Weekly Roundup 7-March-2025

The first Friday of March, and it’s definitely been madder on the transport network this week. Here’s some things we saw this week that were interesting.

This week in Greater Auckland

• On Monday Connor did a deep dive into Auckland’s speed limit reversals.
• For Tuesday saw Connor follow up with a guide on different ways you can push back on the speed reversals.
• On Wednesday Matt took a look at Auckland Transport’s realisation of the impacts from the governments fare revenue targets.
• With the legislation for Time of Use charging passing its first reading in parliament this week, Thursday had Matt look at the legislation and it’s potential issues.

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!

Mayor’s study says congestion costs Auckland $2.6 billion per year

Wayne Brown commissioned a study on the cost of congestion, finding Aucklanders will waster over 17 hours in traffic each year by 2026.

The costs incurred from delays caused by traffic would be $1.9 billion dollars, and macro-economic costs, $0.7 billion, were projected to add up to $2.6 billion a year by 2026.

Brown said traffic costs businesses and Aucklanders alike, and it needed to be fixed to get growth in the city.

“A Time of Use Charge will enable people to think of other ways to travel, like public transport, carpooling or driving outside rush hour.

“Reducing Auckland’s congestion will mean that truckies can deliver more freight on less trucks, and tradies can spend more time on the job, rather than sitting in traffic.

“If we’re going to achieve the growth the government wants, we need to fix this now.”

New York Congestion Pricing improving economy as well as traffic

In another success story of congestion (time of use) charging, MTA found New York is thriving.

Lower Manhattan’s economy has gotten an almost billion-dollar boost in just the first month of congestion pricing’s existence, the MTA said on Wednesday.

During a presentation on congestion pricing at the agency’s monthly board meeting, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber noted that, according to Affinity, a credit card sales data aggregator, retail sales south of 60th Street have been $900 million higher in January 2025 compared to the same period last year.

In addition, restaurant reservations are up 7 percent year over year, according to restaurant reservation app Open Table.

“For all of the Chicken Littles out there, the economy in the congestion zone has been humming,” Lieber said.

CRL Testing in Full Swing, check out this video from Britomart

The testing is also going well, as per CRL ltd’s LinkedIn.

The team has just run another series of tests, this time focusing on the train’s holding brake and parking brake. The holding brake keeps the train stationary during temporary stops, such as at stations or during operations, while the parking brake is used for long-term stability when the train is stabled or unattended.

Both tests were passed with flying colours. The holding brake test showed that at half power, the train stayed in place, which meant a full-power test wasn’t needed. The parking brake test was also successful – once applied, the train didn’t move, even when some brakes were manually released, holding firm for a full 60 minutes. The images capture key moments from the stationary train tests.

And a previously unknown feature, the stations include dog drinking fountains

Paid parking at Albany Station

Finding space at park and rides can sometimes be a challenge and there are regularly calls for lots more of it, despite it costing a lot of money to provide. We’ve long supported the idea of managing parking and it looks like AT are finally going to trial it at Albany. But why only 58 spaces, and while not far, these aren’t even the closest spaces to the station.

Pre-booked parking

Demand for parking at Albany park and ride is extremely high. Nearly all parking spaces are full by about 8am.

You have told us you want to:

• use park and rides later in the day
• know if there are spaces available
• book online.

We have chosen to pilot pre-bookable parking spaces at Albany park and ride from early March 2025. Changes to how we manage park and rides were part of our Room to Move strategy, published in 2023.

For $9 a day, you’ll be able to book certain parking spaces on the AT Park mobile app before you arrive.

There are 58 parking spaces available for pre-booking each day. They are a short 2-minute walk to the bus station. All other park and ride spaces will remain free for people to use.

How it will work

Only 58 of the 1210 parking spaces will be available for pre-booking. You must use the AT Park app to pre-book a space using the area code 21106. Spaces can be booked up to 5 working days in advance.

Weekday bookings (Monday to Friday) will cost $9 per session. Each session lasts a full day, from 12:01am to 11:59pm. Payment will be taken at the time of booking. It is non-refundable, unless you are stopped from using your booking due to a fault by AT. Customers can only book one parking space per day. Weekends and public holidays are free but a booking will still need to be made.

No evidence for Speed reversals, but a lot of sarcasm from Hayden Donnell

Great piece by Timothy Welch in The Conversation on the complete lack of economical sense of the governments speed increases

A comprehensive economic assessment prepared by engineering consulting firm WSP for the NZTA in March 2024 (later released under the Official Information Act) analysed the impact of previous speed limit changes implemented between 2020 and 2023 (with one dating back to 2011). It found the reductions delivered substantial economic benefits to New Zealand.

For road corridors with reduced speed limits, nearly 27 fewer deaths and serious injuries per year were recorded: “The crash cost savings generally outweigh the travel time disbenefits by a factor of 2 to 10 (or more).”

In other words, for every dollar lost in slightly increased travel times, the report estimates New Zealand gains between NZ$2 and $10 in reduced crash costs.

For a different vibe, Hayden Donnell is excited to accelerate past schools again, dangerous speeds are the aim!

For me though, the announcement was cause for jubilation. After several years of being held down by the woke anti-child death lobby, I’m finally able to go back to my favourite pastime of hooning at dangerous speeds on roads near primary, intermediate, or occasionally high schools.

Trash Revolution taking over New York’s kerbs

A pilot program is seeing collectives apartment bins on the streets of one Manhattan Suburb, copying commonplace ways other countries collect rubbish.

A subset of buildings whose owners got to choose between containers in the street or wheelie bins on the sidewalk mostly also went for repurposing some car storage with better trash collection — an indication that locals (or at least the owners of their buildings) are ready for a better way of rubbish disposal, said an area politician.

“The bins came, people are seeing a difference, and they want to see more of it,” said Council Member Shaun Abreu, referring to an earlier, smaller pilot. “This is a necessary public good and it’s going to come at the expense of parking spots, and that’s a cost-benefit analysis that I’m willing to push forward on any given day.”

Turns out Wellington’s great at street festivals

Emma Ricketts has a chat to find out why the capital is so good at throwing street parties, here’s one excerpt.

As the man leading the team that supports Wellington’s many events, Stephen Blackburn knows what he is talking about when it comes to the city’s street festivals. He would never choose a favourite – saying they are all unique and exciting in their own way. But he can see why the capital is the perfect place for them to thrive.

“The city has lots of small, open spaces that are very linked to their local communities. It makes them ideal spaces to turn into festivals,” he said, adding that all of the city’s most successful street events have grown out of smaller, community-organised beginnings.

Even an Aucklander has to admit they can throw a good street bash as Lyric Waiwiri-Smith writes for the Spinoff, so why can’t we go bigger and better in Auckland?

Te Huia

A great little video about using Te Huia to travel to and from Hamilton.

And on Te Huia, usage is continuing to grow.

A good reminder about just one of the double standards that exist in transport.

Reminder that a lot of motorists expect a bunch of people from cyclists to kids in walking school buses to wear hi-vis clothing.Meanwhile

— Andrew W (aw@mastodon.nz, aw_nz@twitter.com) (@awnz.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T17:37:05.789Z

Have a great weekend.

Share this