You really can’t build your way out of congestion
I have just started reading the book “Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion” by Anthony Downs, and it promises to be quite an interesting insight into what causes traffic congestion, and what can (and can’t) be done to alleviate it.…
27 Comments What The Kiwirail Announcements Make Clear
Today’s KiwiRail announcements make it clear that the transport arrangements in New Zealand are a mess. The various streams of funding, the lack of comparison of projects of different modes, the competing subsidies and our Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) process, are all contributing to some very poor outcomes.…
A big day for KiwiRail
Some pretty big announcements about KiwiRail were made today by the government, and overall they seem to be pretty good (surprisingly enough). Here’s the government’s press release:
Government investment for rail turnaround
The Government’s commitment to invest $250 million to support the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan will help increase New Zealand’s economic productivity and put us on the path to faster growth, Transport Minister Steven Joyce says
The Budget 2010 appropriation is the first round of Government support for the objectives of the $4.6 billion Turnaround Plan.…
Changing Mindsets
There’s a lot of talk in transport and land-use planning circles about changing mindsets, that to get people using public transport more often (or to get people living in higher density housing if we’re talking about land-use planning) we need to change their mindsets, to overcome decades of habit and somehow create a giant “culture change” in the way that people live and move around urban areas.…
The importance of “off-peak”
A couple of weeks ago I got to meet Jarrett Walker, the guy behind the excellent “Human Transit” blog. We had a number of transport geeks in the same room, and unsurprisingly the result was a pretty interesting conversation. There was one thing in particular that Jarrett mentioned, which I think is certainly worth repeating, and that is: “the quality of a public transport system should be measured by how it performs at 7pm on a Sunday night, rather than at peak hour.”…
Street Patterns Matter
Humantransit has a great post on cul-de-sacs and what is known as the “radius of demand”. In short, the post highlights how disconnected street networks make it much more difficult to adequately serve areas with good public transport, because what should be a relatively short walk ‘as the crow flies’, becomes a really long walk to the bus stop/train station because the street network won’t allow you to make the trip in a more direct manner.…
Memo To The Government
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Sins of our Fathers: fall & rise of rail in Auckland
Last week ARC Chairman Mike Lee presented a paper at the Urban Rail 2010 conference in Melbourne, Australia. The paper gives an excellent overview of urban rail in Auckland over the past 60 years, showing its dramatic fall from the 1950s onwards, and then its revival over the past decade and a bit.…
Rugby World Cup Transport Plan
The Transport Plan for the Rugby World Cup has been released today, and while it doesn’t involve any surprises, it’s good to hear that things appears to be quite well organised – particularly when it comes to getting people to and from games.…
The Curse of Cars
An interesting opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald from a couple of months back has come to my attention, and it makes for quite interesting reading:
Premier must lift the curse of the cars
GAIL BROADBENT
February 19, 2010
Australia has become one of the most car-dependent nations, and Sydney is probably its most car-dependent city.…
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