1000th Post

As you may have guessed from the title of this blog post, this is the 1000th post of Auckland Transport Blog, since the very first back in May 2008. The early posts of this blog were really simply a part of a previous blog that I used to run – that was more focused on my personal life. Funnily enough, when I started blogging about transport matters – particularly those with an Auckland focus – people starting becoming a whole pile more interested in what I had to say than had ever been the case before.

Often people who I meet ask me “why are you so interested in transport stuff?” or “how did you get started with writing a transport blog?” Well, I’m an urban planner by profession and as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in cities and interested in how we get around cities. As a child (and more recently) I drew massive make-believe cities, complete with the most spectacular motorway spaghetti junctions that you’re ever likely to see. In fact, it’s quite interesting to think how roads-focused I was until relatively recently – I think largely because I pretty much never used public transport until I started university. I do wonder whether the poor transport decisions that politicians often make are the result of them never actually using the public transport system.

But essentially, I’m interested in transport – and I write this blog – because I think that the only way Auckland can become a better city to live, work and play in, is by first sorting out its transport system. So much emphasis is placed on how land-use patterns influence transport outcomes, but I think that it’s the opposite direction of influence: how our transport decisions influence the form, shape, function and feel of our cities, that is of utmost importance. Construct a lovely pedestrian-focused space like Vulcan Lane, and of course you will encourage bars, cafes and other people-focused activities to locate there. Construct massive one-way semi-motorways like Hobson and Nelson streets, and of course you will end up with crap buildings and no pedestrian activity. Similarly, at the macro-level, construct motorways and you will encourage sprawl; construct high-quality rail systems and you will encourage intensification.

From a fairly humble beginning, I must say I’m amazed and surprised at how the popularity of this blog has grown. Back in May last year (when I really established this blog as completely separate from my previous personal blog), the number of people visiting was around 4,000 a month. This has increased to a high of 50,212 visitors in October this year (the Super City election results boosted the stats for that month). On average, these days this blog gets around 1,500 visits a day.

A few other statistics are quite interesting. There have been 12,755 comments (excluding spam). The 1,000 posts have included a total of 762,362 words, while the comments have included 1,098,506 words. There are 242 tags – identifying post topics, which I periodically try to reduce down a bit (generally without much luck). I know that a number of MPs, councillors, local board members and council/Auckland Transport staff regularly read this blog – and I have appreciated their feedback and willingness to contact me to discuss transport matters. My invitation is always open for people who want to email me about an issue or meet up – if this needs to be done in confidence then of course I will do just that, and I have done so in the past on numerous occasions.

Perhaps my biggest hope from this blog is that all who read it can develop a better understanding of Auckland’s transport situation. I hope that people have learned about complex concepts such as induced demand, cost-benefit analyses, wider economic benefits, the network effect, the importance of bus lanes and so on. Countless poor transport decisions have been made in the past, and continue to be made, because the general population is poorly informed and politicians and/or bureaucrats are able to get away with it. Reading numerous letters to the editor over the past few weeks on transport matters, generally exceptionally well written and well informed, makes me hopeful that the days of an ill-informed public on transport matters is ending. If this blog has had a role to play in assisting the quality of the public debate we have on transport matters, then I think that will have been its greatest achievement.

So where to from here? Amazingly, these days I very rarely sit down in front of the computer in the evening and struggle to know what to blog about. Sure, there has been a lot recently on the CBD Rail Tunnel and Puhoi-Wellsford, but I think the fact that there’s always a blog post or two waiting to be written about something that’s going on just shows how critical getting transport right is to Auckland. So I certainly have a lot of blog posts to pump out in the future.

However, to put it simply, I would quite like some help. At various points in the past I have had assistance, and that has been awesome. There also seems to be a growing number of guest posts, which is also fantastic – as I like to get a range of perspectives on Auckland’s transport situation. But it would be great to have some regular assistance in running this blog. Obviously you will need to know what you’re talking about, but the quality of comments I get suggest that there are a huge number of very well informed people out there when it comes to transport matters.

Perhaps I’m a little naughty to ask, but if there are people within any transport related organisation who wish to assist me, I can assure you of utmost anonymity – and I’m sure everyone would appreciate the knowledge you could bring. One of the biggest problems in having a well-informed transport debate in New Zealand is that pretty much everyone who really knows what they’re talking about happens to work for a transport-related organisation – and therefore can’t actually publicly say anything. While I guess that’s understandable in some respects, I think that as a whole we are much poorer for the relative lack of intelligent dialogue that creates. A lot of fascinating stuff, and very clever thought, goes on behind the scenes – I would love for more of that to be out in the open.

Anyway, here’s to the next 1000 posts.

Share this