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    • Trolleys are part of the solution
      • “European cities are steadily converting bus routes to trolleybus public transport“ was the message from Gunter Mackinger at a recent public meeting in Wellington. “Complete public transport systems cannot easily convert to fully battery-operated systems, and there is a significant problem with battery life and consequential waste disposal.” Mackinger, an electric transport consultant and former general manager of Salzburg Railways, works with organizations such as the UITP (International Public Transport Organisation) and the German Government. He advocates trolleybuses and light rail (trams) as an essential green emission investment in modern liveable cities. This is of special interest to Wellingtonians who are working to rescue Wellington’s trolleys which is currently threatened. If successful, it would be the biggest setback for public transport since the light rail system was removed fifty years ago. Mackinger’s statements were backed up by studies at three independent German universities. Mackinger gives examples of how Seattle, San Francisco, Mexico, and west European cities Salzburg, Linz, Luzern, Arnhem, Eberswalde and Bratislava are all purchasing new trolley buses. Turkey has mandated trolley bus systems for smaller cities under 100,000 inhabitants, as well as modern light rail in the bigger cities. The Chinese Government has also mandated “all-electric” vehicles in major cities. Trolley buses are a part of the process and cities such as Beijing are replacing diesel and experimental battery buses with new trolleys. Guangzhou is undertaking trolleybus continuous network expansion. Shanghai, after deciding to remove trolleys, realised their error and are re-opening trolleybus lines. Other electric transport modes fit well alongside trolleys – light rail, rapid transit, suburban rail, battery buses – sharing power supply infrastructure and facilities. Zurich, Lyon, San Francisco and Seattle use light rail as the ‘spine’ of their public transport systems, and then use trolleybuses for the heavy secondary routes.   Battery bus systems are being developed for the shorter suburban feeder routes. The NZ Bus intention to install Wrightspeed gas turbine-electric power generating sets into some trolleys and other buses in their nationwide fleet is commended as an initiative, but the technology has yet to prove itself in widespread bus fleet use. If the trials prove to be successful, we would urge NZ Bus to move rapidly onto converting diesel buses. I call on NZ Bus to confirm that they will operate the Wrightspeed powertrain “fuel agnostic gas turbines” on CNG as this will help remove a major source of cancer-causing airborne diesel particles, including soot, and noxious gases which are dangerous to health. These diesel particles are associated with lung cancer and other lung disease, and contribute to heart disease and strokes. Wellingtonians’ conversations on Lambton Quay and Willis Street can be compromised by the noise of diesel engines in close proximity” says Wellington architect, Chris Watson. “Quieter electric motors of are suitable for social networking on the golden mile, which speeds the flow of ideas in the capital.” There are many technical aspects still to be explained if the story is not just a PR sham. Gas turbine generators generally emit more CO2 emissions than comparatively sized diesel engines, but emission savings can be achieved by having a smaller power turbine running against a constant load – the battery charging generator. I hope the vehicle design facilitates the turbine being stopped to allow battery-only operating through the centre of the city. Also we need to maximise the ‘plug-in’ charging opportunities from New Zealand’s renewable electricity network – this will be essential to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction targets. The use of self-contained bus electric drives in Wellington will also depend on Greater Wellington Regional Council requiring hybrid electric and/or battery electric vehicles of its bus network as an outcome of its contractural framework, and being ready to meet the extra costs involved. Tender documents are to be approved on June 29th, with the decision on successful tenders expected sometime before the end of this year. Tender documents are expected to be based on the Public Transport Plan already approved, which included the removal of the existing trolley “all-electric” trolleybus fleet. However, Oxford University Head of the Energy and Power Group – Professor Malcolm McCulloch – has looked at the Wellington trolleybus network and sees it as having excellent potential. He says that they are a valuable public asset and dismisses criticism of them as being subject to political interpretation as obsolete technology. His advice is to validate the alternatives (i.e. hybrids-electric and battery-electric), while continuing to operate the trolley buses. When reconfigured with modern (lithium ion) batteries, trolleys would be able to run longer distances “off line”, providing more flexibility. Automatic re-attachment devices would further minimise delays. An urgent review of the GWRC business case is needed. A new business case should concentrate on the east/west route as a base case for trolleys, then explore add-on options, and include the cost of modifications to increase the reliability of the power supply network. Wellington has big renewable electricity resources within its boundaries, and can easily aim for a 100% electric transport system, which is not only the smart choice, but an ethical one, because of the reduction of greenhouse emissions. Victor Komarovsky of Generation Zero says that the worldwide transition to electric vehicles can only accelerate after the CoP21 Paris Climate commitments for reducing emissions. “Some of my friends don’t get driving licences and they refuse to own cars. It is more important to have information technology with constant internet connection. We want Wellington to become a clean, green city. Electric public transport is the only possible way to do this.” 300 cities around the world manage trolley bus networks successfully and there is no reason why Wellington should not re-emerge to operate its system as well as other cities. The current fleet of 57 dual rear axle trolley buses, owned by NZBus, started work in 2007/2008 with new low floor chassis. So they have at least 10 to 15 years of service life remaining, and this is confirmed by NZ Bus’s decision to utilise some chassis for the Wrightspeed powertrain. The trolleys have good capacity and would be ideal for the proposed Karori/Seatoun trunk route. Keeping the all-electric trolleys and the overhead wires on that route, at least, would be a step towards a fully “all-electric” fleet in the future. Battery buses can only be as good as trolleys in terms of CO2 elimination if there is frequent recharging at stops, not using fossil-fuelled ‘top-ups’. The trolleybus power supply could provide that – but that infrastructure is exactly what the GWRC has decided to remove. Paul Bruce Greater Wellington Regional Councillor Email: paul.bruce@gw.govt.nz Note that this article is the opinion of the writer, and does not represent the view of GWRC  

    • Switched On Tours
      • Having been sidelined by a mix of winter illness and heavy workload*, I crawled out from under my rock a couple weeks ago to go for a bike ride. Not just any ride, but as a guinea pig for Switched On Bikes‘ tours. It was my reward for contributing some money as part of the their PledgeMe campaign. That, and stickers! That Saturday morning was sunny and cold, which seemed to be the perfect combination for riding around Evans Bay. As it turned out, electric bikes can give enough extra boost that I didn’t really warm myself up with the activity. More on this shortly. There were three of us on the ride. Ryan, from Switched On Bikes, was leading a pair of us around the harbour and back as a way of play-testing the tours that they’re offering, fine tuning the pacing, touristy informational stops and some of the awkward road crossings along the way. The ride was incredibly pleasant. We were asked in advance about our confidence riding on the roads. My reply was that I was comfortable on the roads, but the motorists out there can be stupid at times. As it turned out, once we were going, I didn’t have to worry much about the cars around us. Some of this was based on the route, which largely hugged the water’s edge and made use of several cycle lanes and shared pathways, but there’s a factor attributable to riding an electric bike. Regardless of wind direction or incline we were able to maintain a decent pace, staying in the 20-25km/h range for most of it. That kept the speed differential between us and the cars reasonably minimal, helping ease any on-road friction. I was actually surprised by the effectiveness of the electric motor on the bike I had. I’ve heard great things from people I’ve spoken to, but until riding one, you just don’t know. By the time we’d arrived at Shelly Bay for a coffee break, I’d noticed that it was still a bit chilly. The ride hadn’t warmed me up and I hadn’t really exercised my legs at all. On the return trip, we went under the airport, along the Leonie Gill Pathway and up Crawford Road. When we hit the uphill part, I was expecting to work for it, but it never happened. Even turning onto Alexandra Road and heading up to the Mount Victoria lookout, we kept around 20km/h, bumping the electric motor into a higher gear and I didn’t break a sweat. As I was told by Councillor Sarah Free, electric bikes eat hills for breakfast. The end result is that electric bikes opens up a new world of cycling for people who don’t want to power through headwinds and hill climbs. This is cycling for anyone who just wants to get around and see more of the city than just the flat bits. It doesn’t solve the issue of on-road safety, but it does improve some of the issues around fast cars and slow bikes. Hats off to Ryan and Sofia for giving all of Wellington a chance to try them out. * I know, it’s all excuses.

        • -41.28646, 174.776236


    • Getting to school safely
      • Last week, the Cook Strait News ran an article about making sure that kids can safely walk to school. In the 1980s more than 50 percent of children would walk or cycle to school and just a third would be dropped by car, Cr Free says. She says that these days those numbers have flipped and she would like to see a return to the days when the majority of kids would walk or cycle. We’re suffering through a generational change. Parents started worrying about kids getting hurt, or worse, on the way to school and started driving them, which makes the areas around schools more unsafe than they were. @gregorybodnar @Brycepearce http://t.co/1Gkj6Yf7Kj — Davide (@DZ_AU) March 30, 2015 But it’s not all the fault of the parents, as it turns out. This post on StreetsBlog depicts an 18-block walk through Calgary that would shame parents into driving. But Turner wasn’t satisfied with the cartoon’s cheeky conclusion that parents are making bad decisions. “Too often, these discussions blame PARENTS,” he tweeted, “not URBAN DESIGN.” To illustrate his point, he tweeted “a photo primer in how urban design in an inner-city community encourages parents not to even think about letting their [kids] walk.” By the way, Turner’s daughter is trying out the walk to school because the 18-block journey, which takes six to eight minutes in a car, takes 55 minutes on the school bus. She’s the first on and the last off, commuting two hours a day to get 18 blocks. It takes half an hour to walk it. Last year, her parents drove her every day, but now they’re trying the walk. On my last trip back to Calgary, I lamented the pedestrian infrastructure where we were staying. It’s not all bad, but much of the design has the same car-centric planning that exists in New Zealand. Many of our arterial roads act as barriers, especially for those attempting to cross using pedestrian signals. Additionally, residential roads near arterials will often fill up with traffic trying to avoid congestion. This has the effect of making those intersections unsafe for children attempting to cross. NZTA Research Report 420 is aimed at schools to develop a travel plan and provides some baseline information on the issue in terms of congestion: Congestion is estimated to cost the Auckland region $755million per annum (ARTA 2009). Higher fuel bills, lost time and productivity, uncertainty and poor air quality have direct economic costs to individuals and businesses, while health impacts and stress are examples of less tangible costs (in monetary terms). To most people, it is obvious that congestion levels in urban areas are tangibly worse during the school term. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) estimates that a third of morning-peak trips (7-9am) in Auckland are to school (ARTA 2007), and in Christchurch, 34% of morning peak-time travel is education related (Greater Christchurch 2008). In the UK, the 2008 National Travel Survey found that at the peak travel-to-school time of 8.45am on weekdays during term time, 2 in 10 (20%) car trips by residents of urban areas were generated by the ‘school run’ (DfT 2008). In the US, estimates from multiple cities indicate that the motor vehicle traffic generated by travel to and from school adds 20-30% more traffic volume to the roads (PBIC 2007). And safety: An unpublished ‘crash analysis system’ (CAS) analysis focusing on injury crashes has been carried out by Transport Engineering Research NZ (TERNZ), as part of a previous analysis of school bus safety. Many of these crashes (albeit an unknown proportion) are likely to be related to education-related trips, as they occurred during school travel times. The results of the analysis were as follows: Conditions: Time period: 1987 2008 Age of injured person: 0 17 years Times of day: 7 9am, and 2 4pm, excluding public and school holidays. The bulk of the report goes on to develop strategies for improving process and implementing safer access. It utilises a traffic-signal visual analogy to indicate status and urgency for categories. A few case studies are worked through at the end, showing clear relationships between actions and intended rationale, however lacks actual implementation and comparison of results to expectations. I’m unaware of follow-up work to this, but even the intervening five years would be too short a time frame to see a clear change in accident statistics. I see it as similar to the tree-planting proverb though. Sure, the best time to have started in on safety improvements was a decade ago, but the second best time is now.

    • Councillor Young vs Skateboards
      • Councillor Nicola Young took another shot at kids skateboarding around Wellington yesterday. Skateboarders already colonising the revamped Victoria St. Metal studs will be fitted to deter them & prevent damage http://t.co/vggWy0rsBR — Nicola Young (@nmjyoung) June 28, 2015 She cites damage as her concern, but her previous comments had shown a desire to keep skateboarders in the skate parks, which strikes me as elitist. The spaces we create present opportunities, but often take on lives of their own as people explore. It’s not up to designers, nor councillors, to enforce use of a space after it’s been put in place. The argument of damage caused is valid to an extent, but we should expect that kids are going to be looking for parks and furniture that present opportunities. They’re carrying a skateboard and they’ll use it whenever they can. We know that damage will happen and we should design for it. @nmjyoung Infrastructure has a lifespan anyway. It weathers and ages. Build for skateboards instead of against them. — Sustwelltrans (@sustwelltrans) June 28, 2015 The attitudes that Councillor Young display are, in my opinion, anachronistic and deserve to be challenged. I’d like to see some of the school-aged skateboarders pick this up as a school project. The skate parks that are in place are too few and lack the capacity for the skateboarding population around Wellington. It would be easy to show with population statistics and a measure of the capacity of the existing skate parks. If anyone takes this up, I’d be more than happy to publish as a guest post.

    • Cycling wins the lottery
      • I’m late, I know. Everyone else has already covered the news of cycling projects moving forward by leaps and bounds this week. The Wellington City Council meeting was packed full of good things, which I’d summarised in anticipation in my previous post. Feel free to watch through the meeting, or at least skip to the good bits. The first big win was approval of the Long Term Plan, which set aside funding for the cycling programme for the next 10 years. Investment is weighted to the near term, starting at $5.6m for 2015/16 and jumping to $12m and $17m in the next two years before settling down to come to a total of $57.5m over 10 years. It’s a significant investment, but it’s being put in place to cover a significant job. The next big item was debating the cycling framework. To be honest, two days later, I can barely remember the debate, but I remember being quite shocked by the vote. Cycle Framework unanimously passed! Well done @WgtnCC. #bikewgtn — Sustwelltrans (@sustwelltrans) June 24, 2015 The second task for the agenda item was to appoint councillors that would sit on the working party to oversee the development and implementation of the framework packages. The original membership was to be six, but was quickly incremented to seven and then eight. Cycling Framework Working Party to include councillors @nmjyoung @sarahfreenz @justin_lester @davidleeWCC @WoolfSimon Peck, Foster & Sparrow — Wgtn City Council (@WgtnCC) June 24, 2015 That gives us an aspirational high-level network, a budget and a team, using this provisional timeline for the start. Next up for the cycling agenda was the fight over Island Bay. The media hype had grown with the lead up to the council meeting and community tensions were high. From the councillors, very little was said that was unexpected. The same faces said mostly the same things as before. The vote came in at 8:6 in favour of the traffic resolutions allowing for the cycleway to proceed. Interestingly, Councillor Ritchie was absent despite demanding a vote on the cycleway back in February. Some things are inexplicable. As you can see in the delivery plan above, the implementation phase of the Island Bay cycleway looks to be starting in the August-September time-frame. Once it’s in place, the hope is that other communities can see how it works instead of fomenting fearful impressions of community destruction. The two smaller cycleways in Rongotai and Ngauranga passed with ease. There is still work to be done on the western segment of the Coutts Street cycleway, which was deferred during it’s first discussion in Transport and Urban Development. The eastern suburban network highlights Coutts Street as a path under the airport and to the east, so I have little doubt that the wider community has a vested interest in this passing. With those wins in place, the cycling and wider sustainable transport community was on a high. Cycling-related minor works (including safety improvements in lower Ngauranga Gorge) through too. How much bike advocate joy can 1 day hold? — CycleAwareWellington (@CycleAwareWgtn) June 24, 2015 The next day, the announcement of the next set of funding from the Urban Cycleways Programme took that high and made it astronomical. @sustwelltrans @CycleAwareWgtn @WgtnCC It's like money is raining from the sky & we're running around trying to count it all — Island Bay Cycle Way (@IBCycleWay) June 25, 2015 The Wellington city focus is on CBD and Eastern Suburbs plus the line along Thorndon Quay to Ngauranga. The wider region is getting project funding as well, which is looking to generate a step-change in cycling mode share across the region within a few years. Notably absent is the Ngauranga to Petone section, which is still under discussion as to the path to take. Construction of the remaining section between Petone and Ngauranga is anticipated to begin in 2019. Announcement of a preferred option for Petone to Ngauranga is expected later in 2015. Over the course of the cycleways debate, Councillor Young has stuck adamantly to her position of CBD first before considering any other project. @sustwelltrans @talkbacktim @IBCycleWay Building out: yes; that's why CBD should come 1st - and build out from there. — Nicola Young (@nmjyoung) June 25, 2015 Whether right or wrong, it looks like CBD will be one of the first out of the gate. It’s not my choice of first target, on the basis that trips would likely be within walking distance and therefore competing active modes, but the we’ll eventually need a whole network, regardless of order. The more connected the network, the more useful it is. Over at Eye of the Fish, Leviathan ran a post on the CBD section, which is worth a read. The fish is taking an early stab at how effective the proposed network will be. There is some parts of this that don’t quite make sense to me, but I’m sure that if I read through the full pile of info, it will become clear. The cycle route along the back edge of the motorway for instance – while parts of it make sense, such as using the unused route for extra motorway (the empty pillars that you drive past beside the motorway), I have to ask – is this an area that a cyclist would want to bike along? Apart from the noise and the fumes, it is halfway up a hill, and I reckon cyclists would be either scooting across it (east-west) or on the flat below it (ie Willis St). Your thoughts? This is the constant problem with transport and urban design being considered separately. Even if you find a corridor that works, it might not line up with where people want to go. Unfortunately, Wellington lacks the benefit of spare land to shuffle around, so even though funding appears to have been solved, land use will continue to be contentious.

    • The big meeting: WCC 24 June 2015
      • Big is an understatement. The agenda for this meeting is huge. There are 4 PDF links to read through, should you be bothered, totalling around 1000 pages. I’m actually quite impressed that any councillor could absorb that much information between publication and the meeting. There are a few specific transport issues: 2.3 Adoption of the Wellington Cycling Framework Presented by Mayor Wade-Brown 2.4 2015/16 Statement of Intent for Wellington Cable Car Ltd Presented by Councillor Foster 3.1 Report of the Transport and Urban Development Committee Meeting of 5 February 2015 Presented by Councillor Foster 3.4 Report of the Transport and Urban Development Committee Meeting of 21 May 2015 Presented by Councillor Foster There are others that fit in on the periphery as well, but these are the few that I’m interested in highlighting in advance of the meeting. Consultation on the cycling framework was largely positive, but nowhere near unanimous. I’d be lying if I said that I read through every submission myself and I’m reasonably sure that most councillors will be relying on summaries as well, and probably plenty of phone calls and personal messages, given the nurtured controversy that we’ve witnessed. The recommendations to the council are to amend and adopt the draft Wellington Cycling Framework, appoint up to six councillors to a working party, and agree to a terms of reference for the working party. Officers will report back to the Transport and Urban Development Committee in September 2015 with a proposed list of priority packages and routes. During the decision to send the draft framework out for consultation, Councillor Eagle proposed a successful amendment to request advice on lower thresholds for parking changes, specifically 40m and 80m thresholds instead of 160m. Officers kindly put in some context: A 160 metre, 2 minute walk is the length of lower Cuba St from the Michael Fowler Centre to Manners St. An 80 metre, 1 minute walk is like crossing Civic Square from the Library to Nikau Café. A 40 metre, 30 second walk is the length of eight cars. Submissions were open for four business weeks and received 135 submissions. Of the total 135 submissions, 120 were received from individuals, 13 from community organisations and two from public agencies. In total, 15 (11%) clearly stated their opposition to the Framework, 6 (4%) did not state a position (2 appeared to be opposed, the remainder neutral) and the remaining 114 (84%) submission ranged in their support of the framework. There’s a refrain within the negative feedback that shows a belief that only motorists spend money and businesses that are deprived of immediate parking will rapidly wither, which is quite contrary to the findings of NZTA Research Report 530: The data from this study shows that sustainable transport users account for 40% of the total spend in the shopping areas. It also shows that pedestrians and cyclists contribute a higher economic spend proportionately to the modal share and are important to the economic viability of local shopping areas. The NZTA submission makes the direct link between the framework and the Urban Cycleways Programme and has proposed changes to strengthen the description of the strategic importance of cycling. The end result should be a better case being made to the public for creation of the cycling network. Interestingly, NZTA provides support for the parking principles beyond the draft wording. The submission from Greater Wellington Regional Council was clear that negative impact on core bus routes is unacceptable, which had also been indicated by NZTA. The resulting wording takes this on and indicates that for non-core bus routes, a threshold of 5% increase of journey times will be referred back to full council. Without extra time, it’s hard to see all the little changes in wording that may have occurred elsewhere. There have been plenty of changes, but nothing struck me as changing the intent or direction of the framework. The next transport item is the Statement of Intent for Wellington Cable Car Ltd. There’s plenty of content in there for the keen reader, but the highlights will suffice here: 8. Officers have reviewed the 2015/16 SOI and acknowledge that it responds constructively to the Letter of Expectations and the subsequent comments and recommendations of the Transport and Urban Development Committee. The main areas for Council to note are as follows: 9. The company’s SOI does acknowledge the Committee’s request for more information regarding its future capital expenditure needs. In 2015/16 the company will replace the Cable Car’s electric drive and controller in a project worth $2.9m, of which Council has provided for funding of $2.5m in its Long Term Plan, and the company will fund $0.4m. 10. Also beginning in 2015/16, a tunnel strengthening project worth $0.3m is scheduled to be undertaken over 3 financial years finishing in 2017/18 and will be funded by the company. 11. The company notes that in 2025/26 it intends replacing the passenger cars and bogies in a project that is estimated to cost between $8.0m and $10.0m and expected to take approximately 5 weeks. 12. In terms of decommissioning the overhead network, the company notes that variables including project scope, planning and scheduling plus significant negotiations with external parties have not been concluded. As a result, the expected cost of decommissioning the network is not able to be confirmed at this stage. Item 3.1 reports on the Island Bay Cycleway, including the working party report and proposed amendment to the traffic resolutions required for the cycleway. The report includes a list of 20 recommendations, a number of which set up a scheme of monitoring performance and safety aspects of design compromises. As expected, parking concerns are a dominant theme as well, with a few adjustments being recommended. Unfortunately, there was also a recommendation to retain Dee Street as a roundabout. This annoys me greatly, not only for the notably poor safety performance of roundabouts for cyclists. My issue, as I’d mentioned in my original submission on the cycleway, is regarding pedestrian issues, which jumped out at me the first time I had taken a buggy to Island Bay. These are the sight-lines from the dropped kerbs at the Dee Street roundabout: For a pedestrian to step onto the road at the dropped kerbs, they’d need to be clairvoyant to have been able to properly assess their safety. Motorists can’t be trusted to be looking for pedestrians either, especially when multiple obstacles are on the road at a given time. I hope that councillors realise this before approving this change on Wednesday. The last item I’ll look at is 3.4, which recommends implementing two cycle lanes, one in Rongotai and the other in Ngauranga Gorge. I’ve been meaning to write about the Coutts Street cycle lane for a while, mostly for the claims that on-street parking must be preserved to that house prices are preserved. This claim is worth looking at yet, but not today. The Coutts Street cycle lane appears as a vastly cut-down version than was proposed in the 21 May 2015 Transport and Urban Development agenda. Most of the length of the cycle lane was deferred to a further meeting because of resident parking issues and the principal of Rongotai College. I have to admit that I didn’t notice the Ngauranga Gorge Road traffic resolutions before. The problem identification looks like a horror story for vulnerable road users. The entire set of proposals were carried by T&UD, so now the recommendation awaits council approval to deliver approximately 250m of cycle lane. I’ve skipped over the Urban Growth Plan, which is Item 3.3. It has massive implications for transport and will come up repeatedly in future posts. I’ll leave you with this summary.

    • Police suggest cyclists get off the road
      • Gregory: This precedent has nasty implications for Wellington’s narrow and hilly areas. The legislation clearly allows for cyclists to take the lane if it’s unsafe to move left, but there’s an implication from the police here that if a cyclist needs to stop in order to pull over safely, that’s better than impeding traffic. This is clearly discrimination of transport modes. Originally posted on Cycling in Christchurch: Following the conviction of Alex Mann for ‘impeding traffic’ for 400m while biking up Dyers Pass Road, there was an interview on Radio New Zealand featuring Alex and senior sergeant Scott Richardson (Radio NZ interview link). Rather than admitting they were wrong to fine Alex when many tractors, caravans, boats and trucks impede traffic thousands of times a day for far longer distances and times than Alex did, or suggest cars should obey overtaking rules, he proceeded to suggest cyclists should pull over and get off the road whenever a car approaches. I personally find this quite a disturbing attitude. Our own Police force think that cyclists do not have a legitimate place on the road. I suggest some changing of these attitudes would be a helpful start to easing the needless conflicts that occur. Another thing I would like to see is a reduction in the speed limit… View original 51 more words

    • Painting for pedestrians
      • Lower Cuba Street is a pet peeve of mine. Ever since the conversion between bus route and supposed shared space, all I can see is failure. I remember looking at the sketches for the 2009 proposal (PDF). I remember being excited by the prospect. Somewhere along the way, councillors decided that parking was more important than creating a safe pedestrian area and I’ve been complaining about it ever since. The most recent change has been a shiny, new paint job. Trudy Whitlow, Wellington City Council’s Urban Design and Heritage Manager, says the street graphic is being used as a traffic calming measure in this shared space. “This type of design intervention helps to slow cars and create a bright, fresh feature for the area. The key point here is that the splash of colour at the endpoints of the street are meant to act as traffic calming. There’s a psychological change that’s meant to happen to drivers, to let them know that they’re sharing the space with people, most of which are vulnerable to things like being run over. Take a look from the viewpoint of the entrance. Now take another look from about 5 metres along. There’s no doubt in my mind that any normal motorist would assume that Lower Cuba Street is just another road. Even with the sign in the top right of the picture saying please, it’s unlikely that motorists would give any courtesy to pedestrians in their way. Pretty colours, but motorists still treat it as #JustAnotherRoad. The fix will be to remove all P120 spaces. twitter.com/WgtnCC/status/… — Sustwelltrans (@sustwelltrans) June 09, 2015 Loading zones and special parks are needed there, but the configuration of parks give a visual cue of where motorists go and where pedestrians belong. No amount of colour at the ends change those cues in the places that matter. As it turns out, even the seating blocks at the midway point don’t discourage motorist from taking pedestrian space. As we’ve recently discovered, unpainted car parks aren’t legally enforceable, so council has been unable to enforce the car parks on a few streets, including Lower Cuba Street, for several weeks. Maybe we should use this as impetus to abandon them and make it a people space.

    • Will we ever see integrated ticketing?
      • Travelling around the Wellington region has been hampered by competing operators and modes. Having a single ticket to take passengers from A to B regardless of distance and mode has been a goal for a generation or two and no one at Greater Wellington Regional Council has been able to progress the agenda beyond the investigation phase. The latest set of papers going to tomorrow’s full council meeting indicates that we’re still not getting anywhere. The first thing that I noticed was a mention about changing the budget relating to integrated ticketing. This was accompanied with a slightly redundant description. Two appendices accompany the paper add a little bit of information. The first looks at the operating expenses being changed. And the second looks at changes to capital expenditure. Investigation started late and expected to take longer than anticipated. This is after a phase of waiting for Auckland to sort out its HOP system and after a phase of sitting idly while operators argued over who got which pennies from passengers that needed to cross the gap. Coincident to this is the release of NZTA Research Report 569 Public transport and the next generation. As noted by Auckland Transport Blog, there’s a difference between Auckland’s and Wellington’s interest in integrated ticketing: The report also breaks this down by different region presenting interesting comparisons, for example in Wellington Integrated Ticketing is in the top two for the two groups while in Auckland it is 7th or 8th which will reflect the fact that Auckland already has integrated ticketing rolled out. Looking into the report, we see that, for Wellington, both Generation Y and the control group are clamouring for integrated ticketing. So how much longer are we going to have to wait?

    • Traffic congestion: is there a miracle cure? (Hint: it’s not roads)
      • Gregory: Travel demand management techniques often focus on road tolls or parking charges. Using insurance to encourage better driving behaviour isn’t a common topic. It’s an interesting idea, although predicated on mandatory insurance, which New Zealand lacks. Originally posted on SoLoMo Consulting: Once a new road opens, people switch back to cars and congestion increases back to a steady-state point of gridlock. For lasting effectiveness, policy needs to include congestion charges and better rail services. Sourced through Scoop.it from: theconversation.com It is very important that discussions like this are taking place. I don’t believe there are simple answers. We have a lot of very clever people in the industry and if the answers were simple, we would simply apply them. An interesting thing to me is that we still point fingers at institutions and not at ourselves. If road tolls work for example, it is because they force commuters and other road users to change their behavior by making the journey more painful. At that point they will look for a less painful solution such as changing their travel times or routes. Wouldn’t it be great if business took advantage of new… View original 345 more words

    • Where exactly is my bus?
      • Greater Wellington rolled out RTI on the bus network back in 2011 and it’s been hobbling along for years. We still see lots of services showing scheduled times on displays and event tracking is horrible at best. There is still work being done, though. I recently took a look at Metlink’s Android widget and they’ve just released an iPhone app. I’ve been holding a copy of the March 2015 quarterly report from Greater Wellington for a while and there is a bit of info in there on the RTI system as well. When I spoke to GW officers about RTI issues last year, they indicated that a good portion of the tracking issues related to operator errors, as in drivers. They were hoping that training would solve most of those problems. Since then, I highlighted another issue that stemmed from buses being shuffled between routes which caused prediction errors. There’s bound to be more faults in the system. There always will be. Open access to the RTI data is something that developers have been wanting for years. It can’t come soon enough, but the May due date indicated above has quietly slid on by. This teaser tweet from March is getting a little stale. Hi @MiramarMike @alphabeta_soup we are working very hard to open up this data to you in the very near future - we will announce when ready. — Metlink Wellington (@metlinkwgtn) March 26, 2015 With the release of the iPhone app, interest for the RTI API has popped up again and Metlink is claiming the end of June. @hadyngreen Hi Hadyn, still working on the API, we hope to have it available by end of the month — Metlink Wellington (@metlinkwgtn) June 08, 2015 If it’s any later than that, it won’t be ready for use for GovHack 2015. @BR3NDA we'll have something to say if it's not within a month or so! (that's July 1, 2015) @metlinkwgtn @HackMiramar @alphabeta_soup — Mike Riversdale (@MiramarMike) March 31, 2015 Given the effort that people want to put into improving the system, it would be a shame to not be ready for them. Even if it slides by this soft deadline, we’d rather have it eventually than never have it at all. My interest in access to the RTI data is mostly for statistical information. How often are the buses early or late? How often are they even tracked? The quarterly report had a graph on this, but there’s no way to rearrange the data to find specific problems. Fingers are crossed for the end-of-June due date. I hope that the internal resource at GW doesn’t get reallocated or something. Accurate information is nearly as important as reliable services.

    • Urban empathy
      • This is just a story. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence, but it can still illustrate a point. Spoiler: the point of this story is how people pay attention to the needs of others. While out walking yesterday, with my son in the buggy, we encountered two bits of footpath disruptions. The first was some work involving a crane operation at Regional Wines and Spirits. As we approached, we were met by a guy in a high-viz vest. He was making sure that pedestrians could safely navigate the area and get to where they were going with minimal fuss. Heading south on Adelaide Road, we found the second disruption. The dropped kerbs were being replaced at Douglas St and there was a pedestrian detour in place. Following the arrow around to the plywood ramp, I was met with a double-parked van blocking access and no driver in sight. Going around the back of the van was my only option, but it blocked sight lines to any traffic turning onto Douglas St. The boy and I were rather vulnerable as a result as we crossed over to the other temporary ramp. A couple metres onward, the footpath was again blocked and the only access through was a squeeze behind an NZ Post box mounted on the corner. Unfortunately the buggy didn’t quite fit in the space and it took quite a bit of bouncing around to get through the space. None of the workers batted an eye in our direction. There are a number of plausible reasons why the two work sites differ – different contractors, maybe requirements of the crane lift, or maybe the first worker was just a nice guy – but there was clearly a different level of service for pedestrians in the area. Before we reached the next intersection, we saw a girl walking along with a white cane. I felt that she deserved to be warned of the trouble she’d find when she got to Douglas St and she seemed quite appreciative. For a cost of a few seconds of my time, I could save someone from a potentially miserable experience because this is a city and we all live here together.

    • Cyclists daren’t tread
      • Several weeks ago, I submitted an OIA request to NZTA via fyi.org.nz regarding cyclist access to tunnels in Wellington. On Friday, I received a personal reply to the public request. While they resend the letter to the right place, I’ll just get on with posting the results. The three tunnels are all part of SH1. As the road controlling authority, NZTA can specify which types of transport are welcome. Here’s the link to the bylaw update, to save you typing it out. The implication is that mixing cars and bikes is dangerous when anyone needs to change lanes, even though this happens on a daily basis around the rest of the city, mostly at speeds above 30km/h. The reference to 30km/h is at a change point in the relationship between speed and injury severity and is actually a good reason to drop the urban limits for most of the city (PDF Reference). While the cyclist bypass exists, forcing cyclists onto the footpath is a substandard solution. It might have been better to coerce cyclists onto Tasman Street via Rugby St. While the potential for injury to cyclists and pedestrians is much lower when there are no cars involved, there are still risks that are best avoided. Here’s the real issue that we’re dealing with. It’s not about cyclists, it’s the fact that drivers are less capable in tunnels than on roads. This might be worth looking into further, but I’ll take the statement on faith for now. Drivers aren’t on their game in tunnels. This annoys me quite a bit. Mt Victoria Tunnel is a narrow road, set to 50km/h. This is like most of our residential roads, except – as above – more disorienting. Maybe if the motorists were less fixated on beeping their horns in the tunnel, they could pay attention to the task at hand. There’s a side issue implied around travel times through the tunnel. At 623m long, the difference between 50km/h and 30km/h travel speeds is about 30 seconds, which is catastrophic from the point of view of a motorist or a road manager, but less than the time that I’ll probably have to wait to safely cross the road at any number of arterial roads on a daily basis. Time is relative. It’s good to know that no cyclists were harmed during the decision-making process, but I would like to see more evidence being presented to justify setting the road conditions. If tunnels are so disorienting, maybe the evidend would show that they’d perform better on safety metrics if the speed limits were lowered to, say, 30km/h.

    • Logging parking complaints
      • Many of my posts start off with a real story, which I try to turn into a lesson or something that can be improved on. This one starts just over a week ago with my son in the buggy, heading down Hall Street. More examples of "common sense" parking. @WgtnCC http://t.co/XGT70zUmUj — Sustwelltrans (@sustwelltrans) May 23, 2015 Maybe it’s my imagination, but I’m noticing a lot more vehicles parking on footpaths than before. It could be confirmation bias or it could be the WCC parking policy getting announced all over the media. As the twitter conversation went on, we looked at how people can complain about people parking on the footpaths. Currently, a phone call is the only way to report a specific instance of a parking complaint. @alphabeta_soup @sustwelltrans We have a really useful app for other issues, FIXiT, but parking complaints work differently. — Wgtn City Council (@WgtnCC) May 24, 2015 I was offered to switch from twitter to email, which allowed for a more continuous, complete answer. Many thanks to Emma for doing so. Currently, the reason we ask to be phoned for parking complaints is to ensure the illegal parking is occurring at the time. We have a maximum of 24 hours to respond to emails and we can’t guarantee an immediate response via Twitter, and our policy is that we won’t deploy officers to site unless we are certain the vehicle is currently illegally parked. This is why we encourage people to ring the 24 hour number for all urgent and time sensitive issues. In saying that, if the parking complaint is not regarding a particular vehicle and is more a request for regular enforcement in general, this can be logged via social media channels. I can understand the problem of deploying parking services without confirmation that the infringing vehicle is there. The problem seems to be the resources being put into collecting the information and translating it to an action. Phone calls occur in real time while messages are delayed by some amount of time, even if that amount is small. It would be possible to monitor email and social media to keep delays down, but currently they aren’t. We are committed to being as accessible as possible. Our current systems are being updated and we hope to be able to provide a user friendly digital service very soon. A user friendly digital service could mean many different things. Whether that be monitoring of messages or maintaining an app or mapping service, we’ll only know after something happens. Wellington City Council already maintains the FixIt app. It would be great to merge that with something like TowIt. (Android links. Apologies to iPhone types.) You can be sure that if app-based parking complaints to WCC were possible, I’d be a serial complainer. There’s no shortage of parking violations around the city. We could even turn it into a game. I’m sure I could find a few other urban-minded folk to play along with me.

    • Great New Video From The Architectural Centre
      • Gregory: The David vs Goliath analogy is quite apt. The ability for public commentary on big projects is near zero, which is not the balance that we need for positive outcomes. NZTA has the right to appeal the decision, but residents should continue to be heard. Originally posted on Save The Basin Reserve: Save the Basin and the Mt Victoria Residents Association have been hard at work raising funds to oppose NZTA’s attempt to get the High Court to overturn the Basin Board of Inquiry decision. The Architectural Centre will also be represented at the High Court, and as part of their fundraising efforts, they have produced the great video above. Please check it out and share it! View original

    • Usefulness of a park
      • It’ll take some time to know how well Pukeahu fits within the fabric of Wellington. Now that ANZAC day is well behind us, the rush and excitement has subsided and we’re slowly getting to know the space as an urban park. So far, it seems a bit empty except for the skateboarders. Following up from the article in the Wellingtonian, a letter was published the next week wondering how useful the space is. We’ve had these sorts of discussions before. Should we make our parks big, open, green spaces or should we have our parks broken up into smaller areas that provide a range of functions? It’s becoming clear that Pukeahu is more the first kind than the second, but not really useful as a big space either. Having stopped off with my toddler last week, he was happy to run around, but that largely meant that I was chasing him before he ran onto one of the many roadways that envelop the memorial. It’s not really a family-friendly space unless your family is happy sitting still. It gets worse, too. It seems as if there was a failure of anticipation during the procurement phase. The toilet blocks don’t provide baby-changing facilities. Don't be ridiculous, the park isn't actually for PEOPLE to use it... twitter.com/gregorybodnar/… — The Wellingtonista (@wellingtonista) May 19, 2015

    • New look for bus shelters
      • Over at Auckland Transport Blog, there’s a post about deciding on a new bus shelter for the AT network. There was a practical evaluation of three designs that’s now been settled. The winner caught my attention because it has more than passing resemblance to a design I read about in the most recent GWRC quarterly report. (The report isn’t online at the moment, or I just haven’t found it. It was distributed separately, but a part of this meeting. I had been emailed a copy.) The design AT has chosen comes in three flavours: The intermediate shelter is very similar to this image from the quarterly report: It’s possible that the similarities are coincidental, but I can’t imagine that there’s a large pool of relevant designers in New Zealand. Since GWRC is looking at bringing more of the shelters around the region under single control, we may see these popping up all over. From the quarterly report: Discussions continued with WCC regarding the transfer to GWRC of the maintenance and repairs of bus shelters in Wellington City. I have no idea what this means for Adshel, who operate many of shelters in Wellington. The took a bit of a hit during a rush of vandalism, but I’ve not seen anything since.

    • Should cyclists be forced onto cycle lanes?
      • The question arises from a comment received on a cycling framework post. For the purpose of safety and to clarify on NZTA’s advertising concept ‘See the person, Share the Road’ an e-petition channelling the overseas experience was made live today. http://wellington.govt.nz/have-your-say/epetitions/petitions/current/2015-05-a-bylaw-to-enforce-cyclists-use-cycle-lanes-where-provided-at-all-times The petition proposes a bylaw change to restrict cyclists to cycle lanes when they are available. The overseas experience shows cyclist are required to use cycle lanes where provided and is embedded in their Road Code. … In discussions with interest groups regarding separated cycle lanes in Island Bay it was suggested the commuter cyclist would not use them based on a theory the speed of cyclists on the purpose built lanes would slow them down. As much as I like having rules and enforcement, my preference is to use design to encourage behaviour instead of legislation, but I think there’s a reasonable discussion that could happen. Reading through comments on various social media, the issue of cycleways not being used by all cyclists comes up regularly. How would a bylaw like this fare in terms of consistency? Buses are not required to use bus lanes. Drivers of Route 32 often stay out of the bus lane along Kent Terrace because the cost of merging at the Basin Reserve is higher than the benefit of bypassing traffic in the other lanes. Cars are not required to stay on arterial routes and avoid local roads. Pedestrians are meant to stay on footpaths when available, but legality of crossing is only specified within 20m of a signal or pedestrian crossing. If the bylaw were in place, how likely would it be adhered to and how likely would it be enforced? There’s no point in creating an ineffective law. We already struggle with all sorts of traffic problems, such as parking on footpaths or running red lights, where personal convenience is driving the bad behaviour and enforcement is either difficult or institutionally ignored. The bylaw would have to presume that a given cycleway is fit for purpose. A cyclists shouldn’t be forced into an unsafe path. Would the bylaw then be limited to separated cycleways or would green-stripes through the door zone be included? Given the level of vulnerability to injury, cyclists are often having to choose between paths, balancing risks. For the bylaw to be effective, all cycleways would need to be designed to accommodate the needs of all cyclists. Which brings me back to my statement of preference above: if we can design a cycleway to be universally attractive, it would be more effective that a bylaw. My opinion is certainly not the only one out there. Use the comment section below and let me know what you think about this. Would there be benefits of a bylaw beyond those of building good cycleways?

    • Patronage on privatised bus routes
      • Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of fluctuations in patronage on my bus route. School holidays are very apparent, but there are longer term cycles that I see but don’t understand. The problem I have is that I can’t look at the patronage data. The routes out to Eastbourne have been registered as fully commercial, so that information is commercially sensitive. Within around a week, we’ve had three trips for my particular route with people standing while we were on the motorway. It’s the final running of the northbound 84 during the morning peak. After this bus, there is a mix of 83s (via Queensgate) and 81s (direct to Eastbourne) that do something similar to the 84, unless you actually need to get to Gracefield, which will require a bit of a walk. A good portion of the passengers get off on Jackson Street, presumably for Weltec, but there’s around half a bus of people continuing around to the east. This suggests that there may be sufficient demand to run another 84 after 8am, although I couldn’t give you more evidence than sparse observations and anecdotal conversations. Under the new Public Transport Operating Model, all the Wellington bus routes except the Airport Flyer should be run as part of the contracted units, which means that there should be more data flowing back to Greater Wellington and be visible to the public after the new bus contracts are expected to roll out in 2016/17. It’s unknown whether GWRC has any interest in tweaking the Eastbourne services before contracting the unit. Somehow, these buses weren’t considered within scope of the recent Hutt Valley Public Transport Review (PDF). Since the incumbent operator of commercial services get a like-for-like contract with a 12-year duration, it would seem sensible to do the analysis before issuing the contract.

    • Relighting Cuba Mall
      • WCC put out a press release around some current work going on in Cuba Mall. Wellington’s famous Bucket Fountain will soon look almost as colourful by night as it does by day thanks to a street light upgrade that will make Cuba Mall much lighter and brighter. The fountain has been removed for maintenance and while it’s gone, new poles and LED street lights are being installed that will have multiple benefits. The soft white light – similar to the light from a full moon – will make walking through the mall at night a much more pleasant experience.  It will be easier on the eye, and mean colours stand out and look more natural. The new lights will save energy too, lowering electricity consumption by about 80 percent and roughly halving power costs for the area. The area around the fountain has been blocked off by hoarding, so there’s not much to see at the moment. While I was out with the dog this morning, I decide to snap a few photos of the surrounding area, to look at the lighting at the moment. The overhead lights were off, so the vast majority of the light is spill from the buildings and verandahs. Currently, the scene is pretty high contrast and details are hard to pick out. The lights above Bucket Fountain are still on, with the distinct yellow glow of your average street light. Contrast is a bit lower and spill goes half way up the first storey. It’s pretty easy to see what’s in front of you, but details don’t carry far. Looking north from Dixon Street, you can see the difference in colour between the overhead lights. For comparison, I took another two on the way back. The nearby lights appear to be the old type and off in the distance, you can see the newer lights along Courtenay Place. I got sidetracked along Egmont Street, so I missed out on an actual comparison with Courtenay. Instead, I popped by Pukeahu on my way home for an example of newer lighting. It features a much more even light coverage of the footpaths and grassy areas, especially compared to lighting on normal streets, which is often useless from a pedestrian point of view. “With the improved colour clarity, it will be easier to see and recognise people, the plants will be green and the Bucket Fountain will look great. It’s nice to see green grass showing as green, lit like this. It makes the space feel much more natural and welcoming, even when the sun is down. The issue of urban lighting has been on my mind for the last week or so. I’m starting to look into lighting around paths and places to see if we’re doing things to support the types of activities that we want, especially in the winter months where daylight is scarce. Expect more on this shortly.

    • Kids these days
      • While walking home through Pukeahu last week, there were a bunch of people with skateboards doing exactly what you’d expect in the park. I thought it was great. People are making the space useful on their own terms. This is what happens in urban spaces. Not long after, I saw this tweet: Outrageous that skateboarders are using Cenotaph - understand it's consecrated ground too. stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/… — Nicola Young (@nmjyoung) May 11, 2015 It’s disappointing, really. The article that Councillor Young cited was referring specifically to the Cenotaph, but there’s a similar article in the Wellingtonian regarding skateboards at Pukeahu. I’m not sure if it’s because the spaces are both newly unveiled or because they’re memorials, or both. When I asked Councillor Young, she didn’t answer that. She’d gotten as far as telling me that kids belong in playgrounds: @gregorybodnar that's why we have playgrounds. Cenotaph and Pukeahu have different role. — Nicola Young (@nmjyoung) May 12, 2015 Again, disappointing. I’m not sure if she actually meant playgrounds or meant skate parks and just misspoke. WCC has a list of skate parks in the city, and it’s not a long list: There are Council skate parks throughout the city offering local and visiting skaters a range of fun, accessible spaces. Waitangi Park – opposite Chaffers Street on the waterfront. The park has a wide variety of skate equipment and ramps for beginners and experienced skaters. It also has street skating equipment and concrete bowls. Ian Galloway Park – Curtis Street, Northland. This park has a new wooden ramp that’s higher and wider than the previous ramp. Island Bay Skate Park – Adelaide Road, Island Bay, opposite Wakefield Park. This park’s wooden mini-ramp was repaired and has a range of gradients. Newlands – behind Newlands Fire Station on Newlands Road. Has an open concrete space and ramps. A recent extension has added more concrete space, ramps and street skating equipment. Tawa – Davies Street, Tawa, behind Tawa Pool – has open concrete space, a ramp and street skate equipment. Nairnville Park – corner Cockayne Road / Lucknow Terrace, Khandallah. This park has a concrete ramp. Plantation Reserve – off Tirangi Road, Rongotai. This park has open concrete space and ramps with some rails. For inner city locations, it’s just Waitangi Park, which gets quite a bit of utilisation as it is. If you were to try to fit all the inner-city skateboarding population in Waitangi Park at once, everyone is going to be worse off for it. There are some by-laws in place for skateboarding: 15. Skateboards and skates 15.1 Use of a skateboard, roller-skates or inline-skates in a public place is allowed, except in areas with signs stating otherwise. 15.2 Every one who uses a skateboard, roller-skates or in-line skates shall ensure no damage is caused to Council property and shall show reasonable consideration for other persons using the public place. My skating background is on ice and inline skates, but there are a lot of similarities that can be drawn across to any of the balance sports. Getting good at anything takes time and practice. Learning a skill isn’t as simple as watching someone else doing it and trying it a few times. The skill needs to be burned into memory through repetition. As these people learn to handle kerbs, steps and falls, they’re making themselves safer for the times that they’re on the footpath or on the streets, which they have every right to be. The council has tools to curb damaging behaviour, should they need to, but maybe they should look at providing more options for people skating. Skateboards are transport and portable entertainment. It’s easy to look with old eyes at the kids and think that they’re being disrespectful, but I don’t see it that way. There’s this quote from the article in the Wellingtonian: Max Sceats, 16, said he understood their actions could be disrespectful. “But we are using it better than the vast majority of people,” he said. As for the damage, everything is going to weather over time. The benches will have a shorter life because of the skaters, which is possibly justification for invoking the bylaw, but it also reminds me of speaking with a security guard before Pukeahu was officially opened. This particular bench was already damaged by a taxi driver. Meanwhile, I can’t help but agree with this sentiment: @gregorybodnar @nmjyoung It's strange that people are more upset about skateboarders than Pukeahu having a road through the middle of it — Regan Dooley (@ReganDooley) May 12, 2015

    • Metlink’s Android widget
      • Just before the lunch break, I saw this tweet from Metlink. The new Metlink Real-Time widget for Android is now available for download bit.ly/MetlinkAndroid http://t.co/o2JWJnVcqC — Metlink Wellington (@metlinkwgtn) May 10, 2015 It’s an Android widget that sits on the screen instead of an app that needs to be opened. I gave it a quick try during my lunch break and decided to post a quick review. After placing the widget, the configuration screen opens up. The user can select up to two stations to monitor. While this might seem limiting, most people are likely to have a stop close to home and a stop close to work. It’s not really going to drag people out of the mindset that public transit is for commuting, but lots of people will find value in this design. For each stop, there are 3 text areas, stop code, stop name and a filter. Setting the stop code automatically sets the stop name, but the reverse isn’t true. You’re going to have to find your own stop code. Unfortunately, setting the stop code is probably a bit too simplistic. If you don’t know the code, the widget isn’t going to give you any help. Your best bet is jumping into a map that shows the bus stops and get the information from there. Ideally, the software company would have provided a map screen that could populate the stop code automatically. Maybe the next revision. Filtering is a nice touch, given the proportion of passengers who work near the CBD but live remotely. Most people will have a small number of routes that will serve their needs. Since the widget is fixed at 4 lines of RTI display, judicious filtering will save screen resources for what’s interesting. My overall impression is that it does a simple job reasonably well. It keeps the display simple enough that users aren’t left hunting for information. I’m a bit disappointed that the widget isn’t allowed to scale to larger or smaller sizes. It’s assumed that 4 lines is correct, but people have a way of surprising you and assumptions have a way of being wrong.

    • Those pesky roads
      • There was a story run in the DomPost last week about cyclists coming off their bikes in Pukeahu National War Memorial Park because of poor visibility of the kerbs. It’s a bit of a design flaw that’s only coming to light now that real people are interacting with the park. I’m sure we’ll find more issues as we go. “It’s supposed to be a cycling and walking-friendly place, so you don’t expect to come across something like that,” group committee member Alastair Smith said. He first noticed the low kerbs when he crashed off his bike last November, before the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park was finished. He was riding on the north side of the road through thepark, and had to move around a parked car. He did not see the kerb, clipped it with his wheel and came off, injuring only his pride. The problems stemmed from the kerbs being only 50 millimetres high, and being hard to distinguish from the road and cobbles, especially after rain. As I was walking through the park today, I was drawn to the fact that the roads have been given an inconsistent treatment. Cobbles are featured on Buckle Street up to the memorial access and smooth asphalt on the connector between Tory and Tasman. I happen to have a serious issue with the traffic speeds that can be obtained on the through road, and it’s part of the same problem as the kerbs. With only 50mm kerbs, the raised table isn’t enough of a feature to force fast traffic to slow. The narrow road is meant to encourage lower speeds, but I’ve seen a few vehicles cutting though in the range of 50km/h. Photo credit: Memorial Park Alliance The roads highlights in red are normal asphalt, yellow are raised tables and blue are cobblestones. I’ve marked up the photo from memory, so I may have gotten some details wrong. The cobblestones do a good job of reminding motorists that they are in a low speed place. With the 50mm kerbs, the raised table on the link road is pretty useless. This is contrary to the plan put forward by NZTA (PDF): What should have happened was for the Tory/Tasman link to be cobblestone. I’d expect that the current raised table may need to be left as-is to allow for people with disabilities requiring a smooth pedestrian surface to cross safely. Returning to the issue of kerb visibility, the DomPost article had indicated that even with cobblestones, the kerb wasn’t clear. While this is quite true, the implications of the surface texture can be quickly learned. I doubt many people would make the same mistake twice. In the above photo, there’s no difference in surface texture between the footpath and the road. A cyclist would very easily miss the visual cue and not notice the 50mm drop. This photo shows a clear delineation between footpath and road. It would be hard to not notice the boundary between the two. Interestingly, the west end of Buckle St is paved in asphalt instead of cobblestone. Along that section, which I failed to photograph, they’ve added a physical barrier between the footpath and the road as a trial measure. I’m willing to bet that if the roads were consistently paved, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. Alliance manager Duncan Kenderdine said the small kerb enhanced the open feel of the park, but accepted that problems had been raised about it. The alliance was aware the white line solution was not sufficient. “We are now reviewing the options around physical changes to reduce people meandering across the kerb, or ways of levelling the kerb by cambering or adjusting levels beside it.” There were plans to talk to those who had been affected about what the best solution might be, he said. I wouldn’t suggest that putting cobblestones along the roads in a consistent fashion would solve all the problems with the park, but it should provide necessary visual cues while slowing traffic. That just leaves us with things like this:

    • Verandahs, overhead pedestrian infrastructure
      • We tend to take infrastructure for granted. Not many people really care about where the three waters go, only that they do. Landfills are necessary, but most people don’t want to live next door to one. Roads are reasonably high-profile and cycle lanes are getting all sorts of attention at the moment, but have you stopped to think about infrastructure for pedestrians? Footpaths are the obvious one, getting a bit more attention at the moment as extra car parking space, but there’s more to it than that. Pedestrians are generally exposed to all elements. Umbrellas used elsewhere fall apart at the slightest Wellington wind. Aside from any waterproof layers worn, it’s the street design that keeps people dry. It’s the combination of buildings and verandahs that redirect the wind and keep the rain off the footpaths. Knowing the city well includes knowing where to find shelter from both northerly and southerly rains. Wellington City Council District Plan includes a network of verandah requirements in the CBD, allowing for nearly continuous rain cover along the inner-city footpath network. Recently, an audit of verandah conditions highlighted a subset that required some form of repair (PDF report). Of the 900 (approx.) verandahs across the city, 225 require some form of repair with 15-20% of those verandahs requiring immediate action to restore to a reasonable and safe standard. The majority of defective verandahs are within the CBD, which poses a particular risk to inner city residents and to members of the public due to the density of people within the area. As such, WCC is about to consult on a bylaw change allowing for council to enforce an adequate state of repair, instead of only having the ability to act after a dangerous situation has already been created. The DomPost recently ran an article on the upcoming consultation. Building portfolio leader Iona Pannett said it was important to talk to building owners about the proposal because it would be a cost to them. “We have had a few owners approach us about the cost. It’s a big undertaking. We don’t want to be putting undue pressure on building owners.” After the Canterbury earthquake, a royal commission recommended immediate strengthening of thousands of verandas or awnings throughout the country, as they were believed to be particularly vulnerable to collapse. The February 2011 Canterbury earthquake, which killed 185 people, caused verandas to fall, including one that trapped store manager Jane Taylor at Cashel Mall. Several also collapsed in the magnitude-6.7 quake in Gisborne in 2007. The bulk of the draft bylaw is shown below. It’s pretty straightforward in that it can notify owners and then authorise action if the owners fail to comply by the date required. According to the timeline, the bylaw is expected to come into force on 1 September 2015, allowing for consultation time, amendment and passage by full council.

    • Cycling Framework Consultation
      • Wellington City Council was quick off the blocks to get the draft cycling framework out for consultation, which opened on 4 May – quite likely to very many Star Wars puns – and runs until 5pm, 29 May. The framework document should be identical to that included in the agenda for the 30 April full council meeting, but the rendering of the document is much, much better. Finally, we’re able to make out some of the finer markings on the page: I’m expecting some tussling to and fro over tiny details, which we saw come up with Councillor Eagle’s amendment 2a over parking thresholds. Amendment carried: 9-6. Cncllr @pauleaglenz now introducing a new amendment. #BikeWgtn #safercycling http://t.co/qA7kXOvjUM — Wgtn City Council (@WgtnCC) April 30, 2015 There’s plenty of room to argue over details, but on the whole, the document looks quite reasonable. I’m looking forward to hearing feedback over the next few weeks. For example: @sustwelltrans It says bus times should improve but accepts up to 10% increase W/O Council vote. Should be 0% Also 50kmph -> 30kmph is > 10% — Wellington Commuter (@Wellingtoncomm) April 30, 2015

    • Switched on Bikes for Wellington
      • WCC has a news article on supporting Switched on Bikes through the Smart Energy Challenge programme. They are running a crowd-funding campaign that is set to expire in 3 days with a goal of bringing electric bike hire to Wellington. At the moment, they’re approaching $5000 of their $7000 target on 96 pledges. While it’s filed under tourism, building up this sort of bike hire scheme will have flow-on effects for residents as well. As I was told by Councillor Sarah Free, electric bikes chew through hills, which makes them perfectly suited for Wellington’s suburbs. https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/3446-switched-on-bikes-electric-bike-hire-and-guided-tours-of-wellington/embed_video_card

    • Photos: Parking failures
      • Parking failures seem to be occupying my mind at the moment. Since I spend so much time on foot, I see all sorts of things on my way. The first photo is a bit older, but the other three were all from yesterday. This is quite common behaviour and I think the lack of enforcement is responsible for much of the shoddy attitude. I don’t know if the damage to the back end was related to the attempt at parking. Either way, it’s illegal to stop or park in an intersection and it’s also illegal to stop or park on a broken yellow line. I see this a lot. Cars often overhang into the footpath. In this case, it’s a pretty small car. In my mind, this is implicitly extending private space into public space without any compensation to the public. Imagine a blind person getting to the tactile surface and proceeding to cross the street. This is basically a lack of respect for other people and also illegal. Encroaching on the footpath is incredibly common in Wellington and it’s not going to change unless we push back against it. This is not a narrow street and traffic speeds up on the way down the hill when the parked cars leave an extra gap. That’s not the outcome that we want.

    • Threatening parked cars
      • Not long ago, I took a stab at the issue of Wellington City Council forgiving/ignoring/encouraging cars parked on suburban footpaths. Coincidental to that, The Wellingtonian ran an article and an editorial on the subject. Before I go any further, I should mention that I’m a member of Living Streets Aotearoa. I think they do good work and I support walking, both with my wallet and with my feet. Especially with my feet, averaging around 10 hours/week. My commute is largely centred around the bus and as we now all know, buses are pedestrian fountains. I am also a father to a little monster and we do heaps of walking together, except I do most of the walking, with him in a buggy or in a carrier. It was hard to miss the parked cars on footpaths even before parenthood. I’d see them while walking the dog in the morning or while running to and from the gym. Sometimes I’d take photos and send them in to WCC, but the only time anything was ever done was a repeat offender on Tasman Street who we’d reported every morning over a week. Wellington’s narrow streets have long caused difficulties for drivers, whether it be navigating around parked vehicles or finding a place to park safely. Although it is illegal to park on a footpath, Wellington City Council said it was willing to “cut motorists some slack” on narrow streets and as long as people were considerate they wouldn’t be ticketed. But Living Street Aotearoa president Andy Smith said the law was the law and the group was not apologising for the fliers, which he said they had used around the country since 2004. “The footpath is not a carpark. It’s as simple as that,” he said. The law is incredibly clear on the subject. Parking on footpaths or cycle paths (1)A driver or person in charge of a vehicle must not stop, stand, or park the vehicle on a footpath or on a cycle path. (2)Subclause (1) does not apply to cycles if a road controlling authority indicates otherwise by means of signs or markings or if it installs facilities for the parking, standing, or storage of cycles on a footpath or cycle path. (3)Nothing in subclause (1) prevents a person from stopping, standing, or parking a cycle, mobility device, or wheeled recreational device on a footpath if doing so does not unreasonably obstruct any other user of the footpath. This is the same law that applies over the whole country and Wellington isn’t special for having hills and narrow streets. I’m not without some sympathy, however. We’ve had to replace a wing mirror on our car because of an errant driver, which is frustrating and annoying. However, we won’t be parking on the footpath to try to prevent it. Besides, I’m not sure if an extra few centimetres would have prevented the other big hit that our car took. There are some really bad drivers out there. Council spokesman Richard MacLean said that though the law was the law, the council and Living Streets Aotearoa differed on how strict it should be enforced in this case. “There are so many streets in Wellington where if people parked entirely with their wheels on the road it would actually block the street. We try to take a pragmatic approach,” he said. With the recently agreed-upon draft cycling framework, Wellington City Council is proposing a policy of using the streets for mobility. So the question must be asked – if there isn’t adequate space for parking on the road, why is there parking allowed? If the road is too narrow for private cars and service vehicles to pass parked cars, then surely the provision of parking is misguided. Put even better: Weird how it's "We have to park on footpath otherwise we block emergency vehicles" &not "There can't be parking because emergency vehicles." — Richard Law (@alphabeta_soup) April 30, 2015 But nothing is going to stop people from whinging about car parking as if it were a right. Here’s the closing statement from the editorial in The Wellingtonian. There’s a few assumptions thrown in there that I fail to see as valid. If every car on those streets were parked in an adequate parking space, there wouldn’t be an issue. There wouldn’t be crashes and the only people complaining would be people having to walk an extra minute or two to get to their car. Or, heaven forbid, use some of their land to build an off-street car park instead of depending on public land. New Zealand has a cultural attitude that car is king. This is why Living Streets Aotearoa has to lobby for basic infrastructure and push back against the cars parking on the footpaths. It’s hard to enforce a vague rule, such as how much space is required for a pedestrian, buggy or wheelchair. As such, the vagueness will tend to lead to pushing of boundaries and collapsing into the remaining pedestrian space. This is a real problem when you start offering compromises by default. Surely, the council stance on forgiving infringing behaviour and the media take on this is just representing what the average motorist wants to hear and they are the clear majority. Or maybe this is more the case: I wonder what newspapers' editorial stances on housing and transport would be if they weren't full of real estate and car advertising? — The blurst of Toms (@badtom) April 30, 2015

    • Greater Wellington Regional Land Transport Plan
      • On his personal blog, GW Councillor Paul Bruce offers his views on the Regional Land Transport Plan. On the positive side, fellow regional councillors rejected the Takapu link road in a Petone to Grenada report preceeding the consideration of the full Plan. However, Council voted for the Regional Land Transport Plan exactly as updated following the hearing of submissions. As the DomPost reported, several cycling projects were bumped back up the priority list by the hearing committee, though Nguaranga to Petone Cycleway remained one step below its position in 2013′s RLTP plan, and proposed cycling expenditure is also still only 1.3% of proposed new investment. The sections of the Plan on cycling and walking are particularly well written.  Resilient transport networks are discussed.  However, there are no recommendations on fixing the the broken link at Wellington Railway station, where an extension to the south through the CBD to Newtown and Kilbirnie, would provide real utility. There are many contradictions between stated vision, policy and proposed expenditure, and no attempt to moderate roading expenditure in response to submissions which overwhelmingly requesting a shift in investment towards public transport and active modes. There has been a disconnect between the aspirational mode-share targets and what gets implemented. We’ve had the Wellington Bus Review, but implementation was delayed. We’re still waiting on integrated ticketing that allows hopping between trains, buses, ferries and the cable car. In the meantime, RoNS projects are well into construction phase already and set to reduce patronage on our public transport network, diminishing viability of the service, and we’re approving more of them as we go. The $2.4 billion being spent on large new RoNs roads in the Wellington region, now including the Petone to Grenada link road plus cross Hutt Valley link and various new interchanges is massive, but largely ignored by our media. The hearing committee report includes pie graphs to illustrate proposed new investment, including provision and operation of public transport services and the contribution this makes to enhancing public transport (e.g. through new and enhanced services and improving bus fleet quality).  Thus, by lumping capital and operating expenditure together, the apparent new and improved infrastructure on local and state highway roads costs is reduced to 68.2% of total, and public transport increases to 29.2%. I’d like to hear back from Paul about the operational costs of improving the bus fleet. I would have expected the operators to wear that cost fully as a capital cost instead of claiming a subsidy on it. The 2012 OPUS/ARUP study concluded that the RoNs projects would lead to 13,000 extra vehicles into Wellington city atv peak by 2031 and a 3% decline in rail passengers. I have been trying to find out what exact contribution the proposed Petone to Grenada link road would make to vehicle traffic. However, GWRC officers were directed to calculate supposed time savings, but not the number of new cars flooding into the city, that would compete with under utilised public transport, and destroy further the walkability of our city streets. There’s a long-standing issue here. Whether the highway network can handle traffic volumes at peak time is completely independent of the ability of the destinations, mostly Wellington, to absorb the vehicles. Encouraging sprawling suburbs and enticing commuters from public transit onto the roads means that more cars will need to be accommodated at the end of the journey, which means more parking and more capacity within the local road network. The geography of the city isn’t going to allow for much lateral expansion where it’s needed and the geometry of the streets aren’t overly conducive to loosening the belt on the roads. Something will eventually give.

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