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Botany town centre is people friendly
A NZ first of its kind plan to get people out of the habit of driving to shopping malls won an award today – and if only companies like Westfield embraced such an idea.
Botany town centre
The plan, for people using the Botany Town Centre was developed by a number of parties - Manukau City Council, Opus and Botany Town Centre owners AMP Capital Investors.
Funding was provided by NZTA – yes the people who plan motorways- and AMP Capital Investors, with further support on a range of linked travel initiatives from ARTA.
And it worked and has earned the New Zealand Planning Institute’s Best Practice Award.
To encourage people:
- Howick and Eastern Buses have refined, improved and expanded their bus routes.
- Bus tickets are promoted and sold at the Botany Town Centre visitors centre.
- The result: a 36% increase in passengers on buses in the area.
- ‘Go by Bus’, a joint programme with ARTA and the centre was launched to retailers with free giveaways and incentives for those already using the bus service and for others wishing to trial it.
- Centre staff and locals are encouraged to walk in the Botany area and beyond is a continuing focus for Botany Town Centre. A summer fun run and walk saw a 53% increase in participants compared to last year.
- The centre encouraged Walk2Work Day with a free breakfast event for staff that walked to work.
- There will also be a carpooling initiative introduced in July
- On the way are more bike stands, lockers and showers to encourage cycling to work.
- Future projects include production of a local area cycle and walking map.
The centre’s Jennifer Andrews says research showed an overwhelming majority of staff and shoppers commuted to the town centre by car, and many travel alone.
“With infill development planned for Botany Town Centre in future, both Botany Town Centre and MCC recognised that a new approach to managing staff and shopper commuting was imperative in order to achieve fewer single-occupancy car trips and reduce demand for all-day car parking.”
Manukau City Council ‘s David Collings says the real success is in the initiatives that will give people a range of options for travelling to the town centre.
“Travel plans involve research to find out what transport is used in particular organisations or locations and then talking to people to find out what they want. This means that initiatives can be introduced that will actually make a difference.”
As also noted numerous times here, Sylvia Park as well did a great thing by encouraging people to go by rail by funding a train station as part of its shopping complex.
Arriving by train at Sylvia Park
But Westfield malls like St Lukes are so designed for cars and cars only, even negotiating a way through carparks to get to the mall by foot is dangerous.
Car city at Westfield's St Lukes
Westfield goes before the planning people in July to argue for an expansion to St Lukes.
If only they would be forced to tie that with making the centre more public transport and pedestrian friendly.
12 Comments
Kudos to Botany for their progressive thinking!
I went around in circles looking for a pole to chain my bike to in the St Lukes car park — to my surprise I found a bike rack near the Farmers exit!
Damn straight about St Lukes, pedestrians are not respected
Well, Silvia Park already HAD the train line next door, so I am not so surprised that they funded (or were made to fund) a train station. In a way, Botany is more impressive, because it shows some initiative not directly linked to an expansion proposal (that I know of).
St Lukes is car hell! Needs a feeder bus working in conjunction with the rail at morningside.
This is proof that Dressmart in Onehunga needs to cash in on the reopening of the Onehunga Branch Line. If Dressmart can cross-promote the use of PT to go shopping in similar ways to that of Sylvia Park, the OBL can be even more successful than it is projected to be. Imagine:
- electronic “next train” signage in the mall
- discounts at Dressmart retailers if train tickets are presented
- train/network-wide platform signage similar to the “Welcome to the new Newmarket, for work, play, …” and Grafton promotional material…
Westfield’s malls are known to be lax on cross-promotion of PT use. St Lukes is 10 minutes walk from the rail (which really is pathetic), but Westcity is across the road, but there is no cross-promotion?
Promoting Grafton? All for it, but in Onehunga?
St Lukes, by the way, has a visitor train use share of less than 1% (buses at 5%), so you can see how negative the distance is.
Their staff use the train at 1% (and the buses at 13%).
All from the publicly available information on the ST Lukes Plan Change process.
ingolfson - Silvia Park were not made to fund the train station, they wanted a station there, they were told if they wanted one there they were to fund it. Don’t take away their credit where credit is due, they have also intergrated bus stops into the Mall, Silvia Park knows that although you have to provide a certain amount of cars, more people are able to come by PT, and the same with Botany.
This is great news about Botany! Every time I cycle to St Lukes (mainly to go to a movie) I am struck by how difficult it is to find a bike park and how unpleasant it is to walk across their car park. It is quite remarkable, really, that they have managed to make living near or visiting their shopping centre by foot or bike so unattractive….
“they were told if they wanted one there they were to fund it.”
And I bet you dollars to donuts that Silvia Park was able to off-set the cost of the train station against their development contributions.
It is good that they see the mutual benefits, and I agree that more should do so - but developers don’t spend money for the public good, but for their own benefit. They are developers, not altruists.
“It is quite remarkable, really, that they have managed to make living near or visiting their shopping centre by foot or bike so unattractive….”
St Lukes is the product of a bygone area of Americanised greenfields malls which turn their back on the outside. New malls generally don’t do that anymore (and thankfully are increasingly forbidden from doing it). But you can’t fix the built mistakes of the past unless you do some relatively major changes, and those are still in the making at St Lukes.
ingolfson - exactly my point “It is good that they see the mutual benefits, and I agree that more should do so – but developers don’t spend money for the public good, but for their own benefit. They are developers, not altruists.” - “Silvia Park knows that although you have to provide a certain amount of cars, more people are able to come by PT”
e.g it make more economic sense, at least to some. They are developers, and they are taking the econmical risk so rightfully expect a good economical return, to maximise that return you need to make sure as many people as possible have access to their mall, and maximise the amount of people there, the main problem St lukes have is once the carparks are gone no more people have access, they go somewhere else.
once the station is built there’s no marginal cost on the mall drawing each extra shopper in by train, if they draw in more drivers they’ll eventually have to build more parking and access roads. In the long term more train/bus carried shoppers will mean lower rents than a comparable mall without decent public transport. Really is win-win. Its true that the location of Sylvia Park is conveniently close to the railway line. The strip mall near Panmure where the warehouse was had the station right beside it until the station moved up past Ellerslie-Panmure Highway. Actually is kinda surprising that St Lukes doesn’t do more for Public Transport can’t really see the benefit for discouraging it. Is there anything in their plan to improve the situation?
I walk to St Lukes at least once a week, very, very unpleasant experience…