Weekly Roundup 21-February-2025

It’s Friday and we’re getting closer to March Madness when our transport system is at it’s busiest. Before then, here are some of the things that caught our attention this week.

This week in Greater Auckland

• On Monday Matt covered the first test train through the CRL.
• For Tuesday we ran a guest post from Nick Reid on how well NZs rail network serves the country.
• On Wednesday Matt looked at the plans for Pūmanawa Downtown West, the downtown carpark replacement.

This post, like all our work, is brought to you by the Greater Auckland crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like to support our work, you can join our circle of supporters here, or support us on Substack!

Go the Whau!

A nice aerial view of progress along Te Whau Pathway – a handy new piece of the walking and cycling network that’s quietly taking shape just off the SH16 Causeway. Funding for this work just squeaked in under the last government.

One day we’ll also have continuous protected bike lanes on the nearby arterials, enabling people to easily bike to and between shops, the many local schools, rapid transit and other local amenities. In the meantime, this “backwater” connection will provide a useful off-road link (a blue-greenway, as it were), and also give people a front-row view of the Whau River and its ecosystem, inspiring more efforts to restore this vital Westie waterfront.

The case for safer speeds continues to grow

Tragic news last week from Wairarapa wine country, after a visiting tourist was killed and other members of the party seriously injured when a car hit the hired four-person bike they were riding on. As RNZ reports, this took place on a road where locals – including local businesses – had long called for safer, saner speeds, to protect visitors and residents alike.

The 100km/h road – at the heart of the town’s wine tourism industry and the scene of the fatal crash – was among a handful of roads the Wairarapa Wine Group argued should be dropped to 50km/h, in a submission to the council seven years ago.

The submission also called for a cycle and pedestrian lane along Pūruatanga Road, and wanted the council to seek funding from Tourism New Zealand and the government to make it happen.

Among the road safety demands was the request for additional signage to boost awareness among the community and visitors – “this needs to be in place by September 2018”.

It’s a tragedy this advice wasn’t heeded, and more evidence – as if it was needed – that the National-led coalition government’s unilateral jacking up of speeds will be devastating for communities, and for productivity.

It’s also concerning to see South Wairarapa mayoral hopeful (and ex Wellington Mayor) Fran Wilde apparently scoffing at the idea of a dedicated bike path – unless she means to say the roads in question should immediately be 30km/h, the universally acknowledged maximum speed at which to expect people on foot and wheels to share the road with vehicles.

[Wilde] said the crash was devastating and a major blow to a region that relied on tourism.

She said reducing the speed limit should be looked at “immediately” because all it took was a second’s inattention for tragedy to strike.

“I don’t think it’s a sort of issue that needs to take a long time…. there’s no need to drag it out for years.”

Wilde said a cycleway was expensive and unnecessary if the speed limit was to be dropped.

“Bugger the cycleway, just put them all together and slow them down.”

Meanwhile, New Plymouth’s Mayor says if the government want faster speeds, they can pay for it.

The New Plymouth mayor has described compulsory changes to speed limits outside schools as “ideologically-driven nonsense” that will cost ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and jeopardise child safety.

The government is requiring streets outside schools with permanent 30kmh speed limits revert to variable speed limits, allowing speeds of 50kmh outside pick-up and drop-off times by July 2026.

Rural roads that were outside schools would be required to have variable speed limits of 60kmh or less.

New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom told an extraordinary council meeting the move was baffling.

“This is a bit of policy that is ideologically driven nonsense. There is no scientific basis for these moves whatsoever.”

To comply with the law, councillors voted to “consider” variable limits outside 15 schools at a cost of $287,000 – on the condition new electronic signage and road markings were 100 percent transport agency funded.

A council report said implementing variable speed limits outside all 27 affected schools in the district would cost $920,000.

Why we shouldn’t “bugger the cycleways”

“It’s the economy, stupid”. A nifty calculator from the Rocky Mountain Institute lays out all the tangible benefits of e-bikes to cities and the people who live there. Heads up Auckland Council, and also central government: this might help you balance your budgets – including the health budget.

Stakeholders can use the calculator to see the following:

1. The city and statewide annual impacts of replacing a percentage of short vehicle trips with e-bike trips (either over a period of 10 years or through an immediate shift).
2. The impacts of potential city or state e-bike incentive programs (using inputs such as the total budget, timeline, and the portion of incentives for income-qualified participants).
3. How increased e-bike adoption will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and carbon monoxide; and vehicle miles traveled.
4. The degree to which reductions in PM2.5 might help prevent deaths and work absences due to illnesses related to PM2.5.
5. Expected electricity costs associated with e-bike charging, expected maintenance costs, and related savings.
6. Statewide projections on EV adoption across three scenarios (business as usual, mid growth, and climate aligned) and how e-bike efforts can complement electrification efforts and reduce dependency on internal combustion engine vehicles.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe: the British government is investing nearly £300 million in funding to boost walking, wheeling and cycling in England, with an eye to sustainable travels and health benefits. The programme aims to deliver:

• 300 miles of brand new footpaths and cycle tracks will help encourage 30 million more journeys by bike or foot every year
• new guidance to help councils engage and ensure local communities are involved in new projects
• funding will lead to 43,000 less [Ed: fewer!] sick days a year to ease pressure on the NHS and help deliver government mission of building an NHS fit for the future

And how’s this for a great video from the team at The War on Cars.

CRL Testing and Kiwirail Addendum

CRL have published a few videos from the driver of the first test train

Kiwirail have published a video recapping some of the work they got up to over the Christmas/New Year shutdown

No more free PT for Blues games

AT surely have this data, or is it a case that the Blues can’t get enough people to watch the games to just the cost? Not wanting to fund services with all of the network disruption planned is understandable though.

Local MP Helen White says the ending of free public transport for Blues games at Eden Park is “out of touch” with what people want.

The Blues kick off their new season with a blockbuster fixture against the Chiefs on Saturday night. But unlike in recent years, fans going to the game will no longer be able to travel there and back for free on buses and trains.

White, the Labour MP for Mt Albert, says the change is disappointing as this could lead to more people coming to the game by car and clogging up the roads.

…..

It is up to the individual sports or concert promoter to partly finance the free public transport for events at the stadium, rather than Eden Park or Auckland Council, and the Blues had been co-funding this service with Auckland Transport.

Blues CEO Andrew Hore confirmed they have decided not to do this for 2025.

“There are several reasons including the increasing high cost of providing free transport, and that train services will be severely disrupted for at least two matches, and at other times, during the season,” Hore said.

…..

Hore said there had been a lack of information provided about how many spectators were utilising the free public transport.

“There has been limited data from Auckland Transport on the numbers who utilise the option of free travel to ascertain an accurate cost-benefit analysis,” he said.

…..

AT’s event planning lead Todd Hurley explained the finances involved in co-funding this service for fans.

“Costs for co-funding public transport to events vary depending on the crowd size but generally range from $1.40 – $2.20 per attendee, which AT pays half of. So this previously worked out to a cost for the Blues ranging from $0.70 to $1.10 per attendee,” Hurley said.

Auckland’s other big tunneling project

The Spinoff reports that the first part of Auckland’s other big tunneling project has gone live.

First proposed in 2004, the Central Interceptor pipe is expected to reduce at least 80% of the wastewater overflows that pollute Auckland’s beaches. Built to handle most of the city’s waste water, it’s intended to last for at least a century as Aotearoa’s biggest city continues to grow. My route, skirting around the back of Mount Albert, over Hillsborough and crossing the water to Māngere, was roughly the same as that of the tunnel being drilled to house the giant pipe, but with a better view. The pipe will end at Point Erin, just underneath the city end of Auckland’s Harbour Bridge: the tunnel boring machine is currently somewhere under Jervois Quay in Herne Bay, and the pipe will be operational by 2026.

But while the further end of the interceptor pipe is still under construction, the first half is ready to go now. When I reached the wastewater treatment plant, which is next to Ambury Regional Park, there was a steady trickle of people, half in hi-vis jumpsuits and half in business casual, trickling towards the “dry well”: a 40-metre-deep hole in the ground where the Central Interceptor terminates.

What if …

A neat tool that allows you to transpose a range of rail systems from other cities/countries over a map. Here are a couple of examples.

Moving Kumeu?

RNZ reports:

A proposal to shift Kumeū’s town centre over a number of years was revealed to the community by the Auckland Council on Monday night.

The Kumeū and Huapai area has a repeated history of flooding – and while infrastructure proposals were also put forward, community leaders are advocating for the shift.

Ward councillor Greg Sayer told Morning Report the northwest Auckland township was very concerned.

“There was about 200 people at the meeting last night, very concerned property owners both in terms of their land values and their properties flooding more and more as the years go past as we get heavier rain fall.

The Auckland council was sent away to investigate how the flooding could be prevented.

At the meeting on Monday night they presented their options – drilling a tunnel, building a dam and widening the river. All options, Sayer said, were not viable solutions.

“What they reported – probably to the disappointment to the crowd there last night – was that none of the solutions reported last night would drop the flood level by over a metre, which is required to actually stop that flooding.”

Finally, here’s a neat video from Brett McKenzie on councillors falling in love at a council transport debate.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bret McKenzie (@bretrospective)

Have a great weekend.

Share this