Subscribe to RSSSafer To Cross To Henderson
Good news for those using the Henderson railway station.
It’s going to get safer to cross to the station.
Auckland Transport is proposing to change the existing refuge island crossing on Railside Avenue near Henderson Train station to a pedestrian crossing.
This project has been initiated following public requests. I wonder if any come from people at AT who work in the former Waitakere council building there!
Safer to cross to the Henderson railway station
AT agrees pedestrian volumes are very high and continuous throughout the day at the crossing point.
It is proposed to implement prior to next July.
15 Comments
7months to put in a pedestrian crossing! What a joke. Why does everything in NZ seem to take forever to do?!
I am so amazed that NZ seems to lack pedestrian crossings, specially in Auckland. If refuges were such a great idea why don´t pedestrian friendly countries in Europe use them? Oh, because they know pedestrian crossings are better.
Com´mon AT, review all refuges….they are not safe. Slow traffic speeds down by having raised pedistrian crossings across Auckland. New North Rd could do with them.
It already seems save enough. Why do they want to change it???
It is not safe. What they have now is a result of modifications to a previous attempt at a crossing. Some cars stop, some cars attempt to run you down. As someone who has used that crossing for 5 years I welcome the changes
That makes sense and it wouldn’t surprise me that it has probably influenced a lot by AT workers who work there and would cross the road to access the mall.
There is already a raised table there to slow cars down and it probably help to start by taking down the “pedestrians give way to cars” signs.
I actually think it is a shame that they never extended the pedestrian bridge across the railway tracks also across the road. Even better would have been if Westfield had also chipped in and built it straight into the mall but as we know, Westfield don’t care about pedestrians. If you ever need proof of their disdain for pedestrians just look at that side of the mall, for someone getting off a bus or train, they have to cross the road, walk past a loading bay then through a car park on a small footpath.
@Matt L
You’re so right. The extra coin spent to extend the overpass would have had a very positive outcome.
It was proposed during the duplication project to extend the over bridge from the from the existing one across Railside Avenue while the new Henderson Station was being developed. West City was asked to chip in to help with the cost as it was to their benifit. They refused point blank. One wonders why as it would have been of great benefit to their customers.
Ken - the answer is simple, Westfield simply don’t believe in the value of pedestrians or PT users. If you look at their malls all over the world they are pretty much all the same and have only included aspects to cater for them when they have been forced to.
Next time Westfield want to expand their site the Council should demand less car parks and the overbridge to the station to be built.
@ Matt L
The two Westfields in London actually have brilliant P/T walking connections, but maybe that was the Ken Livingston leaving his mark!!!
Good points Matt. It is a diabolical entrance for pedestrians into that mall. In Sydney I`ve heard they have been esigned with PT in mind. Again like London, it`s probably because they had to. Even our own local authorities have been proactive once in making Sylvia Park put in a train station to get resource consent. When Westfield`s lease at Henderson next comes up, an airbridge has to be part of the price otherwise another party should get the opportunity to lease that site.
Does anyone know if it is going to be a zebra crossing — which will be quickest to get to and from the station — or is it going to be traffic lights with a long wait for those on foot and cars?
Paramatta Westfield and Paramatta train station are basically the same entity, it’s hard to say where one stops and the other begins.
Even Sylvia Park has made the rail station feel like the tradesman’s entrance - no weather protection, and right around the back of the mall. But way better than West City. iirc Lynn Mall has a pedestrian entrance opposite the station.
“7months to put in a pedestrian crossing! What a joke. Why does everything in NZ seem to take forever to do?!”
You guys are funny - the construction takes probably a week or so tops. My bet is because they don’t have the money. You may have heard that our Minister of Transport has massively reduced the money for local roads, public transport, walking and cycling and safety upgrades (any of which this could conceivably fall under), so Council’s have to skimp and save and defer projects until later in their programme.
As for the complaints about Westfield, you are half correct, and half not. Most Westfield malls in NZ (in fact ALL, except Albany) were built by others, not Westfield, who only purchased them. Yes, many of them are very crappy for peds, but comparing them to new malls designed with better thinking and more demanding regulations isn’t really comparing apples with apples.
As for Westfield paying part of the cost for things like extending the ped bridge - yes, that would have been nice for AMENITY, but I doubt that it would have made Westfield earn more money. Being a company in a capitalistic system, I can understand that they weren’t going to jump up with joy at the idea of forking out a few million.
“Does anyone know if it is going to be a zebra crossing — which will be quickest to get to and from the station — or is it going to be traffic lights with a long wait for those on foot and cars?”
Generally those would be called pedestrian signals. The “pedestrian crossing” terminology is a bit wrong too (because there IS already a pedestrian crossing there!) but I suspect they will change the refuge & raised table to a raised table w/o refuge and with zebra stripes and warning beacons.