Electric Bikes – The perfect complement to transit in Auckland
This is a guest post from reader Goosid
I returned to New Zealand in September 2011 from three years in Romania. Although Bucharest may rival Auckland for its unfriendly environment for cycling – I have always been a keen cyclist and seeing the cycling Infrastructure in Northern Europe (particularly Amsterdam and Copenhagen) convinced me that the deciding factor is investment in infrastructure.…
56 Comments Scaremongering about Metropolitan Centres
A couple of days ago there was a somewhat hysterical blog post by David Farrar about the Unitary Plan and the higher height limits it proposes in metropolitan centres:
Len Brown and his city planners seem to think that you build a city to fit in with your transport plan, rather than build a transport system to fit in with where people want to live.…
NZTA is pushing on with the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway
While the council and government battle over when the CRL, a project that will create transformational change in the city, the NZTA is pushing on with building a motorway on the edge of town. The NZTA has just announced that an alliance of companies are about to spend $17.5 million on getting the preparation done so that the agency can start the process to obtain consent later this year.…
What is happening with the CBD street upgrades?
I had a couple of meetings in town yesterday with a bit of a gap in between them in the middle of the day, so took the opportunity to enjoy the nice autumn sun that we have been having by relaxing outside.…
AT missing key opportunities to promote HOP
As we have mentioned before, Auckland is just at the start of some massive changes to PT. Change naturally causes concern for some people and can obviously be disruptive. That is why it is so important that those initiating the change communicate clearly why it is happening and take every opportunity to say why the change is positive. …
What was wrong with the modelling done for the CCFAS
These days, no transport project gets built or policy signed off without first being run through a model. I’m not talking about a scale model but a mathematical computer model that is designed to estimate just how people might use a project or how much a project and/or policy will affect the transport system.…
Federated Farmers back the Unitary Plan
A few months ago we saw an op-ed piece from Federated Farmers supporting growing Auckland primarily through intensification rather than sprawl. While it did have a few odd comments in it, overall it was very positive however clearly driven from a fear about the loss of more prime agricultural land to development.…
The Pullman Hotel – Scant regard for the public realm?
About 5 years ago what was then the Hyatt Hotel (since renamed the Pullman Hotel) underwent major renovations, which involved adding some apartments on the northern side of the building and rebuilding their frontage with Princes Street.
The location of the hotel is shown below, on the north-eastern corner of the intersection of Princes and Waterloo Quadrant.…
Is the Coastal Pacific Really Losing Money?
The Coastal Pacific is KiwiRail’s scenic rail service that operates both ways between Picton and Christchurch on a daily basis.
In 2011 it had a major revamp, with new carriages featuring panoramic windows like the one below as well as a new café car.…
Reconnect Auckland: a transport campaign led by the Green Party
This is a guest post from Green Party MP, Julie Anne Genter
You are invited to the launch of Reconnect Auckland: a transport campaign led by the Green Party. A smarter approach to transport and planning offers us huge opportunities to get better outcomes for everyone.…
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