Selling PT to the masses
At last week’s transport discussion involving EU Member of Parliament Michael Cramer there was an interesting set of questions (besides the weird secret airport guy) and responses between a couple of audience members and Labour MP David Shearer. Effectively, Mr Shearer suggested that in order to sell the need for better public transport to the widest possible audience, we should talk more about creating a “world class public transport system” and less about “better PT”; more about the benefits of a better public transport system to road users and less about the benefits to PT users themselves.…
18 Comments Even the AA understands oil prices will keep rising
Over the years the Automobile Association (AA) has often been a fairly strong advocate of spending more and more money on roads – while being blind to bigger changes in the world like rising oil prices, and blind to local issues like the impact of new and widened motorways on their surrounding communities.…
The importance of making cycling feel safer
Time and time again I hear about people who say they’d cycle to work, to do their shopping and for other activities more often – if only it were safer. Now of course a certain proportion of those people may just be using safety as an excuse for simply not getting into the habit of it (I’d probably fall into that category), but it cannot be doubted that the perception of cycling being dangerous is a major barrier to increasing the number of people who cycle.…
PT-washing: not just an Auckland disease
Reading through NZTA’s completely mental motorway plans the other day got me thinking about a phrase that often comes to mind when dealing with NZTA: and that is “Public Transport-wash”, or PT-wash. It’s a phrase that I think I came up with last year – playing off the term “greenwash” – to describe the process by which NZTA (or other agencies) emphasises the minuscule public transport aspects of a largely roading project, or a transport policy document, in order for it to gain wider support.…
Transit-Oriented Developments
A great video from Streetfilms on transit-oriented developments (TODs) – with a particular focus on the effect New Jersey’s light-rail system has had on encouraging development around it: I think a fundamental principle of Auckland’s upcoming spatial plan should be to find out ways to encourage and incentivise – through appropriate transport improvements, zoning changes and clever financial tools, a greater focus on TODs.…
Part of NZTA still stuck in the 1960s
I’ve been relatively complimentary to NZTA in the past few days: of their realisation that funding rail has big benefits and their somewhat positive noises about the CBD Rail Tunnel project. But another of their recent board papers (passed on to me courtesy of regular commenter rtc) indicates that part of the organisation is certainly still stuck in the 1960s with their thinking.…
NZTA’s view of the CBD Rail Tunnel
Another NZTA board paper that Jon C has kindly passed onto me is NZTA’s report to their board – back in December last year – on the CBD Rail Tunnel business case, as it was released in November last year. While it doesn’t discuss the possibility of NZTA contributing to funding the project, it is reasonably complimentary of the tunnel project.…
Why are our trains so unreliable?
Rail performance statistics for January 2011 have been released, and to be honest they’re pretty pathetic:
While the Western Line did comparatively well (compared to a 12 month rolling average of 74.5% punctuality) the Eastern and Southern Lines were terrible. Almost half of Eastern Line trains during January were more than 5 minutes late in arriving at their destination.…
NZTA finally speaking some sense
There’s an interesting NZTA board paper passed on to me by Jon C of AKT, which discusses NZTA’s role in funding public transport – most particularly their role in helping to fund rail projects. This board paper came about as part of a solution to the $30 million rail funding gap that Steven Joyce has created.…
CBD Rail Tunnel: where to from here?
As I noted in yesterday’s post, some big questions are starting to be asked about what infrastructure projects will, and will not, proceed over the next few years as a result of the Christchurch earthquake. In particular, with so much central government funding having to be dedicated to rebuilding infrastructure in and around Christchurch, the ability of the government to contribute to funding infrastructure projects over the next few years has obviously been reduced.…
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