Squeezing more out of our motorways
I have posted a number of times in the past about why I think that widening roads is often a pretty pointless exercise – due to induced demand. This is the process by which expanding the supply of road capacity encourages more people to drive at peak times, thereby actually encouraging more use of the road and negating much of the supposed benefit that widening the road should have created.…
34 Comments Lots of rail work over Labour weekend
An ARTA press release advises that over the upcoming Labour weekend there will be no trains on the Southern or Western Lines, so that some big upgrades to the rail network can be undertaken. There is some good detail in the media release about what works will actually be undertaken:
Buses replace trains as work to upgrade Auckland’s rail network continues this Labour Weekend
As Aucklanders enjoy the first long weekend of the spring season, extensive work to upgrade the rail network will continue around the region.…
2010-2040 RLTS – finally a good transport strategy?
It’s quite arguable that Auckland hasn’t had a good transport strategy in over 60 years – ever since the 1946 plan to invest in both expansions of the rail network and the road network was shelved in favour of around 50 years where public transport investment was almost non-existent and Auckland went down a rather nasty path towards becoming one of the most auto-dependent cities in the entire world.…
CBD Rail Tunnel – how many stations?
An article in the NZ Herald today explores the possibility of looking at possibly up to four stations being constructed on the CBD Rail Tunnel – rather than the current proposal for two (well, really three if you count the relocated Mt Eden station).…
Next Harbour Crossing – bridge or tunnel?
There was an interesting article in the Sunday Star Times yesterday, calling for the next crossing of the Waitemata Harbour to be a bridge rather than a tunnel. As I outlined a few months ago, the current plan for the next crossing of the Waitemata – whenever it should be required – is a pile of tunnels, potentially two for rail and two for road.…
Integrated Ticketing – what’s happening?
Back in July ARTA announced that Thales had won the contract to provide Auckland’s integrated ticketing system. This came after a rather nasty few months of uncertainty after the Regional Fuel Tax was cancelled in March. However, the announcement brought that uncertainty to a close (or so I thought), and it certainly made things sound like we weren’t going to end up with some sort of half-arse solution – even though the funding available for the project had been rather significantly reduced.…
KiwiRail newsletter – 15 October
If I can keep getting my hands on them, I hope to regularly post up on here a copy of KiwiRail’s weekly newsletter – The Express. Generally there’s at least a few things in there of interest to me, and of relevance to the Auckland transport situation.…
Auckland’s Best Bus Route?
There was a question on the Campaign for Better Transport Forums the other day that really got me thinking. Basically, it was “what is Auckland’s highest frequency bus route?” I have expanded that a little bit in terms of this post, to “what is Auckland’s best bus route?”…
Probing Cost-Benefit Analyses
A couple of months ago I stated that if there were two things I could change about transport, it would be creating one pot of money for transport – and also to change the way that transport projects are analysed. This post focuses on the second of those two issues, and it based around a journal article that I came across today that makes for interesting reading.…
Len Brown supports CBD Rail Tunnel too
Following on from John Banks’s public support of completing the CBD Rail Tunnel, it’s good to also see Len Brown show his support for this key project:
…it was interesting to see my fellow super-city mayoral contender John Banks proclaiming his enthusiasm for rail and an inner city loop connecting Britomart up with Mt Eden.…
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