Johnsonville Wellington "Park N Ride" and Wilson Parking breaches

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Scott3

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#2159528 11-Jan-2019 23:11

kingdragonfly:

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So would it make some sense to "close the loop" and provide more "park and ride" spaces outside the CBD, if we want to encourage commuters?

Of the 55 spaces at Johnsonville, probably a number are taken by residents using it as long-term parking.

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The new Johnsonville library site really missed an opportunity. It is literally across the street from the train and bus hub.

They could have built a lot of Park N ride space, but instead the library will add 5 spaces more than the previous library, and these spaces are limited to a few hours.

As others have said, be careful with promoting park and ride. It's one of those things that looks obvious at first glance, but isn't so much when you dig into the data.

Firstly, a decent portion (40 - 75% depending on study) of park and ride users would continue to use public transport if the parking was removed. As such, park and ride is essentially undermining local feeder buses, active short distance transport modes, and people getting dropped off etc. Some studies find that park and ride results in a net increase in transport emissions.

Secondly, as others have mentioned park and ride is really expensive to provide (especially where land is valuable), and the cost is generally not passed onto users. (seriously we need to start charging for park and ride where it is over-subscribed)

Generally park and ride (especally free park and ride) only is logical for a city when it is positioned at the very fringe of cities where land is cheap, and residents are poorly served by feeder buses etc. (even then we need to be aware that a chunk of the carparks will be taken up by people driving the opposite way they want to go to use the park and ride, adding emissions etc.)

kingdragonfly

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#2159542 12-Jan-2019 07:15

Valid points.

However it makes the assumption that feeder buses are as reliable as transport centers.

I find Wellington's public transport unreliable and unpredictable. I've lived in a number of areas around Wellington. If you're served by only one bus line, you're likely to regularly face "no-shows", driver's who won't stop because they're full, or the inevitable bunching.

Regarding bunching, most of the problems with Wellington buses is a lack of discipline. In other words since the bus driver continue driving past empty bus stops inevitably they catch up with the previous buses on the same route, who did stop to pick up passengers. So you get bunching.

The reason I do not use feeder buses is because I'm hedging my bets. Given enough bus routes, you're likely to get to work on time.

Four or more unreliable bus routes combined = one reliable way to get to work on time.

Many people are in the bad position of making a connection. One unreliable feeder bus + connecting bus not waiting for the feeder bus to arrive = late to work.

Lastly there strict economics. If "park and ride" starts charging, it offsets the expensive of driving into the city.

I pay $7.40 two way bus trip to Johnsonville. If I paid to park, I'd simply choose the more predictable driving to work.

kingdragonfly

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#2159563 12-Jan-2019 07:31

If any Wellington bus drivers are reading this: drop the attitude, get some discipline, unless you want to be replaced with self-driving buses sooner than later.

It's not "if" it's "when"

Baidu's self-drive buses enter 'mass production'

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44713298

Self-driving electric bus propels Swiss town into the future

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/27/sport/trapeze-self-driving-autonomous-electric-bus-switzerland-spt-intl/index.html

MUJI is developing self-driving buses that can function in any weather condition

https://www.designboom.com/technology/muji-self-driving-bus-sensible-4-helsinki-11-01-2018/

DonH

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#2159785 12-Jan-2019 16:11

kingdragonfly: ...
Regarding bunching, most of the problems with Wellington buses is a lack of discipline. In other words since the bus driver continue driving past empty bus stops inevitably they catch up with the previous buses on the same route, who did stop to pick up passengers. So you get bunching.
...

The lengthening of some routes hasn't helped. For example, extending the No.1 route out to Johnsonville / Churton Park / Grenada has made bunching a lot worse for the second half (city out) of that route.

PolicyGuy

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#2159843 12-Jan-2019 20:36

Bunching is an inevitable feature of commuter bus transport.
Even if passengers arrive at stops at regular even intervals (IRL they don't, because they try to arrive for a particular timetable event, also they get bunched up by pedestrian crossing light cycles and other environmentals), they get bunched up at the stop, which delays the bus because there are more passengers waiting to get on and it takes time for passengers to board through the single entry door.
I think that the only way to mitigate (not aboid) it would be to have buses so frequently (5 minute intervals?) that passengers just show up randomly, and for the driver of a later bus to stop and wait at bus stops with no waiting passengers. Is this the "discipline" referred to?

Note this is less of a problem with trains because each carriage has multiple doors and the time per passenger to board is very much shorter.

kingdragonfly

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#2159860 12-Jan-2019 21:52

I used to live in Seattle, and the public transportation was a joy.

If a bus arrived at a bus stop early, they simply waited. Problem solved.

Oddly enough, Guadalajara Mexico public transportation was also great. All buses were privately owned, so the goal for each driver was to get almost full. Completely full or too empty meant lost revenue.

If there were not enough passengers, they'd first slow down to spread themselves out. If that didn't work, go on a break.

If the driver kept filling up the bus, they'd call their fellow bus drivers and tell them to get on the road, in hope their fellow drivers would return the favor.

It was naturally balancing.

Scott3

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#2159879 12-Jan-2019 23:03

Regarding bus bunching this was (I haven't ridden for a while) a major issue on the auckland "Link" loop bus route(s). Those routes had both major issues with bouncing, and inconveniently long (sometimes 10min) waits for the timetable at stops (with passengers on board). A tech based solution could be implemented to resolve this in real time (rather than a printed timetable), given bus passenger loading, and location are already known, the required inputs are already present. System could advise drivers if their bus is running ahead or behind the optimal bus spacing for all buses on the route, and advise action such as increasing dwell time at stops if the bus is running to far ahead. If a bus is running well behind, the driver could be instructed to go out of service, and only drop off passengers, to speed it's passage. (In such circumstances another bus would be close behind).

kingdragonfly: Valid points.

...
The reason I do not use feeder buses is because I'm hedging my bets. Given enough bus routes, you're likely to get to work on time.

...

Lastly there strict economics. If "park and ride" starts charging, it offsets the expensive of driving into the city.

I pay $7.40 two way bus trip to Johnsonville. If I paid to park, I'd simply choose the more predictable driving to work.

All good, you appear to be in the 25% - 60% (depending on study & location) of park and ride users who would discontinue using public transport if the parking was removed.

On the cost front, firstly understand that between 1.66 and 4 car-parks (based on the various studies I have seen) need to be built in order to capture / retain a net single Public transport user (the rest are taken by people who would have used PT anyway, or use the carparking for purposes other than park and ride. If car-parking is multistory / basement etc, cost per carpark can run at $50k - $70k each capex, and non-negligible opex. Multiply the cost of per carpark by number required for an additional public transport user, and it is clear that the (especially worse case) cost is high.

Regarding economics. I don't know about the wellington situation, but in Auckland, most free park and ride lots are full very early in the morning. Essentially capacity is allocated to those who have early starts at work (incl flexible hours), or are willing to travel to work well in advance of their start time. If a charge was introduced, some users at the margins (yourself?) would drop off, but as long as the price was set at market equilibrium, others would take the parking spaces, and the system would gain more revenue. (Which could be used to cut fares, or to improve the system).

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Geektastic

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#2159948 13-Jan-2019 09:54

wellygary:
nickb800:

Multistorey parking is more like $25,000 per park, and if there are height restrictions on the library site then adding car parking would reduce the size of the library. That money could go towards better PT (more frequency, more routes) connecting residents to train stations or high frequency buses.

Edit: Source to the $25k per park cost https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2016/09/05/park-and-ride-not-really-a-no-brainer/

25K per space is cheap for a multi story, The new 1000 place building at Wellington Airport cost 70 million, that's 70K per space (although its probably slightly less as some space has been set aside for a bus stop , bike parking etc...

Also of course in a multi storey, there's dead space for lifts, stairwells, electrical plant, support posts, access ramps and so forth, which is not the case in simple ground level carpark construction.

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