From the pictures provided, the proposed shelters risk repeating many of the short-comings of the existing stops.
It would appear that two design requirements were uppermost. First, a structure which is easy to hose down, both inside and out, from a passing tanker truck.
Second, a place that is uninviting to any itinerant street person who might want to stretch out for the night.
Unfortunately , the above two imperatives work against the ultimate mission, which is providing a sheltered, comfortable waiting space for those about to embark on the 50 million plus bus trips taken each year on Auckland buses.
Before the designers protest, I suggest they be invited to experience their creations in a real-life trial. Instead of AT's proposal that passengers trek up to Symonds St later this month and fill in a questionnaire, how about the designers meeting on site with AT board members. To get into the mood, I suggest they leave their Mercedes and Lexuses at home and catch a bus to Symonds St to start with - a novel experience for, I suspect, board members and designers alike. Once assembled, let them select one or other of the prototypes to shelter in.
Then, bring in the Fire Service to roll out their hoses and simulate a typical, blustery, rainy winter's day, making sure they recreate the prevailing horizontal westerly blasts.
Unfortunately, at this time of year, it will be hard to recreate the freezing July draughts or the hot midday summer sun that in the existing glass boxes, slowly broils anyone silly enough to venture inside. But 10 minutes trying to shelter from the firemen's hose would be enough, I hope, to concentrate the minds.
The three prototypes seem, like the existing leaky advertising-festooned shelter at my stop, to ignore the fact that Auckland is on a windswept isthmus, where it rains every other day and where, in the summer, the sun beats down. They also ignore the fact that you can be stuck at a stop for 10 or 15 minutes - and sometimes, much longer.
The old tram stop shelters of childhood memory acknowledged that. Unless the philistines have struck in recent days, there's still one at the Symonds St end of Grafton Bridge. They had solid roofs and walls and returns in the front. They had wooden bench seating and, glory be, electric lighting.
Would it be so hard to learn from this? I'm not asking for a flash hotel reception room, but is it too much to expect a shelter that actually sheltered?
While they're at it, an effort to communicate with waiting passengers would be wonderful as well. The Albert St bus stop I use has nothing by way of customer aids, except a sign poking skyward with 30-odd route numbers listed. Further along is a real-time electronic indicator board.
Anyone who doesn't know their route number and where it goes is on their own.
Would it be so hard, at each bus stop, to have a large route map indicating where each bus went? And out in suburbia, it would make travel less stressful if the shelter had an indicator board with a buzzer or flashing light to warn a bus had just left the previous stop.
In olden days, when bus drivers used to pull up at each stop to check for signs of life, such signalling might have been a bit excessive. But these days, unless you stand at the kerb and wave like a windmill, the bus can sail past without stopping.
This makes it impossible to relax at a stop, let alone read a book or newspaper. You spend the time peering down the road instead.
Did I mention air conditioning? Oh well, let's leave that for another day.
