CBD rail tunnel campaign – great, but a bit early?
Today the Green Party launched a campaign to fast-track the CBD rail tunnel – a project which I consider to be Auckland’s most critical transport project in the next decade (now that electrification is happening). The CBD rail tunnel will achieve so much for Auckland, by doubling the capacity of Britomart, improving rail access to southern parts of the CBD, by making further expansion of the rail system possible and by providing a kick-start for the revitalisation of the central Auckland.…
23 Comments People are not the same as stormwater
I remember someone once telling me that a significant problem with the “transport field” is that many of the experts start out their academic studies as civil engineers, and the first thing they study is stormwater. Now I have a great appreciation for stormwater engineers, as they make sure our cities don’t flood when it rains, but ultimately it’s fairly logical stuff: x amount of rain falls and you need to get rid of it without flooding the place and without polluting the environment.…
Overly optimistic time-savings benefits?
An NZ Herald article notes that the Mangere Bridge was formally opened earlier today, by the Minister of Transport. Here’s an extract:
Motorists in Auckland are set to benefit from reduced journey times to and from the airport after the new duplicate Mangere Bridge across Manukau Harbour was officially opened today.…
Further analysis of RoNS & holiday highway
The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) have somehow managed to force their way into being the forefront of transport investment in New Zealand over the next decade, with a huge amount of the $10.7 billion anticipated to be spent on state highways over that period going into these seven roads.…
Buses vs Trains in capturing riders
Jarrett at Humantransit.org has an interesting post about how public transport has developed in Los Angeles, and continues to develop, over the past decade or so. His post is based on a Los Angeles Times article which claims that it would have been smarter to invest money in making buses cheaper and getting more of them on the road, than it would have been to construct the rail improvements in LA over the past decade or two.…
CBD Rail Tunnel – a background
I’ve got hold of an interesting Ministry of Transport paper on the CBD rail tunnel and also the future Airport railway link. It provides a useful over view of what progress has been made on the CBD rail tunnel project in particular over the past few years – and also what has actually brought the project “onto the radar” in an official sense.…
Rudman on the bus lane hysteria
I knew I could trust Herald columnist Brian Rudman to insert a bit of sanity back into the bus lanes issue that has been all over the newspaper this week. Here’s part of his article in today’s paper.
Auckland City councillor Greg Moyle’s grumpiness at being ticketed $150 for trespassing on a Symonds St bus lane is understandable.…
Wellington Street onramp to close (for 3 months!)
NZTA reports that as part of the Victoria Park Tunnel works, they will need to close the Wellington Street onramp between Monday 23 August and the end of November. Here’s the press-release:
On-ramp closure as Vic Park tunnel construction accelerates
21 Jul 2010 | Auckland Regional Office
Construction of the Victoria Park motorway tunnel in central Auckland is reaching a critical stage, and the NZ Transport Agency is advising motorists that the Wellington Street on-ramp will be closed for approximately three months so that supporting walls for the southern approach to the tunnel can be built.…
The “PT effectiveness project”
As I noted in yesterday’s post, NZTA has been undertaking a significant amount of work into finding out ways to get “better value” out of public transport investment. As I also noted yesterday, NZTA currently gets around $4.40 worth of road user benefits for each dollar they spend on subsidising public transport in Auckland, so they’re actually doing pretty well at the moment.…
Auckland’s population density: killing off the myths
One of the common excuses for why public transport supposedly “won’t work in Auckland” and why we need to continue to plow money into motorways, is that Auckland is supposedly “too low density” for public transport. In fact, aspiring Auckland Super City Mayor John Banks went so far as to say that Auckland was the “second most spread out city in the world” (after Los Angeles) in a Guest Post on Aucklandtrains.…
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