Subscribe to RSSFort St Shared Space Underway
The Fort St Shared Space project construction starts on Monday.
The streets for upgrade are:
- Fort Street
- Fort Lane
- Jean Batten Place
- Gore and Commerce streets (between Fort and Customs streets)
- Shortland Street (between Queen Street and Jean Batten Place).
Mayor Len Brown will hold a ceremony on Friday morning to mark the start.
Meanwhile digging has now started in Darby St, two weeks into that project.
With the Fort St project, the first stage, covering Fort Street (between Queen Street and Commerce Street), Jean Batten Place, Fort Lane and lower Shortland Street will be completed by August 2011.
We hear endlessly about working being completed for the RWC 2011. For some reason, construction will stop for the Rugby World Cup in August and begin again in November!
The second stage of the upgrade includes Commerce Street, Gore Street, and the mid block of Fort Street. Work is expected to begin toward the end of 2011 and is likely completed by the end of 2012.
FORT TODAY: In for a $23m makeover
The remainder of Fort Street, stage three, is expected to begin in early 2012 and be completed by early 2013.
How Fort will look
Work on the Shared Spaces in Lorne St and Elliot Sts start early next year.
15 Comments
About time they got started, also I walked past Darby St yesterday and there was a huge hole in the ground.
I think starting these “shared spaces” will be the best legacy the Banks Council will have given us in their last term.
Not much of a fand of their record otherwise, but one has to admit it took some guts to approve this one.
Jon C, I understand a lot of issues, including how to reduce the costs of future maintenance, needed to be hashed out before they got started. Add to it the fact that Auckland City Council was hemorrhaging staff in advancae of the SuperCity, and I am happy to hear that several of the projects ARE to be finished in time for the RWC.
@Max I love the Shared Space concept which is why i am closely following it. But I am so used to writing “will be finished by RWC” I found it strange to be writing something would be stopped for the RWC!! It wasnt criticism of the council.
Jon C - I understand, I was just giving a bit of the context as I am aware of it.
I think loads of things will be paused for the RWC - for example, I understand much of the Victoria Park tunnel works will cease or “withdraw inwards” within their construction site in time for the RWC.
@Karl Facinating. i must start a list. I wonder if we will all get 2 months paid holiday as well.Please.
Yeah the plan is to have no closed roads, hordings or traffic cones up during the rwc carnival, so it’s easy to get around and looks nice. I believe the council is also working with the private sector to avoid construction in the city at the time too.
It would be crazy to have the whole fort st district dug up and closed off while there was a major international event on.
I believe that the council is hoping to have Stage 1 finished by the moratorium. They will then wait until after the World Cup to begin Stage 2. At least that is what is implied by their website.
“I wonder if we will all get 2 months paid holiday as well.”
If you can convince your employer to give you unpaid leave, you may be able to get the 2 months pay via renting your house or apartment to visitors!
I congratulate the old Auckland city Council on this. I am genuinely surprised by the scope and ambition of this project.
I didn’t know until now that lower Shortland Street is to be included too- Shortland street is a pretty major road in the scheme of things, so it will be great to discourage cars from using it. The whole thing will definitely increase PT patronage as dedicated car infrastructure which defines the perceived norm is dug up, and will therefore remove further cars- making the CBD even more people friendly.
The perception of private transport domination is a big problem for the CBD I think, even though cars carry a shrinking minority of the CBDs users. This is because they are so space inefficient that this minority requires a huge amount of land. People don’t seem to think along the lines of a whole block of Queen Street traffic actually representing as many people as a single bus.
“I didn’t know until now that lower Shortland Street is to be included too”
As far as I know, lower Shortland Street is only to receive improved pedestrian crossings towards the shared space zones? Not as far as I know to be shared space itself (which I would prefer but I guess one has to make a cut somewhere to slice it into manageable pieces and we can extend it some time later).
The plan look to have paving across Shortland Street, possibly to help slow cars down as the come onto Queen Street.
Incidentally I went for a walk along Te Wero Island and the state of the paving is atrocious. I hope the shared spaces are made of sterner stuff.
The start of this work is fantastic news, it’s just a shame that neither the old Auckland City Council nor the new Auckland Council have the desire to see more of it completed in time for the RWC.
As for stopping work on construction sites in the CBD - I hear that the Tepid Baths renovations will stop through this period, and all hoardings removed so that the building is not hidden when that area is busy with visitors.
“it’s just a shame that neither the old Auckland City Council nor the new Auckland Council have the desire to see more of it completed in time for the RWC”
Andy, you make it sound as if it’s due to incompetence or lack of interest. Delays aren’t always due to that (yes, we could all work 150% all the time, but that’s unreasonable to expect of anyone, Council or private contractor) and sometimes delays are just because problems crop up that have to be fixed first, rather than quickly brushed over.
And also, would you rather have them declare a much smaller project area, and then say “See, 100% got completed by RWC, aren’t we great?”
No, I’m happy for them to be amibitious. The size of these projects (even though they are sadly not directly connected) will be significant enough to really change something in the CBD, and hopefully give future impetus to shared space either in the CBD or in other places around Auckland. So I’d rather have them keep going, even if it takes longer.
@ max - Banks could hardly be credited for the shared spaces. If one man is the face of these shared spaces it is Ludo Campbell-Reid. Even at the talk given by Jan Gehl on July 5th “Auckland - Rebuilding towards a great city for people” at Aotea, Ludo did most of the talking and Banks did a runner after the talk started. All I can say is thank God for Len Brown. At last Auckland has a mayor with vision, energy and direction.
[...] And the first stage of the $23m Fort St project, covering Fort Street (between Queen Street and Commerce Street), Jean Batten Place, Fort Lane and lower Shortland Street will be completed by August. You can see how it will look when finished here [...]