Auckland Waterfront Big Picture - Quay Street Boulevard

A little while ago, in the midst of the design competition around Queens Wharf and talk of "whole of waterfront" approaches, Coopers & Co put forward a suggestion which revolves around transforming Quay Street into a waterfront boulevarde.

This is a closeup of a section of that image showing the Queen Street end of Queens Wharf, and Quay Street between Queens Wharf and Captain Cook wharf.The little structure between could be pontoons, and holds three big screens...

Here's how it might look with the big screens fired up. People on three sides: Captain Cook Wharf, Quay Street and Queens Wharf. You can see how this treatment of the waterfront opens it up to the urban core of Britomart especially, but also Queen Street.

You can see in all of these images that the fence sections of the Red Fence have been removed - or partly removed - so that there is much more public access and permeability from the urban core, across Quay Street, and onto the pedestrianised waterfront. In times of an event there would be planned reduction in traffic flows along Quay Street. Maybe only 1 lane each way. When Britomart Station was under construction Quay Street was sometimes closed entirely and all traffic flowed along Custom House Quay. I think - in fact - that a lot of traffic (big trucks etc) travel along Quay Street now because they can. This sort of traffic should not be encouraged to go through the CBD. This traffic should flow around the CBD. That's why Grafton Gully was built, connecting with SH1, and the huge one-ways of Hobson and Nelson also. Ideally, we should be trying to minimise traffic along Quay Street - and making pedestrian traffic the priority.

It is more appropriate to plan for public transport access to this part of time, and to open up Quay Street - all the way to the water's edge for pedestrian activity. The Rugby World Cup is a pretext to give it a try - associated with Queens Wharf - but in the long term, something like this is what Auckland's waterfront needs.

...and we need to think of Quay Street all the way along to the Viaduct - so that it is a pedestrian boulevard all the way. Not blocked by the red fence. Leave the heritage posts in place - and maybe some sections of fence. This approach needs to become a major plank in Auckland's waterfront planning.