1. CRL was designed to transfer so many people in such short time around CBD the question is where are so many people coming from? How could they get to the train stations before coming to CBD? By walking more than 1 km? How many people would do this? By feeding buses? How much would cost to have enough buses to cover so large areas and get enough people there? By the way of centralisation and living in a confined places along the noisy rail lines or stations? Does majority of Aucklanders really want this type of lifestyle?

2. Can CRL help to solve the problem of “too many personal cars on our main roads”?

3. What CRL would do to serve the majority commuters living outside its defined “500 metre” walking distance all over the city along the rail lines?

4. How CRL would help to relieve the traffic congestions in the vast area of North Shore plus (Silverdale, Whangaporara, Orewa and beyond)?

5. How CRL would help to relieve the traffic congestions in the vast area of eastern area such as Howick, Pakaraga, Botany Down and beyond?

6. Can CRL satisfy the condition of “Auckland is one of the most spread cities in the world?”

7. Can CRL do better than Northern Busway?  How much dose $300 million in near 20 years ago worth now?

1. This “Great CBD” is within the area of round bus route from Quay St along Fanshawe St, Beaumont St, College Hill, Ponsonby Rd, New great North Rd, Bond St, Sandringham Rd, Walters Rd, Valley Rd, Mt Eden Rd, Stokes Rd, Owens Rd, Gillies Av, Manukau Rd and Broadway, Parnell Rd, Beach Rd,  Britomart Pl and Quay St. This route is called CBD round route. See HERE for illustration.
2. There are four Transit Centres (TC) along the route, they are: BTC—Britomart Transit Centre VTC—Viaduct Transit Centre, KTC—Kingsland Transit Centre and NTC—Newmarket Transit Centre and. Each TC shall have 500-1000 car park spaces accordingly located within 500 metres radius of the centre free of charge to commuters.
3. BK Route (Britomart – Kingsland) is from Britomart train station to Kingsland train station along Queen St/Symonds St/Hobson St/Nelson St, Ian Mckinnon Dr, New North Rd and Sandringham Rd.
4. VN Route (Viaduct – Newmarket) from Viaduct along Halsey St, Wellesley St/Victoria St, Grafton Rd, Park Rd, Khyber Pass Rd and Broadway to Newmarket train station.

Using the model of every 5 minutes departing one bus from every TC, the running time of the bus between Kingsland and Britomart, New Market to Viaduct is 20 minutes respectively, between one TC to its nearby TC is 10 minutes (in average) respectively, the total number of buses needed would be 24 with the help of the “go-through” buses from outside of CBD under “One Basket Bus System”. It could be less than 24 in real situation. Surly this city could afford to have free bus services within its great CBD area.

The design principle is:

1. Must have at least one P&R Station either bus, train or ferry within each LCN.
2. The routes must keep local towns, main commercial centres, hospitals (if any) and schools in the loop or at least within 500 metre walking distance.
3. Make necessary effort to get the routes been car pool only lane based on the road conditions and it would be determined at later stage of the design for the details of the system and local requirement.
4. Two types of buses would be used for LCN. Some of the buses shall always go around and around the routes and some of them shall go around and through one of the bus P&R stations then directly go to CBD along one of the Car Pool Only Lanes. Refer HERE for how the buses run on the routes.

CPOL1:  Starting from at Silverdale using one of the motorway lanes through Northern Busway to Viaduct which shall connect the following P&R stations: Silverdale, Albany, Constellation Dr and Sunnynook.

CPOL2: Starting from Whangaparaoa Plaza along Whangaparaoa Rd and Hibiscus Hiway to Silverdale P&R Station then connect to CPOL1.

CPOL2a: Starting from Orewa Shopping Mall along Hibiscus Hiway to Silverdale P&R Station then connect to CPOL1.

CPOL3: Starting from Glenfield shopping Mall through Birkenhead Mall then along Onewa to motorway then connect to CPOL1.

CPOL4: Starting from Takapuna Mall through Anzac St, Barry’s Point Rd and Esmonde Rd then join to CPOL1 on Motorway.

CPOL5: On Southern motorway starting from Manukau City to CBD

CPOL6: Starting from Highland Park along Pakuranga Rd,  Pakuranga HWY, Southern East HWY through Silvia Park and connect to CPOL5 at Mt Wellington.

CPOL7: Starting from Botany Town Centre along Ti Rakau Dr. and connect to CPOL6.

CPOL8: Starting from Westgate along Motorway 16 to CBD.

CPOL9:  Starting from Lincoln Rd Shoppimg Centre along Lincoln Rd and connect to CPOL8.

CPOL9a: Starting from Te Atatu Shoppimg Centre along Te Atatu Rd and connect to CPOL8.

CPOL10: Starting from Mt Roskill along Dominion Rd to CBD.

CPOL11: Onehunga Train Station – Mall then along Mount Smart Rd, Manukau Rd and Broadway at New Market to CBD.

CPOL12: Onehunga Train Station – Mall then along Mount Smart Rd, Mt Albert Rd, Mt Eden Rd to CBD.

The main bus routes shall be on the CPOLs above.

Note: Some of the Car Pool Only Lanes will be operated similar to Auckland Harbour bridge using the way of lane changing between morning and afternoon peak hours but using much smaller machine and lighter lane barriers. A typical example is the route starting from Birkenhead through Onewa Road to motorway where we have only three lanes in total.

How a One Basket Bus system works

Check here for more details of “one basket” bus system.

More details on One Basket System on CBD

How the greater CBD connects to other parts of the city

The input-output of the system