Transport Committee Meeting
The second meeting of the Auckland Council transport committee is happening on Monday (today for most of you reading this) – at 9.30am in the Reception Lounge of the Auckland Town Hall. There are some interesting items on the agenda: A discussion about the “Next-Bike” bike hire scheme, and what the preferred future form for this scheme is – given that the current business unfortunately hasn’t been profitable enough to continue.…
14 Comments How to provide “low demand” public transport?
I can imagine what one of the biggest challenges for public transport planners must be – dealing with how to provide public transport for low demand routes. There are a number of reasons why public transport provision is necessary – environmental, economic and social.…
Southeast RTN – busway, rail, trolley-bus or light-rail?
When Auckland Transport released details of the latest concepts for a southeast busway: along Ti Rakau Drive between Botany and Pakuranga and eventually extending all the way into Panmure, I hesitated and had a pretty good think about whether this was a step in the right direction.…
PenLink
Another major transport project that the Transport Committee’s agenda provides an update on is a link between the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and State Highway 1, via a bridge across the Weiti River – a project commonly known as “Penlink”. This project has had a fairly turbulent history: first proposed as a toll road, then it was to be funded by the Regional Fuel Tax, then when that tax was abolished by the government, funding for PenLink somewhat disappeared again.…
Integrated Ticketing: more questions than answers
Well I wasn’t quite right with my guess about what today’s integrated ticketing announcement was going to be – in that it’s not an announcement over the name of the card. Instead, it’s actually a useful bit of information that we’re heading towards resolving some of the difficulties associated with implementing the project.…
The Whau River Bridge
There has been discussion for many years about whether a local road bridge connection should be made between Te Atatu South and the Rosebank industrial area. The latest Transport Committee agenda raises the project as a potential option – to add to the list of major transport projects considered at last month’s meeting of the Committee.…
“Hop Card” unveiled tomorrow?
I received an email today from the communications team at Auckland Transport, advising that there is to be a media conference tomorrow at 2pm to announce something to do with the “next phase of integrated ticketing”. Unfortunately I can’t make the media briefing tomorrow – though I’ll blog about it once I know for sure what has been announced.…
The Uncertain Future
A number of international stories have caught my attention recently. I’ve been thinking about how they relate to NZ and Auckland in particular. The more I’ve reflected on them the more I’ve become convinced that the future is very uncertain technologically (more than anytime previously) and of critical importance will be our need for a flexible, efficient, transport system.…
More Double Standards from Joyce
Green MP Gareth Hughes put a few tricky questions about the holiday highway to Steven Joyce in parliament today: You can read the transcript here.
While Mr Hughes fell for the typical mistake of trying to score a “king hit” with a rather too all encompassing assumption (even I somewhat agree with Steven Joyce when he says that it’s far too simple to say that public transport will always solve the problem and roads never will), the best question he asked by far – and the one that made Joyce squirm a bit in his reply, is outlined below:
Gareth Hughes: Given the Minister has said that more analysis is needed, why did he commit billions of dollars to the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” in March 2009 when the business case was not completed until 9 months later, in December 2009, and, as the Minister said only 4 weeks ago, “No work had been done on this project prior to it being confirmed as a road of national significance”?…
“Transport Stress”
There was an interesting article in the NZ Herald today on the issue of “Transport Stress”, which was based on the findings of an IBM study into the effects of transportation on our general psychological wellbeing. Here are some excerpts:
Almost a third of Auckland drivers believe traffic congestion is harming their health and performance at work or in class, according to an international survey out today.…
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