Transition Initiative St Albans

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7 Comments

Comment by Christoph Hensch on October 23, 2008 at 10:45am

Here it is again, clickable: http://www.stalbans.gen.nz/pm/pmwiki.php

Comment by Stacy Rendall on October 23, 2008 at 10:02am

Hey guys,
just a reminder that you can access the wiki through this link:
http://www.stalbans.gen.nz/pm/pmwiki.php
please get in touch if you have any trouble viewing the page, or wish to become an editor.

Comment by Dave on September 8, 2008 at 8:59am

Hi, over the last 10 years most of my "think global, act local" energies have gone into public transport issues. In particular, since 2002 I have been mooting to various civic authorities that a busway corridor be cut down from Northlands to the city, utilising or beside the alignment of Grassmere Street/Rutland Street with bus (and cycle/pedestrian/skate) only green corridors east of Paparoa Street school, and from Rutland Street to Edgeware Road. The latter would require acquisition of about 10 properties, but these include rearranging the sites of two council housing complexes, the Edgeware Pool area, and the tennis club.
I now think the city should go the whole hog and build a bus only (and separated cycle/ped/skate) underpass from Caledonia Road under Bealey Avenue. This would traverse the old Women's Hospital area, in lane curving to join a permanent bus only corridor down the left side of Durham Street to the new Bus Exchange. Bus Rapid Transit systems ( BRT - "think rail, build bus") at central points and in peak times become minor bus trains, and the suggested in-lane allows five 5 or even 20 buses free uninterrupted queue flow into the exchange). The suggested northern busway out-"lane" alignment comes up Colombo through Cathedral Square to north of Salisbury then curves across the old Women's Hospital site (presumably redeveloped in some sort of earthquake resistant housing site or park) to rejoin before the underpass and head north. Ideally the busway runs along a central segregated area of Caledonia Road, parts of Rutland St etc with only residential access lanes along the relandscaped kerbside. Buses get priority at most traffic lights. I am being very specific here, because it is only in the specific that the viability of Bus Rapid Transit can be seen. As compared to light rail which can only follow one alignment, and needs extensive land for park-and-ride at peak hours, buses from all over the northern suburbs might feed in to this direct corridor off Main North Road, stopping only at transfer stations at Northlands and Edgeware, and arriving in the city in less than 10 minutes from Northlands, even at peak times. Underlaying this, and the rest of the time, busway specific services (similar to Metrostar or Orbiter) would run every 10-15 minutes. Because it is essentially a separate, segregated, alignment these could perhaps be modern trolley buses with elegant (or arty) poles like the heritage tram. [Northbound trips along Colombo through Cathedral Square might operate on battery only to the underpass].The corridor specific service would stop all stops and offer access to central St Albans/Papanui area and Northlands 18 hours a day.
Many Christchurch people are enamoured with light rail - and indeed once established this corridor could later be adapted to light rail - but light rail starts at around $10 million a kilometre (Mebourne suburban extension cost), and trams at $5-8 million each, and can't spread its feeder roots across whole suburbs. Or can but only with clumsy land consuming, car perpetuating, park-and-ride transfer stations - in travel time ratio, hardly realistic except perhaps North of the Waimakariri and at Rolleston. By its nature effective sustainable public transport needs to be democratic and best value for money, and BRT at about quarter the cost of light rail potentially means four times the kilometre length of rapid access corridors, plus direct trip (one vehicle home to city) feeder routes city wide. It doesn't have the local profile of light rail but the BRT concept is being adopted all over the world, from megacities like Jakarta and Lagos to dozens of smaller cities, for instance in Canada, where dispersed low density population, as here, makes it a particularly realistic concept. The proposal here might cost $50 million - very small compared to current commuter rail spending in Auckland and Wellington, and bringing people right into the city without need of transfer at either end.
I wonder how St Alban's residents interested in sustainable transport view this idea? Neighbourhood groups tend to be reactive and fighting to save things, always on the back foot, never the best situation to attract support. Embracing a vision and running with it, allows sustainability to take the initiative and generate energy to change attitudes and build associated projects. Her endeth the rave!!

Comment by Kerry McKenna on August 23, 2008 at 9:52am

Kia ora Tatou
I had a great idea this morning, I entered it as a discussion on the 2020 page thing. ( how do we do type links here ?))

Its a theme most kiwis could get behind I think. And all we would have to do is keep putting green options out there like transitional initiatives are doing, as well as build these up just through more popular support.

Do we know any biologists botanists on here? need frog studies info

Comment by Kerry McKenna on August 16, 2008 at 11:02pm

Hi everybuddy !§

Good on you Christoph will be back soon when have recharged personal battery☼

Hi Doug are you the one that was sitting opposite me the other day that wrote that cool green development fantasy in the STANN?

Comment by Christoph Hensch on August 15, 2008 at 1:06pm

We had a little write-up in the NorWest News of 14 Aug 2008.

Comment by Christoph Hensch on August 12, 2008 at 2:51pm

Please check local events on the Events page!