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How Auckland will look by 2040 - Auckland - AKT

How Auckland Will Look By 2040

 

Those who put together the draft Auckland Plan have also given us a visual look of the changes they envisage for Auckland’s CBD area.
Here is how they see Auckland change - and how it should look by 2040.

This is the revamped Victoria St looking towards Queen St

 

This would be Queen St if it were shut off permanently or at set times such as for weekend markets

This is Hobson St with its present one way system onto Spaghetti Junction

Here is Hobson after it becomes two-way and friendlier to pedestrians

Here’s the dreadful motorway ramp in Lower Hobson St above Tepid Baths

And with it gone

Here’s the Britomart Transport Centre and QE Square

And it will become like this


Here’s Quay St today

Here’s Quay St in 2040

Here’s the Nelson St off ramp today

Here’s how it would look by 2040

Here’s Fanshawe St today

Here’s Fanshawe St with modern light rail instead of trams and a more friendly pedestrian feel in 2040

This is bare concrete-dominated Upper Queen St Newton off Queen St today above the motorway

This is how it would change

Here is Federal St today

And how it will look to enhance the work already done with St Pat’s Square

And Quay Park around the Strand railway station

It would look like this

Worth the money and effort? Enough change to make it a liveable city?

What the Plan says about Transport

Taming Auckland’s landscape - what the Plan says

Plans for Auckland’s Waterfront

How Auckland will pay for it

Read Auckland Plan

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29 Comments

 
  1. Geoff says:

    Lots of 40 year old cars being driven around in 2040! And the poor owner of the Federal Street building is still trying to lease it out after all that time.

    But seriously, most of these projects just seem to be planting trees and paving streets. Why will this take 30 years?

  2. Matt L says:

    Geoff - Probably because much of it involves reducing car capacity so is dependant on things like the CRL to allow more people to get into town. Also the upgrades won’t be cheap, they might only be able to afford to do one or two streets or sections a year

  3. Christopher Dempsey says:

    Wearing my elected rep hat:

    Yes, the images do look pretty flash, and yes, it does look like planting and paving. However, planting and paving is complicated because of the large numbers of pipes underground - so the moment you dig up a pavement for trees, you have to spend money to move the pipes or protect them from tree roots, which costs a pretty penny.

    What the Council is looking for is submissions that tells us, of the 8 transformational moves in the city centre, which one is most likely to get the best bang for buck at this stage?

    We don’t have oodles of money, but can do one or two sections a year, so looking at all 8 ‘moves’ - which is the best order for them to occur in?

    This is not as easy as it looks. Given the complexity of all the various stakeholders, you need to think carefully about which one will ‘unlock’ the demand for more moves.

    Council certainly looks forward to your submissions, and I urge you to make one. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated - it can be simply one page long. Just let us know what your main ideas are.

    Thanks
    Christopher Dempsey
    Waitemata Local Board

    Doffing said hat.

  4. Antz says:

    I love it, it will be a pricey change. But it would definitely be worth it. Especially changing parts of the Spag. junction into walkways and cycle lanes.

  5. Ben says:

    @Christopher Dempsey. Working on my submission for this once in a life time opportunity.

    [more constructive then having a whinge]

  6. Mark says:

    @Geoff, Trying to convince the public of Auckland to walk cycle use pT and leave their cars at home. Auckland has one off the highest car ownership rates of developed cities in the world. It’s a tough sell to a public that is wedded to cars.

  7. Pim says:

    I’m not so sure that actually removing heaps of lanes everywhere will be supported… I think especially in the case of Hobson street, I think that it should still be a major throughfare, and still be one way, and maybe reduced to three lanes, and not two. Otherwise we’re lowering capacity for people coming into the city by too much. I’m all for rail, and I think that in an ideal world the entire CBD would be completely pedestrianised, but in reality, people are still gonna be in cars in 2040, and there will almost definitely be more cars.

  8. kel says:

    Modern, clean but Boring look!… A lack of people and new high rise buildings, lots of empty leafy cold streets which looks like Kazakhstan in autumn. Doesn’t look exciting… I guess they are planning for a poor economy for the next thirty years. :(

  9. James says:

    May they should use NZ natives and evergreens, in winter it will look all depressing. i must say that i am impressed with the plan but a few minor changes would make it close to perfect.

  10. Martin says:

    I like it, a cross between a regenrated British city and San Deigo. Hopefully Auckland itself can become a more exciting, vibrant place place… improved night life, culture etc.

  11. Patrick R says:

    Pim you miss the point that when we two-way Hobson we also two-way Nelson so the overall lane reduction is either zero or maybe one. Both streets need to be considered together, as they are now two parts of one system.

  12. Jeffrey says:

    can you please extend the railway to Howick or the eastern part of auckland?

  13. CAROL GRACE says:

    Upper Queen Street Newton off Queen Street today. WILL THERE BE ANY CARS? Looks like a pedestrian walk to me.

    As it comes to Symonds Street, take a look at the cycle lanes. They are on and off the footpaths and the cyclists don’t give a damn where they cycle. There are cycle lanes both up and down Symonds Street and the cyclists don’t give a damn where they ride their bikes. I actually live in Symonds Street and when I leave my building carpar I have to look left and right ON THE FOOTPATH because that is where most of them ride. They ride up and down the footpath both ways AND WONDER WHY THEY GET KNOCKED OFF THEIR BIKES. I saw a cyclist the other day with a sign on his back saying ANOTHER LESS CAR ON THE ROAD and I thought YES ANOTHER CYCLIST IN HIS GRAVE. I would not own a bike if you paid me millions. Oooops!!!! Yes I would but the bike would stay in the garage. I would be a safe cyclist (if I had a bike) and would get sick and tired of waiting for lights to change for my turn. Not like most cyclists I see on the road who go through pedestrian crossings on their bikes and go through lights. The city is not a safe and good place to ride a bike. Also if you lock it to a tree etc bits will go missing day by day as we have seen a number of times in Symonds Street.

    HAVE A GOOD DAY

  14. Sam says:

    Len Brown.
    You are the man.
    You got a good sense of imagination. However, your plans are do-able. If only the past mayors had a imaginary mind like yours, Auckland itself would of looked 100times better than how it is now.

  15. Vijay Srinivas says:

    Great. While all other cities worldwide are losing greenery for development, and more vehicles are being added, Auckland will become greener with less private vehicles and more public transport. But is it true prediction?

  16. Peter says:

    In 2040 it will be summer all the time and asphalt will be replaced with expensive paving stones. The trees (which the council could plant now if it had the money) will have miraculously appeared and for some unknown reason Aucklanders will give up their cars. What a lovely fantasy.

  17. Parsley72 says:

    This is ridiculous. Everyone knows that by 2040 the Zombie apocalypse will result in total urban blight and decay.

  18. Russell says:

    @Mark Is it really surprising that Auckland has one off the highest car ownership rates of developed cities in the world? It also has one of the worst pT systems of any city.
    I really do think that improving (or should that be instating) pT will remove people’s yearning to use their vehicles. If you go to a city like Melbourne, where trams are so convenient, and cheap, you have no desire to even try getting around in your car.

    Nice to see they have included the Quay St Tram in the drawings, why on Earth could they not have put that in already instead of the redundant joke of a thing they’ve installed in Wynyard Quarter?
    Why is there no tram (or light rail if you prefer) in the drawings of Queen street though? Or Hobson street?
    But then I suppose I don’t need to worry. By the time 2040 comes around I imagine the harbour bridge (which I would also argue is one of the worst I’ve seen in any developed city), will no longer be able to be used and people from the Shore like myself won’t actually be able to get to Auckland city.
    Sir Dove-Myer Robinson was the man. As for Len Brown, that remains to be seen.

  19. Evan J says:

    While it is all very nice to demolish eyesore road bridges and plant trees and gardens to make the area look pretty, let’s not forget that Auckland is a working city and those bridges are needed to create the traffic flow to make the city work. As for the trams, the current Wynyard Quarter trams were Mike Lee’s stake in the ground to get the trams back into the city in the first place, and I think you will find that planning for the extensions to break out from that loop are already well under way. But to get them across the Viaduct Basin they are going to have to reinstate some of the infrastructure that was removed when the area was first developed for the America’s Cup; but without that development for the cup, the Viaduct would probably still be a grotty backwater. Bit of a chicken and egg situation really.

  20. Irish and Proud says:

    Anti-car thinking has no future IMO and is a complete pretense because cars are not the real problem - economic systems are. For example, we have to totally rethink our property systems and how residential properties are priced. At the moment, if people choose to live in city centers where they work, they’d be penalized despite being far greener (many things within walking distance). In fact, although I’m a motorist, I find walking an extremely attractive mode of transport - my sister had an apartment near the center Cork City (a small city in Ireland), and when I stayed there, I found that almost everything was within walking distance - my sister hardly used her car except for long distance travel. In short, people are not IMO wedded to cars - again, the main problem regarding congestion is the property system that forces people to live further and further away from their places of work - certainly the case in Ireland etc. IMO, much more flexibility is required on the part of the property industry and employers so as to allow people to move closer to their places of work.

    Irish and Proud

  21. Jonathan says:

    2040 is 28 years away. Technology is developing exponentially along with the growing awareness of our environmental surroundings. The future images are more green and open, but it is something that can be seen easily in the next 10 years. Queen st in 28 years is used for weekend markets?? Doesn’t seem like much of an improvement. In some of the images the only change is in the pavement and trees. This isn’t a bad thing but definitely shouldn’t take 28 yrs.

    To be honest Auckland in 2040 looks like Melbourne in 2012. The future images are appealing and look like a great idea but will it, or should it really take us that long to achieve that visual change?

  22. caroline says:

    That looks great!!! Awesome pics too. Much nicer than the current situation, gives people much more choice in terms of how they get around town.

    If anyone is putting a business case together for any of these, Transport for London has a great free toolkit here- http://urbandesign.tfl.gov.uk/Valuing-Urban-Realm.aspx which calculates the value of transforming urban spaces (stuff like benefits to the local economy, health, social wellbeing, and safety) based on research they have done.

    Hopefully we can get all these in before 2040 ;)

  23. Vinay says:

    What Auckland is struggling to do within 40 years has already been done by Singapore in just 4 years !!!

    Perhaps we should learn or take some ideas from them ;)

  24. Pauline says:

    Yes, the pics look awesome! Good effort! More planting and pavement. What about transport issues? Who are these people in the pics? Are they local residents? Are they tourists, workers? What transport brought them there? The occasional cyclist is portrayed but cycle paths are sorely lacking. Cycle paths work like roads, they need to be connected and designed so they are safe for pedestrians. Pedestrians and cyclists are NOT a good combination and leads to ‘rage’ incidents. Design for transport, not just good looks.

  25. K M Findlay says:

    Thank goodness there is an election coming up this year and we will be able to sink the Unthinkable Lenny Brown and get rid of his green communist mates. The person who organise the above images is living in the past. Why bother to put steel rails, currently costing $1000 per metre, on a perfectly good road surface? Railways have served us well but are part of history. A modern transport vehicle could follow a white line painted on the road. Paint is cheaper than and more environmentally friendly than steel. But nobody is going to build a system based on paint on the roads because it would be too primitive. There are better options.
    They closed Queen St in Onehunga and called it the Onehunga Mall. Business there almost died. But the road is now open again and business is booming.

  26. larto says:

    Twenty seven years once again sounds like another preposterous idea, twenty seven years well most kids in their twenties today will be nearing retiring age. I might be dead, I probably won’t be living here because progress is so slow and a joke. To do what they want to do is an insult to the people of Auckland, and New Zealand. It’s all a crock like all other plans they’ve layed out for the city, ‘stadiums’ ‘Sydney opera houses’ elegant sheds etc blah blah blah. Of course politicians know what? yes you know the answer.
    I see problems in this city that are prescient, more so than working on the city centre. The visuals that have been depicted could be achieved in months, a year at most. In China they create cities virtually in a five year period. But yes the council have money issues lack of, and all that. So is this the reason why the ‘cosmetic’ changes look so cheap. What you saw in those images are cosmetic, and they shouldn’t tease so much. My god possibly we are using new technologies not cars, anti gravity vehicles. Also you have to remember people in this country, are very conservative. and will not change so fast even in 27 years. Unless the council moves, the people will.
    Well South Auckland should be developed, as a place of technology this is where the changes should occur. Basically an infrastructural that is economic change on a major level, socially and technologically. Very innovative and intelligent people will, enter this country to affect change. Watch for the next 5-10 years this part of the country. Also the south island these people will have exotic ideas.
    At the end of the day I have doubts considering the council, as it has such a bad track record. The reason why they will never be able to achieve this, is because the people in council do not possess the acuity or quite frankly the intelligence to make it happen. This country is still the wild west in a lot of ways run by cowboys

  27. Shocking says:

    All of these concepts seem to be based on two basic principles

    1. Close arterial roads to cars (or remove the road entirely)
    2. Widen footpaths and plant trees and install benches everywhere

    Perhaps the council believes that if they remove infrastructure, drivers will be forced to use alternative transport options, but those options don’t yet exist in any convenient form. That has to come first. All these ideas do is make for pretty postcard pictures.

  28. Mike says:

    Image for Britomart Transport Centre and QE Square

    Sorry draughtsmen - you got the above image of the future SO Wrong!
    What about the 50+ storey building consented to replace the Down Town Shopping centre that will crowd the western skyline and totally remove the remaining lower profile of the surrounding buildings over looking QE2 Square and Britomart?

    If you are going to draw future looks, please be honest and add in the future buildings that have been consented! Otherwise it is a deception that people won’t be impressed by. I know about this one as I live near it - what about others planned and/or consented buildings that you haven’t included?

    Cheers

  29. sam says:

    So to sum up: more trees, some trams that aren’t trams, more pedestrianised areas, the sky will be bluer, and the population will increase. The glaring omission is flying cars and hover boards.

 

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