What's Missing in Christchurch's Public Transport System

One of the significant problems with Christchurch public transport is that it is almost entirely a bus system. There is certainly nothing rapid about the cities mass transit! There is no real 'backbone' to our system that allows quick services along a dedicated corridor which normal bus services feed onto/from.

To illustrate, the number of trips per year made on Christchurch's public transport system is around 17 million (almost all on bus, the rest on one ferry route). In Wellington 35 million trips per year are made on its public transport system, 11 million of which are made by rail. Take away that 11 million and it is 17 million vs 24 million for two cities of similar size. That is still quite some difference (7 million) but not as much as people may have been led to believe. Further, that extra 7 million could be accounted by the fact that buses in Wellington feed onto/from the rail network.

So my point is that we are doing relatively well considering... considering our system doesn't have a backbone! More than anything this example spells out what is wrong with our public transport network, where it still falls short. Unlike Wellington (and Auckland) we don't have dedicated mass transit corridors which our buses can work with, our rail tracks sit quiet all day except for the odd freight train.

Before I get carried away and start talking about bringing rail back I'll stop myself and instead focus on what can be done here and now and at a reasonable price. Most obviously is bringing in a system of express routes that operate frequently and stop only at major centres and popular destinations which other services feed onto. Bus priority measures will also help. I sat on the bus the other day and thought "who would really take this bus?". It was stuck in the same mess as everyone else (for a city of 400 000 people I think Christchurch has pretty bad road congestion). It's really only attractive for short trips, for those who live in inner city suburbs and work in the CBD for example. Otherwise it simply takes too long, and there is little advantage even when factoring in petrol.

If we are going to really get serious about public transport we need to recognise where it's deficiencies are (in comparison to more effective public transport, such as my Wellington example). It's inability to move lots of people quickly is a severe handicap and must be overcome to make our entire transport system operate as it should.

An Experience

I've been using the buses a bit more lately and decided to do a little report on my experiences. Firstly, I needed to get from Papanui to Rolleston. These were my options:

1) - Catch the #10/14 etc to Merivale, Metrostar to Hornby then #520 to Rolleston
2) - Catch the #10/14 etc to the CBD, #5 to Hornby, #520 to Rolleston
3) - Catch the Orbiter to Ilam, Metrostar to Hornby, #520 to Rolleston

All three options involve transferring twice to get to my destination. While I accept that transferring is a concept widely accepted in most parts of the world it bugs me is that my trip isn't exactly roundabout. In fact, the second transfer at Hornby is pointless! The #520 should operate through from Christchurch with connections to other services at the CBD, Riccarton & Hornby. However, Metro/Ecan see it fit to turn the service into a shuttle from Hornby that runs once per hour (my only options to connect with the #520 were 18:55 & 19:55). Not exactly a seamless service!

The time it takes to use public transport to get to/from Rolleston is a joke, it is little wonder only one per cent of trips made between Rolleston & Christchurch are made using public transport. No one in their right mind would call this service tolerable, let alone an asset.

The main problems are:

• termination of the #520 at Hornby (shuttle nature of the service)
• low service frequency (one an hour)
• lack of connectivity between other services

If the service ran from the CBD people could access most parts of Christchurch with just the one transfer. Rolleston itself is fast approaching a population of 10-15 000 so I fail to see why this link is lagging behind. Services could run express through the city stopping only at Riccarton, Ilam & Hornby to connect with other services.

Rangiora has a direct service every half hour during weekdays, stylised as the 'Northern Star', running via Kaiapoi, Belfast and Papanui. Why can't Rolleston? What makes it worse is that you have to wait around in Hornby, often at night for some commuters, which isn't exactly the safest scenario. In short, I have found this service to represent all that is wrong with Christchurch's public transport system. Too slow, too infrequent and not much use.

Establishing a Transport Authority for Christchurch

As we all know Christchurch is well behind in transport infrastructure, particularly on a New Zealand scale. One considerable problem I have with developing public transport in Christchurch is it's administration. Right now, Environment Canterbury (Ecan) is responsible for administering public transport over the entire Canterbury region. I think this is both wrong and highly inefficient. The population of the Christchurch urban area is 386 100, making it the second largest in New Zealand. If you stretch the arms wide enough to include Rolleston, Lincoln, Rangiora and Woodend/Pegasus the population reaches roughly 420 000. Christchurch City Council administers a population of 372 600, around 80-90% of that population. The remainder of the population is administered by the Waimakariri and Selwyn District Councils.

What I am getting at is questioning the role of Ecan in operating, planning and designing Christchurch's public transport system. Given what I have outlined above it doesn't seem very logical. Furthermore, public transport is planned in consultation with all the Councils and other authorities and certain infrastructure such as bus lanes and the new transport interchange and park and ride facilities are the responsibility of the City and District Councils. The end result is one big mess, the City Council, which administers over 80% of the affected population, coming into conflict with Ecan as it tries to fit their plans into its own.

With Christchurch City Council and Waimakariri and Selwyn District Councils coming into conflict with Ecan in recent months, leading to a Central Government review of Ecan, it seems appropriate for me to explore the possible future administration of public transport in Christchurch. First of all I believe that a dedicated transport authority is needed, similar to the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA). ARTA, however, is under the control of the Auckland Regional Council and this is where I see a key difference. Any Christchurch Transport Authority should be under the control of the Christchurch City Council and, to a degree, the Waimakariri and Selwyn District Council's. Ecan, unlike the Auckland Regional Council, is huge in area and covers a significant rural community. I feel it is best for public transport, which is largely an urban concept, to be dealt with by more relevant urban authorities. Given that these Council's are responsible for the infrastructure anyway it will simply streamline the process.

So my idea is basically this:

• Establish a Greater Christchurch Transport Authority (GCTA)
• Give the GTCA the powers formally bestowed upon Ecan in regard to public transport
• The GTCA will be run by the Christchurch City Council and the Waimakariri and Selwyn District Council's

What I see this as doing is rationalising the whole process of developing public transport in Christchurch. It makes sense to have the body administering public transport being controlled by the authority which develops infrastructure and administers the urban population. As it is, the current set up is too complicated and full of too many potential conflicts. The most obvious solution, to me, is to simply get rid of Ecan from the equation altogether and replace it with an independent transport authority which answers to the Council's.

Rationalising the Bus System

With a new round of tendering for Christchurch's bus services been and gone there is change aplenty from 2 November. The entire system has been rationalised, which i see as a good thing. More routes have been made through running routes (i.e they continue through the CBD to another suburban destination) allowing some routes to be absorbed and others to be ditched. The changes are as follows (as best as I can comprehend!):

• #3 (Avonhead-Sumner) is extended to run through to the Airport and becomes "Airport-Sumner via Avonhead"
• #11 (Supa Centre-Westmorland) has a route change and becomes "Styx Mill-Westmorland"
• #12 (Northwood) is extended to run through to Murray Aynsley in the south replacing the #66 (Murray Aynsley)
• #13 (Redwood-Hoon Hay) is replaced by #8 (Casebrook-Hoon Hay) and #22 Redwood-Spreydon)
• #14 (Nunweek) extended to run through to Dyers Pass in the Port Hills and becomes "Harewood-Dyers Pass" replacing #67 (Dyers Pass)
• #15 (Bishopdale-Bowenvale) has a name change to "Bishopdale-Beckenham" and terminates on Huntsbury Hill rather than running through Bowenvale Valley
• #17 (Bryndwr-Barrington) ceases to exist and is replaced in part by #9 (Wairakei) and #20 (Burnside-Barrington) and #22 (Redwood-Spreydon)
• #24 (Hyde Park-Bromley) is replaced by #23 (Hyde Park-Woolston) which is essentially the same service but with route changes
• #35 (Heathcote) is extended to run through to Riccarton becoming "Riccarton-Heathcote" (Note: this service terminates in Lyttelton)

Okay, i think that is it! As you can see a lot of changes! These are not the only changes either, increased frequencies on a number of services are also being introduced, both at peak and off-peak (including the Diamond Harbour ferry). These changes follow the tender process for the Christchurch bus routes which will see new operators on a number of these routes. From what I have heard, CBS have lost quite a few and Leopard have gained quite well.

Another change I would like to see is a common livery. Although there are four operators (three bus, one ferry) I don't see any need to maintain separate liveries as it serves no purpose because all the routes are tendered. This would tie in well with the Metro brand and could create more awareness of the public transport system. Heck, we have the 'metrocard' surely it should go with the 'metrobus'.

In addition, I think it is time we separated our bus system into 'regions' to make it easier for passengers to identify their relevant routes and make it easier to consult timetables. I have seen this done in Auckland and to a degree in Wellington. For example, the city could be divided geographically into 'East' (Linwood-New Brighton-Burwood), 'West' (Riccarton-Harewood), 'North' (Merivale-Papanui-Waimakariri), 'Central' (St Albans-Shirley, Sydenham, Port Hills) and 'South' (Hornby-Lincoln-Rolleston). Each 'area' would be colour coded e.g orange for East, red for Central, green for West, blue for North and yellow for South. Route numbers could also be assigned depending on the region e.g 100-199 for Central, 200-299 for East, 300-399 for West, 400-499 for North and 500-599 for South. Suburb to suburb routes, such as the Orbiter and Metrostar, would continue to stand alone.

Making public transport easier to understand makes it more likely to be used. If its easy, people are more likely to think about taking the bus rather than the car.

Finally, I have often wondered if additional ferry routes could operate at peak times. For example, Lyttelton-Church Bay or Charteris Bay. I'm thinking only one or two trips per day around the peak period. Perhaps even Governers Bay to eliminate the tricky roads? In summers past ferry trips have operated to Purau Bay for campers so i guess it is possible.

So that's whats happening, and those are my ideas. I would be really interested to know what anyone thinks of my concept of rationalising the system further around geographical areas and my subsequent ideas on numbering and assigned colours.

So far so good!

So far it seems that the bus lanes along Papanui Rd are doing well. Being school holidays overall traffic will have been reduced this week so it will be interesting to see how they go next week when it's 'all go'. Interesting to see that the Press reported that some bus drivers weren't using the lanes (in the process taking a cheeky swipe at the legitimacy of the $30 million project). This can probably be attributed to the school holidays as I explained.

Leading up to the implementation of the first stage of bus lanes there was some attention given to those opposed to their worth. This came from shop owners in particular who were worried about losing a few car parks. In the end it is really about what is the greater good, and with car parking down side streets, and potential increases in foot traffic due to greater public transport use I'll go with the bus lanes.Unfortunately local journalism stops short of the big picture!

Another point being made was that Christchurch residents loved their cars too much, making the money being spent on bus lanes a waste. To this, I once again point out that out of the 'big three' NZ cities Christchurch has seen the least amount of public transport development and that this correlates with our low rate of use as an overall proportion of trips made. Where investment has been made people have flocked to public transport. Auckland rail patronage has more than doubled in just a few years while the development of the Northern Busway has revolutionised transport on the North Shore. Closer to home, look what happened when we built the 'Bus Exchange' and introduced integrated smart card ticketing (metrocard), patronage increased. However, we still have a long way to go and bus lanes are simply the next step (although well overdue). I look forward to seeing what is next, hopefully I will be able to tick a few more things off my wish list (see previous posts).

I have yet to check the bus lanes out for myself but will be doing so next week when they will be operating with schools back in session. I will post on here my thoughts and hope to start posting on here more regularly again. Until then...

Bus Lanes Start to Take Shape

If you've been down Papanui Rd lately you will have noticed a lot of work going on in preparation for the commencement of bus lanes. Eventually, the City Council plan to have a number of routes with bus lanes but Papanui Rd and Main North Rd are the first to receive them.

Essentially, bus lanes are good and I have no problem with the introduction of them. They allow buses to bypass congested traffic, improving transit times and making public transport a more attractive option for everyday commuters. Christchurch desperately needs increased public transport use (we have, by far, the lowest use out of the three biggest NZ cities) as the existing roads can't handle the ever growing traffic. In addition, planned new roads will do little to alleviate this emerging chaos and will be of little benefit unless money is used to develop public transport schemes alongside.

Christchurch, unlike Auckland and Wellington, has little public transport infrastructure and virtually no mass transit.. We have no rail services, no busways nothing. Our bus system is great in some ways (metrocard, modern buses, bus exchange, real time info) but is stuck using existing roads, meaning buses are caught in the same congestion as cars. Transit times are slow, incredibly slow in fact, and there is no other way for people to commute.

Bus lanes are the first serious piece of public transport infrastructure to be developed in Christchurch in recent memory. They will, hopefully, help to revolutionise the way people look at public transport in Christchurch. However, there are some issues I have had since construction of the bus lanes began. The lanes themselves are incredibly wide, you could easily fit a bus plus car alongside each other in the lane. These are much wider than those I have seen in London for example. It also means that the bus lanes do not run on both sides of the road at once. This is also related to the bus lanes not being continuous, they are broken up along the route which means that buses will have to merge back into traffic at various points along the route. I'm not suggesting the lanes could be continuous but what I am saying is that if they were narrower they might be able to be on both sides of the road at the same time, allowing for a more continuous run. In addition, all of the lanes appear to be part time only, which is a shame. Nevertheless, I will save my criticism for now. As the bus lanes begin to impact on attitudes and patronage, extensions and other modifications may become less controversial and more justified.

On a more positive note, I am very pleased to see that the Christchurch City Council are getting right behind the bus lanes and are promoting them well. As well as illuminated signs along the route saying "bus lanes coming soon" there are advertisements in the papers, on the Internet (stuff) and on the buses themselves. This is excellent, people need to be aware that this is a big thing. Now all we need is some articulated (bendy) buses!

New Ticketing System Contract Awarded

I don't know why this seems to have bypassed me, although I was aware a contract had been awarded, I was unaware to whom.

In any case Christchurch's ticketing system is to be overhauled and it will allow the metrocard to perform a number of new functions including online and off bus eftpos top ups. The company given the task of achieving this is INIT of Germany and they have a proven track record in that country. Interestingly current metrocards will still be capable of being used on the new system. There are still few details about this but the system will be phased in over the next year so expect to start seeing new computers on our buses soon.

Obviously this means that Infratils 'Snapper' card will not be adapted for Christchurch (at least in the foreseeable future) and that the decision has been made to go down our own route, which is fair enough as it lets us just get on with it.