The Unitary Plan
There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about the “Auckland Spatial Plan” and more recently about the City Centre Master Plan. Both these documents are undoubtedly important in defining goals for Auckland as a whole or for the city centre, highlighting important projects, discussing how funding might be acquired for various important projects and generally setting out an important vision for what Auckland should be like in 30 years: whether that vision be for the entire Auckland region (in the case of the spatial plan) or for the city centre (in the case of the City Centre Master Plan).…
24 Comments Sylvia Park: PT success or missed opportunity?
When I think of the Sylvia Park shopping centre in Auckland, from a transport perspective, it seems to tick a lot more boxes than many other shopping centres around Auckland (particularly St Lukes). The primary reason for this is that Sylvia Park has a train station right next to it – a station that seems fairly popular, especially on weekends.…
Auckland’s improving CBD
One of the pitfalls of looking at transport and urban planning matters on a daily basis is that you can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. For want of a better phrase, it definitely is possible to “lose sight of the forest for the trees”.…
Auckland’s stupidly complex bus system
Over the past week I’ve sat at the bus stop outside the hospital waiting for a fair few buses – either to head into town or to catch the Link bus back to Ponsonby. Park Road is part of the Central Connector and therefore forms one of the most core parts of the Auckland bus network.…
Keeping Track newsletter
Auckland Transport has launched what I think is a good initiative, by having a bi-monthly newsletter that discusses improvements to the rail network throughout Auckland – known as “Keeping Track”. The first version of the newsletter can be viewed here, and they will be handed out to rail passengers over the next week or so.…
Station boarding data
Auckland Transport has kindly sent me some really useful data showing boardings at each station on the rail network for the years between 2003 and 2010. The excel worksheet can be accessed here, and the information is shown below: It’s worth remembering that these are boardings only, and they’re also just a snapshot.…
Will HOP make rail fare evasion more or less common?
A couple of weeks ago I caught a Western Line train from Britomart to Morningside during the PM peak. It didn’t seem to be an unusually busy train – with a few standees past Newmarket but definitely not ‘crush loaded’. Rather surprisingly, not a single ticket collector even entered our carriage until we had reached Mt Eden station, and the clippie only just reached me seconds before I got off the train at Morningside.…
Convention centre: catalyst for improving Hobson & Nelson?
I was initially disappointed by the decision that SkyCity had won the bid for a new international convention centre in downtown Auckland. I was more of a fan of “The Edge” proposal, largely because a key part of that proposal would have involved the restoration of the St James theatre.…
The usefulness of stop grouping
Spending most of my days at Auckland hospital in recent times (and the likelihood of continuing to do so for a few more days) has provided me with a fairly interesting insight into the operations of public transport in another corner of the city.…
Warning: plague of blind drivers in Grafton
Reading yet another stupid article in the NZ Herald today about people getting fined for driving over Grafton Bridge during the 7am-7pm Monday to Friday period when it’s bus only really makes me wonder whether there’s a plague of blind drivers in this part of Auckland.…
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