NYC: Times Square
Last year New York City pedestrianised large chunks of Broadway around Times Square – one of the busiest and most notable intersections in the whole world. Here’s a great video showing the before and after: Wouldn’t it be great to do something like this in Auckland?…
10 Comments Progress on Airport rail line!
Some exciting news hidden in the agenda of next week’s ARC Transport and Urban Development committee meeting, that the next step is being taken towards making a railway line to the airport a reality. The full item can be read from pages 8-21 of this document.…
Why T2 lanes can be stupid
Just under a month ago I blogged about the spreading T2 lane disease, and the fact that North Shore City Council were considering destroying the highly successful Onewa Road transit lane by allowing vehicles with two occupants, rather than just buses and vehicles with three occupants, down the transit lane.…
Removing/Narrowing Roads
The discussion about Danish architect/urban designer Jan Gehl that resulted from my blog post the other day got me thinking about how we could give effect to his plea to “halve asphalt in the CBD in the next 10 years”. Some changes that he specified seem obvious: pedestrianising parts of Quay Street and narrowing Queen Street (although until we have built the CBD rail tunnel I’d actually probably leave Queen Street as is but turn two of the lanes into bus lanes), but what about beyond that?…
Onehunga Station stuff-up
At times I do wonder why it’s so damn difficult to get public transport projects in Auckland right. After the numerous stuff-ups that surrounded the opening of the Newmarket station, we’ve had a reasonably good run in recent times (although the huge celebration to open the partially finished extension to the previously upgraded Kingsland station was a bit strange).…
Holiday Highway: the 2008 study
As I hinted at in yesterday’s post on the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”, the most recent studies into the cost-effectiveness of this project are not the only ones ever undertaken. In fact, back in 2008, Transit New Zealand (as NZTA were then) undertook a strategic level study into the necessity of future upgrades to both this stretch of state highway one, and any upgrades that might be needed to state highway 16 in the future.…
Simplifying bus routes: the western bays
To continue my process of working through Auckland’s myriad of bus routes (having previously looked at Sandringham Road, New North Road and the Eastern Isthmus) I’ve today turned my attention to the part of Auckland where I actually live: the Western Bays of Auckland City.…
Urgent safety upgrades needed, not a holiday highway
As I have noted in previous posts on the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” project, I am not opposed to some sort of upgrade to this 38 kilometre stretch of State Highway One north of Auckland. The road most definitely does currently experience significant congestion during holiday periods, and even on normal weekends during the summer.…
Transport CCO must do urban design
Reading today’s article about Jan Gehl got me thinking about how all the cool things he proposes might actually happen in the brave new world that is the Auckland super city. While a lot of people call Mr Gehl an architect, urban planner and so forth (inspired genius is what I tend to call him), what I think is probably the most appropriate job title for him is “public space urban designer”.…
Jan Gehl – the urban genius
A very interesting article in the NZ Herald today about Danish urban planner Jan Gehl. Gehl is the type of urban planner we need a lot more of in this world – concerned about humanising spaces, creating areas that are friendly for people, reducing auto-dependency, and above all – looking to make our cities nicer places to be in: surely what all urban planner should aspire to.…
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