Greens Transport Policy for 2020

With the election date getting closer, yesterday the Greens released their transport policy, and there’s a lot to like with it. Like you’d expect based on their previous policies, the focus of the policy is on reducing emissions and improving safety as well as public health and that these goals can be achieved by making it easier and more attractive to use non-car modes and reducing emissions for the wider vehicle fleet. …
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Northwest Bus improvements detailed

Auckland has certainly seen its fair share of short sighted transport decisions over the decades and one of the most significant recent ones was that a busway wasn’t included alongside the Northwestern motorway at the same time as we were widening it as part of the Western Ring Route project.…
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Rail Harbour Crossing Route Options

The discussion surrounding another harbour crossing has unsurprisingly been running hot over the last week or so given the current issue with the Harbour Bridge. It’s been reported that Waka Kotahi NZTA has completed a new indicative business case for the project but that they’re not releasing the results of it just yet.…
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Flashback Saturday: Improving the Northern Busway

On the weekend we dig into the archives. This post was first published in June 2009. By all accounts Auckland’s Northern Busway has been a huge success since it opened in February last year. The graph below shows quite clearly how its patronage has continued to rise in recent months: with March 2009 being up significantly on March 2008 (even though the full busway was open by March 2008).…
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Weekly Roundup – 25-Sep-20

Here’s our weekly roundup Rosedale Busway Station Good news on Monday with Waka Kotahi NZTA announcing that resource consent had been granted for the new Rosedale Busway station which will be on the busway extension from Constellation to Albany and is currently under construction.…
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Waihorotiu / Queen St Valley pilot coming

The Council’s updated City Centre Masterplan (CCMP) creates a fantastic vision for how the city centre will develop over the coming 20 years. One of the key transformational moves is about making Waihorotiu / Queen St Valley more people friendly, saying: CCMP seeks to bring new life into the heart of the city with a revitalised, pedestrian-priority Queen Street.…
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The Harbour Bridge Response

Work started last night on a temporary fix for the Harbour Bridge in the hopes of at least getting another two lanes open until a more permanent solution can be installed. While there’s obviously plenty more work to go till things are back to normal, one thing that’s impressed me so far is how Waka Kotahi NZTA and Auckland Transport have responded.…
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Upcoming PT changes

Last Friday, Auckland Transport announced a raft of upcoming changes to public transport services, primarily in a bid to save $10 million as a result of the Council’s emergency budget. But sometimes budgetary pressures can be a positive thing if it makes you address long standing issues and that seems to be at least some of what’s happening here.…
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Harbour Bridge Damage implications

By now I’m sure most have seen the news about the Auckland Harbour Bridge being damaged after a 127 km/h gust of wind blew over two trucks, including one that hit a load-bearing upright strut on the superstructure. As is always the case these days it seems, it was even caught on camera.…
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