But where do I park?

Commuters would like to catch a bus to Britomart. First they have to find a space at Albany's park 'n' ride. Sophie Bond reports.
All is eerily still at the Albany park 'n' ride save for a single sedan slowly circling, its driver  searching in vain for  a space.
Driver Derry McLachlan does what he's done before when faced with a full car park at the Oteha Valley Rd bus station: he heads for the motorway and drives into Auckland.
"I drive here with the idea of taking the bus, but I have to give up. Unless you park way down beyond Hooton Reserve there's nothing," he says.
Mr McLachlan works from home in Paremoremo but has tried regularly to use one of the 550 spaces at the park 'n' ride for his trips to Downtown. "By 7.30am the parks are all taken."
He points out that many streets nearby have yellow no-parking lines and those that do allow parking are also full by 7.30am. People were parking on the grass until signs were put up warning of $40 fines for the offence.
Mr McLachlan says, with the cost of parking in the CBD and petrol, it would almost be worth parking on the grass and risking a fine.
"There's plenty of land around here that could be used for parking. I think there are a lot of people coming to get the bus here from further  north so one idea could be to restrict the parking to ratepayers."
North Shore City Council's communications adviser, Francis Martin, says a 500-place parking extension is planned but there are drainage issues on the site. "In the next financial year, the finance and property issues should be solved. However, construction is likely to happen in the following financial year."
He says the council had hoped extra parking would be available earlier but it now looks like the development will cost more than  has been budgeted.
One idea the Albany Community Board is discussing is to increase the number of feeder buses to Albany bus station  to remove the need for extra parking. Board member Lisa Whyte says with so much housing development in the area, it's important the park'n' ride functions well.
"We want to capture new users from day one," she says.
Another scheme North Shore City Council is considering is to give preferential parking to car-poolers, thus making the spaces go further. No date has been set for when this may happen.
Mr McLachlan thinks the park 'n' ride is a "brilliant" addition to the area but he's disappointed it's not serving all users.
"They spent over $300 million on this bus work so why can't they get it going properly? It's a great system. And if they could solve the parking problems it would be fine."
Until then, he'll keep circling.
Do the bus stop
Opened in February 2008, the busway is a 6.2km road running beside SH1 from Constellation Drive to Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Five new stations were opened to link with the busway, of these Albany and Constellation stations have park 'n' rides. Latest figures from Auckland Regional Transport Authority show patronage on the Northern Express bus is up 20 per cent on the same period last year.