Go-ahead for Shore busway

By CATHY ARONSON transport reporter

The North Shore busway has the go-ahead to help ease peak hour congestion on the Northern Motorway and Harbour Bridge.

By 2006, a dedicated busway will be built next to the Northern Motorway from the Harbour Bridge to Constellation Drive. A barrier will separate it from the motorway.

Buses will switch to motorway vehicle lanes to travel from Constellation to a large park-and-ride station in Albany.

The busway is expected to shorten travel times, cutting an Albany to Fanshawe St trip from 36 minutes to 15 minutes by 2011, and to entice more Harbour Bridge commuters to catch the bus.

Harbour Bridge bus commuters are expected to double from 3339 to 6310 by 2011.

The project includes $55.7 million for four bus stations, $40 million of it paid by Infrastructure Auckland.

The Albany station, with 1200 carparks, will be the largest station. Constellation will be the second largest park-and-ride station, with 415 carparks. Drop-off stations will be sited at Akoranga, Sunnynook and Westlake, and will have real-time timetables and electronic signs.

A $31.9 million upgrade of the Esmonde Rd interchange will be improved as the Akoranga Station-Northern Motorway link.

Project director Clive Fuhr said the busways would carry more people a day than the rest of the Harbour Bridge.

"It's part of a regional solution to fit more capacity on the existing motorway. We can't keep on making things wider. The costs of a future harbour crossing are massive and this initiative will considerably delay the need for one."

But it also involves eating into reserve land at Becroft Park, Smiths Bush Reserve and Barry's Point Reserve, using private land to widen Esmonde Rd and parts of the playing fields of Westlake Boys and Westlake Girls.

Hearings commissioners approved 10 consents to build the $187 million busway last month, but objectors have until today to lodge appeals in the Environment Court.

Takapuna Community Board member Jan O'Connor has lodged an appeal claiming the Akoranga Station does not have the population to support it and the new road leading to it will destroy parts of the Barry's Point Reserve. She said the Esmonde Rd bus lane on to the Harbour Bridge, which has cut travel times by up to 10 minutes, would be removed.

North Shore City Council transport manager Don Munro said a new bus network, with more bus lanes, was being developed to link the stations and motorways.

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