Auckland CBD - Transport

Transport

The CBD, with its substantial employment, and increasing amount of residents, contains the main public transport hubs of the city. These services are concentrated around the Britomart Transport Centre (rail and buses) and the nearby Auckland Ferry Terminal, both near the Auckland waterfront. Many bus services do however also travel the length of the CBD along the main streets, in particular via the bus lanes on Albert Street and the Central Connector bus priority route. Nearly 33,000 people enter the CBD via public transport every day.

Much of the transport to and around the CBD is however also by private vehicles, partly because the CBD provides numerous parking buildings and parking spaces associated with office buildings, as well as due to being an area almost totally surrounded (and thus relatively easily accessible) by motorways.

The current (as of 2011) Auckland Council considers that Auckland should construct the CBD tunnel, partly to further boost and revitalise the city centre, and also to reduce the car-dependency in terms of access to the CBD.

The main street of the CBD is Queen Street, which was upgraded between 2006 and 2008 to modernise it and make it more pedestrian friendly. In 2009, the former Auckland City Council proposed the redevelopment of several CBD streets into shared spaces, with the goal of improving pedestrian and cyclist amenity by slowing down vehicle traffic while retaining the possibility for car access - compared to a pedestrian mall which allows no motor vehicles. The new unitary Auckland Council is continuing this project. The conversion of Darby Street into a shared space was completed in April 2011, while several other streets (Fort Street, Elliot Street and Lorne Street) are also currently being converted into shared spaces, with more shared spaces being discussed.