Bogota’s TransMilenio
If you’re looking for a great example of how a vastly improved public transport system has transformed a city – Bogota, the capital of Colombia in South America – is a great example. And here’s a neat video from Streetfilms on the Transmilenio BRT system that Bogota has constructed over the past decade: While I get annoyed at people who think that Bogota is proof that BRT is always better than rail (Bogota is a pretty different place to Auckland) there are some aspects of Bogota’s system that clearly have filtered through to projects like the Northern Busway, and could be further implemented in future bus priority projects.…
15 Comments Weekend street closures and bus changes
From this weekend for the rest of the Rugby World Cup there will be significantly more streets closed to traffic than had been originally planned. From midday Friday until late Sunday, the following streets will be either completely closed to traffic or only open to some traffic:
I’m quite fond of this idea, being someone who generally likes streets being for pedestrians rather than cars.…
Public Transport lets Auckland down
Hopefully this will be my last blog post on last Friday’s events. My overwhelming feeling of the events that unfolded nearly a week ago was that Auckland’s public transport system had let the city down. Aside from the overcrowding issues around “Party Central”, including the bizarre failure to close Queen Street to cars, everything else (aside from the public transport) worked a charm last Friday.…
What is the holiday highway’s BCR?
There was an interesting exchange in parliament yesterday about the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” – and in particular focusing on the issue of whether the Minister was confident the project still represents good value for money. Here’s the video: Here’s the full discussion.…
What went wrong?
I went along to some of the Auckland Council meeting which took place today about the events of Friday. There are three reports which were produced and discussed at the meeting:
Auckland Council’s overall summary of events
Auckland Transport’s review of the transport issues
ATEED’s report into the crowd control issues around Quay Street between Queen’s Wharf and the Viaduct
The Auckland Council report summarises the two significant problems that occurred, and therefore what the reports move onto discussing.…
The plot thickens
There were some interesting developments in the response to Friday’s transport and overcrowding problems this afternoon. Stuff reports:
The Government will use special powers under Rugby World Cup legislation to take control of the Auckland waterfront set aside for the celebrations during the tournament.…
What the BLEEP?
Now back in Auckland after one year overseas and I’m generally impressed with the great leaps forward that have occurred in so many areas across the city. Got my HOP card, love it. Catch the Mt Eden b-line, love it. Visited the new extended Art Gallery, love it.…
The other Friday transport failures
In the aftermath of Friday’s transport debacle, a lot of focus has gone on the people who didn’t make it to Eden Park because of problems with the rail network. To an extent this is justified, because these people had paid a lot of money for their tickets and it’s shameful the system let them down.…
NZTA revisiting their assessment of PT projects
One thing that came across most clearly in the excellent Radio NZ piece about the City Rail Link project that played on Sunday morning was that the difference between the government’s measurement of the project’s cost-effectiveness and the assessments undertaken for Auckland Council doesn’t just come down to whether one is right and one is wrong.…
RWC transport fail – and what to do about it
I have had a couple of days to think about what happened on Friday night, particularly in terms of the mess that happened with Auckland’s public transport network. It seems that there were an enormous number of contributing factors to what happened, some which should have been foreseen, others were perhaps the result of bad luck.…
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