Thinking along regional rail lines
Every now and then a new enthusiastic person joins the ranks of the PT advocates and soon their thoughts turn to HSR (High-Speed Rail). Why can’t we have HSR between Auckland and Wellington, they ask? Politely it is explained that the fact we are a hilly, low population density island means it is not practical.…
27 Comments How to grow PT patronage
In recent years patronage on public transport across the Auckland region clearly has grown fairly significantly. Boardings in 2009 were the highest for many many years, with rail patronage in particular the highest perhaps ever in Auckland. This is shown in the graph below, which comes from the ARC’s Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy: Report on Progress 2007/09, which is the document that the interesting article in the NZ Herald last week on how public transport trips are getting longer, was based on.…
History of the London Underground
The largest transit system in the world began with but a single line, something to keep in mind when thinking about Auckland’s PT future: Note: The videos have not been uploaded very well and you may need to jump forward and back a bit…
Further electrification news
Some good news in today’s NZ Herald – that we are going to end up getting a decent number of trains. The bad news is that it’ll be this time next year before the deal’s finalised. Well let’s just hope that’s because good things take time.…
Peak Oil, a boost to Auckland’s economy?
I’m posting a link to a video of right wing economist Jeff Rubin, a Canadian who has an excellent record of predicting economic trends and author of the book: Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller.
Here he is giving a speech about how he believes in many respects the economies and environments of first world nations could be enhanced by Peak Oil.…
Public Transport Makes Economic Sense
Too often public transport advocates lose arguments about transport policy on economic matters. The environmental benefits of well-used public transport are fairly well accepted, and the social benefits can be argued – but often it’s on economic matters where we lose out.…
Are we finally going to get some QTNs?
For quite a while now ARTA have talked about revolutionising the structure of Auckland’s public transport system into a series of Rapid Transit Networks (RTNs), Quality Transit Networks (QTNs) and Local Connector Networks (LCNs). The Regional Public Transport Plan formalised this changing route structure, but so far we really haven’t seen much of this actually roll out.…
Electrification inching closer
I got emailed an ARTA press release not long ago providing some pretty good news that the rail electrification project is edging closer and closer.
ARTA WELCOMES NEXT STEP IN ELECTRIFICATION PROJECT
The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) today welcomed KiwiRail’s release of an Industry Engagement document as part of the process for the delivery of Auckland’s electric train fleet.…
What makes a “Great Street”?
My latest purchase from Amazon.com is a book by Allan B. Jacobs, called Great Streets. The book looks at a wide variety of different streets around the world, from great boulevards to tiny cul-de-sacs, and analyses exactly what seems to make some of them “work”, and others not.…
Separating land-use and transport planning = bad idea
One of the most concerning aspects of how the structure of local government in Auckland is shaping up is the structural separation that will be created between those in charge of land-use planning (a fairly large chunk of the policy and strategy part of the future Auckland Council) and those in charge of transportation planning (the completely separate Auckland Transport CCO).…
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