Another Friday, another roundup. Autumn is starting to set in, certainly getting darker earlier but we hope you enjoy some of the stories we found interesting this week.
This week in Greater Auckland
- On Tuesday we ran a guest post from the wonderful Darren Davis about what’s happening with KiwiRail.
- Wednesday saw Connor gettng cross about Auckland Transport’s last minute redesigns of Project K.
- For Thursday, Matt ran through the big Easter shutdown of Auckland’s rail.
This weekly roundup, like all of 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 subscribe on Substack!
AT’s response to the Project K changes
Auckland Transport got back to us on a number of questions we had about their last-minute changes to the Karanga-ā-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project. Since Connor’s post on Wednesday, we’ve been hearing a lot more about these changes, including that the wholesale change was due to complaints from just three people. AT’s response feels to us like they’re treating these locals as more important than everyone else.
Auckland Transport sent us the following:
Project K – the Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project – will deliver transformation to the streets around the new Karanga-a-Hape station. The design continues to prioritise walking and cycling movement to and from the station.
The design includes significant pedestrian priority improvements, together with changes for other modes, including vehicles, to enable smooth access to and from the new station and maximise the benefits of the City Rail Link investment.
- Mercury Lane, between the Station and Karangahape Road will be transformed into a high-quality pedestrian priority shared space.
- Cross Street will remain open to one-way traffic enabling access and service for the station and adjacent homes and businesses.
- East Street will become a slow-speed street with two-way traffic flow, raised pedestrian crossing, chicane and speed humps.
- The existing dedicated cycleway on East Street will be replaced by a new separated cycleway on Mercury Lane linking to Te Ara i Whiti – The Lightpath and the Canada Street cycleway.
Auckland Transport developed changes to the design of the project in response to concerns raised by business owners and residents in the impacted area, during and following the public consultation on the design.
We now recognise that we need to take time to discuss and confirm the way forward, given the high level of interest. We could have done better at managing this process. We know we need to more clearly explain the rationale for proposed changes. We will involve the Local Board and stakeholders before confirming these plans. We will continue to hold Community Liaison Groups, which we have been doing regularly, to engage with people in the area.
We know there was strong support for the original design. We have taken that into account, alongside the specific feedback from locals about the aspects that impact them. Where changes have been made that add vehicle access, features have been added to ensure pedestrian safety is maintained as more people use the area.
AT needs to balance the needs of many groups – those who will visit, those who live in the area, and those who own businesses. To have a thriving K Road precinct also means having streets that support businesses and residents who need access by all modes. We need to consider circulation and loading spaces for delivery trucks and vans, and customers’ vehicles.
During the consultation, Karangahape Business Association, on behalf of its members, gave feedback that supported changes to the street layout to prioritise traffic accessing the local area, rather than traffic passing through. AT knows that construction over many years, and wider economic conditions, have made things tough for businesses. We take it seriously when local businesses tell us projects could impact them.
City Rail Link will bring transformational benefits to the city, especially areas near the new stations. However, this process will not be complete on opening day. The stations will attract ongoing private development and further changes to the area in the years to come, helping make the precincts more active and vibrant. Developments are likely on Canada Street, Cross Street and East Street, so some of the design changes were made to ensure we can make future changes easily.
Lovely Rainbow over the CRL Maungawhau Station
An interesting commute
A new series by 1News looks at how different people commute, and starts off with a bike to boat trip. Here’s a taster – the whole thing is a great read:
Each week ‘My Commute’ will look at how different Kiwis get to work each day. First up, Julie Hill, a journalist (and fiction writer), who commutes from her home in the inner-city Auckland suburbs to Waiheke Island. Here’s how she does it.
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I wake up just before dawn, which is when my master summons me to prepare his breakfast and if it’s not a specific flavour of Purina he’ll sulk. I try not to wake my boyfriend but usually fail. I make a pot of coffee, try to finish showering before it boils over, get dressed, ride my bike down the hill to the ferry building. By that time the sun is rising and Tāmaki Makaurau, you’ve been an absolute smoke show the last few mornings.
Who knew road cones weren’t the issue?
Brooke van Velden announced the government’s new ‘road cone’ hotline for people to complain about ‘excessive’ cone usage (the Mayor probably has it on speed dial already). Problem is, the industry say its pointless, given there is already ongoing work to change how traffic management occurs around projects. Also, amusingly John Major’s government did this in the UK in the 1990s and it seems to have been pointless there too.
But work had been underway for months in the road cone space to reduce their usage. The industry bodies behind that work say they fully agree with van Velden’s objectives, but fear the move could promote the very risks she is looking to reduce.
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An industry steering group came together in April 2023 to brainstorm a new code of practice for traffic management in New Zealand. Included in this new framework were new rules around road cones, which would allow work sites to take a risk-based approach to their distribution rather than following the broad-brush approach used for the past three decades.Clarke was one of the representatives on the steering group, and said the new rules began to roll out at the end of last year. So when van Velden took the national stage on Monday and directed public ire over road cones towards a self-reporting portal, Clarke was frustrated.
He described the traffic management company as the public-facing result of a construction company or council’s decision to undergo a given project, and said they had no control over how long these projects took. “It’s like asking the public to say, ‘Well, tell us about all the slow building projects you see out there’. It’s going to do no good,” Clarke said.
He told Newsroom the changes van Velden wanted to see – changes the industry supported – were already in progress.
New walkway (and cycleway, and seawall) linking Lower Hutt and Wellington
Otago Academic releases an app for finding playgrounds
Dr Bronwen McNoe from the University of Otago released an app showing more than 3550 playgrounds across the motu.
Created by Dr Bronwen McNoe, of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, the app contains filterable detailed information and photographs of every council managed playground in Aotearoa New Zealand.
“I thought this would be really valuable for parents and caregivers. The app can tell you which playgrounds offer good shade, as well as a wealth of details on play equipment such as pump tracks and flying foxes, and amenities such as public toilets and barbeque facilities.
“A great feature is that all this information is filterable – if your child loves diggers, you can easily find all the playgrounds in New Zealand that feature diggers,” she says.
Related: San Diego is turning a parking lane into a kid-friendly greenway with play equipment:
San Diego is replacing a lane of parking downtown with a greenway that will feature a row of trees, a rocking bench, and children’s play infrastructure. The single-block project is the second phase of the city’s effort to convert under-utilized public rights of way into pedestrian promenades on six downtown streets.
A great video on the cost and failures of roads
Some game-changing urban design ideas
Twelve different ideas from Street Art Utopia. What’s your favourite? Swings at bus stops seem very fun.
The week in road safety
First in New Zealand, tsunami drills in Canterbury failed because the person in charge was dealing with a car crash
Head of community support and partnerships John Filsell conceded it was unacceptable to have an emergency system so dependent on one person.
“The supplier was providing immediate response to a motor vehicle accident outside their property at the time of the test,” he said.
“We recognise that it is not acceptable to have a system that relies so heavily on one individual, which is why discussions are underway with our external supplier to ensure there are sufficient safeguards in the system to reduce the risk of this happening in the future.
“We are also currently reviewing the role of sirens in the tsunami warning system for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. The issues experienced on Sunday will form part of that review.”
Second, Bologna has released a report on the results of implementing 30km/h speed limits in the city. You’d hope our new Minister of Transport is across this sort of thing, before increasing speeds here.
https://bsky.app/profile/philippequirion.bsky.social/post/3lmbxnm6oos2d
Third, after a horrific car crash on Symonds St outside Auckland University last week, one of the victims – Associate Professor Vinod Suresh – is lucky to be alive, but dealing with serious injuries and facing a long road to healing. We wish him a full recovery.
The crash has had “devastating consequences” for Suresh, his wife and their two school-aged children.
“It’s an enormous [impact], and I don’t think there’s a way to quantify that experience in words.”
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Usually an active man, Suresh plays squash and is a volunteer leader for Sea Scouts.
“It’s not just one person, right? It’s like there’s a village, and the entire village is really affected,” his wife said.
Fourth, we noted in last week’s roundup that the Mayor had dialled in to a Council meeting while evidently driving. Police are looking into it. The Mayor has apologised, and wondered aloud why “the most important mayor in New Zealand” doesn’t get a chauffeur-driven vehicle (according to the story it’s there for the asking and could even be an EV).
Lastly, University of Auckland professor Tim Welch has created a road toll tracker that keeps track of how many days it’s been since a fatality on New Zealand’s roads. It also comes with a comprehensive dashboard.
In Christchurch, charging for parking got rid of the moochers
After Christchurch City Council started charging for parking around Hagley Park, the number of people parking there dropped. Funnily enough, this didn’t mean fewer visitors to the Botanical Gardens – but those who parked there and walked into town went somewhere else.
Might be something to try in Auckland? Perhaps overnight in the City Centre, or for Park and Ride?
The Christchurch City Council is making less than half the revenue it hoped to by introducing fees to 620 car parks around the gardens.
While a much emptier car park could indicate fewer people are visiting the gardens, figures provided to The Press show that is not the case, and people who use the grounds say they have stopped seeing people taking advantage by parking their cars there just to walk into town.
The world on wheels
Auckland Transport continues to quietly report on the automatic bike counters around the city. March 2025 saw a 17.5% increase on March 2024, and the year to March 2025 is up 5.9% on the previous 12-month period.
Matt will have more on this in a future post, but in the meantime the professors are on the job. Prof Tim Welch runs a dashboard here, and below is a graph of the Northwestern Cycleway counter at Kingsland, showing a full recovery from Covid disruptions. Onwards and upwards!
Green shoots – I ride the Northwestern Bike Path pretty much every workday, and traffic is ticking back up to pre-Covid levels…. Total growth in usage since it went live is over 350% — if you build good infrastructure it will get used 🙂
— Richard Easther (@rjme.bsky.social) 2025-04-10T10:29:21.761Z
And lastly, a gorgeous short video from traveler Tim Adriaansen, who enjoyed 64km of traffic-free streets in the weekly “ViaRecreActiva” of Guadalajara, Zapopan and Tlaquepaque. This has been running every Sunday for two decades and has grown to 100,000 participants each week.
“Via RecreActiva started around 2004. It started with a few kilometres and small expectations – but the first day was overcome with 3000 people more than expected. And we had to do it the next weekend, because the people kept asking for it.”
This could be us, Tāmaki Makaurau! We defy you to watch this video and not find yourself grinning.
That’s it from us – as always, share your links and thoughts below, and have a great weekend!
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I thought Project K was a Graham Dingle thing for at risk youth. When did AT pinch the name?
Great video on Te Ara Tupua, very excited to see this completing.
However the NZTA employee is not quite right about the funding sources. He says it is funded from fuel tax and Road Users Charges. That is only partially true.
First, the National Land Transport Fund is increasingly made up of crown grants and loans, so no project even fully funded by NZTA (and this isn’t) can claim to be being fully funded from road taxes.
Second, this project had a substantial injection of funds added to it from the cancelled Auckland Harbour Active Modes Bridge, $200m if I recall correctly (please correct me if you know – frustratingly the NZTA website has now been scrubbed clean of NZUP funding detail).
This is important, because there is a persistent myth that drivers fully fund the costs of transport. That has never been wholly true, but it is especially the case now.
Great to see Stuff has now moved on from attacking ‘anti car’ policies in Wellington and is focussing on Hamilton
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360648529/traffic-worse-auckland-new-zealands-most-anti-car-city
Stuff is worse than the Herald these days, utter dross.
indeed, that article is like a bingo of reckons. “I’m not opposed to public transport but…” , “think of the tradies”,
Having lived in the Central City for the majority of my adult life, I know what the worst thing to own is: a car.
That there are residents in this area that still demand car space is horrific. It is so easy to move around the city by multiple modes, without sitting behind a steering wheel, and far more relaxing not trying to parallel park etc.
One can only hope that the CRL will finally make a dent in this place’s automobile obsession and turn us into a city of the future, rather than one stuck with 1950s shortsightedness forever!
bah humbug
The Northwestern Cycleway (at least in the City-Pt Chev stretch) is having problems of success. It’s not wide enough to allow opposing streams of heavy bikes doing 30km/h+ to go past each other in safety. It’s hard to actually even get on the path – there need to be mirrors at some of the access points to enable you to see clearly who’s coming in both directions. And this is probably my most “conservative-coded” opinion, but I don’t think it’s safe to allow heavy e-bikes (like the ones which are closer to motorbikes, with the big wide tyres) or those capable of cruising at 40km/h+ plus on a cycleway.
Actually shared path – most of the way. So even more unsafe…
This came up a couple of weeks ago — there’s a *ped only* bit near a cycle way that everyone rides on. (It’s too narrow to even walk two abreast.)
The responses on the blog were:
* BuT cArS!!1!
* BlAmE tHe CoUnCiL fOr NoT gIvInG bIkEs MoRe StUfF!
* I cAn RiDe 40 Km/Hr On ShArEd PaThS!!1!
People on the blog only support pedestrian initiatives when it punishes cars, but not if it impedes cyclists…
Probably cause most people here bike, and don’t want to be slowed down…
Presuming you’re talking about the bridge at the end of Ngapipi Rd, then yeah that’s a magnet for disobedience (as are “Cyclist Dismount” signs in general.)
I would argue that you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place there though. Riding through when there’s a pedestrian is very intimidating for everyone, but dismounting means that you have to sidle along the edge of the path, putting one of you even closer to traffic than you would have been otherwise (remember that a dismounted cyclist is larger than a mounted one.) There just isn’t enough space to support all the uses.
In general, you’ll see most people support sacrificing car space because 1. it’s what we’ve got the most of and 2. they (generally) create more negative externalities than other modes, even if they’re absolutely necessary.
You have missed out the option of following the law and riding on the road…
But, you’re also missing the behavioral side. If most cyclists pulled out of the way/didn’t overtake (or at a minimal, slowed down to jogging pace), then I wouldn’t really care. For a space that bikes even aren’t allowed to be — that seems very reasonable. I’m not an absolute jerk.
But most don’t (cause it’s at the bottom of a large hill, and we want to maintain our speed).
Of course, that’s not the only ped part on that path people ride over — I’ve almost been hit several times by cyclists riding in the ped lane at the Orakei station lights (they can save 2 seconds by not riding in the bike part).
The section of board walk under repair is also marked as ped only.
Again, if we slowed down and rode with respect through a part we’re not allowed to be, it’s fine. But we dont — we act like the cars we complain about.
If you think it’s scary for bikes, try being a pedestrian on the shared path! Most of us bikes barely slow down.
Very simply, the design for widening the NW path to separate fast bikes from slow path users and improve the safety of the access points ought to be funded by NZTA so that community wishes can be met.
Very simply, people should ride to the conditions.
We wouldn’t accept someone from the AA saying ‘BlAmE tHe GoVt FoR nOt BuIlDiNg WiDeR rOAdS!!!1!’ — so we shouldn’t accept it here.
If you want to change people’s behaviour, change their environment.
Of course, we should do both!
But in the meantime, people should ride to the conditions. This is a change that happen *today*, *for free*!
You wouldn’t make such excuses for drivers — why do you do that for bikes?
As a person who bikes and jogs, I have more near misses running on shared paths, than I do biking on the road. This is a culture problem that no one (not even the leading blog for Active Modes) seems to care about…
Guadalajara is an amazing city. I was there for a few days in late 2023 and was very impressed with its cycle infrastructure. There were plenty of examples where it looked like they had removed on street parking and chucked in some concrete seperators in quick-win type works, and lots of people cycling and using the local bikeshare scheme.
The letter from the editor to Waikato Times subscribers for Wednesday has an item:
“Not in my suburb (can’t blame them)
The people who make up the Guardians of Claudelands group are no slugs (as my mother used to say) when it comes to getting what they want.
They haven’t quite achieved their aim to keep the streets of Claudelands nicely contained within the “Heritage Status” designation, but they are determined to fight KO’s recent court challenge. Let’s face it who wants a KO multiplex next door and all the attendant issues that go with that.”
…
Jonathan MacKenzie Editor
Apart from the fact that it is bad English to write “issues” when you mean “problems” the editor seems to think it is okay to say nasty things about people who are renting. He has made similar statements before in his newsletter.
Hamilton is also a city where council members think paving over part of the Botanical Gardens to extend free (to users) carparking is a positive step.
Sealing the grassed areas at Hamilton Gardens which have been used exclusively for car parking for years would indeed be a positive step. Especially if you’re trying to manoeuvre a wheelchair around in them.
Some user pays to encourage people to walk there or take the bus to the gardens would be even better.
Scrapping the barrel using Bogota as an example – there are many examples elsewhere (look at Wales – UK in general) where low speed zones have increased congestion, travel times and minimal impact on accidents. Hosking a few years back reported on a study that showed right here in AKL while the average speed had dropped accidents increased.
Clutching at straws – Then using percentages – 17.5% increase – where are the absolute numbers – 20 more people using automatic bike counters is insignificant in a city of 1.8 million where over 90% of trips across the week are by private vehicle.
Where are you getting your information from? The Welsh 20mph speed limit reduced death and injuries by 26%. That is not a “minimal impact”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cydvr2rnm4ro
Its hard to measure in a way. For example the increase in driving time from 30mph to 20mph is 50%, so you could argue 26% isn’t great.
What makes it harder to evaluate is whether there is enough enforcement. You can lower the speed limit all you want, but if no one is enforcing it it won’t have much affect. In NZ I haven’t seen speed cameras in 30kmh zones despite the fact the vast majority are speeding.
“the increase in driving time from 30mph to 20mph is 50%” – my bad its 33%. But you could get there 50% quicker at 30mph than 20mph.
That’s only true if everyone is driving continuously at 30mph and then is suddenly doing a constant 20.
Most 30mph roads are in urban areas. They have roundabouts, traffic lights, traffic jams, give ways, stop signs and other non-continuous elements.
The change in the maximum permissable speed from 30 to 20 will have very little impact on overall journey times, particularly over short urban distances.
Paradise_City good point. I just posted as I was a little underwhelmed by that 26%. Although it may only be a 2mph or 3mph reduction without enforcement, I certainly see people still driving at 50kmh+ in our new 30kmh zones.
Also even if it doesn’t save lives, it does encourage other forms of mobility. Cycling (and even walking) beside people doing 30kmh definitely feels a lot safer and nicer than 50kmh.
A challenge to you Graham.
You have made one very specific claim that the low speed zones have had minimal impact on accidents in Wales.
Produce evidence please.
Because an internet search says that the 20mph speed limits reduced claims in Wales to vehicle insurer ensure limited by 20% resulting in motorists there being able to look forward to an average reduction of £50 a year in their premiums.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jan/18/uk-20mph-speed-limits-car-insurance-costs-premiums.
Across the entire Welsh vehicle fleet this cost saving must be more then can be obtained by any timesaving of any higher peak speeds obtained in any journey.
Even more when you consider that vehicle accidents are a major contributor to road journey disruptions. So less, and less severe accidents equates to less time lost from this cause.
And certainly, I would rather like my car insurance to reduce by $100 per year in return for less vroom vroom. And enjoy some fuel cost reductions as well.
Watched very interesting video “The Surprising Success of Gondola Transit Systems”, well in Latin America anyway, how well it works in this niche setting generally. Normally just a tourist thing for other parts of the world. Paris has one though that might be interesting to see how that works once complete. Does point out there fixed capacity though at peaks times, you will get queues (can’t just put more buses/trains on type thing).
Is it not possible to make the gondolas longer? Like 10 of them joined together? Is it a weight issue?
10 people per 12 seconds, that’s a bus every minute isn’t it? So similar capacity to a busway?
How do you get people to board if a gondola arrives every 12 seconds?
Maybe try really long gondolas for 100 people, then you can run them only every 5 minutes. Of course, they would be quite heavy. So instead of suspending them, maybe but them on some kind of guiding track system on the ground instead? They could even run on roads or underground if needed.
Yes, exactly, I’m sure they have tried to work out the best efficiency before. An optimised throughput would only suit a certain capacity then you hit the ceiling (not even considering price). You could run them several in parallel but then by then you should have a busway or whatever.
It is nonsensical to equate the percentage altering of the legal speed limit to an equivalent alteration in journey time.
The alteration of speed limit only applies to the peak speed that can be legally accomplished in a journey. For most journeys the time travelling at that peak allowed speed is only a small portion of journey time. So any time saving can only be accomplished in the time spent travelling between those two limits, and this will not all be achievable at the higher legal speed limit.
Speaking from recent experience the recent 60-80 rise on Te Irirangi Dr has made a colossal difference to travel times along that road. Not just the higher speeds but you hit more Green lights travelling at 80 as opposed to the ideological 60. I think SCATS is coordinated for travelling at 80 or 60 for the other arterials as they didn’t actually expect anyone to slow down, I was one of the few compliant idiots who actually followed the lower limits and paid the price in travel times. Honestly I’m not willing to slow down again so even though I doubt labour will allow those arterials to be dropped again given it’s such a huge vote loss but if they do I suppose I’ll get a Radar Detector and just drive the same speed as everyone else.
“A great video on the cost and failures of roads”
Love it.
The issue is that in a car dominant society its a long slog out of it. Its quick and easy to change transport pricing, but land use changes are very slow.