Feedback sought on Holiday Highway
NZTA’s consultation process for constructing the Holiday Highway has kicked off in a rather interesting fashion – as they’re inviting people to help “uncover Dome Valley’s secrets”. Here’s the media release:
Uncovering Dome Valley’s secrets – NZTA needs your help!
The new Puhoi to Wellsford road of national significance is about the future but the NZ Transport Agency says planning and construction of the route also has a lot to do with its historic past and its present day environment.…
15 Comments Parking and St Lukes
There’s a particularly large planning application (in the form of Private Plan Change 8) working its way through the Auckland City Council system at the moment, which relates to the possible expansion of the St Lukes shopping centre. The proposed expansion is pretty damn big – upping the possible size of the mall from around 45,000 m2 of floor area to a maximum of 92,500 m2, of which some would be office rather than retail.…
Public Transport Lecture
I’m not sure if I will be able to make this, but it certainly looks interesting: If you do make it, it’d be great to hear how this went.…
Simplifying bus routes: the east isthmus
Continuing on with my series of post about simplifying the structure of Auckland’s bus network, I thought that after a couple of reasonably simple routes (Sandringham Road and New North Road), I thought I’d take on a really horrible challenge: the eastern isthmus area of Auckland.…
More on the Auckland Harbour Crossing Issue
Given recent discussions on future options for crossings of the Waitemata Harbour, it’s quite amusing to note that on Friday NZTA announced a further study into considering whether a bridge or a tunnel should be considered as the preferred option for an additional harbour crossing.…
The benefits of making off-peak PT useful
On Friday I had a meeting in Manukau City, and our work car was being used by someone else, so I thought I’d honour my public transport commitments and catch the bus down there from the CBD. The weather was utterly horrible, but I can’t really complain about the bus trip in terms of its reliability – in that it showed up at both ends exactly when expected, it arrived at Manukau City pretty much exactly on time and so forth.…
Embracing Congestion
In a few posts recently I have hinted at the need for us to fundamentally re-evaluate the way we approach transport policy and planning. Just quickly I will briefly summarise a few posts I have made previously on the issue: From reading David Owen’s excellent book “Green Metropolis“, I noted the ecological disadvantages of reducing congestion, because making driving easier just encourages people to drive more – and as a result both pump out CO2 emissions and other pollution from their vehicles as well as generally living in unsustainable low-density sprawl.…
Thoughts on Land Use/Transport
As an urban planner, with a particular interest in transport matters, I find myself fascinated by the meeting point of land-use planning and transportation planning – the questions of whether land-use patterns drive transport or whether transport drives land-use patterns, whether it’s both, how they interact with each other and so forth.…
Central bus lanes idea spreads
The idea of putting Dominion Road’s bus lanes in the middle of the road, rather than at its edges, seems to be gaining traction – with a NZ Herald article today discussing the matter. Some extracts from that article:
Auckland’s Dominion Rd could have bus lanes running up and down its centre, just as trams did until the middle of last century.…
How do Auckland’s Bus Subsidies Work?
The process by which Auckland’s bus system is organised seems very very complicated, with strange relationships between ARTA and the different bus companies, which seems to vary according to route, and even down to particular services.
This is my understanding of how bus subsidies work in Auckland:
– Routes and services are identified by ARTA via documents like the Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP).…
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