RoNS in Parliament
Interesting question by Green MP Gareth Hughes to Steven Joyce in parliament today about the economic justifications of the Roads of National Significance (RoNS): Good to see this kind of debate happening in parliament. I’m quite impressed by Mr Hughes.
The OECD report being referred to in the questions and answers is here, and I have previously blogged about it here.…
22 Comments Lost opportunity to get rid of the Victoria Park viaduct?
After waiting nearly two months, I finally received some papers from NZTA today that I had requested under the Official Information Act. My basic reason for requesting this information is that I find it annoying that an agency which spends so much public money doesn’t actually publish much of what it gets up to on its website, so I thought I’d develop a habit of requesting information on whatever might vaguely be of interest to me.…
Learn more about rail electrification
There’s an interesting public lecture on next Wednesday up at Auckland University about the rail electrification project:
Electrification of the Auckland Rail System: 12 May 2010
Speaker: Murray Hood, Project Director – Electrification, ONTRACK
Time
6.00pm to 6.30pm – Refreshments
6:30pm to 8.00pm – Lecture
Location
Lecture theatre 3.402, School of Engineering
20 Symonds Street
University of Auckland
Murray will provide an overview of the project identifying the various aspects including Planning, Environmental, Aesthetics, Signals, Traction, Power, Safety and Civil Engineering.…
Real-time rail displays happening… eventually
Buried away in the March 2010 ARTA monthly business report is a promising update on the likelihood that we’re edging towards getting some real-time information signs at our railway stations. It has been a very long-lasting bugbear of mine that we have managed to put in place real-time information displays for the bus network – which must be a fairly difficult task of using GPS to locate buses, estimating the time it will take them from their current location to you, ensuring that you can display buses heading to a variety of destinations on a fairly simple sign, and so forth.…
Where to put Parnell station: weighing up the data
I was under the impression that the location of the proposed Parnell station had been finalised after much to-ing and fro-ing, but recently there has been a push by a local group to change this to a somewhat different location .…
Should KiwiRail build Auckland’s electric trains?
There’s been quite a bit of debate today around a report prepared by economic analysts BERL, which suggests that the economic benefits of constructing (at least part of) Auckland’s electric trains within New Zealand would be significant. Here’s the executive summary of that report:
I can certainly see the argument here, and the numbers are pretty compelling.…
Spectacular patronage stats for March
The March ARTA monthly business report has (finally) been released, and the information it contains is pretty awesome from a patronage perspective. Here’s a brief summary of what’s contained in the whole report: Considering that on-time performance of the rail system was so poor in March, with only two-thirds of trains actually reaching their destination less than 5 minutes late (and only half on the Western Line), having such high patronage is a pretty impressive achievement.…
A University Train Station
Auckland University and AUT are probably two of the biggest drawcards for public transport users in the CBD. I certainly know from catching New North Road and Sandringham Road buses that at least 50% of the bus passengers seemed to always get off at the two university stops on Symonds Street.…
Is congestion charging the answer?
I haven’t said much about congestion charging/road pricing on this blog in the past, and generally the reason for that is because I don’t actually know where I sit in regards to this idea. According to Wikipedia, Congestion Pricing is defined as the following:
…a system of surcharging users of a transport network in periods of peak demand to reduce traffic congestion.…
Harbour Bridge Cycleway – a reality?
Some exciting news in today’s NZ Herald that there is a financial backer for the plans to construct a pedestrian/cycleway on the Auckland Harbour Bridge:
Campaigners for a tolled pedestrian and cycle path across Auckland Harbour Bridge have attracted a leading coastal development company to build and operate it as a joint venture.…
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