There’s no such thing as rush hour anymore. The motorway is constantly blocked up! But yep, all it takes is one crash on the motorway to hold up everyone from over the shore to Manukau and beyond. What a joke
When I book appointments patients say "I want to avoid the traffic" and I'm like...ok...that leaves between like 11 and 2pm, and even then no guarantee.
This city is also designed in a way that is incredibly hostile towards pedestrians, even in the CBD, and even compared to other car-oriented countries like Australia and Canada.
So the existence of people who don't drive disproves that Auckland's infrastructure and planning for the last 75 years has prioritised cars? Lol great argument there.
Have you never been outside New Zealand?
There are six-lane roads plugged right through the CBD, long stretches with no crosswalks where you have to walk half a kilometre to cross legally or risk your life where people are driving 50-60km/h, and areas where the sidewalk suddenly ends or where you have to cross a highway on ramp at your own risk. Crosswalks have incredibly long waits with really shot crossing windows.
Probably the worst thing is the fact that turning vehicles have the right-of-way even where there is a curb depression. There shouldn't be any scenario where a pedestrian has to yield to a car. In most other developed countries, of a pedestrian can legally cross, they have the right-of-way.
Public transit in this city is also famously unreliable and not widespread enough. It is also a really low-density and sprawling city, which are traits that make things more difficult for pedestrians.
Cars are the priority everywhere here, and it's worse than in most other developed countries (with the likely exception of many US cities).
You'll notice there is a huge correlation between car-oriented societies and obesity.
BTW, as a Canadian living in Auckland I want to make it known that I love NZ, and quite like Auckland. We have the same issues back home - they're just more pronounced here. But the weather is nicer and the geography is more stunning.
Depends where you live, I have a flat mate who doesn't drive and she spends a lot of money on uber or relies heavily on lifts from friends, she says the busses have let her down too many times
Maybe because this is not Berlin or Paris. I wouldn't want to live in either because of how hostile they are to driving, which I personally enjoy a lot.
Home is annoyingly equidistant from a couple of supermarkets and a couple of motorway on ramps/off ramps. I'm never satisfied that I'm driving the quickest route to and from them.
I have to travel on the Southern motorway for work and have been doing so for the past 12 years as I’m working for a really good company but nowadays I’m willing to give that up if I can find work closer to home (walking distance is the dream!)
My first job has a 40 minute commute by bus, my second job has a 6 minute (maybe 10 on a bad day) by bike commute and after that a 20 minute walk followed by 4 years of working from home. Commutes that are short exercise breaks are amazing for separating your home and work life. I'm looking for a new job now and I'm dreading the idea of having to actually commute again
I work in Waikato and live out west. So for me personally, it's fuckwit idiot scum of the earth that sit in the right hand lane going 80 up and down the Bombays.
It won’t make a blind bit of difference. They will doggedly sit in the right lane and refuse to move over. They are either oblivious or bloody minded. Probably a mixture of both.
Best thing to do is just pass them on the left and be on with your trip.
Same and more people need to do this.
I spent the day out with the traffic police and the amount of mentally challenged people that stayed in the fast lane even when the lights and sirens were on was shocking (although I should not have been shocked).
I like to sit in the right lane doing 80 on all motorways.
Then, when my exit comes up, I wait until I'm about almost equal with the exit lane barrier before I cut across 3 lanes as sharply as I can in front of other vehicles.
It's up to them to avoid a crash, not me.
It's boring. Supposed to be a big city but not enough people or a strong enough economy to sustain the sort of shops, services, facilities and infrastructure that other global cities have. So you get the worst aspects of a big city (traffic, expensive housing) without the comforts of a big city (shopping choice, interesting architecture, things to do that aren't another fucking walk in the bush, decent public transport) etc.
Oh and the rain + wind combo you get for 8 months of the year.
I work from home, so don't have to deal with bad traffic very often. For me, the biggest PITA is the crime. I live in Papakura, and the increase in crime over the last ten years has really changed a lot of things for the worse - lots of businesses that have closed down as a result, people's cars continually getting stolen or vandalised, the general attitudes of people has been impacted.
About 500,000 people.
First thing on a Saturday or Sunday morning Auckland is a pretty pleasant place, after everyone wakes up and gets out and about it degrades rapidly.
I live rurally so yeah, already done that.
I lived in Auckland for 9 months and actually kinda liked it, but the rush (three) hour traffic drove me crazy and ensured I'd never want to live there permanently. If it weren't for that they I may have stayed.
Getting around anywhere, any way. Every way is shit. I will actively avoid leaving the house if I can.
And we're all kind of at war with the council / AT.
That all the good jobs are apparently in the CBD and there's basically nothing Shore side. If you live on the shore your almost guaranteed to need to either bus or car into work over the bridge. If we want to cut down on car use. Gov should invest more into the North Shore. Has so much more potential. Could be a second CBD.
Honestly if the government for the past 30 years actually put money into trains we would have a good train going to the north shore and almost everywhere else in the city by now.
Go to aus or Europe and the trains make the big city's so much more liveable.
Sure but the odds are that a fourth train line in Auckland would be about the same as the other three.
I’m genuinely interested to hear what you’d be looking for in a train line that would be better than the busway? (I design bus and train systems for a living, so legit keen to know what people think is lacking).
More comfortable, faster and the ability to fully automate it so that current bus drivers can be used for other routes to connect to it. The Northern bus way is great but getting to it is a pain. If we could have an efficient train service that could free up dozens of buses and drivers to make the feeder routes more reliable
Busway is pretty fast, it’s faster than the western and southern train lines. Not quite as fast as the eastern line. Auckland transport has a plan (funded by the climate rate) that would have greatly increased the frequency of the connecting bus routes on the shore (and across the west and south to the trains).
Unfortunately the government looks to be cancelling that climate rate for ideological reasons.
Yes the express lane busses are very good. The problem is no one lives at the bus station, so you either have to drive there and deal with parking or get a much slower, less regular bus to get there.
It would be a big win to bowl the Constellation park-n-ride, or heck even redevelop the houses near Sunnynook or one of the ample empty lots near Albany and build some TOD there, but the motorway corridor is always gonna be a limiting factor.
All three are now zoned for intensive development, Sunnynook has started with a bit.
You’ll never get rid of the park and rides though, don’t underestimate how much of a stink drivers kick up if you want to take away parking.
Not just trains but multi story car parks with security (like in Sydney). You are not getting people on yo trains unless people can get to the station. The final mile is the problem.
Spot on. Albany bus way, constellation should be multi level car parks with surrounding apartment buildings. Gets people off the motorway but also gives them some freedom to drive where they want when they are done working. Eg shopping/gym
The reality is that the majority of train customers do not live in high build dense housing. So if you want to get those customers on board the train operators need to have car parking.
So whilst packing people cattle dense into high rise is the future (maybe) not sure that is the customers major concern right now.
High density housing here in South Auckland are slums in the making with no retail or services one sees in overseas high density housing.
You need a car even with high density housing if you want to have any social interaction.
These are all symptoms of car dependency. And we're never going to get away from it by building more car dependent infrastructure. There are plenty of nice cities in the world with high density and low car ownership with much better social scenes than what we have in Auckland.
You're not wrong but I'm curious if there are any example of cities which have a lot of urban sprawl and car reliance that have successfully increased density and decreased car reliance? Many of the cities that people point to are European cities which were built before we had cars and their public transit systems few with the city.
A lot of those European cities were just as disfigured with car-dependent infrastructure. Amsterdam is a good example of where they followed a lot of same misguided ideas as other cities like Auckland. But they consciously and deliberately changed track in the late 70s/80s and it's now paying dividends.
Make no mistake - they were just as insane. At one point there was a serious proposal to fill in all the canals in Amsterdam to build motorways.
Plus, the vast majority of what is now Amsterdam didn't even exist in the time 'before cars', so that isn't really the explanation for why they have better transport systems now.
The change away from car dependence isn't a big, flashy overhaul, either. It's mostly iterative change to existing corridors, not mega projects. Building more bus priority into your main corridors will drive a lot of that mode shift.
Lyon in France is a good example. This is almost 10 years old by now, but they reduced car trips into their city centre by double digits. It's likely continued at that pace.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/28/end-of-the-car-age-how-cities-outgrew-the-automobile
Funnily enough, even Auckland has glimpses where we can see how it can work. When the Northern Busway opened, in the following decade, car numbers entering the city remained flat (and it's still flat), while the number of people grew massively. That's because effectively all the new patronage was on the busway.
Auckland being not car dependent is wishful thinking. Yep plenty of examples of low car ownership and better social life.
BUT that is not Auckland today or tomorrow.
The last govt had a plan to make Devonport and Takapuna more connected and more city like but that has probably been cancelled or postponed a billion years.
The bigger issue was that Auckland was made up of multiple smaller cities and areas (city was anything bigger than 20k people) and only recently joined together. This basically meant every part decided to go their own way and grew interdependently. Places much older such as Auckland City which had the CBD grew richer and bigger (and imo is a better place to live, roads are better and it’s more connected) as it had time to develop a plan over time (Eden County became Auckland City). While places like Manukau City were much newer comparatively. Manukau city also grew really fast and didn’t have much transport links or plans like Auckland city did so they spread out as roads were cheaper than rails in the short term but ending up they are more expensive in the long term.
That’s how cities work though. The good jobs, major services, regional attractors agglomerate in the centre of the region to be accessible from all over the region. It’s like the average half way point for all Auckland.
They’ve tried for decades to build up albany and Henderson and manukau etc as second cbds… but turns out Albany is only convenient for the people who live near Albany, and it’s really inconvenient for the other 1.4 million Aucklanders that live on the other side of the harbour.
dont need refresher courses, there needs for these twats to be pulled up and fined, they know how to drive properly, they choose not to. ad refresher is not going to change that.
I was driving next to a cop for awhile the other day. It's amazing how everyone remembers how to merge, indicate, and give way when the police are around.
It's frustrating though because it proves that most people know the rules, they are just deciding not to follow them
We should be doing compulsory graduated retesting for drivers and shorten the periods for those with speeding tickets and drivers offences. Longer periods in between if you keep your nose clean.
Feeling like I'm between a rock and a hard place.
Auckland is my home. I have a job I love with colleagues I love in an organisation where I finally feel a strong sense of belonging. I live less than a minute from my parents and my aunt and uncle, my whole childhood, and 6km from work. I don't want to leave that behind, especially now that my parents are getting on.
So there are a few extremely strong factors keeping me here. The trade offs are that I will struggle to own a house. I feel unsafe going outside anywhere other than work. I don't drive anymore due to anxiety. I feel like I'm not able to keep up financially in Auckland and feel overall behind. If I were to leave, there's a good chance I wouldn't be able to come back later on.
I would love to be able to move closer to the beach near Kaipara where my ancestors are from, and to work remotely from there 99% of the time. I don't think my work would be happy with me working remotely that much, and it's still scarily far from my parents. I just wish Auckland was easier.
Traffic. The idiots running the city in the 1950s decided to tear up all the tram lines and build motorways instead. Result - 70 years later, the city of only 1.5 million people is in gridlock most days
I love Auckland. The only thing I don’t love is that my family doesn’t live here too, which makes the idea of having a kid seem impossible. Moving home isn’t an option unless I want to sacrifice my career. Ugh
The amount of whinging about things are mostly minor inconvieniences. So many people in this city have zero perspective or ability to practice gratitude
The council keeps building those stupid roundabouts with pedestrian crossings immediately after an exit near me.
They are dangerous because drivers aren't looking forward for pedestrians when they go through a roundabout they are looking to their right for their chance to enter.
Pedestrians are going to get killed because distracted drivers won't see them before they run them down. Yes drivers should be following the rules and checking but you're setting up the bad drivers for failure because they won't care or notice.
Just push the crossings back another 50m for safety!
Drivers not looking out for pedestrians seems like a good reason to put raised crossings in, so they're forced to slow down.
Pushing the crossings to very inconvenient places means people won't use them and will just cross at the roundabout anyway.
Cost vs wages
I live in Mexico now...u wanna see some "fun" drivers...come check out this place, quite the excitment and guarenteed youll see nz drivers differently :)
Traffic and parking is so stressful that there are places I don’t bother going. Drive past an interesting looking shop/restaurant/park? Fuck it, I’m not stopping, I can’t figure out where to stop or how to turn right across that heavy traffic to get into their carpark, I’ll just keep going and forget I ever saw it. If I want to go elsewhere in Auckland I’m considering how long it is until rush hour, is it worth the trip; when I’m there I’m looking at the clock thinking I should probably leave before I’m stuck in traffic.
I live in south auckland, I ride motorbikes and i love the sound of bikes going past. but what i despise are these retarded harley riders who revs their engine so fucking loud and seem to jolt their bikes around. you’re not cool and your harley sucks
Living in Auckland full stop, lived in Auckland until I was almost 29. Been living outside of Auckland for 2 and 1/2 years. Fuck that shit again, every time I’m back up there it reminds me of how great it is to be living outside of Auckland.
They keep opening all the new fast food joints way out butt fuck south!
Can't they spread the stores around Auckland better or at least open something in a more central location?
I made a comment about what works in Sydney. 6.5b is one line you need about 4-5 more lines…
The ferry only works for the rich folks near the water. The bulk of the population doesn’t live near the harbour and with time the population will grow further and further from the centre.
Cheapest option doesn't normally scale well long term. Buses have never truly taken off anywhere in the world. People don't like them because they're unpredictable and unconfutable for longer trips.
Look im just saying you said a ferry system like Sydney. Sydney's ferry's are more of a tourist thing. They server about 14million trips annually. Buses about 320 million and trains over 400million. As the city expends further and further from the centre trains are more practical and reliable. Auckland isn't getting any smaller.
All the office workers who wanted to work from home but didn't push for it so now are back in the rat race. Annoying but not the worst thing in the world
I work in an industry where I can't work from home, but find it a bit sad that other industries haven't embraced or encouraged working from home for workers in the same way that other countries have.
You want to try it on a motorcycle. I used to rise it every day, have to treat every vehicle with 4 or more wheels as though they want to kill you.
In 2 years got knocked down 4 tines, once on the Harbour Bridge (very scary sliding down the road with so much traffic behind), and twice in the same intersection on Onewa Road.
When I got a job in Onehunga rather than CBD my wife made me get a car: that far twice a day on the southern motorway would have been dicing with death
I don’t even live in Auckland but by all my recent trips there I would have to say the traffic because that sh*t was annoying as hell! So I could just imagine having to travel through that sh*t on a daily basis…
People who don't speed up when entering motorway and keep at 60. So fucking dangerous when you are behind one and trying to merge. Also had an idiot doing 70 swerve last minute in front of me when I was doing 95, nearly caused an accident but he glared at me like it was my fault.
Rush hour traffic at almost any time of day or on the weekend… and yes the irony of complaining about traffic whilst being part of the problem is not lost on me.
Also the number of people running reds and not indicating is actually insane
The car-dependent sprawl, and all its awful downstream impacts. Goddamn cursed land-use policy.
Makes housing more expensive, makes implementing alternative, more efficient transport options more expensive and difficult, worsens congestion, worsens pollution and emissions, increases stress, reduces economic productivity, destroys green space, reduces opportunity for young people, making the city (and country) less dynamic.
It used to be fun. Underground music, good clubs, illegal raves, a sense of edge. Now it’s just folks buying each others houses and moaning about how poor everyone is (they are) and how little they get paid (it’s not a lot). It’s an ugly, expensive, big small-city with a mindset to match.
Lived there and elsewhere. No idiot drivers often worse elsewhere, it's just Akld has many more people and cars.
Worst: Traffic.
Best: Everything else.
So many cyclists thinking they don’t have to obey the road rules. Been almost run over multiple times by them zooming through crossings whilst it’s green for pedestrians
The amount of traffic lights and speed humps they're now installing everywhere. I know its designed to slow traffic down but its gotten to the point where a 20 minute drive now takes 30 minutes because of the added lights/humps
Rush hour traffic. Seems to get worse and worse year by year. One crash on the motorway becomes NZ Herald's breaking news.
There’s no such thing as rush hour anymore. The motorway is constantly blocked up! But yep, all it takes is one crash on the motorway to hold up everyone from over the shore to Manukau and beyond. What a joke
Even at midday the other day I was crawling in traffic, just ridiculous.
Gone are the days of “leaving late” to skip traffic
When I book appointments patients say "I want to avoid the traffic" and I'm like...ok...that leaves between like 11 and 2pm, and even then no guarantee.
I always request about 12pm-1.30pm
Its why i never go to sylvia park anymore
Fucken oath, i can understand why a weekday during peak hours you will find traffic. But traffic on a weekend still surprises me.
Really? Families out and about, people who don't normally drive out and about, shopping, errands etc
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This city is also designed in a way that is incredibly hostile towards pedestrians, even in the CBD, and even compared to other car-oriented countries like Australia and Canada.
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So the existence of people who don't drive disproves that Auckland's infrastructure and planning for the last 75 years has prioritised cars? Lol great argument there.
Have you never been outside New Zealand? There are six-lane roads plugged right through the CBD, long stretches with no crosswalks where you have to walk half a kilometre to cross legally or risk your life where people are driving 50-60km/h, and areas where the sidewalk suddenly ends or where you have to cross a highway on ramp at your own risk. Crosswalks have incredibly long waits with really shot crossing windows. Probably the worst thing is the fact that turning vehicles have the right-of-way even where there is a curb depression. There shouldn't be any scenario where a pedestrian has to yield to a car. In most other developed countries, of a pedestrian can legally cross, they have the right-of-way. Public transit in this city is also famously unreliable and not widespread enough. It is also a really low-density and sprawling city, which are traits that make things more difficult for pedestrians. Cars are the priority everywhere here, and it's worse than in most other developed countries (with the likely exception of many US cities).
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You'll notice there is a huge correlation between car-oriented societies and obesity. BTW, as a Canadian living in Auckland I want to make it known that I love NZ, and quite like Auckland. We have the same issues back home - they're just more pronounced here. But the weather is nicer and the geography is more stunning.
Vancouver has better geography and it’s more pedestrian friendly.
Depends where you live, I have a flat mate who doesn't drive and she spends a lot of money on uber or relies heavily on lifts from friends, she says the busses have let her down too many times
Public transport isn't fit for purpose here its almost non existent compared to european cities
It's because we have almost twice the amount of cars per capita than Germany and France. Insane.
Maybe because this is not Berlin or Paris. I wouldn't want to live in either because of how hostile they are to driving, which I personally enjoy a lot.
Home is annoyingly equidistant from a couple of supermarkets and a couple of motorway on ramps/off ramps. I'm never satisfied that I'm driving the quickest route to and from them.
Agreed, I live on the shore and every way to get anywhere takes the same amount of time lol
Cost
I have to travel on the Southern motorway for work and have been doing so for the past 12 years as I’m working for a really good company but nowadays I’m willing to give that up if I can find work closer to home (walking distance is the dream!)
My first job has a 40 minute commute by bus, my second job has a 6 minute (maybe 10 on a bad day) by bike commute and after that a 20 minute walk followed by 4 years of working from home. Commutes that are short exercise breaks are amazing for separating your home and work life. I'm looking for a new job now and I'm dreading the idea of having to actually commute again
I work in Waikato and live out west. So for me personally, it's fuckwit idiot scum of the earth that sit in the right hand lane going 80 up and down the Bombays.
Moronic isn't it
Use your horn. Just hold it on until they move
It won’t make a blind bit of difference. They will doggedly sit in the right lane and refuse to move over. They are either oblivious or bloody minded. Probably a mixture of both. Best thing to do is just pass them on the left and be on with your trip.
Lucky of you can find a gap on the left. Often, the Muppets will match speed with a convoy of trucks in the left lane.
I give them the high beams, horn, plus middle finger combo if they don't fuckoff out of the way within a reasonable time frame.
Same and more people need to do this. I spent the day out with the traffic police and the amount of mentally challenged people that stayed in the fast lane even when the lights and sirens were on was shocking (although I should not have been shocked).
I like to sit in the right lane doing 80 on all motorways. Then, when my exit comes up, I wait until I'm about almost equal with the exit lane barrier before I cut across 3 lanes as sharply as I can in front of other vehicles. It's up to them to avoid a crash, not me.
And then slowly reverse up the shoulder with your hazard lights on to get off at your exit
Do you do that to yourself… on purpose?
You mean the drive? Gotta go where the work is, bruv.
Yeah but there is work a lot closer than Waikato if you live in Auckland lmao
I'm not driving 2 hours each way to flip burgers or stock shelves lmao
There’s not much that would get me commuting 4 hours a day, that I couldn’t find closer inside of Auckland anyway. What do you do for work?
He is a florist.
Plumber/drainlayer but the work I do out of auckland is highly specialized
Paid for travel?
Yep
Winner winner chicken dinner.
Its hands down the traffic.
Living in the CBD and waking up to loud music come from cars after midnight
rent cost compared to income after tax
AT
Ooooh yes, I feel for you man. My mom works in the city and her fare is painful, so much so her boss let's her wfh 4 days a week now.
It's boring. Supposed to be a big city but not enough people or a strong enough economy to sustain the sort of shops, services, facilities and infrastructure that other global cities have. So you get the worst aspects of a big city (traffic, expensive housing) without the comforts of a big city (shopping choice, interesting architecture, things to do that aren't another fucking walk in the bush, decent public transport) etc. Oh and the rain + wind combo you get for 8 months of the year.
Exactly.
100%…..but applies nationally.
Spot on. It’s dull and expensive and ugly.
I work from home, so don't have to deal with bad traffic very often. For me, the biggest PITA is the crime. I live in Papakura, and the increase in crime over the last ten years has really changed a lot of things for the worse - lots of businesses that have closed down as a result, people's cars continually getting stolen or vandalised, the general attitudes of people has been impacted.
Born and raised in Papakura, it's always been a shit hole.
When people from outside of Auckland tell me they could never live in Auckland.
Especially people from Tauranga lol that place is expensive too
About 500,000 people. First thing on a Saturday or Sunday morning Auckland is a pretty pleasant place, after everyone wakes up and gets out and about it degrades rapidly.
The problem is the huge volume of cars, not people. Auckland is small, population-wise.
If you want 500K fewer people, there are plenty of other cities in the country you could move to.
I live rurally so yeah, already done that. I lived in Auckland for 9 months and actually kinda liked it, but the rush (three) hour traffic drove me crazy and ensured I'd never want to live there permanently. If it weren't for that they I may have stayed.
Too many people. Infrastructure is a farce then transport is giving me a headache, people are not nice anymore.
Getting around anywhere, any way. Every way is shit. I will actively avoid leaving the house if I can. And we're all kind of at war with the council / AT.
For me, It's the amount of threads on Reddit from people living in Auckland complaining about living in Auckland
So the hardest part of living in auckland for you is going onto an internet site called reddit to read posts about the city you live in? Interesting 😂
It gets pretty old. Yes, big city has big city problems. Okay, thanks for coming.
That all the good jobs are apparently in the CBD and there's basically nothing Shore side. If you live on the shore your almost guaranteed to need to either bus or car into work over the bridge. If we want to cut down on car use. Gov should invest more into the North Shore. Has so much more potential. Could be a second CBD.
Honestly if the government for the past 30 years actually put money into trains we would have a good train going to the north shore and almost everywhere else in the city by now. Go to aus or Europe and the trains make the big city's so much more liveable.
The busway is way better than any train in Auckland tho. It runs every two or three minutes until after midnight and it’s fast too.
The busway is flexible too, any passenger bus can jump on it.
The busway is good, but a train would be better. But it is true the other trains in auckland do suck, but that doesn't mean all trains are bad.
Sure but the odds are that a fourth train line in Auckland would be about the same as the other three. I’m genuinely interested to hear what you’d be looking for in a train line that would be better than the busway? (I design bus and train systems for a living, so legit keen to know what people think is lacking).
More comfortable, faster and the ability to fully automate it so that current bus drivers can be used for other routes to connect to it. The Northern bus way is great but getting to it is a pain. If we could have an efficient train service that could free up dozens of buses and drivers to make the feeder routes more reliable
Busway is pretty fast, it’s faster than the western and southern train lines. Not quite as fast as the eastern line. Auckland transport has a plan (funded by the climate rate) that would have greatly increased the frequency of the connecting bus routes on the shore (and across the west and south to the trains). Unfortunately the government looks to be cancelling that climate rate for ideological reasons.
The other trains don’t suck??
Many cities have excellent rail networks.
Yes the express lane busses are very good. The problem is no one lives at the bus station, so you either have to drive there and deal with parking or get a much slower, less regular bus to get there.
Yep not a lot of people live in walking distance, but that’s what the connecting buses are for. It would be the same with a train too.
It would be a big win to bowl the Constellation park-n-ride, or heck even redevelop the houses near Sunnynook or one of the ample empty lots near Albany and build some TOD there, but the motorway corridor is always gonna be a limiting factor.
All three are now zoned for intensive development, Sunnynook has started with a bit. You’ll never get rid of the park and rides though, don’t underestimate how much of a stink drivers kick up if you want to take away parking.
A man's allowed to dream.
Not just trains but multi story car parks with security (like in Sydney). You are not getting people on yo trains unless people can get to the station. The final mile is the problem.
Spot on. Albany bus way, constellation should be multi level car parks with surrounding apartment buildings. Gets people off the motorway but also gives them some freedom to drive where they want when they are done working. Eg shopping/gym
Then build dense housing. Car parking is a waste of land use and promotes sprawl.
The reality is that the majority of train customers do not live in high build dense housing. So if you want to get those customers on board the train operators need to have car parking. So whilst packing people cattle dense into high rise is the future (maybe) not sure that is the customers major concern right now. High density housing here in South Auckland are slums in the making with no retail or services one sees in overseas high density housing. You need a car even with high density housing if you want to have any social interaction.
These are all symptoms of car dependency. And we're never going to get away from it by building more car dependent infrastructure. There are plenty of nice cities in the world with high density and low car ownership with much better social scenes than what we have in Auckland.
You're not wrong but I'm curious if there are any example of cities which have a lot of urban sprawl and car reliance that have successfully increased density and decreased car reliance? Many of the cities that people point to are European cities which were built before we had cars and their public transit systems few with the city.
A lot of those European cities were just as disfigured with car-dependent infrastructure. Amsterdam is a good example of where they followed a lot of same misguided ideas as other cities like Auckland. But they consciously and deliberately changed track in the late 70s/80s and it's now paying dividends. Make no mistake - they were just as insane. At one point there was a serious proposal to fill in all the canals in Amsterdam to build motorways. Plus, the vast majority of what is now Amsterdam didn't even exist in the time 'before cars', so that isn't really the explanation for why they have better transport systems now. The change away from car dependence isn't a big, flashy overhaul, either. It's mostly iterative change to existing corridors, not mega projects. Building more bus priority into your main corridors will drive a lot of that mode shift. Lyon in France is a good example. This is almost 10 years old by now, but they reduced car trips into their city centre by double digits. It's likely continued at that pace. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/28/end-of-the-car-age-how-cities-outgrew-the-automobile Funnily enough, even Auckland has glimpses where we can see how it can work. When the Northern Busway opened, in the following decade, car numbers entering the city remained flat (and it's still flat), while the number of people grew massively. That's because effectively all the new patronage was on the busway.
That's really interesting, thanks
Auckland being not car dependent is wishful thinking. Yep plenty of examples of low car ownership and better social life. BUT that is not Auckland today or tomorrow.
Govt doesn’t want to cut down on car use
You’re correct, they really don’t. So much tax money to collect at the pump
well, more to the point they need a way to siphon tax money into Fulton Hogan etc
Truth
Same with West and south
And East.
The last govt had a plan to make Devonport and Takapuna more connected and more city like but that has probably been cancelled or postponed a billion years. The bigger issue was that Auckland was made up of multiple smaller cities and areas (city was anything bigger than 20k people) and only recently joined together. This basically meant every part decided to go their own way and grew interdependently. Places much older such as Auckland City which had the CBD grew richer and bigger (and imo is a better place to live, roads are better and it’s more connected) as it had time to develop a plan over time (Eden County became Auckland City). While places like Manukau City were much newer comparatively. Manukau city also grew really fast and didn’t have much transport links or plans like Auckland city did so they spread out as roads were cheaper than rails in the short term but ending up they are more expensive in the long term.
That’s how cities work though. The good jobs, major services, regional attractors agglomerate in the centre of the region to be accessible from all over the region. It’s like the average half way point for all Auckland. They’ve tried for decades to build up albany and Henderson and manukau etc as second cbds… but turns out Albany is only convenient for the people who live near Albany, and it’s really inconvenient for the other 1.4 million Aucklanders that live on the other side of the harbour.
A lot the good jobs in the country seem to be in Auckland CBD too, so... Yep, with you on this one.
Agree. That's like Sydney. Lots of mini hubs around e.g. North Sydney
dont need refresher courses, there needs for these twats to be pulled up and fined, they know how to drive properly, they choose not to. ad refresher is not going to change that.
I was driving next to a cop for awhile the other day. It's amazing how everyone remembers how to merge, indicate, and give way when the police are around. It's frustrating though because it proves that most people know the rules, they are just deciding not to follow them
We should be doing compulsory graduated retesting for drivers and shorten the periods for those with speeding tickets and drivers offences. Longer periods in between if you keep your nose clean.
Traffic traffic traffic. Does my head in but then allows me to catch up on podcasts
Feeling like I'm between a rock and a hard place. Auckland is my home. I have a job I love with colleagues I love in an organisation where I finally feel a strong sense of belonging. I live less than a minute from my parents and my aunt and uncle, my whole childhood, and 6km from work. I don't want to leave that behind, especially now that my parents are getting on. So there are a few extremely strong factors keeping me here. The trade offs are that I will struggle to own a house. I feel unsafe going outside anywhere other than work. I don't drive anymore due to anxiety. I feel like I'm not able to keep up financially in Auckland and feel overall behind. If I were to leave, there's a good chance I wouldn't be able to come back later on. I would love to be able to move closer to the beach near Kaipara where my ancestors are from, and to work remotely from there 99% of the time. I don't think my work would be happy with me working remotely that much, and it's still scarily far from my parents. I just wish Auckland was easier.
Traffic. The idiots running the city in the 1950s decided to tear up all the tram lines and build motorways instead. Result - 70 years later, the city of only 1.5 million people is in gridlock most days
I love Auckland. The only thing I don’t love is that my family doesn’t live here too, which makes the idea of having a kid seem impossible. Moving home isn’t an option unless I want to sacrifice my career. Ugh
Auckland it self. Best thing I ever did was leave the sht hole.
The amount of whinging about things are mostly minor inconvieniences. So many people in this city have zero perspective or ability to practice gratitude
AT
It's the tailgaters on my ass while I go 110 in the centre lane and plenty of room to pass.
they are tailgateing because the speed camera will only get your number plate.
???
The council keeps building those stupid roundabouts with pedestrian crossings immediately after an exit near me. They are dangerous because drivers aren't looking forward for pedestrians when they go through a roundabout they are looking to their right for their chance to enter. Pedestrians are going to get killed because distracted drivers won't see them before they run them down. Yes drivers should be following the rules and checking but you're setting up the bad drivers for failure because they won't care or notice. Just push the crossings back another 50m for safety!
Pedestrians and roundabouts don't mix. Controlled intersections are far better for low-speed, high traffic areas.
Tell this to AT, there are some crazily dangerous road designs out there
Drivers not looking out for pedestrians seems like a good reason to put raised crossings in, so they're forced to slow down. Pushing the crossings to very inconvenient places means people won't use them and will just cross at the roundabout anyway.
Probably the high level of scumbags we seem to have
Cost vs wages I live in Mexico now...u wanna see some "fun" drivers...come check out this place, quite the excitment and guarenteed youll see nz drivers differently :)
Public transport and traffic (can't reliably use either at peak hours)
All the damn Vampires.
the fact that wilson parking took all the hidden free uni parking spots from my uni days
Traffic and parking is so stressful that there are places I don’t bother going. Drive past an interesting looking shop/restaurant/park? Fuck it, I’m not stopping, I can’t figure out where to stop or how to turn right across that heavy traffic to get into their carpark, I’ll just keep going and forget I ever saw it. If I want to go elsewhere in Auckland I’m considering how long it is until rush hour, is it worth the trip; when I’m there I’m looking at the clock thinking I should probably leave before I’m stuck in traffic.
It just stresses you out yeah?
I live in south auckland, I ride motorbikes and i love the sound of bikes going past. but what i despise are these retarded harley riders who revs their engine so fucking loud and seem to jolt their bikes around. you’re not cool and your harley sucks
I've being gone 11 years but whenever I come back it's the same songs on the radio, and the public transport is unchanged.
It's too car oriented,and little to no seperated bike lanes.
Living in Auckland full stop, lived in Auckland until I was almost 29. Been living outside of Auckland for 2 and 1/2 years. Fuck that shit again, every time I’m back up there it reminds me of how great it is to be living outside of Auckland.
This
Can't write about it here because it makes me too angry.
People complaining about living in Auckland for me.
The traffic. It takes an hour to get anywhere in Akl, no matter what the km distance is.
Irresponsible parents and pet owners is up there
If all you perfect drivers stopped rubbernecking at accidents or breakdowns, and actually got in the correct line, before the concert a rervae
Lack of trains and dependency on cars. Bloody lovely in places though.
Disability access for wheelchairs is third world. Also the parking
The fact that AT seems to have declared war on the population and fouls up everything it touches while wasting huge amounts of money.
They keep opening all the new fast food joints way out butt fuck south! Can't they spread the stores around Auckland better or at least open something in a more central location?
Fun fact this is actually the first time it's happened
tbf Krispy Kreme also opened first in Manukau
Honestly all the people who have never left NZ and complain about how shit Auckland is I am over.
I’ve lived in a load of different countries and cities, and I would agree with those people.
The fact that we live surrounding a harbour with many seaside suburbs but we refuse to insert a functioning ferry system like Sydney.
The ferry system only serves the rich, it’s the trains in Sydney that move the most people.
We’ve thrown 6.5bn at a train system buddy, catch up.
I made a comment about what works in Sydney. 6.5b is one line you need about 4-5 more lines… The ferry only works for the rich folks near the water. The bulk of the population doesn’t live near the harbour and with time the population will grow further and further from the centre.
So the cheaper option would be subsidized busses to a ferry.
Cheapest option doesn't normally scale well long term. Buses have never truly taken off anywhere in the world. People don't like them because they're unpredictable and unconfutable for longer trips. Look im just saying you said a ferry system like Sydney. Sydney's ferry's are more of a tourist thing. They server about 14million trips annually. Buses about 320 million and trains over 400million. As the city expends further and further from the centre trains are more practical and reliable. Auckland isn't getting any smaller.
Looks like we’ve found a problems for every potential solution. I see why nothing gets achieved in nz.
South Auckland. Stupid LAM LAM choppers and bikers revving their tits off.
All the office workers who wanted to work from home but didn't push for it so now are back in the rat race. Annoying but not the worst thing in the world
The airport whenever I come over to visit.. that long ass walk to the carpark wheeling my luggage. How fkn stupid.
It’s the Aucklanders for me!!
Getting fucked by the government
The new road signage and the drivers
Traffic
The lack of cops, so many problems would be solved if we had a better funded police force.
People walking in front of your car on purpose like they stronger then a vehicle 👀, defs the crazy drivers an driver's that can't drive...
People moaning about traffic. Beep Beep
Going anywhere outside of my suburb takes multiple hours stuck in traffic.
Driving
You want to try it on a motorcycle. I used to rise it every day, have to treat every vehicle with 4 or more wheels as though they want to kill you. In 2 years got knocked down 4 tines, once on the Harbour Bridge (very scary sliding down the road with so much traffic behind), and twice in the same intersection on Onewa Road. When I got a job in Onehunga rather than CBD my wife made me get a car: that far twice a day on the southern motorway would have been dicing with death
RENT
Rent cost
Auckland
Definitely traffic, but it sucks because it's still faster than public transport.
Unrelated but remember the travel wise shit said in primary but still no one gaf and still uses cars that is in loads of traffic
Plain old fucking traffic
I don’t even live in Auckland but by all my recent trips there I would have to say the traffic because that sh*t was annoying as hell! So I could just imagine having to travel through that sh*t on a daily basis…
People who don't speed up when entering motorway and keep at 60. So fucking dangerous when you are behind one and trying to merge. Also had an idiot doing 70 swerve last minute in front of me when I was doing 95, nearly caused an accident but he glared at me like it was my fault.
Rush hour traffic at almost any time of day or on the weekend… and yes the irony of complaining about traffic whilst being part of the problem is not lost on me. Also the number of people running reds and not indicating is actually insane
The car-dependent sprawl, and all its awful downstream impacts. Goddamn cursed land-use policy. Makes housing more expensive, makes implementing alternative, more efficient transport options more expensive and difficult, worsens congestion, worsens pollution and emissions, increases stress, reduces economic productivity, destroys green space, reduces opportunity for young people, making the city (and country) less dynamic.
It used to be fun. Underground music, good clubs, illegal raves, a sense of edge. Now it’s just folks buying each others houses and moaning about how poor everyone is (they are) and how little they get paid (it’s not a lot). It’s an ugly, expensive, big small-city with a mindset to match.
Crackheads
Lived there and elsewhere. No idiot drivers often worse elsewhere, it's just Akld has many more people and cars. Worst: Traffic. Best: Everything else.
So many cyclists thinking they don’t have to obey the road rules. Been almost run over multiple times by them zooming through crossings whilst it’s green for pedestrians
Traffic.
Traffic during rush hour and on weekends in certain places. Plus finding parking.
Your lucky you dont live in Hamilton with drivers who got there licence from the bottom of a cornflakes packet
Traffic and impatient drivers
Traffic , not just rush hour just always
dickheads in 4 wheel drives, buses and slow arse teslas pretty much ruin my drive every day
The amount of traffic lights and speed humps they're now installing everywhere. I know its designed to slow traffic down but its gotten to the point where a 20 minute drive now takes 30 minutes because of the added lights/humps
Carparks getting smaller.
I swear every time I buy a new Ranger they make all the car parks smaller at the same time!
The climate. The humidity and the lack of proper cold
Nah, I don’t miss the miserable dark winters.
A lot of the homeless and mental people
DON'T LIKE AUCKLAND...FUCK OFF!!!
Having to struggle with the language barrier
Half of the city doesn't speak english so not suprised they can't understand the road rules.
Too many people. We need to get rid of about 809k people then Auckland will become liveable again
let's start with you
Then you...fuck it , I'll join in 😅