Where did the four new RoNS come from?
The draft Government Policy Statement document, that was released for consultation a couple of months back, was a highly perplexing and depressing document. Focusing an even greater amount of money on building new motorways, slashing (already slashed) spending on public transport infrastructure and capping money for new local roads and even the maintenance of existing roads is just plain stupidity – and is completely ignorant of recent transport trends both here in New Zealand and overseas.…
29 Comments Fare evasion slashed – really?
A few weeks back I wrote a post outlining my concerns over the large amount of fare evasion I was seeing on the rail network, as well as my concerns that the introduction of the HOP card to the rail network (which will happen in around November this year) may actually make things worse – rather than better.…
May 2011 PT Patronage: very strong
Auckland Transport have released the May 2011 public transport statistics report, and the results patronage-wise are pretty spectacular. Here are the highlights:
These are particularly strong increases, as compared with April’s numbers we see all patronage increase by 10.3% (compared to 3.9% in April) and rail patronage grow by 21.5% (compared to 12.7% in April).…
Steven Joyce’s revenge? Big changes proposed to LTMA.
The government has today announced some pretty big changes are being proposed to the Land Transport Management Act (LTMA). This is a pretty vital piece of legislation, forming the legislative framework around which most of the country’s transport plans, policies, rules and guidelines are created.…
The MUL and housing affordability
An article in today’s NZ Herald notes that new councillor Dick Quax, who replaced Jami-Lee Ross as the representative for the Howick Ward, argued against the council’s generally agreed position of preferring a ‘compact city’ in his maiden speech. I’ve discussed the metropolitan urban limits (MUL) in many previous posts, including reference to a pretty detailed study undertaken for the ARC that showed an expansionary model of urban development generally delivered the worst outcomes for the highest cost.…
Auckland Transport to designate CRL?
The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting of Auckland Council’s governing body contains a very interesting item on the City Rail Link project (page 27 onwards). It would seem as though Auckland Council and Auckland Transport have become somewhat sick and tired of the government’s tactics in relation to the project – and are looking to effectively “go it alone” in terms of advancing to the next stage of making the project a reality: designating the route and acquiring all the necessary consents.…
Transforming Auckland’s city centre
One of the best things that has come out of the creation of the Auckland “Super City” Council so far has been, in my opinion, the fundamental reconsideration of how Auckland should work. In documents like the Auckland Spatial Plan, the City Centre Master Plan and the forthcoming Unitary Plan, we have the opportunity to completely reanalyse the plans and policies that will guide and shape Auckland’s future.…
Looking at Auckland’s economic future
An opinion piece by sprawl advocate Owen McShane in the National Business Review refers to a series of research papers undertaken by the Ministry for Economic Development over the past few years. The papers relate to MED trying to get a better handle on what policy interventions in Auckland are likely to have the most impact on improving the city’s economic performance.…
Changing transport trends
In a comment on yesterday’s post about changing attitudes towards transport among young people, Stu Donovan pointed towards a very interesting piece of research undertaken by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute on changing transport trends in a number of different countries around the world.…
Is PT the new “cool” way to travel for young people?
An interesting article in the Perth newspaper “The West Australian” highlights a potential culture shift that I had seen mentioned in a number of previous articles. A culture shift among young people away from cars and towards technology like laptops, iPads, Smartphones and so forth – technology that fits more easily with public transport use than driving everywhere.…
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