About time they did something to the Airport.

Though, I wonder if that is like the first Election Promise Labour made - Light Rail for Auckland? Since then, crickets...

trig42:

 

About time they did something to the Airport.

 

Though, I wonder if that is like the first Election Promise Labour made - Light Rail for Auckland? Since then, crickets...

 

Don't worry there are gonna be plenty of crickets with this one too,

The promised light rail wont likely have shovels in the ground until at least 2024, to be completed between 2024 and 2029.....with the airport extension not happening until after 2029.....

There is plenty of water to flow under this bridge before this stuff actually happens,

trig42:

 

...

 

Though, I wonder if that is like the first Election Promise Labour made - Light Rail for Auckland? Since then, crickets...

 

That project is alive and well, just not a lot to report on a day-to-day basis, check here for updates:

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/city-centre-to-mangere-light-rail/?stage=Live 

Seems a pretty flawed strategy in many ways despite the years they've spent on it. 

I've seen mention that travel times to the airport are going to be somewhere around 45 mins from the railway station. That's 15 mins longer than current travel times on the bus.

One of the biggest issues with traffic to and from the Eastern suburbs is the airport. You've now got thousands and thousands of Taxi and Uber/Olo/Zoomy rideshares per day on the route from the airport to the city that are all clogging up the roads particularly since the Airport Flyer is now a lost cause and totally useless under NZ Bus control.

Rather than a billion dollars on light rail why don't we just offer bus services for free that leave every 5-10 minutes heading towards the city? Surely that wouldn't can't cost any more $10 mil or so per year to run a high capacity route.

frankv: Given that Wgtn has a functioning rail system, why is the airport link *light* rail?

Heavy rail to the airport simply isn't possible... Well it is - but it would need to be 100% underground from the railway station, and the cost of that would be many times the total cost of this project and have very limited options for stations along the way. Light rail is planned to be a high capacity bus replacement.

Due to the length of the runway, isn't there a plan to move the airport?

Should we be looking forward to the next 'KiwiBuild' style recalibration from Phil Tynford with the light rail link opening after the airport has moved?????

rogercruse:

 

Due to the length of the runway, isn't there a plan to move the airport?

 

Should we be looking forward to the next 'KiwiBuild' style recalibration from Phil Tynford with the light rail link opening after the airport has moved?????

 

Nope. Zero plans to move the airport (and there is nowhere else for it to go except somewhere in the Wairarapa!)

frankv: Given that Wgtn has a functioning rail system, why is the airport link *light* rail?

sbiddle:

Nope. Zero plans to move the airport (and there is nowhere else for it to go except somewhere in the Wairarapa!)

 

Ge0rge:

sbiddle:

 

Nope. Zero plans to move the airport (and there is nowhere else for it to go except somewhere in the Wairarapa!)

 

 

 

 

 

Would that be a bad thing? There's already a rail link, and the rail tunnel is built for electrification (just not fitted).

The 6.4b could be spent on a tunnel through the Rimutakas instead, solving the high winds / slow cars / slips issue on the current road.

Traffic no longer trying to get all the way through Wellington just to get to the airport, build a runway of a decent length, no more fog issues...

I'm sure someone will tell me why it's a rubbish idea, but I'm not seeing any negatives.

Light rail is a fraction of the $6.4 billion.

The rest of the money is fixing up previous fail including building the Central City bypass in 2002 as an overground road rather than an underground cut and cover road because it was going to cost something like another $15 million at the time... Now it's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of millions to fix.

I'm no traffic engineer but I do spend a lot of time stuck in traffic. Much of what I see them wanting to do isn't IMHO going to fix problems - it's going to merely move problems elsewhere. Just look at what $90 million for the Smart Motorway and something like $7 million for the Ngauranga Interchange merge did - it significantly increased travel times from Wellington to Petone. NZTA don't even seem interested in fixing any of this fail, nor looking at simples fixes to resolve what are current bottlenecks on the highways.

They like bottlenecks. It means that there isn't a huge tailback at the end of the motorway.

A good example of this is the Mt Wellington offramps on the Auckland Motorway - it goes down to two lanes in each direction at that overbridge. They have stated that they have no intentions of widening this bridge as it provides a good chokepoint for the rest of the motorway (going both directions).

trig42:

 

They like bottlenecks. It means that there isn't a huge tailback at the end of the motorway.

 

A good example of this is the Mt Wellington offramps on the Auckland Motorway - it goes down to two lanes in each direction at that overbridge. They have stated that they have no intentions of widening this bridge as it provides a good chokepoint for the rest of the motorway (going both directions).

 

Chokepoints are both good and bad - as you point out.

The problem in Wellington is that IMHO they're ignoring some issues while focusing on others. Much of the traffic congestion at the Basin Reserve (and Ruahine St) in the evening as an example is the simple fact Karo Drive is gridlocked all the way to Willis St because somebody decided to build an overground road rather than a tunnel which simply added to traffic congestion.

sbiddle:

 

Nope. Zero plans to move the airport (and there is nowhere else for it to go except somewhere in the Wairarapa!)

 

Why not Ohakea as an international airport? At least some of the infrastructure is already there.

Especially when (if??) SH1 gets to be 4 lanes as far as there.

Connecting commuter flights between Ohakea and Wellington airport. And/or a fast rail link between Wellington Central and Ohakea.

sbiddle: Nope. Zero plans to move the airport (and there is nowhere else for it to go except somewhere in the Wairarapa!)

I recall seeing something a while ago (2 or 3 years, perhaps); there was a semi-serious suggestion that as part of the development of Grenada Village / Woodridge and the link road to Petone via Horokiwi that they could relocate the airport up into the hills there.

The fact that those hills are under cloud 50% of the time presumably wasn't a huge issue to the brain thought involved.  :-)