Waitematā railway station
| Britomart Transport Centre | |
| |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Year Established: | 2003 |
| Distance: | 490 km (straight distance) from Wellington |
| Auckland Suburban Network | |
| Lines Served: | Eastern, Southern, Western |
| Previous Station: | Orakei (Eastern), Newmarket (Southern, Western) |
| Next Station: | None, terminal |
Britomart Transport Centre is the Auckland, New Zealand, CBD transport hub, combining a bus interchange, railway station, and Edwardian former post office building in an expansive post-modernist architectural melange, with the main ferry terminal just across Quay Street. It is the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk line, and one of only a worldwide few underground stations for diesel trains. The centre was built to move rail access closer to the city's CBD and thereby boost use of public transport, a mode of transort still very lightly used in Auckland.
History
Cost over-runs and differing tastes made Britomart politically controversial, the design often being described as a large hole in the ground, both literally and figuratively. Despite this, it has won numerous design awards and is internationally recognised for its innovative but heritage-sympathetic architecture.[citation needed] The main source of contention was the relatively great expense of this public transport development in a city that is traditionally very focused on the private car.
Earlier stations
Britomart is on reclaimed land in the middle of what was once Commercial Bay. It is named after Point Britomart, a former headland at Commercial Bay's eastern end. In the 1870s and 1880s the headland was levelled in order to extend the railway line to the bottom of Queen Street, and was used to fill in Commercial Bay.
Auckland's railway station moved west to the Britomart site in 1885, and remained there after the Post Office was built on the Queen St frontage in 1911. In 1930 it was relocated 1.2 km east to Beach Rd, and for the rest of the 20th century the Britomart site was a bus terminal (from 1937) and carpark (from 1958).
Many proposals have been made to relocate the station back to the CBD, most notably in 1973 and 1987. In 1995, Auckland City Council purchased the old Post Office (which had closed in 1988) and proposed to develop the area as a transit centre. Early designs called for both the bus terminal and the railway to be underground, but these plans were scrapped as projected costs soared into the billions.
In 1998 a more cost-effective solution was found that used part of Queen Elizabeth II Square and surrounding streets as a bus terminal, with the existing dilapidated bus terminal redeveloped to incorporate both bus services and a pedestrianised area. When nearby Quay St was realigned in the late 1990s, a tunnel was built (completed in 2000) to provide the underground railway link to Britomart. Bus services using the old bus terminal were diverted to other locations in June 2001.
Construction
Construction of Britomart commenced in October 2001. It involved 14 km length of piling, some of the piles being as long as 40 m and driven as far as 16 m into the underlying bedrock, mainly to provide good earthquake protection, and to futureproof the area for potential later construction of buildings on top of the station. 200,000 cubic metres were excavated for the station, and 40,000 cubic metres of concrete poured.[1]
The new station was opened in July 2003 by Sir Edmund Hillary and several government ministers.[2]
Capacity and rail connections
Increased services
In its early days Britomart received a lot of criticism due its being built on a scale that was well in excess of the capacity and patronage of the rail network in Auckland at the time. However, in recent years patronage has increased greatly and more frequent services have been introduced to accommodate the increased number of passengers, and this has led to concerns that the station will soon be at maximum capacity. During the peak only 18 suburban trains an hour can enter and exit.[citation needed]
The foresight of council planners in constructing such an iconic investment in Auckland's public transport has already spurred further development. The $600 million Project DART (Developing Auckland's Rail Transport)[3] is underway, managed by the state-owned enterprise ONTRACK and funded by ARTA. This project is concentrated on double-tracking the Western Line and upgrading stations, and will include the construction a new railway line and station to Manukau City from the Southern Line.
There have also been a number of proposals recommending electrification of the Auckland rail network. Most of these coincided with proposals to electrify the whole North Island Main Trunk between Auckland and Wellington during the 1960s.[4]
On 12 September 2006 ARTA released a study pointing to a "desperate" need for electric trains to sustain the current boom in rail patronage on Auckland's network, which had reached 566,000 passenger trips per month in August of that year. Government ministers gave qualified support for electrification, estimated to cost $3.6 billion over 25 years, which would increase patronage to 30 million trips per year. The Mayor of Auckland, Dick Hubbard, also supported the proposals.[5] In the interim, ARTA has ordered a batch of diesel-hauled push-pull carriage trains.
City underground loop
Plans exist for an underground loop to be built from Britomart to Mt Eden via Albert Street, with underground stations at midtown near Wellesley St and uptown servicing the Karangahape Rd area, and a new station at Mt Eden. This loop would allow trains to run through the station, rather than having to reverse, thus increasing capacity. There have been discussions and proposals for such a loop since the 1930s, but Government has been unwilling to provide funding for this project, and it is unlikely to proceed in the near future.[citation needed]
One building on Queen St reportedly features a basement that was designed as the outer shell of a proposed midtown underground station.[citation needed] This is no longer possible, since the location of Britomart station makes a Queen St route unfeasible.
Pedestrian Underpasses
Initial plans included an underground pedestrian walkway connecting Britomart to Queen Elizabeth II Square, the nearby downtown ferry terminal and the main shopping street of Queen St. Due to cost over-runs only the short link to the square was built, the remainder replaced with a sizeable but less effective canopy over the footpath outside the station. Given Auckland's variable climate and often torrential rainfall, patrons hope that the remaining links will be built.
Services
Trains
Suburban services are provided by Veolia on behalf of ARTA. Most services either commence from or terminate at Britomart. The suburban network extends to Pukekohe in the south and Waitakere in the north-west.
The Overlander, a daily (high summer) or thrice-weekly (off-season) long-distance train running between Britomart and Wellington via the North Island Main Trunk is operated by Tranz Scenic, part of Toll NZ. The service was repeatedly threatened with closure, most recently in 2006, and its future remains uncertain even after Toll NZ has reversed its decision to suspend services after public comments on the closure were strongly negative [6].
Discussions have recently begun to re-establish a twice-daily return service to the neighbouring city of Hamilton, approximately two hours south of Auckland by rail. This service will most likely begin in 2008/2009 as an extension of the current service to Pukekohe to the south of metropolitan Auckland. A previous service named the Waikato Connection operated this route briefly during 2000-01.
Buses and ferries
Britomart is a major interchange where passengers can transfer between train, bus and ferry services. It is the terminus for many bus routes, and the free City Circuit and Stagecoach The Link buses go past on their loops around the city.
Just across Quay St from Britomart is the ferry terminal, serving destinations such as Devonport and Waiheke Island.
References
- ^ First Britomart Tour – Wednesday 29 November 2006 - IPENZ, Auckland Branch, January 2007 Bulletin
- ^ Ministers at the opening of Britomart (from the New Zealand Labour Party website)
- ^ Rail Newsletter Issue 29 (published on the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) website, late 2006)
- ^ The Railways of New Zealand: a Journey Through History - Churchman, Geoffrey & Hurst, Tony; IPL Books, 2001
- ^ Mayor says electrification a "must have" for Auckland - Auckland City Council, Tuesday 12 September 2006
- ^ "Overlander saved" - National Business Review, 28 September 2006)
See also
External links
- Britomart Transport Centre (official website)