Light rail to Auckland Airport

Last week, Auckland Transport an the NZTA announced that they where finally going to put a light railway to Auckland Airport. I disagree with the idea of putting light rail to the airport because we have to start all the way from scratch, while with heavy rail, we can just continue it on from there.

The Light rail network will be going through Queen Street in central Auckland(And hopefully they could finally make it pedestrian)and onto Dominion Road. There has been some discussion on where the stations would be but I think the best options will be at Valley Road, Balmoral, Mount Roskill and Hillsborough. It would then properly connect to Onehunga Train Station and continue down to the Airport going through Mangere. Here is a video showing more about where it could possibly go.

I disagree with this only because how the government is starting from scratch on this and it will properly take more time to construct. With heavy rail, it will take shorter amounts of time, it will be faster and also it is very convenient. The only big problem with putting heavy rail towards the airport is that it will cost a lot more money.But one thing the government don't really understand is that to make money, you need to spend money.

Review Post: Newmarket

Newmarket is one of the best places in Auckland for shopping and it is only 7 minutes away from Auckland City. It would definitely be known as Auckland-s second CBD. Newmarket is just below Parnell, and just above Epsom.

Newmarket's Train Station has been updated very recently and it might be one of my favourite train station's in Auckland. With its modern design and architecture, It would properly be one of my favourite stations.The old train station had only 2 platforms and was only an island platform so this station has been really improved really well. Newmarket's main street is Broadway and is one of the most incredible streets in all of Auckland due to all the people and beauty it holds.I would say it is the Times Square of New Zealand.

Building in Auckland

Auckland's skyline will be much different in the next couple of years. this is thanks to big infrastructure projects like the City Rail Link and the Nelson ST Cycle way. So in this post today, I will just explain some of those buildings.

1 Mills Lane

1 Mills Lane is the Name of a Hotel/Retail building in Auckland. It should be about 30 storeys high making it 190m high.The closest train station would be Britomart station.It is currently still in investigation but construction will most properly happen soon.

NDG Auckland Centre

The NDG Tower will be the Second tallest building in Auckland once completed.It is mixed Commercial/Retail/Hotel and also a Cinema.Another name for it is the Elliot tower and it will be 209m high.The nearest train Station would be Aotea station when it is completed and Construction is going to start in late 2017.

Downtown Tower

The Downtown tower is the final building I will talk about today.It will be a mix of Retail and commercial and it is also known as commercial bay.It will be 167m high making it the 3rd tallest building in Auckland after the NDG Auckland Centre.The closest train station would be Britomart and construction has already started. completion is October 2019

The Rangitoto Line

The Rangitoto Line is the name I give to a light rail line which I think will be very useful for The North Shore and the East Coast Bays.It will go from Devonport Wharf to Long bay via Takapuna Beach and Browns Bay.It will have Shuttle connections from Browns Bay to Albany Park and Ride and Takapuna Beach to Akoranga. Also the Devonport ferry would become more frequent.making connecting services to Downtown.

I call it the Rangitoto Line because of how it will be on The East Coast and All Beach's in the North Shore have views of Rangitoto. The route will go mostly along Beach Road and through the coast.This route will Bring an alternative and frequent public Transport method to the East Coast Bays.Not only that. It will take cars off lake road which is one of the worst roads for Traffic in Auckland.

Waterview Connection Update

The Waterview connection is only a couple of months away from completion. And I must say, I am really excited for it to open. It will finally unlock a ring route around Auckland's CBD and it will also give a much faster route into the airport.

It is meant to open in April 2017 and by all the all of the photos you can tell that April looks very close.Construction began in 2012 and it coast a solid $1.4 billion.It is sad to see the construction go but it is going to bring so much benefits to Auckland.

Auckland's ferry

Auckland is known as the city of sails.That makes sense because every time I look out into the Waitamata harbour.It is like traffic jam in the water.The one problem Auckland has about boats is that they don't come very frequently.I'm obviously talking about ferries.

There are 15 ferries trips in Auckland mostly going to the north.The most frequent one goes from the Downtown ferry terminal to Devonport wharf and that comes every half an hour.That is really good timing because every time a ferry comes to Devenport,it is jam packed. I think they need to make more ferry's like this in the North Shore and East Coast Bays. Because Currently, These two areas, are really lacking from transport options.But heres the solution to fix that problem.
They should put a couple of ferry routes going to Takapuna and Browns bays towards Downtown.This would be very convenient because I know that lots of people will properly use it.It is much needed in especially in the North Shore. What would be even better is opening a new ferry route too Murrays bay (Just south of Browns Bay) Because they have just finished renovating there wharf.This is much needed in Auckland. And if we want to stay being called the City of sails. We have do something about it.

Review Post: Sylvia Park

The other day, I went to Sylvia park for the first.and it was massive.it had shops absolutely everywhere. I didn't know where to begin.Sylvia park is a massive mall that is meant to be one of the biggest in New Zealand. It has just under 200 stores and it was opened in mid 2006.

Sylvia park has good transport connections to the city centre such as frequent trains coming every 10 minutes and since the new bus network has come out since September last year, it has had really good connections to major southern metropolitan areas such as Manukau and Mangere. Sylvia park has a lot of big stores in it such as Pak'n save (Which is very odd because I never have seen a Pak'n save inside a mall) Kmart and the warehouse extra.

In a way, I feel like Sylvia Park was a lot like Albany.it was all mostly farm land and they slowly made it grow. Albany was really horrible, but I think their really turning it round to look a lot like what Sylvia park is today.