13 February 2015

Travelling in the fast lane

Auckland Transport’s (AT’s) drive to improve the speed and reliability of journey times across its frequent service network, takes another step on Monday morning with a new bus lane coming into operation in Symonds Street, shaving up to four minutes off the morning commute (20 minutes a week) of some 6000 passengers.

Symonds Street is Auckland’s second busiest bus corridor with an average of 70% of people travelling along the route choosing to use public transport.

The new bus lane will operate between Charlotte Street on New North Road to Alex Evans Street on Symonds Street between 7am and 9am.

Mark Lambert, Auckland Transport’s Public Transport Group Manager, says: “during the morning peak we have 181 buses feeding into Symonds Street from Mt Eden Road and New North Road competing for space with other road users.

“The new bus lane will vastly improve the travel times and transport options for people travelling into the city from these suburbs.”

Mr Lambert says bus lanes help manage competing interests for limited road space at peak times of the day – allowing a more efficient and effective bus service.

“In Auckland buses make up 2.5% of vehicles but carry nearly a third of commuters into the city. They are key to using our road space more efficiently, providing more capacity and getting people to where they want to go faster.”

The Symonds St bus lane is a component in a frequent service network encompassing 38 routes, mainly on arterial and collector roads. Routes in the network will receive a range of bus priority measures designed to enable high frequency bus services to operate reliably, efficiently and to timetable at peak times. The aim is to make bus transport an attractive alternative to private vehicles. This will reduce road congestion to the benefit of all road users .

And it is working. Monitoring shows that the newly installed outbound bus lane in Fanshawe Street has yielded travel time savings and improved reliability.

The 2014/15 financial year targets approximately 15km of bus/transit lane implementation across the network. Another 25 km is programmed for next two financial years.

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