Upgrades at Fort Street

As promised here are some photos of the street scape upgrades along Fort Street

 

                     Photo Cred: Hannah Good 2011

Go You Good Thing!

Auckland has yet again played the right cards.

In the past, connectedness in the city has been some what of a fail. Our once continuous harbour side was chopped up and built to provide ship access during the America's Cup rage. Sometime during this re-development, we lost site of our most important asset - People.

Now, this asset has once again been realised, and with the formation of "Waterfront Auckland", the city has once again become more connected.

The development I speak of is the new Wynyard Crossing in Auckland Viaduct.

                   Photo Cred: Waterfront Auckland 2011

The crossing (shown above) now allows pedestrian and cycle access from Wynyard Quarter to the heart of the Viaduct Basin. This is such a big advantage as now there are direct routes from both those areas to the main city street. With the future redevelopment of the Auckland Waterfront this connection will be a huge part of its success. Auckland wants to market themselves to tourists, then making its most important feature accessible, straight forward, and eye catching will be a huge attraction to future tourists.

Key Facts

•    Bridge length 100m
•    Bridge width 5m
•    Bridge weight
•    Bridge construction cost $2.8m
•    Bridge time to build 6 months
•    Bridge materials mainly structural steel
•    24 hour Bridge Operation: Time to open 1.5 minutes and 1 minute to shut

I will add further real life photos of this and other developments as they occur. Currently this bridge is still under construction but the deadline is very soon.

To read more information on this bridge follow this link: http://www.waterfrontauckland.co.nz/News/Waterfront-News/Our-Bridge-Is-Up.aspx

Auckland You Beauty You!

Finally Auckland has done something for the pedestrian!!

I stumbled across another Herald article today which made me SO happy. There is finally going to be a ton of redevelopment which focuses on making streets more pedestrian friendly. These changes will be managed by the Auckland Councils' Senior Urban Designer - Ludo Campbell

Redevelopments include Queen Street (Going from a 4 lane highway to a 2 lane highway with wide footpaths) and Aotea Square which has been fully redeveloped into an iconic open space in the heart of the city.
Other small developments which I have noticed from my wanderings in town include new paving along Fort street. This whole area is insanely busy during the night so not only is this area more aesthetically pleasing, it is also far safer for the large number of crowds that walk it.

I will update this blog with photos of streets that have been repaved later this week as I cannot get to them at this point in time. 

These redevelopments have said to have gone underway due to the vision for Auckland City to be a World Class City. They are not wrong. Comparing Auckland to cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, Vancouver, Paris, London and New York might be a stretch, but it is important to look at what those cities do well - and duplicate it. I sadly must report I have not been to any of these cities, but from what I know, these places are very pedestrian friendly in their main city centres.

To summarise, I wanted to give Auckland some praise for this brilliant step forward to being a World Class City. There is still a long way to go - especially with the World Cup coming up, but this, is definitely a great priority.

To read the article for yourself follow : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10730431