The Birth of the North-Western Motorway
The work to widen the North Western motorway is becoming ever more prominent – and soon requiring the closure of the bus lanes. So I thought I would look for some old photos from when it was under construction to help show how much the area has changed in the just over 60 years since it was built.…
66 Comments Where do the children play?
Back in 1970, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens put out a song, and it went a little something like this:
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?…
Ponsonby Rd Masterplan Feedback Extended
*submissions open till September 16th* Online form here, plan here, previous post here.
Ponsonby Rd, the heart of my neighbourhood, isn’t bad, but I find it pretty difficult to argue that it is as good as it could be. Local retailers, cafe and restaurant operators, and building owners work hard on what they offer, including the physical qualities of their businesses, but the strip itself is pretty ordinary.…
Our First Electric Train
Today is a pretty special day as Auckland Transport are officially unveiling our first electric train. It arrived in the country a few weeks ago but it was trucked to Wiri under wraps so that staff could start the process of joining the carriages and carrying out initial testing.…
How to fund the CFN and save $14 billion
On the topic of the Congestion Free Network, we frequently get asked what we would do about the roading network, and what projects we would change to go along with our proposal. We have said before that we think there is still a need for some roading projects during the same time period, and that we think there will be plenty of budget (over and above what we are spending on the CFN) to allow for the best parts of the roading network to be built.…
SH16 bus lanes closing next week
This was signalled a few months ago but the NZTA has today announced that more of the bus shoulder lanes alongside SH16 will start closing from next week as part of the upgrade works. Here is the NZTA press release.
People can expect significant changes travelling on Auckland’s Northwestern Motorway (State Highway16) from this Monday (16 September) as part of the NZ Transport Agency’s long term development of the Western Ring Route.…
Another fares disaster?
Last month I highlighted the desperate need for Auckland Transport to develop a comprehensive public transport fares policy. One which looks at all the tricky trade-offs and compromises associated with setting public transport fares, highlights the need to balance competing interests and competing objectives (i.e.…
Unitary Plan to be notified
Yesterday the Council’s Governing Body agreed to notify the Unitary Plan, 6 months after they first launched consultation on the draft version of the plan. The decision to notify confirms all of the changes made to the plan following the feedback from the draft and from the councillor’s discussions over the last few weeks.…
“Real” gasoline prices in the US have never been higher *
* subject to various caveats below!
I’ve just been looking at some inflation data for the USA, and I was a little surprised to see that, in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, gasoline prices reached an all-time high last year. Higher than the oil shock days of the’70s – early ’80s, in fact. I checked this against some other sources, and it seems to stack up – the Energy Information Administration and some other chap reached the same conclusion (although the other guy reckons they were higher in 1918 – my data doesn’t go back that far).…
Billboards
Through the hard work of the CFN graphics wunderkind Niko, the advice of adman Greg Wood, generous support of our donors, and heaps of legwork by the tireless team at Generation Zero the CFN is getting a whole lot of additional exposure over the next couple of months.…
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