Should we charge tourists extra for driving on NZ roads?
There have been a few suggestions recently that international tourists should be paying more to drive in New Zealand, or have to pass a driving test, or things along those lines. Winston Aldworth, the Travel Editor at the Herald, wrote a column last week suggesting that we should charge a fee for tourists who want to drive on our roads, along the lines of a new scheme in Germany (which was also described in the Herald last week, although the article doesn’t seem to be online).…
12 Comments Location affordability in New Zealand cities – is greenfield growth really affordable?
Several weeks ago I attended the annual New Zealand Association of Economists conference in Auckland. Geoff Cooper, Auckland Council’s Chief Economist, had organised several sessions on urban issues, and as a result there was a lot of excellent discussion of urban issues and Auckland’s housing market.…
Robert Ellis’s apocalyptic vision of Auckland
This blog has often written about Auckland’s 1950s-era motorway development plan, which transformed the city in fundamental ways. New Zealand painter Robert Ellis was one of the first to grasp the significance and character of that transformation. His Motorway/City series, painted in the 1960s and 1970s, shows roads invading and dividing urban space.…
Why are the electric trains so slow?
In the first week or two of the Onehunga Line’s switch to electric trains there were major issues with the trains keeping to timetable, apparently due to overly conservative speed restrictions being put in the trains as part of their safety systems.…
Basin Bridge Bowled
In stunning news yesterday the Board of Inquiry hearing the case for the Basin Bridge bowled out the NZTA by declined consent for the project. This is what it would have looked like had it been approved: All up the bridge would have been 265m long and carved a slice out of Wellington’s urban fabric at a time when other cities around the world are starting to pull these kinds of structures down – and finding it doesn’t cause traffic chaos.…
Taskforce to Tackle Loopy Rules
The National Party have announced that if they’re re-elected they’ll form a taskforce to tackle loopy rules and regulations.
Local Government Minister Paula Bennett today announced the establishment of a new Taskforce to rid New Zealand of loopy rules and regulations.…
Petrol price elasticity, and supermarket vouchers
As we all know, when the price of something goes up, we buy less of it. For some products, we’ll change our behaviour significantly (holidays or books, perhaps). For other products, we just grit our teeth, hand over the credit card, and don’t manage to cut down our consumption much.…
Roading in Northland
There’s been quite a bit of discussion in the last week about roads in Northland following storm damage that saw part of State Highway 1 closed due to large washout. The severity of the slip saw traffic diverted on lengthy detours on roads clearly not designed to handle more than a handful of cars per day.…
Poll shows people want more spent on PT
Stuff have released the results of a poll they’ve conducted asking about transport funding.
Auckland has sent a clear message to the Government over its transport priorities: Give us better public transport rather than better roads.
The latest Stuff.co.nz-Ipsos poll found that nationally people wanted a government focus on better public transport over roads by a margin of 30 per cent to 24 per cent.…
Gerry’s strange RoNS justification
On Friday transport minister Gerry Brownlee spoke to the Road Transport Forum (RTF) on the government’s key transport priorities. Over the years the RTF have been a generous donor (not just to National) and have certainly received a transport policy very much tailored to their needs.…
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