Auckland’s future growth
There’s a lot of regular discussion about how much Auckland is projected to grow by over the next 30 or so years – “another million people” being the common catch-phrase. The “response to Minister’s questions” included as part of the documents released with the City Centre Future Access Study includes quite a lot of interesting information about Auckland’s future growth and how realistic the projections are.…
17 Comments PARKing
Auto dominance and land use summed in one image:
The genius of Banksy unleashed on LA; if we predominantly invest in driving as a means of urban movement we are going to have sacrifice more land for parking cars than building parks.…
Our EMU speeds
This year the first of our new electric trains will arrive and one of big benefits of them will be that they have faster acceleration than the clunky diesel trains we have now but the question is just how much faster they will be.…
Economic patterns in urban development
Yesterday’s post on population loss from rural areas generated some really interesting comments.
My main goal was to highlight some of the potential challenges facing rural areas, which I think is important. But as some people rightly pointed out: My home town of Waiuku is not exactly struggling to survive.…
Analysing station rankings
The railway station boarding data finally released by Auckland Transport the other day allows some interesting analysis of which stations have experienced the most growth over time. I’ve put all the data together into one place, building on an earlier spreadsheet:
In terms of sheer numerical growth, Britomart is by far the winner – with Newmarket, Papatoetoe, New Lynn and Glen Innes other stations which have at least 1,000 more daily boardings now than they did back in 2003.…
Rail Patronage vs Projections
With the release of the station boarding data in the post yesterday by Mr Anderson, and the recent sluggish patronage growth, its perhaps worthwhile looking at how things are going compared to projections. Again we can look at the supporting report for a lot of information as AT/AC attempted to answer one part of Steven Joyce’s question relating to evidence of patronage growth, particularly in the morning peak.…
The outgoing tide – Population loss from rural areas
I spent the first two decades of my life in rural New Zealand.
Imagine if you will a small country town (population ~10,000) straddling the southern end of the mighty Manukau Harbour. The Waikato river is sufficiently close that in the past the local Maori apparently used to drag their waka between the river and the harbour.…
2011 & 2012 Station Boarding Stats
Back in June 2011 Auckland Transport released station boarding data for each railway station between 2003 and 2010. The results obviously show significant growth throughout the entire network, but particularly at some stations (like Panmure and Pukekohe) and less so in other areas (like Waitakere and Te Mahia).…
Bus real-time system getting worse?
Is it just me or has the bus real time information system got a whole heap worse since its supposed ‘upgrade’ over the past few months?
The bus real time system has always promised more than it has delivered. When it has worked, it is incredibly useful as you don’t have to always keep an eye out for the bus coming along, you have some sense of comfort that the bus really is actually coming and – if the bus is far enough away and there’s something nearby – you can pop into a dairy or a bookshop or wherever in the meanwhile.…
Intensification and the Rail Network
Included with the City Centre Future Access Study documentation released late last year were the answers to a number of questions that the previous Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, had asked in mid 2011. As well as requesting the preparation of what turned into the CCFAS, Joyce requested the following: “Finalisation of the spatial plan and master plan including establishing achievable growth projections for the CBD
Demonstration of a commitment to resolving current CBD issues, for example by improving bus operations and addressing capacity issues
Evidence of rail patronage increases, particularly in the morning peak, residential intensification and CBD regeneration as a result of current investment
Beginning implementation of large scale residential developments along the rail corridors
Implementation of additional park and ride sites, and changes to bus feeder services” There’s a lot of really interesting information in Auckland Council and Auckland Transport’s response to these questions, but for this post I’m going to look at an element of the third question: evidence of residential intensification as a result of current investment.…
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