NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Simon Wilson: Nightmare on Albert St

Simon Wilson
By Simon Wilson
Senior Writer·NZ Herald·
25 Oct, 2018 04:00 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Markings spray-painted on Albert St before it was dug up for the City Rail Link. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Markings spray-painted on Albert St before it was dug up for the City Rail Link. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Simon Wilson
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
Learn more

COMMENT: In the 18 years since the start of the century, according to Auckland Transport data, the number of peak-time commuters using a private motor vehicle to enter Auckland's central city has declined by 456. That's right.

Meanwhile, the number of people entering the same area at the same time on some form of public transport has almost doubled. There are now slightly more commuters using public transport to get into town than there are people driving in.

In 2016, that transport number was 31 per cent bus, 11 rail and 5 per cent ferries. But get this. By 2046, AT expects the proportion of commuters arriving in the central city by car to have fallen by half, to just 23 per cent. Rail passengers will account for another 23 per cent, buses just 15 per cent and light rail 18 per cent.

That's the dual impact of the City Rail Link (CRL) and the proposed light rail network for you. Fewer cars, fewer buses. The trains will be 9 carriages long. Each light rail unit, or tram, will have the capacity to replace 10 buses.

And, while we're at it, active transport, which is walking, cycling, scootering and whatever else has been invented by then, will grow from 7 per cent to 18 per cent.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The data was presented to the council's City Centre Advisory Board this week, as part of a report on the future of Wellesley St. After the AT people left, representatives of City Rail Link Ltd got up to make their report.

They're building the future and they seemed quite excited as they presented a video to show how Albert St will look when they've restored it. But the board wasn't excited. They were, in the words of chairperson Viv Beck, "frankly, deeply disappointed".

That's what you say when you have to be polite in a public meeting and what you really want to do is scream and throw things.

Why so upset? Because the board gave CRLL $20 million of business ratepayers' money to fix Albert St. Because the CRLL plan showed it looking worse than it used to be, with no trees in the top half, lots of roadway for buses and cars, and lots of bays for buses to park in.

This, in a city expecting – remember those numbers? – fewer people will arrive by bus. Even allowing for population growth, the numbers are expected to drop in real terms over the next 30 years.

Discover more

Opinion

Comment: Light rail best for Auckland's many needs

24 Oct 04:00 PM
New Zealand

Expressway route decision known by year end - NZTA

24 Oct 06:58 PM
New Zealand

How one balloon wiped out Britomart trains

24 Oct 09:58 PM
Opinion

Hosking: Asleep at the wheel on e-scooter safety

25 Oct 06:05 PM

Albert St's new footpaths will be wider, but despite that it's a bleak, featureless landscape. Right by the Wellesley St and Victoria St entrances to the CRL's new Aotea Station, where tens of thousands of people will walk to and fro each day.

The street was almost destroyed by the CRL build. But the thing is, with most of the traffic gone, new possibilities now beckon. We've discovered the city functions just fine without Albert St being an ugly dead zone, so why turn it back into one?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The strategy for making good in the inner city in the wake of CRL construction (and light rail too) should be: use the disruption to establish new and better functions and features. Less transit route and more pedestrian-focused, more shopper focused. Better streets to be in.

We hoped for more, said Beck and many of her board colleagues. The CRLL people mumbled about being required to restore it to what it was, which simply isn't true. The board gave them that $20 million to ensure it wouldn't be true.

Then the CRLL people blamed Auckland Transport. AT drew up the plans, not CRLL. It was their fault.

Viv Beck repeated the bit about being deeply disappointed. She still wanted to scream and throw things.

So where is AT? someone asked. But they'd already left the building.

And it was surprising even to hear that AT might be at fault. In their own report earlier in the meeting they presented visuals for Wellesley St, directly around the corner from Albert St. It's to be reconfigured as the city centre's only cross-town busway.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

They were great: lots of buses but also lots of greenery and no cars. This was a really serious attempt to create an inviting place for people catching buses to walk through and wait in.

It's true, though, CRLL is responsible for the railway and AT is in charge of the street. So why so are two AT designs, for streets that actually intersect, so different? My guess: Albert St was visualised by traffic engineers who don't listen to a word urban planners say; but Wellesley St is merely a concept right now, so it was visualised by designers who have not yet been crushed underfoot by engineers.

This has got to stop. But who is going to stop it? The Auckland Design Office (ADO), headed up by the city's "design champion", Ludo Campbell-Reid?

Markings spray-painted on Albert St before it was dug up for the City Rail Link. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Markings spray-painted on Albert St before it was dug up for the City Rail Link. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Possibly not. The deeply disappointing Albert St design, according to an AT spokesperson, was "developed in collaboration with ADO". At press time, no word on this from ADO itself.

It's not that creatively talented people don't exist inside transport officialdom. Or the rest of council, for that matter. They do; I've met many of them. But they're not empowered, not often enough.

Adding to that problem, far too many decisions are made in silos. ADO does this and AT does that. Designers do this and then engineers go away and do that. And nobody coordinates a good outcome that meets the needs of everyone.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It's not meant to be like this. We turned Auckland into a supercity so it wouldn't be. Coordinated, integrated and vision-led planning.

This is not about teething problems: it's now eight years since amalgamation. It's about culture.

That's the responsibility of the council's chief executive, Stephen Town, who has recently had his contract renewed. In AT, it's the job of CEO Shane Ellison, who has been in his job for almost a year.

Ellison announced a shakeup of his executive some months ago but what did that achieve? Anything more than shifting the deckchairs around?

We deserve better and this is getting urgent. Next week councillors will "workshop" a new version of the City Centre and Waterfront Masterplan. The last one was good, but its proposals have drifted and the spirit that motivated it can be hard to find – and not just in Albert St.

So will the new plan be better? Will it galvanise the constituent parts of council? And will it provide a conduit for people outside the council to get their good, stimulating ideas listened to? Because, as the response to last week's proposal for a new waterfront stadium shows, that simply doesn't happen, and it must.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

We need inspiration and collaboration to drive the big plan, and councillors with the wit to make that happen. And a better plan for Albert St too, please. Viv Beck and her board have asked for it and AT needs to deliver.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New ZealandUpdated

'About time': Residents sick of 'boy racers' back Govt plan to toughen laws

11 May 06:06 PM
New Zealand

'Life and death': Northland road safety plea as toll hits eight

11 May 05:00 PM
New Zealand

'It’s been a long time coming': Artist couple open studio in Far North

11 May 05:00 PM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'About time': Residents sick of 'boy racers' back Govt plan to toughen laws

'About time': Residents sick of 'boy racers' back Govt plan to toughen laws

11 May 06:06 PM

Ministers announced the changes in Rotorua on Sunday, alongside Mayor Tania Tapsell.

'Life and death': Northland road safety plea as toll hits eight

'Life and death': Northland road safety plea as toll hits eight

11 May 05:00 PM
'It’s been a long time coming': Artist couple open studio in Far North

'It’s been a long time coming': Artist couple open studio in Far North

11 May 05:00 PM
Morning quiz: Who officiates sumo matches?

Morning quiz: Who officiates sumo matches?

11 May 05:00 PM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP