This is a new kind of post for readers interested in a quick roundup of transit related news and analysis from around the world. The plan is to aggregate a bunch of links that relate either directly or tangentially to Auckland transit issues. This will include examples of similar transport debates and solutions from elsewhere, but also related issues such as urbanism, energy supply, and economic challenges. Clearly Auckland is facing situations common to other cities in the world, and there is a rich and growing resource online that we can learn a great deal from. It is also intended as an opportunity for readers to comment on any issue raised in the links and especially to share their own resources.
In fact it never ceases to amaze me how similar the debates seem all over the world to our own. And just as we followed other western nations in investing heavily in automobilie and suburban infrastructure over the last 60 or so years this was largely because we faced similar problems and opportunities as those places. But times change and it seems pretty clear that we are now facing new pressures that are best approached by a different mix of answers, but these are still similar to those faced elsewhere. Here, for example, is an incredibly condensed summary of the big picture by Portland based economist and oil analyst Gregor MacDonald at Gregor.us
For a view of how the most dynamic and important developing nation is responding to urban growth, congestion, and quality of place issues here is a summary of China’s commitment to urban rail transit. Important to note that many of the cities mentioned are around the 1 million people mark, like Auckland. And that the writer is emphasizing that the metro solution allows suburbs to retain their identities and economic viability by offering connectivity without destruction. An important reminder that expansion of AK’s RTN network is not all about the CBD, but also about making this suburban city connect and thrive.
For an example of why open space isn’t always the best answer in cities especially to severance issues have a look at this view of Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ via Old Urbanist. Yes the future of the city is greener but better joined up built forms are also often the answer to broken cities.
Long but good. How we can learn from LA, and just stop building expensive and place defiling parking infrastructure. And great data that shows less really is more when it comes to parking, for the sake of our city’s economic health and viability, no matter how counter-intuitive that feels to auto-man.
Two-waying, or how to unlock the economic performance of traffic sewers.
This is just cool, urban explorers.
Learning from the master, or perhaps mistress. Why Jane Jacobs is still relevant.
Why we will never catch up with Australia, or wherever, by paying each other less. Look for NZ on this chart.
One for the urban cyclists out there. Cool rack.
No roundup would be complete without a link to The Oil Drum, too much to choose from, but this short interview shows the mainstreaming of the Peak Oil observation. Feels like old news to me but this debate and its arguably even more worrying sister Climate Change is curiously absent in NZ. This site is great too, Californian physicist Tom Murphy Does The Math so that we don’t have to.
Note the train in the upper left of the first image, I wonder what happened to that line, or is it still there? Happy reading.
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The train line is still there in the upper left of the image, below which is an LA busway.
I always find myself amazed when reading Jane Jacobs – you feel that you’re at the very cutting edge of recent urban design theory. Then you realise the book was published in 1961.
Then you feel angry that we still haven’t got it, 50 years later.
Oh, and that one-way street article is particularly relevant to discussions about Hobson and Nelson streets. Good find!
Regarding the Old Urbanist comment on the Greenway not living up to expectations, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the project money earmarked for developing the greenway was reallocated when the Big Dig went _enormously_ over budget (unfortunate but understandable), hence the boring grass.
Yes but the complaint wasn’t just that the finish of the space is poor but that the whole idea fails. Fails to knit the severed city back together, and fails as open space as it is fatally compromised by the freeway.
There is a smaller recent example of this Auckland that I will do a post about soon. It seems to me that NZTA have accepted the Landscapers into their system but not yet real urban design. Or perhaps it is that old problem of asking the public what they want?; it is always easy to get a report that says everyone wants more trees, fair enough, who doesn’t?, but gardening is not always the best answer for every piece of land in a city. Because it means we can end up with a disjointed city as well as useless and expensive to maintain bits of park instead of really valuable and properly supported open space.
The big dig always did perplex me. Taking a large elevated freeway barrier severing the city in two and replacing it with a large paved and grass open wasteland peppered with on and off ramps severing the city in two? The need to build over 80% of it IMHO, leaving say two appropriate blocks for open green space.
Having been to Boston and having walked through the green space that sits above the “big dig” I certainly found it to be a very “odd” space. As Nick says, the city hasn’t really been properly “healed” from what the freeway did previously, because it’s still so obvious where the freeway went and the green space (while a million times better than an elevated freeway) still divides the place.
I agree with Nick that building over the majority of it would be good, but leave a number of great little spaces as parks.
That chart of Blue collar workers pay is misleading in a lot of ways.
For NZ, the total hourly compensation figure does not account for medical, superanuation, and subsidised eduction services provided by our government. Compare with USA, Australia, etc where the system is different and they are “benefits”.
The chart also makes no comparison of the size of manufacturing industry or proportion of the economy it makes up in each country. The mix of manufacturing in NZ is different to many of the others due to it’s small size.
There is also no column showing government subsidies or tax breaks for manufacturing. Look at the money pumped into Australian (Holden & Ford) & US car manufacturing. Look at the subsidies Europe & USA pump into Airbus & Boeing. This skews the data. Tariffs also result in inflated wages paid in some countries also making data non comparible. Jobs here & jobs there are not the same thing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/nyregion/new-york-city-subway-closes-for-overnight-repairs.html?hp
It is interesting to compare the New York subway shutdown to our current rail shutdown. (I know the situations are different.)