Subscribe to RSSEllerslie Train Station To be Shifted
NZTA plans to reconfigure State Highway One to install a fourth lane, city bound direction and the local council board has been advised that this will require shifting Ellerslie Train station and platforms to fit the fourth lane. (Hat tip Joel).
The local board has been told that at the same time, Ellerslie station will be upgraded to be ready for Auckland’s electric trains.
The station runs alongside the Southern Motorway.
ELLERSLIE: Train station right by the Southern motorway
There has been no official announcement of the details but sources say this will involve:
- Moving the platforms
- New lift and stairs to connect both pedestrian bridges to the station platform
- A new lift to give mobility users access to Kalmia Street
- New shelter and lighting, CCTV, PA system and the tag off integrated ticketing machine being repositioned
- Reconfiguring shelter and other rail infrastructure
Night work is apparently scheduled to begin November 1 after the RWC and won’t finish until next March with much of it happening during the month-long Christmas train shutdown.
Trains will continue to run as scheduled except during the Christmas network shutdown.
The pedestrian bridge from the town centre to station will temporarily close and pedestrians will need to use the existing underpass.
NZTA is leading the project and it’s said the cost of reconfiguring the station is being picked up by NZTA.
Ellerslie train station requires an upgrade
And in another big project, the Orakei rail bridge construction will start in early December.
Preliminary works to move utilities were completed in August.
19 Comments
Whatever else it is 4 lanes in each direction on any motorway is a policy fail, and the culmination of a history of policy fails.
I have no problem with the NZTA paying to move it but it should be a much improved station, not just a copy of what there is now shifted to the side a bit. How about full length shelters and platform gates etc.
Doesnt need platform gates……..
So its ok to move Ellerselie train station to benefit the cars but not the other way round, say a 3 track needs to be built, seems that cars always seem to win, disgusting!!!!
The fat man needs his belt extended again while the skinnyman in the next seat feels the fat bubbling over the armrest.
Sounds a bit like modern airline travel.
Travis - I agree that it wouldn’t need gates it in the normal context of things but if the station is having to be moved for the motorway to be expanded then it should get a full upgrade to make it something special (which could also be used as an even better advertisement for using trains).
Gotta say, if there’s any part of the motorway that needs the extra lane, it is Ellerslie northbound. That stretch is diabolical at least seven hours a day during the week, and for several hours on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s consistently congested to a far higher degree than I’ve ever seen on other parts of the motorway network.
As for a third track, if that stretch of line gets so busy that it needs a third track (and it’s not a freight route), we’ll find a way to make it work. Even if it means claiming back part of the by-then-much-emptier motorway. That said, a third track would put our network capacity requirements to a level greater than those of Vienna, which has only two tracks on most suburban lines. Given that their population is larger than ours, I don’t consider that requirement to be especially likely.
How about NZTA providing some noise/pollution barriers for the new station?
Waiting at this station is horrible already with the busy road so close. It will only get worse with another lane added even closer to the station. Some tall glass ones like around St Mary’s Bay would be a big improvement. The local board should demand this.
Feijoa, with you on that one. Very noisy on the platform when the traffic is moving freely.
Where will the station go? I remember that it was already hard up against private property on the Kalmia St side.
Ian, there’s plenty of space. An access path that’s at least four metres wide separates the tracks from the back of properties on Kalmia, and a motorway lane only needs 3.5 metres at most.
That work will help relieve a real bottleneck. Next one I would like to see done is three laning the bridge at Mt Wellington, followed by adding an extra lane to the south side of the Neilson Street bridge over the railway line at Onehunga, and adding a third lane down to Alfred Street so that traffic to the port has a much freer run instead of joining the queue which sometimes stretches down to Waikaraka Park. Traffic on that stretch is about to get even busier when the new bus depot opens on Filmours old yard in a couple of weeks time.
Having only recently replaced the shelter and extended the platform they’re now going to tear it down, brilliant! Surely NZTA didn’t just decide to widen the motorway last week. I assume “platform gates” means those screens you see on some underground stations, completely unnessary,totally nanny state.
Robincole - By platform gates I don’t mean ones along the platform edge (they would require every single train to stop at the exact same spot) but instead and referring to ticketing gates like we will have at Britomart and Newmarket when Hop finally gets rolled out to the rail system (something that seems to be slipping every time AT is asked about it.
It is true Ellerslie northbound is a bottle neck. But is it the continous widening of the network at a time traffic volumes are decreasing seems a waste of money. Especially when it is the rail network which is experiencing the rapid growth.
I believe a 3rd track needs to be planned for the section between Penrose and Newmarket. As we can already see, a future Ham-Auckland commuter service cannot fit on this section of the line due to massive congestion.
So, hundred million dollars (or whatever) on a short section of motorway, or triple tracking the rail line adjacent? I would go with the later.
What is happening with the Orakei railbridge construction?
Won’t this just move the bottleneck to the (just rebuilt!) Newmarket Viaduct???
This will no doubt justify adding the fourth northbound lane to it.
This is the problem with motorways and bottlenecks.
Andrew, the Viaduct hasn’t been widened on the north-bound side yet, and still once traffic gets past Greenlane it tends to move quite well. I’m not sure why the congestion is so bad through Penrose/Ellerslie, but it is definitely consistently worse than any other part of the network. The morning peak never really finishes, then it’s the start of the afternoon peak, and things finally clear about 7pm.
Jon, this is one of the few places where adding a lane is genuinely about addressing a consistent congestion problem rather than trying to “fix” congestion that occurs only at peak times. The additions to the NW, for example, are about peak flows not ordinary flows. Penrose/Ellerslie has an ordinary flow that is, on most days, on a par with peak flows in other parts of the motorway network. Adding tracks for non-existent passenger rail demand won’t help the motorway one jot, and it’s a primary freight corridor. One need only look at the number of trucks that pass through the section to realise that having most of the day as a traffic jam is not helping either the environment (due to all the fuel wasted in idling through the mass of vehicles) or the local economy with the addition time spent just getting vehicles through.
I can think of no other part of the motorway where, consistently, traffic is moving at 30km/h at 11 in the morning, or 2 in the afternoon, or on at least two of every three weekend afternoons.
@Jarrod
From KiwiRail - an info day
We are rebuilding Orakei Road rail overbridge to upgrade Auckland’s rail network and improve road safety.
If you use Orakei Road, take the train, live or work nearby, our work will affect you. Find out more by coming to our Information Day:
Orakei Bay, 231 Orakei Road, Auckland
Saturday 29 October
Any time from 11pm to 2pm