Super city inner city trains!

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

Listening the the mayor wanting an inner city train loop and a second harbour crossing, but cant afford both!

I'd prefer the second harbour crossing (either above or below the water) but instead of a train loop I'd like to see the city get a tram system similar in size or larger than Wellington. Clean and quiet and if on rails could be quite a visitor attraction.
It would or get rid or reduce one of the most dangerous, noisy, polluting vehicles off our roads ie buses!!

What say you?


Harbour crossing
Inner city train loop
Tram
Pedestrianise the whole friggin lot
Send the capital down to Chch for the rebuild

[White trash]

Ummmmmm, what trams? Maybe you mean electric busses?

[Ocean1]

Listening the the mayor wanting an inner city train loop and a second harbour crossing, but cant afford both!

Bollox. If you cut most of the non-esential spending you could have all of the above.

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

Ummmmmm, what trams? Maybe you mean electric busses?

They would be less dirty and noisy, the romantic in me would like to see retro trams though.

Just get pissed off as a pedestrian getting completely drowned out with the noise and as a motorcyclist getting clouds of sooty exhaust belched at me. Lets not start on the quality of there driving but then again they would be the peeps driving the trams I guess.

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

Bollox. If you cut most of the non-esential spending you could have all of the above.

Ahh but there are too many 'super' sized egos and agendas to groom for that to happen.

[merv]

You need the inner city loop for rapid moving of people in and out of the CBD and trams would be a good idea on the streets too to distribute people in the CBD and you need the rail crossing of the harbour as well. Ref ocean1's comment - maybe you should just afford it all and build a city for the future right now.

Most know how well Melbourne's tram system works and on all my recent travels especially to Zurich I soon came to the conclusion that the best cities of the world being the ones that really are alive in the CBD have one thing in common and that is steel rails through the streets.

There are buses in Zurich inlcuding trolley buses but they don't run down the main CBD streets at all, only the trams do. It is all incedibly liveable and people friendly and I always chuckle that my photos look just like I photographed a Marklin model train set it all looks so picture perfect. Take the diesels out of Auckland and you can do the same.

Retro trams are coming back to Auckland now but only on the Wynyard Quarter at the moment.

We spend too much time in this country arguing about what we are going to talk about for 20 years, then we argue about that for 20 years then we build too little too late and then say "see it never worked". Other countries just get on and build shit and continually surprise themselves by success . e.g the rail system in Perth Australia.

See pics: First one is part of Zurich - imagine if Quay Street looked like that. Second pic is of Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne - Queen Street could be like this with trams you can have flush roadways and people are happy to walk and intermingle. Compare that to Wellington's famous Manners Mall in your minds, it is now just a smelly bus lane with everyone cramped back onto the footpaths.

[Swoop]

Ummmmmm, what trams? Maybe you mean electric busses?

They have re-layed tram tracks around areas of the waterfront and borrowed (leased?) several old trams from Melbourne.

[jaffaonajappa]

What say you?


Harbour crossing
Inner city train loop
Tram
Pedestrianise the whole friggin lot
Send the capital down to Chch for the rebuild

1st, Chch.
2nd, 2nd Bridge.
3rd, inner city train / monorail.

[trustme]

It would be a bottomless money pit. We don't have the population density & the area is too large to make it work without massive subsidies.Most people do not work in the city centre, many of us rarely go to the city centre. I avoid it like the plague

[merv]

They have re-layed tram tracks around areas of the waterfront and borrowed (leased?) several old trams from Melbourne.

Yeah that is Auckland, WT was responding to the OP saying:

"I'd like to see the city get a tram system similar in size or larger than Wellington"

The only tram system near Wellington is the Museum at Paekak and otherwise maybe he meant the rather short cable car line going up to Kelburn. Or did he mean Wellington pre 1964 or whenever it was that it was pulled out? Auckland had one too until the 50's. All rather short sighted pulling them out when the love affair with buses started - diesel was king.

The revitalisation of city CBDs will need to come eventually in this country and they are not attractive now because we let the urban sprawl occur just like USA and Aussie before us so people like trustme don't go there. Rail systems help that revitalisation - just how long do we wait?

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

It would be a bottomless money pit. We don't have the population density & the area is too large to make it work without massive subsidies.Most people do not work in the city centre, many of us rarely go to the city centre. I avoid it like the plague

The wife and I spent a couple of weekends in the city recently taking advantage of the cheap hotel deals going and catching a show etc.
Having a stole out and trying to take in the inner city buzz was completely nailed every time a bloody bus went past.

So maybe a subsidy would be needed to encourage people to us it initially, its got to be better than what we have got, it would add to our 100% pure image we are trying to hang on to too.

[mashman]

Calgary... Always thought, back in '97 I think, that it was a bloody good idea... the walkways between buildings where cool too.

[jaffaonajappa]

Can see this thread kinda merging with some 'how to rebuild chch' threads.
The trams are cool....but the associated power lines are not.
Napier's art deco look, with hardly any power lines overhead (all underground) looks bloody great. Not saying go art deco, just saying.....have a look at the difference not having power lines everywhere makes.
A Monorail system would be great. Suspect it would cost a lot more than trams tho.

[Ocean1]

The trams are cool....but the associated power lines are not.

Compromise could work well. Soon batteries may well be good enough to power most of the route, overhead for longer runs between stops and to goose the batteries.

Costs vs "Costs". Wellington has a bunch of trollybus overhead infrastructure, obviously, and sometimes a pole needs replacing. How would you manage that? You might be tempted to plant another pole right there beside the old one, and call all of the various service suppliers that use it to move their wires onto the new one. You'd need a resource consent for the new pole position. You wouldn't get it.

You need to get everyone to drop their lines and move them onto temporary arangements, (splicing and knitting new sections in to get there usually). Then you need to remove the old pole and replace it. Then you get all the com's and power companies back to re-run their lines back to where thay were originally.

Average "cost"? 'prox $16k, about 4 times the cost of doing it your way. They do this several times a week.

Like I said, sack the councils and you'd have budget enough for a rather better set of public services.

A Monorail system would be great. Suspect it would cost a lot more than trams tho.

Initially probably. I suspect the cost over the asset life would work out in favour of the monorail, but in fact the usual reason for them is you get to use existing land.

[Indiana_Jones]

Trains/Trams in the middle of Auckland?....ACC will have a field day!

-Indy