The future of urban planning in NZ – good improvements or government takeover?
Yesterday the Ministry for the Environment released a pretty important discussion document – Building Competitive Cities. You can read more about the document here, and it is possible to have your say on it up until December 17th.
The reason I say this document is important is because it will potentially fundamentally change the way we do urban planning in New Zealand.…
4 Comments North Shore vs Southeast Rail
Out of the “big three” rail projects that Len Brown promotes as his rail vision, two make pretty obvious sense – the CBD Rail Tunnel and Rail to the Airport. The two projects work in synergy quite nicely actually – both expanding the capacity and the reach of the rail system.…
Massive media coverage for rail
Wow, things really have gone crazy in transport circles over the last few days since the local government elections. In the past I had found myself highly disappointed by the lack of information on the big public transport projects advanced by the mayoral candidates (as they were at the time), but now it seems like we’re almost getting overwhelmed by the media’s interest.…
Parliament discusses Auckland’s transport future
There was a very interesting question and answer session in parliament today on how the Auckland local government elections may affect transport priorities. A transcript of the discussion can be read here.
There are a number of matters that are interesting to comment on here.…
A Bright Future for PT in Auckland?
As I noted in yesterday’s blog post, there are some significant differences between the transport policies and priorities of central government and those of the new Super City – particularly those of new Super City mayor Len Brown. Some of these differences are so fundamental – in terms of whether the bulk of transport spending goes on motorways or railway lines – that I simply don’t think there’s a particularly easy “middle ground” to be found between the two positions.…
Super City: where to now?
As I noted yesterday, the Super City election results are pretty good for public transport advocates like myself. We have a new Mayor who talks great vision when it comes to improving the rail network and seems highly determined to turn that vision into a reality.…
Auckland’s rail vision
What I find so exciting about the Super City election result is how central making fast improvement to Auckland’s rail system will be to Len Brown’s mayoralty, and the fact that it seems he will have a council to back him up on his vision.…
Super City Election Results
As of now we’re about 40 minutes away from midday, when voting will close in the election of the first Super City. Most of the votes have been counted already – so I assume that unlike general elections when the results trickle in throughout the evening, this will be a big “bang” of results.…
Tomorrow
Tomorrow will be a very significant and important day in the history of Auckland – being the day that we first have a Mayor of the new “Auckland Council” and a council itself which represents the whole of the Auckland region – rather than a fragmented system of local government that has plagued the city forever.…
Super Gold Card changes – a fairer future, or the beginning of the end?
The government has today finally got around to announcing changes to the Super Gold card scheme that provides pensioners with free public transport. Here’s the media release:
The Government is putting an extra $9 million towards the SuperGold card public transport scheme as part of a balanced package of measures that will improve efficiency and help ensure the scheme’s long-term viability, Transport Minister Steven Joyce says.…
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