Subscribe to RSSB-Line Launched Next Week
ARTA will officially announce details of its new b-line Bus service next week.
This is the first step in moves for high-frequency, high-quality bus services in Auckland.
Ironically the official launch will be in Dominion Rd where, thanks to the Auckland City Council, buses will have to fight even harder with cars if the present proposal with bus lanes happens.
Dominion Rd already has high frequency services but the b-line will be a special branding for ARTA, with buses branded accordingly.
The idea is that on busy arterial routes such as Great North, New North and Dominion Rd, you won’t have to worry about timetables as buses will be arriving every five minutes or so.
It’s a great step forward for public transport and will be interesting to see how the Dominion Rd T2 debate now plays out.
8 Comments
woo hoo!
Glad to see more of a focus on public transport!!
I don’t often say this, but good work ARTA!
Agreed… This is great news. A slap in the face for the Cit-Rats council and Ken Baguley!
This is excellent news! There are a couple of improvements I hope to be included for Dominion Road:
-improvements on Sundays- once every 20 minutes isn’t great
-a far higher proportion of flyover buses: there are no bus stops on View Road that are outside of a 5 minute walk to either Mt Eden road or Dominion road… But the bus makes a 5 minute diversion along it. As for connecting with Mt Eden Station, the nearest stop on New North road is only about 20 seconds walk further away than the stop on Mt Eden Road.
-if they could extend the bus lane hours it would be great.
-something has to be done about the ancient Bendy buses that run at peak time- they take FOR EVER to get up the hills out of town.
and of course…
you cant have a qtn without BUS LANES.
Great news. Branded high-quality services will attract patrons, and importantly are easier to lodge in the minds of those who would rather ignore PT.
Hmmm… what happened to my comment?
Anyway, I was saying this is a great news! I hope the Cit-Rats council will see the light soon and stop the useless Dominion Rd debate.
This is good news. One route I would like to see as a frequent B Line is from Western Springs (Great North Road) to Greenlane and beyond using Balmoral Road. This route would cut across a fair amount of major transport links bringing them together.
“I hope the Cit-Rats council will see the light soon and stop the useless Dominion Rd debate.”
I do not expect that debate to stop until they are voted out. As a small favour, I do not see a huge landslide for CitRats even if Banks should win the mayoralty. I mean, “factions” take time to create, and the first Auckland Council will likely be a pretty colourful (in terms of political affiliations, not necessary personalities) bunch, so we will see how it thinks about PT first.
It looks like the PDF timetables on the MAXX website for Dominion Road services have already been updated to include the B-Line changes.
Unfortunataly, and typically of Auckland, it doesn’t look good.
From what I can tell all they’ve done is denoted the portion of the existing routes between Mt Roskill Shops and Civic Centre as “B-Line”, rather than introducing any dedicated B-Line services. The short of it is that it doesn’t look like there’s any changes other than the introduction of B-Line branding to the bus stops (which, I noticed this morning, has already been rolled out).
Also of note is that the B-Line route follows the existing route that deviates off the quickest and most obvious route to and from the city down View and Esplanade Roads to Mt Eden Road.
As someone who took part in one of the research surveys done by ARTA, I was hoping for a dedicated Dominion Road B-Line service similar to the current peak only 250 route, that stopped at only major stops and travelled via Ian McKinnon drive and Queen Street (shaving about half the time off my journey from Valley Road to the city). Instead, it appears we’re being left with the status quo plus some tacky, irrelevant branding informing us of a bus “every 15 mins or less”. Tell me something I don’t know.
I’d be lying if I said I was in any way impressed. Yet again, it looks as if the powers that be have looked at functional overseas models (i.e. Vancouver) and then given us an extremely dumbed down version, against what is clearly best practise internationally.
/rant.