Campbell Live on the “secret Super City”
An excellent interview of Rodney Hide by John Campbell last night on Campbell Live. Click here to watch the video. I really struggle to understand how having Auckland Transport operating in secret will help improve accountability of this agency. Yesterday I wondered whether we would see some big changes to Auckland Transport or even whether it would survive the media thrashing it’s getting at the moment.…
29 Comments Will “Auckland Transport” survive?
It has been a particularly interesting last few days for the plans going on to create the Auckland Super-City in November this year. In particular, it has been interesting to see the New Zealand Herald become more and more opposed to the “council controlled organisations” (CCOs) that will be set up to run water, development of the waterfront and (most controversially) transport.…
City Council cuts Walking & Cycling funds
Auckland City Council released their “Draft Annual Plan” last week, and looking through it there is some interesting stuff on what capital investment in transport there will and won’t be. For example, if you are curious to know where the money’s coming from to do the various transport upgrades ‘necessary’ for the Rugby World Cup, then this plan is the place to find out.…
Guest Post: A history of transport in Auckland
This is a guest post by regular commenter Nicolas Reid. If you would like to have a guest post published on here feel free to email it through to jarbury[at]yahoo[dot]com. I may edit it where necessary and may not post it if I think it isn’t suitable, but hopefully on most occasions it would be posted.…
Finding out what’s wrong with our trains
Put simply, 2010 has been a pretty shocking year so far for rail in Auckland. Despite two significant milestones: the opening of Newmarket station and the New Lynn rail trench, I think generally things have been worse than last year. This is illustrated in the problems faced around when Newmarket station opened, long waits suffered by Western Line travellers while drivers change ends at Newmarket, shocking performance statistics for January, numerous breakdowns occurring (including on Monday last week on the first day university was back) and poor press resulting from shocking customer service.…
Waterview Connection Expo
I didn’t get the chance to make it to the expo on the Waterview Connection today, although some commenters here did go along and it’s interesting to hear what they have had to say about it. I will try to get along next week.…
The Problem with KiwiRail
There has been a lot of talk in recent days about how some railway lines might be under threat of closure because KiwiRail is not generating enough business along them to make them viable. It probably didn’t help that the National Infrastructure Plan’s fairly mixed words on KiwiRail’s future came out on the same day that KiwiRail reported worse than hoped for financial results.…
NZ Herald blasts faceless Auckland Transport
Well things have just got particularly interesting in the development of the Super City reforms in my opinion, particularly in terms of the “Council-Controlled-Organisations” such as Auckland Transport. (As an aside I heard CCOs called council controlling organisations the other day which is kinda funny).…
Parking Reform: Donald Shoup
Donald Shoup is known as a “Parking Rock Star”, and talks an enormous amount of sense about how we need to change parking policy to get better economic, environmental and social urban outcomes. This video is fairly lengthy, but well worth a watch: He has two main piece of advice: We need to charge for curb-side parking where demand exceeds supply.…
Western Line problems
I got forwarded the following email (not by someone at ARTA), sent by a regular commuter on the Western Line:
Dear ARTA
Ongoing concerns about rail transport especially on the Western Line:
A. Cancelling of trains – Please check (as funder) with Veolia whether they intend to ad hoc cancel the 6.20am train from Swanson to Britomart (cancelled twice this week – no msg over the tannoy).…
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