How not to build a transport hub
OPINION: Eighteen months after it opened with some fanfare, Auckland’s fancy new downtown bus hub is closing again for five months in what is a lesson to politicians on acting in haste and repenting at leisure.
The lesson will be cold comfort to many bus users, who will be sheltering from winter weather at improvised stops, wondering why.
Lower Albert St connects with Auckland’s downtown waterfront and a year-long $20 million upgrade of it was part of amajor revamp ahead of the 2021 America’s Cup regatta.
It went from a wind swept street handy for delivery vans and buses to a beautifully paved extension of harbour-edge Quay St, with a showpiece bus hub for high-frequency services to the north and west.
Then came Covid-19 early in the construction work. Councillors hastily slashed $119 million from their 2020 budget as dark clouds descended over council finances.
In the small print of the cuts was $6.4 million for shelters and seating for bus users. After the year-long street makeover, those waiting for buses had to do so mostly on their feet, under building verandas.
Eighteen months later, the good news was the money had been found to finish off the bus hub. The bad news was it would take five months – and bus stops would be relocated into surrounding streets through winter.
‘‘Five months?!’’ was a common response to news of the length of the job. After all, the street had already been prepared for the structures’ eventual, belated installation.
A big part of the explanation from Auckland Transport seems to be that it is trying to do the work in away that causes the least disruption to Covid-hit businesses on the street.
Another aim was to maintain two traffic lanes – not just for buses to pass through but also for general traffic, some of which accesses an underground car park below the Commercial Bay precinct.
The erection of the steel structures will be followed by measuring up for the glass sheets that provide the shelter, meaning perhaps a month-long pause in construction.
Couldn’t one side of the street be done, then the other, to halve disruption to bus users heading either north or west? No. The space needed for construction made that impossible, Auckland Transport said.
Couldn’t it be done in summer, when bus use is lower and shelter from the elements less of an issue? No, because summer is a more important time for businesses in the vicinity.
The mother of all bus routes, the double deckered NX1, at least gets moved to veranda-protected stops around the corner.
Those using westbound buses will have to trek 100m to 200m further up Albert St to find partially-sheltered temporary stops.
North Shore councillor Richard Hills – a regular user of buses from the hub – argued in vain against the budget cut at the time, describing himself as ‘‘extremely disappointed’’.
Hills is happy the money has been found to complete the job at a time when public transport patronage is still 40% pre Covid-19 levels and struggling to recover – but not that the job will take so long.
On the face of it, the belated job won’t cost any more than originally planned, although a temporary shelter on Lower Albert St will remain, rather than be replaced with a fancier one.
Hopefully businesses around Lower Albert St appreciate the thoughtfulness extended to them, but winter bus users might be less charitable – and politicians might reflect on their wisdom back in 2020.