1. Urban Sprawl
At present, North Shore City has 189,700 residents with that figure expecting to grow between 11 and 24 per cent by the year 2016. The growth of traffic on the North Shore increases at twice the rate of the population. This leads to increased use and congestion of the Northern Motorways. In peak-time, the averaging speeds along the Northern Motorway are between 25 to 45km/hr, which makes it a slow and tiring journey. To deal with the North Shore's expected population increase; we need to decrease the amount of private cars on the motorway. .
Each car traveling in the peak hours in North Shore City carries an average of only 1.2 people, whereas a bus carries on average 40 people. At this time, in the morning peak hours, buses only carry 15 per cent of the people across the Harbour Bridge, but only make up 0.5 per cent of the vechiles. .
North Shore's Bus Rapid Transit Scheme is a joint project of North Shore City Council, Transit New Zealand, Auckland City Council and the Auckland Regional Council which is planned to open in 2005. It will consist of a two-way busway alongside the eastern side of the Northern Motorway between Constellation Drive and Esmonde Road and a southbound busway between Esmonde Road and the Harbour Bridge. This service will enable travelers to experience a much quicker journey to their destination, enable high occupancy vechiles with three or more people per car to use the busway, reduce environmental pollution by getting more people out of their cars and into buses and allow the North Shore to grow in population but with less traffic growth. BRT will provide a faster, more frequent public transport service, with better routes and more choice. It will be effortless to get to and from the North Shore; it will also be easier to move about while within Auckland City.
A barrier will separate it from the motorway. Buses will switch to motorway vehicle lanes to travel from Constellation to a large park-and-ride station in Albany.