if I stayed at home doing admin work followed by driving to a site. While the bus/train is slower, being able to work and move at the same time is more than making up for it.
It also means I haven’t had to worry about the cellphone driving ban, another plus.
I’ve also liked the flexibility of being able to go home from the Shore by ferry if I need to relax after a stressful day. This photo is taken from the Bayswater Ferry this evening.
And, I’ve been able to join in after work drinks. I’m a cheap drunk, and just one drink can affect my driving, so I exclusively stuck to the orange juice if I had to drive afterwards. Not anymore!!
As it happens, I’ve not had any significant equipment movements that I haven’t been easily able to get couriered, so I am yet to use Cityhop’s services. Maybe in the next week or two.
The biggest downside has been the link between the “Rapid Transit Network” and home. Outside of the morning and evening peaks, the bus between home and either Kingsland Station or the city detours around St Lukes Mall which is frustratingly slow. My alternative connection, the 008 bus passing Avondale station, seems to be deliberately timed to fail to connect with any train.
I’m also not doing so well on Wednesday evenings. I’m taking beginner French classes at Alliance Française d’Auckland, on Arch Hill, which finish at 8pm. At the moment, I’m depending on a relative taking the same class to drop me off on Sandringham Rd on his way home, or I have to do a V-shaped run into town and back out again which takes over an hour.
I have been lucky and managed to avoid last week’s train signal failures, although I’d have just kept tapping away at the laptop on the train or at Britomart if caught up in something like that.
So, so far so good…
cityhop · drinks · ferry · laptop · Sandringham Rd · signal failure · time savings · train
Jarbury has identified the difference between commuter transport and urban transport on his excellent blog.
This is something I’m finding a little frustrating this month.
Because I’m working as a contractor, I’m sometimes at sites all day, sometimes called out, sometimes working from home, sometimes getting supplies, or like today, sometimes attending presentations or seminars, so I’m using a lot of off-peak services to random destinations. I’m trying to use Auckland’s buses and trains as urban transit.
And it’s the transfers between buses that pass close to home (233, 241, 243, 008) and would connect me to the rail RTN that are proving a big letdown.
I’m near Owairaka Ave. From there there’s route 008 that is a quick connection to Avondale, except it seems to almost always arrive at the station just after the train leaves.
In the peak, half the Owairaka+Sandringham Rd buses express past Kingsland and refuse to stop, and off-peak there’s only two minutes between the scheduled times of the 233 and the train to town.
I’ve had to draw up my own mini-timetable for services between home and the rail line, showing when and where the transfers work and don’t.
The other serious barrier to this kind of integration is ticketing. If it weren’t for my rather expensive Discovery Monthly, I’d have to pay extra for each transfer in the form of a new ticket.
Tonight I’m attending a seminar entitled Why is Public Transport in Auckland so Bad and What Could Fix It? – details here. I’m looking forward to it and hope it will cover this in some detail.
I have cheated my way into an elite club of society.
High-flying businessmen, ministers and other Very Important People are able to get some Very Important Work done while in transit, thanks to being able to sit in the back seat of a limousine while someone else takes care of the driving.
I also managed to get a good chunk of work done in transit today. I wrote this blog post, I was able to organise some of next weeks’ work, answer e-mails, and perform some technical support, all while sitting on board an off-peak train heading into town earlier today, thanks to mobile broadband on my laptop.
Sadly WordPress ate that post and I had to retype it, but all the other work was successful. (WordPress has eaten several posts whether I write them on my laptop or at home, so I’m thinking there may be a bug?)
Because off-peak public transport is slower, I’m having to find ways to be more efficient with my time, and I was surprised at how easy it is to whip out the laptop on the train, jump online, and do some work.
I suppose you could call this a Time Savings Benefit – a term usually used to try and justify motorway building.
5
Eden Park and Kingsland Station work on display
2 Comments · Posted by andrew in Uncategorized
An information day was held at the Methodist Church today showing the upgrade works around Eden Park and Kingsland Station. Auckland City Council, Metrowater, ARTA, KiwiRail and Opus Consultants were there.
The displays showed planned upgrade works to local streets and to services such as power and water, as well as the further upgrade work to Kingsland Station. I had a good chat with James from Opus.
Besides its special events and World Cup duties, Kingsland has a lot of potential as an interchange station, which is what I’m trying to use it as.
It has two main barriers to being effective in this role: Lack of integrated ticketing, and no requirement for express buses to stop there at this stage. Both could be solved quite quickly and cheaply.
Besides Kingsland Station, another item that was of interest was KiwiRail’s (not Ontrack’s?) information on electrification. I’ve scanned the flyer here: Electrifying Auckland’s Rail Network.
Interesting information was the order in which the lines will be electrified. Assuming that electric trains are available when the lines are complete (either EMUs or, more likely, electric loco hauled sets), then the first line to see regular electrics may well be the Onehunga branch, in addition to Eden Park specials.
I was also told that this will be the first section to get the long-awaited and much needed signalling upgrade (there were two signal failures today, one in this section at Newmarket)
And I was told at the evening that rumor is that at least a paper integrated ticket will be in place in time for the Rugby World Cup, so long as Transport Minister Stephen Joyce does not manage to repeal the Public Transport Management Act. If he does that then it will be much harder to get one ready in time for the World Cup.
The PTMA gives the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) and its supercity successor power to require operators to accept integrated tickets, such as on the North Shore with its Northern Pass. If this Act is repealed, they will lose that power.
So far so good.
Day two (Monday) involved no transport, working from the home office.
Day three involved travel to Takapuna for some admin work, then Northcote. It all went pretty smoothly with the commute starting at 7:45am, arriving at Takapuna by 8:45am, sorted out mail, banking, then on to Northcote by 9:35am for the rest of the day. With all the trips plus the “leakage inspection” at Britomart (Where do they get these names from?) All up today I showed my pass a total of nine times.
The increasing prominence of the real-time displays at bus stops is handy as you aren’t having to be so alert for your bus – just start looking for it when the display says it’s less than two minutes away. Just gotta wait for my home bus stop’s turn to get one installed. A shame the system is still completely absent for all train stations besides Britomart.
Tomorrow will involve trips to return or swap equipment with suppliers in the CBD and “Central Park” in Ellerslie, and then french class at Alliance Française, so there will be a fair bit of travel.
Day One was a Sunday.
It was also the wedding day of two close friends of ours, whom are perfect for each other and we wish them all the best.
The wedding was at St Matthew’s in the city centre, with the Hyatt being the hotel and the reception was on a charter boat leaving from the Viaduct.
One bus trip today – after dropping the car at the Downtown car park (closest to the viaduct, ready for the trip home) I headed up to the Hyatt on the City Circuit, which is free, so I never got to flash my Monthly Discovery Pass and its über-cool transparent strip (sigh).
Awesome day though.
