A series of other (ridiculous) public transport solutions we should go for instead of light rail, i guess
What if the average Wellington public transport user could yeet themselves from the Airport to the CBD — via an under-the-airport runway tunnel — in a gondola! That’d be superior to what we have now — buses that carry more people in less time and aren’t affected in high winds — of course.
What if in Christchurch, you could get a gondola from the airport to the CBD? I’m sure that a city with a reticence for public transport already would love such a thing, and definitely use it.
What if in Auckland, instead of taking a train or a bus, you could cram yourself in a glass box with a bunch of strangers and your luggage and be stuck in there for half an hour to get to Onehunga.
These are all the dreams outlined in Doppelmayr’s (the world’s biggest ski lift manufacturer) pitch to a BusinessNZ event tomorrow. There’s an article on the Spinoff this morning better outlining the exact detail, but in short, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch could be transformed via the power of swinging lil gondola thingys — the report screams!
Just what we all need. Instead of building light rail in our country’s biggest cities, using preexisting infrastructure, or improving bus or train services, we could need to plan, cost and fuck around with new technology that PT users would… just have to get used to, I guess.
BusinessNZ, since you’re so keen on bright and exciting ideas for moving people through cities and across the country, here’s a few of my own for Wellington. :)
Cook Strait Monorail
Now, some of you out there might be like “this is a terrible idea, the Cook Strait is one of the roughest water crossings in the world, you can’t run a monorail over it, it will fall off and people will perish” — and to that, I say:
“You’re just not thinking big enough.”
Small ideas are antithetical to business innovation. We have to go bold or go home. With a Cook Strait Monorail, we have a fast and scenic way to cross the Cook Strait. It has none of the problems of the ferries, and it can’t capsize in high tides. Sure, it’ll be some effort to run a monorail across a piece of water that large, but we’ll get a lot of tourism from it. Considering the thoughts of the incoming government, they’ll be all over it!
Highway to the Waves
I bloody love the Cook Strait ferries. I think they’re fun, I think they, for the most part, are pretty nice, and they’re a scenic way to get across the Cook Strait.
They are, however, pretty dang slow — clocking in at a max speed of 40km an hour. A good forty minutes of the (average) 3.5 hour long journey involves coasting out of Wellington Harbour. So, let’s remove that forty minutes.
“Four lanes to the planes”? More like “four lanes to the waves”.
Wouldn’t it be better if State Highway One didn’t curve off towards the east, and instead continued straight down to the South Coast? Build a ferry terminal off Owhiro Bay, and start the ferries off without losing a third of the journey to motoring out of the harbour.
It’s basically a straight line, and I see no problems arising from this at all. Our port isn’t situated within the relative shelter of Wellington Harbour for a reason, or anything, and I’m certain the residents of Brooklyn, Happy Valley and Owhiro Bay will be fine with bowling their houses in the name of progress.
That’s what business is, right? Progress.
And we need to progress down to the South Island.
Mt Vic Slide
Okay, bear with, this one’s a wee bit out of left field, but
what if this:
but here:
Ever walked up Mount Vic, had a squiz at the views and then thought, “hey, my knees are not going to survive the walk down?”
Well, I have the idea for you. Running approximately a kilometre, this slide would get you from Mount Vic Lookout to Courtenay Place in seventeen seconds. Talk about rapid transport.
Yes, travelling 52.4 metres a second is the approximate speed of a small aviation plane, but that’s only the top speed the slide could get to, and I’m sure Aotearoa’s best and brightest could make something like this work.
And just think — during Pōneke’s wettest days, it would become a waterslide! I foresee no problems here.
East-West Submarine
An underutilized form of transport in Wellington is the East-West Ferry, which is a shame. Why be trapped in a bus to Eastbourne when you could not be? The ferry is fast(ish), condensing a trip that’s an hour and a half into about thirty minutes.
Plus, it’s got scenic views, a bar, and toilets — and you also don’t have to travel through Thorndon.
However, it is a service that gets cancelled frequently — due to high tides or unpleasant conditions.
So, what if we don’t go over the waves…
But rather, under them.
There are tourist submarines available on the market, and subs aren’t affected by high swell. A tourist submarine could make the trip between Queens Wharf, Seatoun, Days Bay, Matiu/Somes Island and Petone in just over an hour — and would never be interrupted by Wellington’s frequent bad weather.
Chuck a bar and some bathrooms with some comfy seating in there and you’ve got yourself the world’s first commuter submarine. What could go wrong?
For god’s sake something connecting Porirua and Upper Hutt that isn’t a car
I don’t know about you, but there’s been multiple times in my life when I’ve been in Upper Hutt and needed to go to Porirua.
It’s a pain to do!
Even if you have a car, it’s an annoying 30 mins across the Haywards, or a more painful 40 minutes down the motorway, into the city and back out to the west via Ngauranga Gorge.
Via public transport, it’s over an hour, if you get lucky with the trains.
Thus, enter the Melling Extension (MEX).
Running from Wellington Station to Porirua and stopping at Ngauranga, Petone, Western Hutt, Melling, Belmont, Manor Park, Whitby and Paremata, this swishy rail line would shorten the travel time between the Hutt and Porirua to approximately 15 minutes, most of which would be a tunnel under the Haywards. FIFTEEN MINUTES! The overall trip would take just under an hour.
Folks further out in the Hutt could take the Hutt Valley train to Manor Park and hop on the MEX to get to Porirua, and those along Kapiti could switch from the KPL to the MEX at Porirua or Paremata.
Supporting growth along the Melling line, and with the addition of stations at Belmont and Whitby, this train could be a boon to businesses and for those living within Western Hutt. Yes, there’s some work that would need to be done — such as drilling a big tunnel — but the benefits would outnumber the costs.
Or, Metlink could just yeet a bus across Haywards Road, but that’s an unexciting way to deal with a big problem.
Sir Peter Jackson’s Trebuchet
Sir Peter Jackson’s well on his way to buying up bits of Wellington, it seems. With over 20 residential properties, as well as the newly acquired Shelley Bay, it seems nothing is too big for the world-renowned film director.
Now, I know this is a radical idea, but what if there was a huge trebuchet from Rivendell (in Kaitoke Regional Park) to Shelley Bay? With cars of 15+ people, it could fly you from one of Wellington’s best known film locations to Shelley Bay (one of Sir Peter Jackson’s favourite locations, it seems) at a speed of -
Well, those physics are a little bit harder than I can do without the knowledge of certain variables, but let’s just say — it’d be fast. I can think of NO PROBLEMS with this! No issues with health or safety or flight paths or anything.
It’d benefit the film industry, it’d benefit tourism, it would absolutely fuck with people who are stoned — all of these are benefits!
We are cooking with gas, fellas. This business proposal is going so well.
Horses
I don’t know, my mate gave me this one, but I reckon it’s got legs.
Beach Loop Bus
Ever wanted to be on a bus for nearly four hours and not leave the region? Well, have I got a proposal for you. Enter the BEACH LOOP bus.
From Waikanae to Eastbourne, via Waikanae Beach, Paraparaumu Beach, Raumati Beach, Paekakariki, Pukerua Bay, Plimmerton, Paremata, Porirua, Johnsonville, Makara Beach, Aro Valley, Owhiro Bay, Island Bay, Houghton Bay, Lyall Bay, Moa Point, Breaker Bay, Seatoun, Karaka Bay, Scorching Bay
— I can feel my repetitive strain injury acting up —
Massey Memorial, Shelley Bay, Kilbirnie, Evans Bay, Haitaitai Beach, Kio Bay, Weka Bay, Balaena Bay, Little Karaka Bay, Oriental Parade, Jervois Quay, the Bus Station, Kaiwharewhara, Ngauranga, Petone, Petone East, Point Howard, Lowry Bay, York Bay, Mahana Bay, Sunshine Bay and Days Bay.
Over fifty stops, depending on placement. Nearly four hours. 160 kilometres. Is it worth it in winter? Hell no!
But in summer… we could be looking at a sweet business deal. A lot of these beaches aren’t served by a bus currently, so we could see them thrive! One day I will be able to take the bus to Makara.
One day…
A Hutt-Airport Bus Service
Now, for the most wild and crazy idea of them all — — a bus from Queensgate to the airport! I know, wild thought, ae. It could run every twenty minutes, stopping at the bigger stops along the route, and servicing both the central city and the Hutt for airline passengers going further afield.
It could reduce strain on the 83 — a bus that’s chocka every time I’ve used it. It could encourage sustainable travel between the airport and Parliament for politicians spending their time travelling between them.
It could have comfy seats and wifi… and maybe we could even paint it a bright colour so tourists would easily recognise it! Maybe something like… orange.
But no, I think, out of all of my big thinking and out of the box ideas in this article, that one’s got to be the least plausible. Knowing the council, they’d deem it a write-off in the midst of a global pandemic and replace it with a service that goes to fewer places and serves fewer people.
But that would be ridiculous.
Anyway, BusinessNZ, if you’re still reading — you’re welcome to choose any of these. They all have their positives, and I simply can’t think of any drawbacks.
However, if you’re keen on something a little more down to earth, and a little less drastic than gondolas, or expanding train routes or nonsense bus journeys or trebuchets — why not go for light rail? I’ve been told that people are keen on that to Island Bay especially, but then again, what do I know about public transport — I’ve only just written a 2000 word article about it.
