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Whaleoil Policy on Motorway Bus Lanes

by Whaleoil on September 1, 2010

Whaleoil Policy on Motorway Bus Lanes

Empty Buses on Empty Roads whilst RUC payers wait

Empty Buses on Empty Roads whilst RUC payers wait

Motorway bus lanes are currently under-utilised, and the cost of this is congestion. The problem is buses in Auckland are such a terrible way of getting around that they are always something other people should use.

I have been driving up and down the Northern Motorway for the past week or so and seen nothing but empty bus lanes and empty buses careening up the empty lanes, while cars and heavy transport mix it up right beside each other. The very people who pay the RUC that pay for the roads are having to wait. This is wrong.

The bus lanes to and from Albany and the city are busy for a very short and limited period around rush hour in the morning and the evenings, and the rest of the time we have massive amounts of capital investment tied up in empty bus lanes.

To get rate payers and tax payers a proper return on investment, and to ease congestion, the Whaleoil transport policy is to allow all trucks onto motorway bus lanes except during peak hours of 7am and 9.30am south bound, and 3.30am and 6.30pm north bound.

This pragmatic policy frees up space on our motorways for cars, cars that people have chosen to drive because public transport is never going to work in Auckland.

I’ll go further and say that vans and cars who are willing to pay an exclusive toll fee and after a suitable driver safety course will also be allowed to use the lanes.

Allowing heavy transport to use roads actually built for them would remove an enormous amount of congestion from the motorway proper and reduce the damage cause to roading surfaces that slow, turning heavy transport causes. I estimate millions will be saved in road repair alone.

Vote Slater – Keeping the Buggers Honest – Albany Ward, Auckland

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest

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  • probligo

    “…they are always some­thing other peo­ple should use.

    I have been dri­ving up and down the North­ern Motor­way for the past week or so and seen noth­ing but empty bus lanes and empty buses careen­ing up the empty lanes, while cars and heavy trans­port mix it up right beside each other. “

    Exactly.

  • drewandjo

    moron

  • toby

    I don’t see a lot of sense in this policy. Outside of rush hour, I don’t believe that shuffling trucks from the motorway to the bus lane would make much difference at all to congestion.

    Besides which, it starts off as trucks using the busway, then somebody will want it to be used for carpooling. Then somebody will want motorcycles on it and you just know that bicyclists will feel left out and they’ll start agitating to have a go of it. What you end up with is a busy busway and you’re far removed from the original intent of the busway – rapid transit for public transport.

    Nope, I’m afraid that the only way to better utilise the busway is to support more/better public transport on the North Shore.

  • joes

    Before I start, you should know that I do enjoy some of your posts. Like that splitting tax policy is just dumb. Why should couples pay less tax than singles? To encourage everyone to go get married? I agree with you.

    But now on to this post:

    Much investigation work done here? Or are you practicing being a good politician and promising the world without any investigation work?

    Just how many fully loaded trucks has that busway pavement been designed for? How much damage does a truck do, compared to a bus? Compared to a car? How many fully loaded trucks has the motorway pavement been designed for? What do the traffic models show when you put trucks on the busway? Or are you basing all of this on your feelings?

    Perfect politician bull. Except a few politicians probably finish their research before they talk. Go answer those questions before you talk more poos.

    Why don’t you post something about the massive increases in public transport that we have seen for the last few years? Why don’t we complete a few of these projects and see how that affects the public transport useage? Where will all of your roads fit? Can we afford to build short $2 billion tunnels everywhere, even with tolls? What can be achieved if you spend a fraction of that on, say, electrifying the railway lines, or some light rail, etc?

    We should complete the ring road and I like the roading projects that are underway at the moment. But how about some balance? haha I just suggested that Cam Slater adopt some balance…. I can’t believe I just said that.

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      Well glad you asked.

      I’ say that the busway ws built to NZTA specification and laid with P11 asphalt like a motorway is, the evidence of this is this is the quick drying time and the wicking away from the surface of water and the low spray generation coming from buses travelling on the Northern busway. PA 15HS is the standard for mix used which has a lower air void content and higher shear strength than the other mixes. It can thus withstand higher traffic shear stress. What that means is that it is more resistant to shear, or the road surface moving under immense pressure. You can see this in carparks where cars with power steering rip away the surface.

      Motorway surfaces and indeed the busway surface are porous to wick away the water to a lower less porous surface. They are also designed for hig speed straight line manoeuvring. Though once you get congestions you now have slow speed and the ripping effect, especially from heavy transport as they turn. The ear axles especially can literally rip the surface off a road.

      A good example of this is at a carpark in manukau where the council in their wisdom specified a “carpark” grade surface for the entire carpark and then designated the outside of the carpark as a bus lane/depot turn around. The asphalt was literally ripped away in the space of months by buses, largely empty, and therefore light turning on a surface not designed for them. The other thing that causes damage to road surfaces is water, water creates bumps, bumps cause suspension systems to operate vigoursly which then in turn cause currugations which then lead to crocidiling and cracking of the pavement which leads to more water ingress which then creates a pothole. It isn’t the trucks that do damage it is simply physics. Good road design eliminates this. Forcing big multi axle trucks to slow and turn and use low range gears is neither good for the road surface, good for the truck or good for the environment.

      the Northern busway would have been built to NZTA standards and for heavy transport. To do otherwise would have been sheer madness and would add literally billions to the life of the road surface.

      I know what I can see and that is empty roads that should be better utilized, I know what I have studied for and therefore I know the surface o the road is built to withstand heavy transport.

      I agree that completing ring roads shold be a priority, that could happen faster if we stopped spending money on public transport projects that no one uses.

      • joes

        Well I’m glad you did that copy and paste.., maybe. Maybe you wrote that yourself, but thanks for the reply regardless.

        It is unfortunate you are concentrating on the wrong details. I’m a civil engineer and do have a lot of experience with pavements (and 1 or 2 other specific areas of civil engineering). I’m sorry to point out that it is plainly obvious that you do not have any experience. Confusing porous asphalt with the traffic loads that the pavement is designed for is a most elementary basic mistake that not even an aut or unitec student would make.

        You are getting confused between the asphalt and the pavement structure. Sure the asphalt is porous, and you are right that that is quite typical for major routes. Unfortunately it is a small part of the structure of the road – many roads that are paved with asphalt do not even consider the asphalt to be part of the structure, and just assume that it acts as surfacing only. It’s highly unlikely that happened in this case, but nonetheless the fact that the asphalt is porous has *nothing* to do with the ultimate design load of the pavement.

        Thank you for your lesson on the carpark in “Manuaku” (I don’t like Brown neither). However again you are making basic mistakes that a person at least a little familiar with pavement design would be able to correct you on. You are confusing surfacing with pavement structure. Trying to deny that trucks do much pavement damage by providing an example of bus turning ruining surfacing is… well… absurd.

        I’m afraid that you didn’t answer all of the questions, and those that you did answer you attempted to do so by providing us with your assumptions, which are based on an almost non-existent knowledge of pavement structures.

        I almost wish I hadn’t typed this, so that if you had got elected someone (from NZTA,, city engineer staff, etc) could have embarrassed you with a debate in the council chamber, or elsewhere. But there you go, I have instead decided to teach you something, maybe you should consider yourself lucky?

        • joes

          PS:

          I want to try and sound polite. Although I sometimes am confrontational with the things posted here, I often agree with the labour bashing,, and I appreciate your reply. It’s just knowing a little about the asphalt surfacing is only a small part of the story and I wanted to make that clear to you. I don’t want to sound like I’m talking down to you so thanks again for your reply and for the blog in general.

        • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

          Well now that I know you are smarter than your average commenter I could hold an interesting debate on this that I think you will find a little humiliating.

          Of course road sub-structure is important, the point of my answer, that wasn’t cut and paste by the way, was to show that I know a wee bit more about this topic than just a silly statement. For instance I know intimately the transit specifications for ALL of the repairs listed. I needed to when helping a mate set up a business. I understand the complex engineering associated with building a road and just as you say that my comments about the surfacing are silly, so too are your contentions that the Norther Busway would have been built to a standard unable to withstand heavy transport when it was designed for running buses fully loaded down it. People actually do weigh something, and unlike truck loads they aren’t tied down with anything like the force required for say a 20 tonne load on the flat deck. Consequently the lanes the are designed to avoid massive changes in the horizontal movement of the centre of gravity of a bus. This too aids in the travel of HT and their loads which aren’t as susceptible to moving around.

          However you comments bout road surface need to be addresses, if you apply the incorrect road surface, taking into account the appropriate surfacing compound for shear, viscosity etc, and water gets under the surface, it maters not a jot what the sub-course engineering is like, that road is going to be rooted faster than a hooker in a brothel when the local league team arrives.

          From your answer you are clearly one of those NZTA, city engineer types who thinks they know everything and couldn’t possibly imagine that there could be someone else around the table that just might know at the very least as much as them, if not more in that they have actually built a road, repaired a road and inspected road repairs at sometime in their lives, rather than read about how to do it in books.

          There are many, many, people out there who have thought that they could try to teach me something, usually a sharp lesson, they also usually have a string of degrees, and awfully pompous sounding titles, call themselves lawyers, doctors and the like, I’ll just add civil engineer to the list. I imagine you will end up the same as those before you. Utterly failing in your mission to prove me wrong and you to prove yourself right.

  • joes

    Haha funny.

    You continue to prove that you don’t know what you are talking about. I’ll try to keep it quick for you.

    1. I’m not talking about substructure at all. I’m talking about structure. You are on another planet.
    2. The asphalt is a small part of the structure, this is all you have talked about so far.
    3. As I’ve said already, the porous nature of the asphalt does not matter when talking about design loads. Yes it is important, no reason to deny that, but it doesn’t come into design loadings.
    4. The buses that the busway pavement was designed for in no way compares to the destructive force of the trucks that you propose to send down the busway. You are making assumptions it is, and have not researched the ESA’s (do you know what that stands for without googling it?) at all. Standard designs (especially for surfacing) do not mean anything unless you know how many ESA’s the pavement has been designed for.
    5. I know that surfacing and preventing water from getting into the pavement is important. You don’t need to tell me about that.
    6. I don’t work from NZTA or any other government organisation. I have worked for both consultants and contractors.
    7. Do you think that you have ever been wrong?
    8. I try to be nice and friendly but nope, doesn’t work for you… are you able to admit that the ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ quote applies to you in this situation?

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      1. No I’m not, I hardly think NZTA spent $100 million building a roadway that couldn’t take trucks…oh wait, I know they didn’t, for a fact, those busways were built to handle far more than they current do.
      2. A small but very noticeable part especially once it starts degrading.
      3. It does matter especially at slow speeds and when multiple are turning. If you make traffic crawl then trucks are forced to use low gears, with the corresponding increase in torque thereby degrading the surface quicker.
      4. You talk about destructive nature of trucks like they are tanks, they are not. You clearly show your prejudice when mnaking such stupid statements. a 40 tonne bus has the same “destructive” power as a 40 tonne truck. That you think differently shows that you have precisely zero knowledge of the operation of a heavy vehicle, road transport safety rules surrounding permissable axle weights and the like. In other words a car driver who thinks public transport is a good idea for everyone else, worse one with a civil engineering degree who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.
      5. Water is far more destructive of road surfaces and structures and don’t even get me started on Cow piss and manure.
      6. I bet they just lapped up your extremely powerful reasoning and dramatic pearls of wisdom.
      7. No…ok once and I apologised.
      8. No, I think it applies more to you, for instance your attempt to hide with a hotmail address.

  • joes

    I feel really sorry for you so I almost couldn’t be bothered replying…. almost…. but I shall do it. Thanks for keeping the conversation going, but alas the more you say the more obvious it is that you are relying on scraps of information to develop your policy.

    1, Again you are making assumptions. What is the design ESAs? You don’t know. You don’t know what ESA’s stand for. You don’t know the definitions and purpose of each of the surfacing,, structure, and substructure. You don’t know the purpose of porous asphalt (I’ll give you a hint: it’s to get water off of the surface, but not for the benefit of the pavement itself). You are confusing the design/construction of torque/turning/ breaking,/accelerating/ shear resistance with the loads that the pavement is designed to withstand. Completely different.

    2. Yeah so then you resurface it. How much does resurfacing cost compared to reconstruction? You don’t know. You are talking about attempting to reduce the cost of resurfacing without knowing at all how many ESA’s the busway has been designed for, therefore how reconstruction costs would be affected.

    3. Again these are surfacing maintenance issues. These costs are minor when compared to reconstruction/rehabilitation.

    4. Thank you thank you thank you so much for this comment. I enjoyed it very much. I almost just replied to this line and none of the others. This has ruined any pretense of your so-called knowledge of pavement design/construction beyond doubt. “40t truck = 40t bus” is wrong wrong wrong wrong. A student who said this after one week in a pavement design course would be laughed at. You know a little bit about surfacing,, and for some reason you think you know a lot about pavements. It is obvious from this comment that you do not know what ESA’s are – not knowing about ESA’s in road design is like trying to weigh yourself without knowing what a kg is.

    As for the rest of your comment, you are incorrect again. I love trucks. Trucks are wounderful. We need trucks. But HV’s are the only thing taken into consideration when designing pavements. Not the geometry and traffic flows, but the pavements. Why are you talking about safety rules? No where in this discussion have we even begun to talk about road safety. I think I’m smarter than everyone else? Hardly. I go to conferences and seminars etc to learn this stuff. You helped a mate set up a business.

    Anyways, when was the last time you ever heard of a 40t bus?

    5. Sure water hurts road surfaces. But it could rain every day of the year on a road. As long as that road is unused it will sit there. It is the traffic loadings vs design loadings of the structure (ie not the surface) that determines the life of the pavement. Hopefully the surfacing is maintained to keep water out of the pavement. We are almost in agreement here but you just don’t quite get it.

    6. I’m sure.

    7. Well I’m glad that this is the second time you have been wrong. Point #4 puts it beyond doubt.

    8. The ‘little knowledge’ quote applied more to me? I’ve been doing this for years, I’m paid for it, do it every day and go to conferences, courses etc to keep up to date, etc. And you have helped a friend start up a business. The quote applies more to me…? how exactly?

    Why does the email address I use come into this? You think that I should use a work email address to access blog sites, for example? Hardly. Work account is for work email. I choose not to use my name in my email address… so what. I’m just an average guy that doesn’t know you with an average job that agrees with you on some things and not on others.

    What about the rest of the questions that I asked in my opening post? They also have to be answered before this could be considered a reasonably policy. If you did your research regarding the design ESAs, how many ESAs you are proposing,, and also answered some of those other questions, this policy would be one worth debating. But you have failed to do this right on the most basic level. Very sorry.

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      You really are a pompous ass aren’t you. Displaying all your knowledge and I know best attitude for all to see. It is people like you who pick to pieces everybody else yet offer no solutions of your own.

      I would lay money on the table that though you know what ESAs mean you have precisely no idea what they were for the Northern Busway. On the other hand the design of the Busway was to cater for 350 High Occupancy Vehicles per hour. It doesn’t even come close to this for the whole day let alone for an hour.

  • drewandjo

    as I said earlier…….moron

  • joes

    I’m not particularly pompous. Trying to open your mind and show you that you are not always right, and that you should do some research. It might come in handy if you want to further your political career.

    The 350 HOV’s is for traffic flow, not pavement strength. Although that would provide some assistance in calculating the design ESAs if we were to assume that they used the max flow capacity as the pavement capacity – not that likely but it would still be an ok starting point.

    Thanks for the conversation and good luck with your other policies.