LEARNING FROM CURITIBA –
Moving towards a Long Term Planning Strategy for Greater
Auckland
Joel Cayford
This paper and presentation draws on the case study of Curitiba, Brazil. The city is a shining example of positive landuse and transport planning. It is a useful reference for Auckland. Through research visits to key administration organisations, interviews with private and public sector respresentatives, and personal experience – those on a recent NZ study tour gained inside knowledge of how that city designs and manages city transport infrastructure. How land use and transport planning is strongly integrated. How public policy and long term planning delivers reliable public transport and general traffic corridors, while relying upon market forces for some outcomes. The existence of an appropriate regulatory framework has been crucial to a successful balance between publicly owned infrastructure provision, and private sector transport services.
In my conference presentation, I shall show photographs from Curitiba and video, plus various graphics to illustrate essential planning concepts.
Transport,
public transport, integrated planning, regulation, governance, regulatory
framework
1.
INTRODUCTION
It’s still the wild west in New
Zealand as far as transport is concerned. Everybody still wants their own horse
and the right to ride it wherever and whenever they want. In Auckland cheap
Japanese imports combined with low running costs (including the fact that
insurance is still voluntary in this country), mean pretty-much anyone with a
licence can afford to own and run a car. In fact it has never been cheaper in
all of this country’s history of transport, for a person to own and run a car.
The consequence of this is that the typical Auckland family with two or three
teenagers has to manage the onsite or onstreet parking of four cars and more.
Garages are full, so is the driveway, let alone the street out the front. So it
is not surprising that roads get full too, along with our motorway system.
Unfortunately, average trip
lengths are increasing too. New zoning rules mean that on average our children
travel further to get to school. Proliferating tertiary institutions competing
with each other for foreign student income and other funding add to the
challenge of educational transport. The largely unregulated establishment of
large shopping malls and “big box” shopping precincts far away from existing
village centres mean that average shopping trips are getting longer as well,
and the economic heart is bleeding from our villages. On the bright side more
and more local employment opportunities are developing in parts of the region,
but even so, statistics indicate that average work commuter trips are also
lengthening.
These trends mean there is huge
actual and latent general traffic demand for more roads. Today, many private cars stay parked at home most
of the time. This is because of congestion, lack of parking and the
inconvenience of delay. But if we respond to these drivers by quickly creating
more road capacity and more parking - it would be filled very quickly if
international experience is anything to go by.
Supply management is one solution
to the problems we have – simply build more roads to meet steeply rising and
already existing demand. Traffic demand management is another approach – where
demand is managed downward through staged resource allocation and where travel
demand is met by more economically efficient alternatives such as effective
public transport systems.
Many cities have been where
Auckland is now. They have had to develop transport and land use policies to
cope with growth and development. We can innovate and apply a bit of kiwi
ingenuity – as some advocate. Or we can learn from what other cities have done.
We probably need a bit of both. But there can be no substitute for applying the
best international knowledge we can get, and by planning thoroughly for what we
want in the future, rather than permitting what we don’t want.
However it’s not enough to go to
Sydney, or Melbourne, or Ottawa, or Vancouver, or Portland – see their
transport solutions – and come back here and say, “we’d like one of those” – as
many politicians have done before. It is much more valuable to understand what
those cities had before (infrastructure, land use planning controls, travel
patterns etc), and exactly how the city – over time – built what is
observed today. An understanding of
transport system implementation strategies provides a much better appreciation of what might be required here, both
in terms of enabling legislation and implementation strategy, and in terms of
what we might aspire to in Auckland - twenty, thirty and fifty years from now.
In this paper I present aspects of what we learned in Curitiba, Brazil, concentrating on transport and land use planning, management and governance. In that light I will also discuss various ideas for Auckland.
2.
CURITIBA -
BRAZIL
Last year I was lucky enough to participate in a study tour of Curitiba in Brazil. Twenty New Zealanders investigated this city’s famous public transport system in a visit organised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Curitiba is the capital city of Parana, a state in the south of Brazil with a climate similar to Auckland. One of the surprises for me was to learn what an economic powerhouse Curitiba is. Over the last 4 years Brazil’s GDP growth has averaged around 3%/annum. However, GDP growth in the state of Parana has been double that – mostly driven by Curitiba’s GDP growth which in some of those years has been into double figures.
We were advised that the key messages which have attracted enterprise to that city have been:
- quality infrastructure (especially transport),
- an educated workforce,
- quality of life (heritage, parks and public “settings for encounters” – the description given to pedestrian precincts, pedestrian priorities),
- and the presence of other industry (Volvo, Bosch and other international names have located in and around Curitiba)
The population of the inner city is now 1.6 million. It ranges from the very rich (Curitiba’s Crystal Shopping Mall is flasher and more sophisticated than anything in Auckland) - to the very poor (unemployed people on the outskirts are encouraged to collect street rubbish which is weighed in exchange for fresh vegetables and fruit).
In 1965 the city’s population was 450,000 living in an area of 430 square kilometres around an old city centre (today Auckland City has a population of 380,000 in an area of 658 square kilometres). Curitiba was beginning to experience growth pains, and to encourage an influx of new urban planning ideas the City Council held a competition for the best city plan among local and national professionals. Next, the Curitiba Research and Urban Planning Institute (IPPUC) was established to analyse and further develop the winning plan.
In Curitiba, City Council is responsible for delivering health and education services which are funded from State payroll tax. It is also responsible for the types of services carried out by local government in NZ. A significant part of city planning is to integrate the provision of those services with access to transportation, and in relation to density and quality of housing. Integration planning studies are sophisticated. IPPUC planners and policy analysts use GIS mapping systems extensively for all aspects of city planning. For example I was shown one study using GIS to map for the whole city the quality of life indicator: Risk of Domestic Violence. Planners told us they needed information to guide location of further social services.
The Master Plan’s implementation began in 1971, when IPPUC’s president at the time, architect Jaime Lerner, was appointed Mayor of Curitiba. Land Use, Transportation Planning and Road Network definitions were key Master Plan tools in guiding and coordinating growth. Expansion of the existing city centre as a compact form was blocked, and “linear centres” were established as an alternative along transport corridors extending toward the outskirts of the city. This has led to the development of growth corridors or radial centres – instead of compact centres or growth nodes. Allowable building densities vary in relation to available transportation. Thus land zoning is in the form of varying density contours parallel to and along main transport corridors. This method of integrating land use planning with transport corridors has been critical to the development of Curitiba.
Growth Corridor thinking requires a big change in planning.
The key roads that make up a growth corridor – sometimes described as a Trienniary Network – are two, one-way streets for general traffic about two city blocks apart, and in between a four lane road with a central busway corridor in each direction and a single one way general traffic lane next to the pavement on each side of the busway.
The one-way streets are supported by synchronised “greenwave” traffic lights, and carry general traffic, and freight traffic reasonably quickly. However they are rarely more than three lanes wide in total – creating reasonably pedestrian-friendly environments.
The busway corridor is a high speed environment in the centre – with buses attaining speeds up to 80km/hour, whereas the adjacent single lanes for private motorcars shown in the photograph are slow – around 30km/hour. This means that footpath pedestrian traffic experience very high amenity and safety. It should be noted that bus stops are all located in the centre of the corridor – not on the roadside pavement. Access to stations is by means of pedestrian crossings. It should also be noted that car parking is beside the bus lane – not beside the footpath. This allows cycles to enjoy the car lanes – without contending with parked cars. It also makes stepping out onto the roadway from the footpath safe – because it is not cluttered with parked cars.
I cannot emphasise enough the significance of these design features, to the establishment of footpaths, pavements, street frontages for shops, pedestrian and cycle amenity, appropriate vehicle speeds and many other characteristics important for the creation of a liveable city environment. It was also very noticeable, that the one-way streets – because they were narrow – also offered high quality pedestrian amenity. As traffic platoons past – under the greenwave direction – significant slugs of time are almost traffic free.
Considerable political will and skill has been needed in delivering practical steps to implement the plan in the long term. This has included a continuous planning cycle and a determined policy of constructive incentives to induce appropriate land use. But despite the huge powers of the mayor it has not all been plain sailing. Curitiba Mayors may not serve two consecutive terms. When Jaime Lerner stepped down from one of his three alternating terms of being Mayor, his replacement adopted a pro-motorway program. He threw out the Master Plan, and forced through a new plan which envisaged a network of motorways into the heart of Curitiba. But institutional inertia and resistance in IPPUC slowed his plans and he was finally thrown out of office with little to show for his efforts. Jaime Lerner was voted back in and the Master Plan was restored. As Jaime Lerner told us, “motorways can kill a city”.
At the start the driving city vision was to be the “Ecological Capital of Brazil”. This vision included a huge park acquisition program, protection of heritage buildings, prioritisation of pedestrians over cars, the provision of cycleways linking the parks, and a massive expansion of the public transport system. Today, parks and city squares cover 18% of the city area, there are 170 kms of cycleways linking them, a transferrable development right incentive is ensuring heritage building preservation so the city “does not lose its memory”, and the statistic of 25,000 public transport trips/day in 1974 has increased to 2.1 million today – 75% of all vehicular trips. And this despite Curitiba having a car for every 3 persons - the highest car ownership/capita in Brazil (there are 1.8 persons/car in Auckland). It is perhaps interesting to note the preponderance of very new, small cars of European manufacture. It is also interesting to note that most cars run on alcohol – from fermented sugar cane and other plants – following a 1970’s strategy to make Brazil less dependent on oil imports for energy. The exhaust fumes from these cars appears to contain significantly less adverse pollution than fossil fuels. I was advised that the diesel used by the buses contains much lower sulphur content than that burned by NZ buses. Parking is prohibited in large parts of the inner city, and whole streets and huge paved central areas are now dedicated pedestrian precincts.
2.2 PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM &
MANAGEMENT
Of particular note is Curitiba’s public transport system which is a mixed public/private system, and how its transport planning is integrated with land use planning.
Curitiba’s public transport system is entirely based on buses, though there are rail links in and out of the city to the rest of the state and the country. The system emphasises accessibility, mobility and quality of life and is one of the most heavily used, yet low-cost, public transport systems in the world. It offers many of the features of an underground system – eg high capacity vehicles, dedicated lanes, fare collection prior to boarding, quick passenger loading/unloading, efficiency, and reliable service – but is above ground and visible.
There are four main types of bus service – all of which interconnect at terminals. Conventional “Orange” buses provide feeder services. Articulated (bendy) “Green” buses provide clock and anti-clock services around the city’s three orbital or loop networks providing inter-district links. Conventional “Silver” buses – known as “speedy” buses - provide direct links without stops between highly travelled destinations. All of these run on normal roads – with cars – without priority lanes.
“Red” Volvo bi-reticulated buses – each carrying 270 passengers – were introduced in 1991. These run on 60 kilometres of dedicated bus lanes within city streets planned as growth corridors and running North, South, East and West. “Tube Stations” are spaced regularly along these bus lanes. Passengers pay a flat fare of about $1.35NZ at the turnstyle on entering, and wait less than 3 minutes for a bus. There is no ticket. We found a hundred people could get on and off the bus in seconds. The fare entitles passengers to four bus changes if necessary.
The different bus service types interconnect at integration terminals which are often situated by large shopping centres or civic destinations. There are no park and ride carparks. We were advised the desired policy outcome is to ensure that everybody – no matter where they live – should be within 500 metres of a bus stop with a bus frequency of less than 5 minutes.
Publicly owned Urbanisation of Curitiba Co (URBs) is responsible for implementing and managing the transportation system. This entity is a separate functional arm of local government and appeared to be a cross between a LATE and a SABU. Ten private operators own and operate their own fleets of Orange, Green, Silver and Red buses. (25 years ago there were more than 30 bus operators, bus jams, and less than 10% of vehicular trips by bus). The territory of Curitiba has been divided into a “pie” and each operator has a slice of the pie, which points into the city centre. Each operator is reponsible for specific routes and services, and share others. Public investment covers the cost of roads and stations, while the fare box covers all bus operation, maintenance and purchase costs. URBs sets the fare level annually after negotiations with operators who get paid daily according to how many kilometres their buses run.
URBs has access to all turnstyle and trip data. URBs varies route bus frequencies on a daily basis. Emphasis is emphatically on the provision of a reliable citywide service. There is no distinction made between “commercial” and subsidised routes. Bus operators are paid according to kilometres buses travel, not the number of passengers on the buses.
We spoke to the general manager of one of the 10 operating companies. The bus depot was as clean as a doctor’s surgery – including the maintenance area. None of its buses were older than 5 years. They will be fully depreciated ten years from new, and retired from active service in Curitiba. He showed us the penalty sheets accumulated that day. These included a few late starts of its buses from designated route start points. The company was docked a hundred kilometres of payment for every minute the bus was late leaving the start. He showed us the computerised run sheets for each bus trip out of the depot that day – and there were hundreds. URBs generates the daily work schedule for each bus operator, and issues the instructions at agreed times. The URBs computer system is designed to optimise the numbers of buses on the roads and their scheduling to meet projected demand – on a day by day, and route by route basis.
The General Manager categorically stated that business was much better under the new system, rather than the old, and that the service provided had increased markedly in quality.
2.3 POLITICAL STYLE
It is hard to summarise exactly what is going on politically in Curitiba local government. Most would agree however that a fundamental part of the story is that city leaders realised in the mid 1960’s that a strategy to deal with rapid growth was needed. The key component of that strategy was a master plan for shaping the key elements – including transport corridors in considerable detail, and land zonings and permitted uses which integrate with the corridor designs and are supported by them. It was recognised then that people movement and land use had to be inextricably interlinked in the plan. The community value in prioritising pedestrian movement over private motorcar freedom was also recognised at that time.
Thus Curitiba sorted out the basics in the 1960’s and has focussed since on making it happen, depending on needs and available finance. The approach succeeded by combining far-sighted and pragmatic leadership with an integrated design process, strong public and business participation around specific outcomes and projects, and a widely shared and specific public vision that has largely transcended partisan and parochial interests.
The study team was impressed by the technical and systems ability of the collective leadership we met. Our experience was that the mayor and senior elected councillors saw the city as a complex interconnected system with problems which required complex and sophisticated solutions. They came from many backgrounds including town planning and architecture. They seemed able to weave together a very complex matrix of human, technical and economic needs, and were able to enthuse others with opportunities when spotted.
These politicians were supported by the council funded urban research institute – IPPUC – which has generated ideas and solutions to support the city since 1965.
Curitiba’s political leaders have focussed on quality of life, master planning, systems thinking, smart public/private partnerships – and a bias for action. When the current mayor, Jaime Lerner spoke to us, his talk was full of sound bites: “simplicity with commitment” … “sometimes quick decisions are needed – not quick and dirty, but quick” … “strategy is a daily balance between needs and potentials”
I was impressed with the bias toward action. With the planning emphasis on specific outcomes and improved service definitions (eg the transport system is as near as and as good as your nearest bus stop – everyone must be within 500 metres of a sheltered bus stop passed by buses at least every five minutes). And all of the above was within the context of a Master Plan.
3. LESSONS FOR AUCKLAND
So what were my impressions? Parks, pavements, public places for encounters, and pedestrian precincts have planning priority over the private motorcar in Curitiba. These hard and courageous decisions taken years ago underpin the emergence of a city which is a delight to walk and live in, and where access between all parts of the city is quick and reliable.
It made me think New Zealand’s emphasis on effects based planning has disempowered Councils and communities alike. The need to plan city evolution in a concrete manner has instead become a fiddle with effects. I accept we have cleaner air and water – and that’s good and we must not let that go. But we risk more sprawling development and cities without hearts unless we develop a planning culture of clearly described outcomes understandeable to the ordinary person, and including them, with pedestrian and community development as the central purpose.
Curitiba City Council plans and actions emphasise people, communities and service quality. That’s what most impressed me, compared with what happens in New Zealand. While the RMA has been effective in managing environmental effects, it has by process definition rendered local government into a reactive rather than proactive mode. Thus council processes often tend to respond to and react to development pressures, rather than guiding and shaping development through requiring specific community outcomes.
QUOTE: The pseudo science of planning seems almost neurotic in
its determination to imitate empiric failure and ignore empiric success...(Jane Jacobs)
Or in other words, if we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got. Outcomes in the region are testament to this. I’m sure we are all aware of examples of this. I’ll mention a couple here.
Example 1: Long Bay Structure Plan. North Shore City. All the time I’ve been on council we have been developing a structure plan, in terms of the RMA, to manage the effects of development in this “future urban” piece of land. There have been many iterations. In the end it will boil down to some zone lines on a map, and words in the District Plan. Councillors and officers alike are struggling to do the right thing in terms of densities, stormwater effects, and traffic effects, and to provide for cyclists and pedestrians. We have lists of policies, rules and methods. We look at them and hope they permit what we want, and don’t permit what we don’t want. But we can’t be sure. Are there loopholes? So we decide to ask developers without an interest in the area, to apply the draft policies and “do your worst”. We ask them, “what’s the worst you could do on that land with these rules?” The point is, these methods and rules are all about preventing adverse effects rather than ensuring positive outcomes. There is no vision, or masterplan. Some advise that perhaps there now can be, under the new Local Government Act. I’m not sure. Some advise we could have a Master Plan under the old legislation. I don’t know.
Example 2: Seaside Villages. There are many delightful communities within North Shore City which remain delightful places to live and play – largely despite the activities of the Council rather than because of them. These communities include: Devonport, Milford, Browns Bay, Albany Village, Beachhaven, and Highbury. Newer communities – such as Takapuna with its Hurstmere Rd deliberately facing away from Rangitoto and the beach, and Albany with its desert landscaped big box shopping and lonely walled intensive housing developments are the public face of the amalgamated council. If as a council we maintain our existing city plan and approach then the problems we have and the lack of connectedness will intensify.
Example 3: Transport corridors – the Busway. As a city we continue to react to congestion and growth in use of private cars by widening and building certain types of road. We risk taking the line of least resistance to public transport by building the SH1 Busway and its stations ahead of providing citywide infrastructure and true interconnection between communities and destinations. This risks disappointment in terms of the value obtained from the investment made. There is also a risk that the Busway will be turned more into an HOV (High Occupancy Vehicles – cars with 3 or more people) corridor – rather than a passenger transport service corridor – if there are not enough bus passengers who are ready and willing to use the corridor. An HOV Busway would be one which turned to the motorcar to justify the investment. Planned Busway station’s ability to act as magnets and drivers of commercial and economic development, are minimised by the fact they are located in a 100km/hour Transit corridor. The integrated experience of Curitiba will only happen on North Shore when there are highly used bus stations within Takapuna, Highbury and Browns Bay – for example.
The short life of the North Shore City Council has been characterised by a lack of joined up thinking. This tendency is also echoed at Auckland regional level. This is not helped by the relevant legislation which emphasises management of effects rather than delivery of community outcomes.
3.1 TRANSPORT GOVERNANCE IN AUCKLAND
At present there is a governance void between the Regional Land Transport Strategy – and the operational management realities of building appropriate transport corridors and of running buses, ferries and trains. It is a priority for the region’s Councils to plug this governance gap. As far as I am aware internationally, cities the size of Auckland with effective public transport systems have depended upon the steady governance of a Transport Authority.
The fact that a developing world city can implement such an effective public transport system poses questions about why we – it seems – cannot. In my view it is because clear lines have not been drawn between the duties of governance and the duties of operational management. We continue to lurch blindly on driven by a set of assumptions which need proper examination and resolution. A clear delineation is needed between what the private sector will provide and what the public sector will provide. There are far too many grey areas at present.
For example, it is assumed that our bus, ferry and train operators will pay access fees for using bus stops and stations, ferry wharves and train stations. It is assumed that separate businesses are needed to run ferry wharves, North Shore Busway stations, and railway stations. It is assumed that the user-pays business model of the electricity industry will somehow bring efficiencies into passenger transport. It is also assumed that competition between operators for routes and passengers is a good thing and will generate further efficiencies. Huge amounts of bureaucratic energy are being consumed in working out how all these transactions and business models will inter-relate. What is needed is simplicity and clarity, and an emphasis on service delivery.
Yet today, integrated ticketing – where a single ticket can get you from “A” to “B” when you have to take a ferry and a couple of buses run by different operators – is still far away in Auckland. We have not as a region discussed the merits of a flat fare system to maximise patronage, where public infrastructure is totally funded from the public purse, where bus and ferry services are run privately in a regulated market, and where commercial transaction costs between entities and operators are minimised.
The present system of Regional Council subsidies distinguishes between “commercial routes” where operators are unsubsidised and subject to minimal public control, and subsidised “non-commercial routes”. This system encourages operators to maximise return from profitable routes. It does not encourage them to provide a service where pickings are lean. It also means there is no public lever to crank up service levels on commercial routes – for example by requiring bus operators to avoid crowding and bunching, and to run clean and modern buses. It means it is difficult for the region to establish passenger services on new routes. This incentive structure and method of payment does not improve service levels and needs to be changed.
It leads to uncertainty too. For example councils across Auckland region are turning street lanes into bus priority lanes. In the absence of binding agreements they can only hope bus operators will come to the party and provide compensating bus transport capacity on the new dedicated lanes. Some operators are investing in more buses. But the lack of control is disquieting for councils as they take road space away from private motorists.
The Curitiba governance system and structure cuts through these difficulties. On top of that each bus operator runs buses that are branded in exactly the same way – so passengers move from one operator’s bus to another transparently – without any change in service level. A seamless public transport service. An integrated transport service. The buses were not permitted to display advertising either.
Improved regional transport governance would also enable rational decisions to be made on infrastructure investment priorities. The region has undertaken valuable work through The Regional Transport Strategy and the Regional Growth Forum. Individual City and District Councils are responding to those documents and taking on various new ideas. But in my experience this is a diluting process – especially when it comes to the priorities individual councils accord to the various regional recommendations. And there is precious little in the way of regional enforcement, to ensure regional objectives and outcomes are delivered at local level.
In levelling the criticism above, I am a participant in the current regional workshop series which aims to agree on an interim regional transport implementation and management governance process and structure. This appears to be favouring a Joint Committee approach which includes all Councils, the Regional Council and Transit. It is of interest to note that The Northern Corridor Steering Group, operating under a MOU which binds NSCC, ACC, ARC and Transit, is providing governance oversight over the North Shore Busway project, and local bus transit lanes which connect with the busway, and the interconnection of the Busway with Britomart and other areas of Auckland City.
3.2
A MASTER PLAN FOR GREATER AUCKLAND?
Many local government politicians across Greater Auckland pride themselves on being people of action, and will identify strongly with Curitiba’s tradition of getting on with it. However, getting on with it after a rush of blood to the head, displaying some kiwi ingenuity in isolation, spending up on an ad hoc solution will only make things worse.
The only master plan we have, which is specific and which has lines on maps, appears to be the original motorway network plan formed almost as long ago as Curitiba’s master plan - though the RLTS has added public transport ideas and concepts to that. The unfortunate thing about Auckland’s motorway plan is that it was spawned by the sort of motorway monoculture that has given the world Los Angeles and other similar private car centered cities. The plan was not conceived as an integrated plan which also considered street scape, community and village life, and land use planning. Even the present railway plans which terminate trains in the centre of Auckland, are a throwback to railways which took goods to a port for transfer to another transport medium – ships. But at Britomart there is no such joined up thinking. The trains stop there, and if you’re lucky there might be a connecting bus service. Thankfully there is a ferry to Devonport!
There are no terminating mass transit busway stations in the city centre of Curitiba. The lines all go through the centre, and there are stations where you can get on and off, but terminating stations are at the edge of the city, where land is cheap and there’s plenty of space to park and stop buses.
Many of the study tour group came back to New Zealand of the view that Auckland at least needs some sort of Centre of Planning Excellence. Many remarked on the lack of connection between the Planning Dept of Auckland University and what is happening here in local government. It was clear to us all the fundamental role that IPPUC had in ensuring continuity of vision and for coming up with planning ideas and solutions to address the steady stream of problems which arise in a rapidly growing city. I think it is time for us to consider how this might be achieved. I know that Infrastructure Auckland has been approached at least once with a view to establishing something akin to a Chair of Auckland Urban Planning at a tertiary institution. And I am sure there are other possibilities.
In my view we need a big picture master plan for North Shore City – so we begin to break away from the inward spiralling cycle of response to development – reaction not proaction. At the moment everything we do is a reaction to effects. We build roads to cope with car traffic flows. We build sewers to avoid sanitary messes. We build stormwater networks to take away rainwater which can no longer seep into the ground.
It is time for us to break out of that mould and determine the city form and future landscape through transport corridor and landuse designs which will drive and guide appropriate development and redevelopment.
This way the city can begin to function as whole, where people in communities have access to each other, to work, to play and key destinations across the city, and where city form and design support increasingly efficient passenger transport systems.
The road corridor design used in the Growth Corridor areas would be of the Curitiba form – ie central busway – with adjacent car access lanes. One of these central spines would be along Anzac, Taharoto & Wairau Rds. These corridors would prioritise high capacity bus transportation full time across the city – connecting it across SH1. The spur lines connecting with these Growth Corridor loops – eg along Lake Road from Devonport, and from Highbury to Glenfield – would prioritise cars but have curbside bus priority lanes which apply during peak congestion periods.
The two Growth Corridor areas shown in the map would interconnect with each other and with the State Highway Intercity Busway, which would also run along SH18 to Waitakere City, and North to communities in Rodney District.
Growth Corridor areas and ideas can obviously be placed in a variety of places and interconnect several communities and destinations. Their positioning will have a huge effect on adjacent land values in the future, and determine which suburbs will retain their leafy and quiet character – and which areas are more intensively developed.
ENDS