Reshaping New York

Fascinating infographics from the New York Times illustrating the revitalisation of that great metropolis under Mayor Bloomberg: Showing new buildings, areas where re-zoning has help spur development [below] And of course the 450 miles of bike lanes added by repurposing traffic lanes: It also briefly mentions concern around rising property values, a complex issue which is of course on one hand a sign of success but that also creates exclusion some sections of community.…
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Using carrots to improve safety

The use of red light cameras are very much a case of using a stick to try and get the right behaviour out of motorists. I think it is generally accepted that more of them are needed, however they only have a limited application as they are restricted to light controlled intersections.…
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Auckland Council candidates confirmed.

Nominations for the local body elections closed yesterday. Getting not just a mayor but a council that supports improving public transport will be critical to getting projects like the City Rail Link across the line. For the CRL at least, I think we can certainly say it wouldn’t have progressed as far as it has without having received the large amount of support it has had from the current councillors.…
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A Good Road

‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ -William Morris 1880 Because we argue here at ATB that it is time to rebalance our spending priorities away from always assuming that road building is the best or only answer to our transport problems, especially for those caused by too much traffic in cities, we often get accused of all sorts of emotional things like being ‘car haters’.…
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Hyperloop or Loopy Hype

There has been quite a bit of hype over the last couple of days about the Hyperloop proposal being pushed by Elon Musk.  It’s been quite interesting to see the different reactions that have come out about the project. Billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk has unveiled his design for a super-fast transport system that carries passengers in pressurised tubes at near-supersonic speeds.…
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2013 Transport Monitoring Results

Buried deep within the agenda of last week’s Transport Committee meeting is a report on the results of both the annual screenline and congestion surveys. The screenline survey in particular is a very long running (back to the 1980s) survey which counts the number of people crossing various points – most particularly those travelling into the city centre by various modes.…
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Gerry discovers electric cars

An interesting article in the herald this morning about Gerry Brownlee who to took a trip to the California to have a look at “alternative transport” options but only appears to have looked at cars Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee says his scepticism about electric cars has all but disappeared after he took a spin along the Los Angeles coastal freeway in an electric sports car.…
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Why not use the Linear Park?

Another day and another story about the City Rail Link notice of requirement hearings from the Herald. This focus of this article is the heritage buildings on the corner of Albert St and Victoria St. Auckland Transport consultants are divided over whether a block of inner-city heritage buildings more than 140 years old will survive excavations for the city’s underground railway.…
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