It’s another wet Friday so here are a few stories to read while you (hopefully) avoid the rain.
This Week in Greater Auckland
- On Monday, Matt covered Auckland Transport’s latest plans for speeding up buses on Dominion Rd.
- For Wednesday, Matt looked at what is happening with ridership on our PT network.
- On Thursday, Matt reviewed the plans for removing level crossings at three train stations.
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!
GA’s presentation to Council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee on Project K
Connor presented at public input to Councillors yesterday about Auckland Transport’s last-minute changes to the Karanga-a-Hape Station precinct integration project.
It seems like nothings set in stone yet with the project, so there’s a chance to return to a good outcome.
You can check out the presentation here:
John Key on the origins of the CRL
The Herald’s Simon Wilson reports on how the last national government finally agreed to approve the City Rail Link.
How did the City Rail Link (CRL), New Zealand’s most expensive transport project, get approved in 2016, when the Government’s priority was to pay off debt?
Sir John Key, Prime Minister at the time, spilled the beans at a breakfast event yesterday marking the first 15 years of Auckland as a Super City.
“Probably the biggest problem,” said Key, “was getting it past Bill English and Steven Joyce.”
English was the Finance Minister and Joyce the Minister for Economic Development. Simon Bridges, Key’s Transport Minister at the time and also a speaker at the breakfast, backed him up.
“I think of the CRL as having three parents,” Bridges said. “Me, Len Brown and Sir John Key.”
Brown was the first mayor of the Super City in 2010, serving two terms until he retired in 2016.
“Len was on at me all the time,” said Bridges, “and when I got it, it was clear Bill English and Steven Joyce were a lost cause. So I went to Sir John and wore him down. My point is that you need to be meeting, all the time. Central government and local government need to be talking.”
GI to Tamaki Dr Stage 4
Auckland is one step closer to having a safe, accessible and iconic path connecting the Eastern Bays and city centre as work begins on the final stage of Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai – the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive shared path.
Jointly funded by the Government and Auckland Council, the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Dr shared path – ‘Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai’ (the path of land and sea) is a 7km path that connects Glen Innes, Meadowbank, Kohimarama with the city centre via Ōrākei Basin, Hobson Bay and Tāmaki Drive.
Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson, Minister for Auckland Simeon Brown Ōrākei Local Board Chairperson Scott Milne and Deputy Chair Sarah Powrie, and AT Board Chair Richard Leggat gathered in Ōrākei earlier this afternoon to turn the first sod for the shared path’s vital final stage.
Works on the fourth and final section, an 870m concrete boardwalk in Hobson Bay next to Ngapipi Road, began this week and will take around 20 months to complete. This final section will replace the temporary walking and cycling path on Ngapipi Road installed as an interim measure to offer a safer link to Tāmaki Drive.
The History of the Road Cone
An interesting piece from Wellington City Council on the history of the road cone.
In the 1940s, across the world in the city of Los Angeles, a street painter named Charles D. Scanlon designed a hollow conical marker to stop cars from driving over his wet paint.
His objectives were to make something recognisable; while making sure it caused no damage to any vehicle if it were to make contact with it. He also wanted it to be easy to transport, stackable with minimum storage required.
His solution? The road cone.
The road cone has gone through many iterations, including the development of its colour. A lot of colours were already associated with traffic, such as red for stop and ‘danger’, and yellow for waiting or slowing down. Orange proved to be the appropriate choice.
Neil Young’s pro-electric vehicle anthem
What city do your travel patterns match?
An interesting little tool comparing travel patterns in various cities
Funding Te Huia
A proposed “gamechanger” Sunday service for Te Huia would be part-funded by Auckland if Waikato Regional Council had its way.
There’s a little over a year left in the trial of the inter-regional rail service, meaning start-up funding from NZ Transport Agency is due to dry up mid-2026.
Waikato Regional Council has plans “to ensure Te Huia’s continued success and growth”, chairperson Pamela Storey says, hence asking Auckland Council to stump up with $223,000.
“Introducing this [Sunday service] for the final year of the trial would be a gamechanger, opening up even more opportunities for leisure, tourism, and family visits between the two regions,” Storey said.
And while some in Auckland don’t want to see the train stop “for the want of a relatively small subsidy”, there’s caution about committing to funding.
The Hamilton-Auckland rail service is currently funded by a mix of passenger fares and public money.
The $223,000 requested from Auckland represents half the cost of a year-long trial of having the train run on Sundays.
Patrick is quoted in the article saying
On the issue of funding, “the short answer” was “yes”, said Reynolds, who’s running for Auckland Council this year.
“About 20% of the users of Te Huia are Aucklanders, and obviously the train goes between Auckland and Hamilton.”
But, he’d rather see the Government subsidise the service.
“It’s a drop in the bucket of NZTA’s budget.”
If Waikato and Auckland step up to fund the service next year, he said the risk was the Government “never would”.
“But for me, it would be a far greater tragedy if it stops just for the want of a relatively small subsidy, or if they squeeze the ticket prices.”
He said Te Huia was still in its trial stage, so expecting users to pay more on fares wasn’t justifiable.
“The journey is quite long and the service is infrequent, it’s not a premium product, so you can’t charge a lot.”
“This was always set up as a start-up service to get it going.”
Supercharge Sprawl?
Newsroom took a look at the progress on the government’s promise to abolish Auckland’s rural-urban boundary. Thankfully there doesn’t appear to be a lot of progress so far on it but Matt had a few comments about the idea.
Matt Lowrie, a director and spokesperson for urban advocacy group Greater Auckland, told Newsroom there was no need to abolish the boundary, when it could already be amended through private plan changes from developers.
Instead, Lowrie believed the bigger contributor to stalled development and increased house prices was the high cost of infrastructure provision, which would only worsen if the boundary was removed.
“If you remove the urban boundary, infrastructure providers then have no clear idea of where development’s going to occur, so it’s much harder for them to plan…
If you think about something like [Auckland’s council-owned water services company] Watercare, if there’s potentially subdivisions popping up all over the place … how do they do that when they’re also trying to do all the other things that they’re needing to do?”
There had been cases of new developments needing to have sewage trucked away while a permanent sewerage network was built, while increased congestion and roading improvements also needed to be carefully planned for.
“We’re seeing that when the actual cost of infrastructure is put onto developers and onto future homeowners, they baulk at the idea – they don’t like the idea of it happening and a lot of business models are set up on being able to basically charge everyone else for that,” Lowrie said.
The most effective change the Government could make would be amending special character zones and other restrictions in existing urban areas of Auckland that were restricting development.
We did find this response funny though.
NZ Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton told Newsroom the rural-urban boundary “has to matter” for prices, although it was difficult to identify the exact effect through empirical research.
Crampton has been one of the key advocates for removing the boundary and him suggesting it “has to matter” despite there being no evidence it does (confirmed to us by others who have looked at it), confirms that this largely about ideology.
NZTA’s Safety Camera rollout
New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) will roll out its first mobile safety camera next week – the next step in the transition of safety camera operations from NZ Police to NZTA.
As part of the change, for the first time in New Zealand speeding vehicles will be detected by cameras operating in cars (SUVs), alongside the vans which NZ Police have traditionally used. Later this year NZTA will also add trailers to the fleet of safety camera vehicles.
A camera-equipped Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) will be parking up on roadsides across Auckland from next Tuesday (13 May) to improve safety for all road users by detecting drivers exceeding speed limits. In the coming months, it will be joined by other SUVs and trailers as NZTA expands its mobile safety camera operations across the country to a total of 44 mobile cameras – 35 of which will be operating at any given time.
…..
From 1 July 2025, NZTA will be responsible for the operation of all safety cameras and NZ Police will no longer operate their mobile safety camera vans.
And last week it was that they’d started work on installing average speed cameras.
New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) will begin construction of a new pair of average speed safety cameras to improve safety on Pine Valley Road, in Dairy Flat Auckland, from next week.
NZTA Auckland and Northland Director of Regional Relationships, Steve Mutton, says the safety cameras aim to significantly reduce the number of people traveling over the speed limit on this road and lessen the likelihood of a serious or fatal crash.
…..
“In June 2024 we ran a speed survey on this stretch of road that showed around 74 percent of drivers were speeding. Despite the 80 km/h speed limit, the average speed vehicles were travelling was almost 90 km/h.
“There were three crashes between 2018 and 2023 that resulted in people receiving serious, and potentially life changing, injuries.”
One camera will be installed near the Kahikatea Flat Road intersection and the other near the Pine Valley Road roundabout.
When installed, the two cameras will work together, measuring the average speed drivers travel between them. Drivers will only be ticketed if their average travel speed over the entire distance between the two cameras is over the limit – they aren’t ‘pinged’ by a single camera or at a single point where they are over the speed limit.
“We know that average speed safety cameras are more effective at reducing deaths and serious injuries than the traditional speed cameras we’ve had in New Zealand. We expect they will reduce deaths and serious injuries by around 48 percent,” says Mr Mutton.
…..
NZTA is expecting to begin operating its first average speed safety cameras at Matakana Road, Warkworth, later this year, and will progressively bring other average speed safety cameras online in the following months.
Have a great weekend
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Subsidising Te Huia would be a drop in the bucket of NZTA’s budget – but unfortunately NZTA aren’t in the business of building rail. The government should consider re-naming it NZ Roading Agency to make it clear that’s the only transport infrastructure they have time for.
I think the name you’re looking for is National Roads Board.
‘NZ Motorised Roading Agency’ given the CoC hostility to alternative modes of road use like cycling
Works on the fourth and final section, an 870m concrete boardwalk in Hobson Bay next to Ngapipi Road, began this week and will take around 20 months to complete.
That is 1.45m per day. Impressive.
Perhaps take a look into what is involved to do this mahi. A barge landing causeway has to be constructed to allow the loading of the box section girders. Traffic management in the form of a truck layby area is needed at the Ngapipi Rd entrance and modifications to the traffic island at Orakei are required to get trucks into the carpark area, plus the building of the site compound. So once everything is set up and piling is well underway, progress will be fast. As with building a house, the finishing always takes a while. This will involve the balustrading, lighting, mahi toi elements, signage and the general landscape works at the tie-ins at each end. The thing that has taken the longest and is frustrating, is the delay in getting this started!
And why again can’t they just build it along the existing railway line for a much more direct and cheaper route? And don’t tell me its due to a private land owner who won’t sacrifice a few carparks.
Plenty of evidence on urban boundary price effects, from the old Grimes work to more recent InfraComm work. They differ on the magnitudes, and there’s complexity in InfraComm’s estimates giving some uncertainty. That’s why I said exact number hard to pin down.
But see here on InfraComm.
https://tewaihanga.govt.nz/our-work/research-insights/urban-land-prices-a-progress-report
There is a Coalition for More Homes.
That coalition is hard to maintain without letting cities grow up AND grow out, doing its best to avoid subsidising infrastructure in places that are hard to service.
For a long time, people who liked “up” did their best to block anything that looked like “out”, and vice-versa. The result was nobody being able to build anything anywhere and housing shortages.
It is more than a little depressing to see an outfit that claims to care about housing affordability dismiss the empirics on RUB price effects as ‘ideological’.
It makes it harder to maintain a coalition in favour of urban growth, and makes it more likely that we wind up back in stupid fights where up blocks out, out blocks up, and everything sucks.
I mean I’ll keep supporting up and out, because that’s what works. But I wish you guys weren’t like this.
Maybe the NZ initiative should go pay for advertisements rather than spamming blogs with your “research”.
But If you really must why not post something like this: https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/opinion/new-opinion-247/
Ah. So it’s impossible to like cars and also like cities. Great to hear.
Car make cities miserable. Sort of like NZ Initiative.
Cars are great between cities, but they suck within them. Plan for both accordingly.
Fwiw there is a lot of empirical evidence taht Auckland’s rural-urban boundary affects prices.
Agreed, it definitely does.
You can believe that sprawl is bad, while still believing the Rural/Urban boundary drives up prices. Believing the latter doesn’t mean you support abolishing it.
Auckland has a 150 year history of speculators grabbing rural land on the cheap (invade, buy at fire-sale prices from impoverished owners) and trickling out the land at high market prices to builders. RUB is a trivial element in that picture.
RUB increases the cost of land across the whole urban footprint by a significant amount. That is 1) not trivial and 2) very harmful.
The commencement of Stage 4 to Tamaki Drive is excellent news.
As a regular runner around there, I was hit by a cyclist riding on the footpath over Purewa Bridge there (in order to save time merging back onto the road).
Given how narrow the footpath is there (you can’t even walk two abreast), this is a real danger to peds. I look forward to safer runs.
It would still be great to have an ADDITIONAL shared path parallel to the railway line, providing a direct connection across Hobson Bay while also forming a cool cycling circuit. It could connect to Parnell Baths, depending on the design.
This obviously is out of scope for now, but if the railway embankement were to be widened to include a third track (which would be a good idea), it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to include active mode infrastructure.
For those who want to know more about why this wasn’t chosen at the time, the ‘How We Got Here’ section on this Bike Action blog gives a good history
https://www.bikeauckland.org.nz/boardwalk-ngapipi-section-4-eastern-path/
TL:DR.. the very miserable lawyered-up Ōrākei Boating Club people had an absolute hissy fit about the idea of people going anywhere near their precious boats, which are encroach onto KiwiRail land. Not least on bicycles. The MP at the time jumped on board, so to speak. AT caved in. Even Bike Auckland caved in. It’s what we seem to do in this country when rick pricks demand they get everything they want. To their credit, one or two Ōrākei Local Board elected reps were and still are outspoken in their opposition.
Ahh there it is…we gotta stop caving like this. Whatever happened to ‘compulsory acquisition’?…this is a route of regional significance.
Suppose at least police won’t get accused of revenue gathering anymore. I do wonder about the safety of the operators now they presumably won’t have acess to police comms anymore. People also knowing it’s a private company is likely to increase aggression towards cameras and their operators.
This has the potential to be really good.
> It said the provider that won the contract would not issue speeding tickets or get bonuses for pinging more drivers.
This is the part that needs to change. Give a commission per ticket issued, let more providers issue them — let the market win.
Imagine if we could submit videos of people parking in bike lanes and pocket a bounty…
Yeah lol only problem is they will accidentally put the radar on the wrong angle and issue more tickets on purpose.
“Suppose at least police won’t get accused of revenue gathering anymore. ”
Why would it? That was never a good faith criticism anyway.
And if you break the speeding rules, why should you get away with it?
Conspiracy theories and car-dominance created the revenue gathering accusations. And they often come from the same kind of people who are quick to accuse any other government function that doesn’t try to maximise profit as it if was a business, or reduce costs to the ratepayer to the bone, even if it means taking away the coffeepot in the Council office.
While I agree in NZ speed cameras have never been about revenue unfortunately around the world this is not always the case sometimes revenue is the only reason they enforce speed hence where some of the “revenue raising” claims come from particularly smaller broke towns/cities in the US and other poorer nations. “If you break the speeding rules why should you get away with it” see here in lies the issue sure pulling someone over for doing 56 in a 50 is reasonable as 50 is a generally accepted good limit. I would argue ticketing 36 in a 30 is not a good idea as it’s not a widely accepted speed limit and seems a bit opportunistic. Any speed limit that was democratically put in like the recent reversals should be enforced with 5k tolerance anything under that and you can put it down to speedo & police radar inaccuracy. And up the fines once we have done all that $30 is a joke.
oh boo hoo, we know it’s you colah/fassifern/randomly generated australian town, and we know you have a speed fetish you make it very obvious. Stay on target or don’t bother commenting
“Unfortunately around the world this is not always the case sometimes revenue is the only reason they enforce speed hence where some of the “revenue raising” claims come from particularly smaller broke towns/cities in the US and other poorer nations.”
Can you please back this up with proof?
All I was able to find was a paper called “More Tickets, Fewer Accidents: How Cash-Strapped Towns Make for Safer Roads” which actually is quite the opposite from your statement.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1232373
Good point Wilbert, I withdraw and apologise for using the word “only” I meant “main” in which the main reason they enforce speed is to generate revenue for the cash strapped towns (along with boatloads of parking fines) it’s quite sad really. We are very lucky our enforcement has always been about safety or number of tickets issued (not about money). It’s important the public trust remains in the enforcement system otherwise we could end up creating unnecessary division. One thing the police should do is scrap the quotas called “targets” for tickets issued, keep targets for breath and drug tests though we need to double the targets of those. I’ve linked an old article it’s an interesting read to see what people thought at the time. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/quota-just-a-matter-of-definition-says-police-union/BKL2IJD64TIXT3CCGVN677W2WY/
If “increases in the number of tickets written reduce motor vehicle accidents and accident related injuries” as stated in the research paper, I would have thought that would make you happy?
So regardless whether it’s driven by revenue or not, that’s a positive result because, in the end, that’s what we all want: less accidents and injuries. Correct?
And, because you were worried about COL earlier, it also helps keeping insurance costs and resulting insurance premiums down.
Is this weird troll guy still going, trying to bait people about drug testing as some gotcha about speed enforcement?
they are very persistent, it’s quite fascinating.
either they’re really butthurt or they’re a basement dweller with nothing better to do in their life.
Safety cameras are needed for traffic lights too. I am fed up with being nearly run over by drivers treating red right-turn arrows as “suggestions”. There’s a green man on the pedestrian crossing, but the idiots turning right on red are joyfully oblivious to anyone’s needs but their own.
I bet they’re the type of people who throw rubbish out of car windows, then complain about litter everywhere.
The city centre advisory panel had a compelling presentation from Shamubeel Eaqub on Monday that very clearly showed how housing growth in the existing city is, in his words “A free hit”. This is in terms of critical public infrastructure due to existing and sizeable available capacity in transport and waters in the city centre, inner suburbs and Isthmus (especially around RTN and FTN station/stops). In stark contrast to impoverishing endless costs required to serve new homes at the distant fringes, in both capex and opex.
In the absence of differential pricing of public infrastructure that accurately reflects these cost disparities (ie reduced DCs, water charges etc in brownfields and much higher ones in greenfields), removing the weak and unenforced rural edge of the city will only impoverish the city and country further. Especially as we continue to subsidise this ponzi scheme of rural land-banking development.
Well connected land bankers are extremely good at getting any limit breached via private plan changes, and public infrastructure subsidised, eg through multi billion dollar programmes such Supporting Future Growth (sprawl), not least through the tireless efforts of lobbyists like the New Zealand Institute.
Constraints on growth in the existing city area via zoning, and planning overlays, is a far bigger problem to productive housing supply, than a largely ineffective notional edge to the city, 50km away from services and employment concentrations.
Anyway, even if this led to a flood of new housing (unlikely) any people there would merely be trading a housing poverty problem for a transport (access) one. All while piling massive cost on already stretched public services on top of kms of new roads and pipes. While also piling ever more cars into our already fragile transport networks, thereby lumping additional costs on others too.
+1000
WTF Patrick? We want user charging where the beneficiaries of infrastructure cover its cost over time through whatever mix of special ratings areas, connection charges, volumetric charging, and developer levies gets the job done.
Dear Eric
Yet all we aver hear you pushing is this simplistic and ineffective go at the largely non-existent urban-rural boundary.
We excitedly look forward to seeing you work just as hard (at the very least) on the real problem…
It looks like my comment with extensive links to my columns arguing for up and out, and in favour of Wellington’s more enabling district plan (and against the IHP report) got held – I’ll assume because of all the links.
Easy enough to Google my name in a google news search along with the term “Up and Out”. Or to find my podcast with GenZero’s Eleanor West and Marko Garlick on the Wellington Plan process – getting that stuff out for my shop’s audience. Look up the other stuff I’d had to say on the Wellington plan process too.
Why not pay for advertisements rather than spamming a blogs comment section?
Jak, what Crampton is doing is not spamming. Your accusations of spamming are spamming.
Having pseudo-public figures participating in a free access public forum is a good thing. It allows them to be held to account and have their opinions scrutinised by a wider milieu than simply people who are plugged into their comms. Moreover it also enables them to paraphrase and summarise their own work, rather than relying on the glosses of others, who generally don’t understand the field as well.
WTF Eric? Those are things the NZI only ever says when it tries to defend itself. It doesn’t actually advocate for them; what it actually does is the opposite.
If it wants to live up to its lofty name, what the NZI should do of course is to advocate for what Shamubeel Eaqub says, as noted by Patrick. But they *never* do that. They are utterly disingenuous.
Sorry, wheel.
The comments here don’t allow links. But I have written tons of columns on the need for cities to be able to grow up and out. In Wellington, we helped advocate for the Council’s preferred option over the IHP version that limited downtown density in ‘character areas’.
Feel free to ask GPT for its best summary of our position on urban growth. When I do it in an anonymous window, it says “Bottom line: NZI is best described as a pro-growth, YIMBY-style advocate for flexible land markets, not a narrow promoter of car-dependent sprawl.”
I feel no need to be constrained to agreeing with whatever Eaqub might have said on the topic. We’re our own shop. But we’re very YIMBY.
Eric, why does the NZI believe sufficient development can’t be achieved in brownfield developments/by going up only?
Do NZI believe that developer contributions are sufficiently large?
@Sarge: It isn’t that it *can’t* be done brownfields only. It’s about the price of land in brownfields if you ban suburban expansion, and about options for those who do prefer a longer commute (at their own expense, under congestion charging) and a larger lot.
Chris Parker’s work at Treasury is pretty convincing on the former point. The price differential that you get at an urban boundary doesn’t just affect the boundary. It affects all land prices inside the boundary.
In the absence of that constraint, you expect an urban land price gradient where downtown is most expensive, then eases as you get farther from amenities. At the edge of town, land for housing costs the same as land for a sheep paddock (or whatever) – so long as council isn’t providing free infrastructure for sprawl. Council shouldn’t do that. Council should make new developments pay the cost of their kit over the life of that kit through a special ratings area.
If you impose an urban boundary, then prices inside the boundary can start inflating because zoning has made developable land scarce. That doesn’t just affect price at the boundary. Prices all the way through town are affected. When land for a downtown apartment has to compete for residents and developers with land at the edge of town, land downtown remains more affordable.
Perversely, it’s the boundary itself that rewards landbankers. When councils only release land in dribs and drabs as bits shift into future zones, then into live zoning, that’s gold for them. Council makes it illegal to compete with their land holdings. So releasing in dribs and drabs can work. That can’t work if zoned land isn’t scarce.
@Sarge – you might also find it helpful to look up the paper from Minister Twyford’s Urban Land Markets Research Group titled “A New Approach to Urban Planning”. I was one of the authors on there; was on the group. Benno Blaschke from that group is also now at our shop (very happy to have been able to hire him!).
It goes through some of the problems of the MUL and need for enabling development more broadly.
I’d link it, but it’d be held up in moderation. Ryan has it hosted over at Auckland Uni’s Economic Policy Centre website. It’s USEPP002.pdf , “A New Approach to Urban Planning”.
Eric, I fully agree that the presence of the RUB increases prices. Any time demand is restricted, the price goes up. This is true whether you’re limiting supply through the RUB, Special Heritage Areas, limiting allowable building supplies, or any other mechanism.
However, we’re not pulling every available level (e.g. we don’t let people build 50 storey apartments in the suburbs). We decide it’s unnecessary, and the negative externalities outweigh the positive benefits.
Do you think the Developer Contributions sufficiently cover the cost of sprawl? (Maybe this all comes down to a debate over what the DCs should be. If the true cost is as high as many posters here believe, then costs of building on the edge of Auckland will become so expensive that it makes the RUB irrelevant).
What is NZI’s views on:
* Are the DCs high enough?
* How should DCs be set?
I’m having a good laugh at the current news stories decrying Air NZ’s high regional air fares. It’s not a great result that the only alternative to regional travel are by plane or by car and I really feel for those who can’t afford either as a way to et around. And now RNZ says “The government is not ruling out underwriting the expansion of small regional airlines to help maintain routes and keep the price of flying competitive.” In none of these stories is there any suggestion of an investment in regional rail being a better and probably cheaper alternative that would do exactly the same job of keeping AirNZ’s prices down. So roll on Te Huia, keep showing the way.
And we also get a gushing story about the opening of the new Manawatu road with its stunning views like they’ve built Versailles in Woodville or something.
That is a good project though. In terms of need, design, and execution.
It is needed – the old route is beyond saving.
There’s a full separate shared path, the co-governance (yes!) with iwi on both sides of the ranges is hugely successful for expediting the project well. The aligned environmental projects provide lasting co-benefits at minor cost. The social programmes similarly – up skilling locals etc.
Only missing thing is running a passenger service on the rail line, could have been especially good during construction.
Not sure it needed to be 4 lanes though for the traffic it carried, passing lanes on the uphill sections would have been sufficient.
Jezza, yes agree, that was an unnecessary and ideological change late in the project. 2+1 was the appropriate answer here. As it is in many if not all of the rural state highways.
But as you know transport is way more politicised than it should be. There is a constituency for over building these for emotional reasons, these same fragile souls also demand that alternative modes remain defunded. So it goes.
If Auckland Council is going to find Te Huia it should be possible to use Te Huia for day trips from Auckland to Hamilton.
Obviously this would increase expenses and therefore probably require kicking in more but if it’s going to be a joint project it needs to provide a joint service… and it doesn’t at the moment.
It is currently almost useless to Aucklander’s unless you want to go on a weekday or spend the night. Often I have considered taking the kids down for a day trip, until I look at the timetable.
You would think getting people into your city provides more benefits than getting them out. Train loads of Aucklanders turning up each weekend and spending money sounds like the best use of Waikato subsidy to me.
The GI Tamaki bike path is long overdue, not unlike most of our important infrastructure. I look forward to being able to take my kids on a relatively safe bike journey when this is complete.
Our city needs to build up, not out. If congestion costs us $2 billion dollars per year, why not go on a construction rampage and build apartments around every train station? Similar to New Lynn a long time ago, but with less carparks, as we convert to a people who can move without putting our own hands on a steering wheel.
The “infinite pyramid” that is sitting unfinished on our waterfront is not a great advertisement for apartment living, but ten to twenty level buildings are very reasonable for our city, and more of these built for residential purposes will help us in our inevitable population increases.
OCKHAM has been at the forefront of developers with this almost futuristic vision of our city, but I have lived most of my adult life in a an apartment, and personally think houses are really really stupid.
bah humbug
Related to this, the service should have started getting people from the Northern Waikato towns and South Auckland into Hamilton central each day and back. That should have been the primary focus.
The numbers wanting to travel from Hamilton North and back each day were always going to be much smaller.
Great to see GI 2 Tamaki finally getting finished, staggering to think that an 8.7km shared path takes a decade to build, but better late than never. I had serious doubts the funding to finish it would ever be in place.
How long do we think speed camera trailers will last before they are smashed up, stolen or just vandalised with spray paint, considering NZ’s backwards attitude to any sort of minor traffic enforcement
Depends where they get parked I suppose. I assume these are mainly for state highways and not streets. On a normal state highway give it a few weeks. On a passing lane it’s got 5 mins at best. I’ll be intrigued to find out if these can enforce both directions of traffic in a 100kmh zone unlike the Reflex NK-7 Radarcams which only enforced the “closing” traffic. This is one of the reasons why NZTA tried to ram in 80k zones instead of going for the more popular 90k zones but we ultimately lost just about all of the progress because of that mindset. We should ultimately have an official passing tolerance so people know they can complete a safe passing manoeuvre without worrying about getting a fine. I took a def driving course and they said it’s better to speed to get the passing done quicker but then ultimately we have police running radar ready to pounce. Luckily the law still protects you from tickets if you take it to court but who has got time for that, so many times I’ve seen people on the other side of the road for much longer than they need to be because they are scared of getting fined. In light of more cameras springing up we should announce the official tolerance for passing to make the roads safer.
“I took a def driving course and they said it’s better to speed to get the passing done quicker”
If I were you, I’d ask for my money back.
The road code has this:
“Remember: you’re not allowed to break the speed limit, even for overtaking. If you don’t think you can overtake without going over the speed limit, ask yourself if you need to overtake here.”
shhh shh you can’t argue with a troll/car maniac
Wilbert it was taught by an ex RP officer who has quite a bit more experience than yourself and I, yes they mentioned you would risk a fine but it’s SAFER. Sometimes the other vehicle may speed up the passing manoeuvre may have well been able to be done within the speed limit but they have then sped up. Luckily the majority of the time like I said you just take it to court and the fine disappears provided you haven’t done something stupid like more than 40ks over also many officers know that sometimes safe overtaking requires exceeding the speed limit a bit. I’ve never gotten a speeding fine as the only time I go over is to complete a safe overtaking manoeuvre. Wilbert take a defensive driving course and read the Land Transport Act (Road user). Section 1.8 provides an exception that a person was not in breach of if the act took place in response to a situation to avoid death or injury of a person. Also read section 2.1 which states keep left at all times and pull over to allow others to pass which would prevent the need for overtaking in the first place. The “road code” will state black and white things like you can’t exceed the limit no matter what because it’s a brief description for people who can’t be bothered learning the rules properly and probably won’t bother questioning a fine for overtaking safely, but many of us know driving is a dynamic activity that requires attention and the ability to change at a split second. I know I spurt on about higher speed “limits” but that doesn’t mean I’m not highly educated about road safety I just want democratic speed limits implemented and to improve road safety through other areas particularly impairment including fatigue something lower speed limits increase.
I would suggest scrolling down to section 5.1 of the Act.
Section 1.8 does not mean you can wiggle your way out of the offence if you take it to court. See subclause (2) in that same clause.
You are quite rightly stating though that “driving is a dynamic activity that requires attention and the ability to change at a split second”.
So if someone speeds up in front of you while you’re about to overtake them, you can postpone your overtaking manoeuvre. Even when you’re already next to them, you can still fall back.
*That* is safe driving. Not a “I have to overtake this geezer no matter what as he’s frustrating the hell out of me” attitude.
Lastly, the myth that “lower speed limits increases fatigue” has long been busted.
https://media.nrspp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/06013739/Myth-3-Higher-speed-limits-mean-less-travel-time-less-fatigue-and-therefore-fewer-crashes-BUSTED.pdf
And once again, stop acting like you know me.
Sorry Wilbert I don’t buy that report from the SSS the real world tells a different story nowhere did that mention if fatigue actually reduced or not it just mentioned crashes. Also section 1.8 has been used countless times as it’s impossible to argue that overtaking faster (especially trucks) is the safer thing to do. At the end of the day all your evidence is great and all but the speeds are rising so just get used to it. I know for a fact NZTA is about to make Orewa to Warkworth 110kmh. AT is about to reverse THOUSANDS of roads Movement has failed their stupid judicial review was a waste of time like I said it was. Simeon Brown has done nothing wrong with the rule he wrote it was democratically supported. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/its-just-not-right-driver-escapes-fine-after-appealing-passing-lane-speeding-manoeuvre/IW6K26INNCNO4SGDEUNVUQREOI/
Ah yes, I don’t agree with the research or science so I can ignore it.
After all, the ‘real’ world tells a different story – whatever that ‘real’ world might be.
> I took a def driving course and they said it’s better to speed to get the passing done quicker
I understand why you’re confused — this blog has confusing standards when it comes to breaking the law.
If you break the law in a ‘light/low risk’ mode (which coincidentally, are modes this blog like) — then it’s fine (e.g. cyclists running reds/riding on the footpath. Also why they support ‘strict liability’ for motorists — but not for bikes strangely…).
If you break the law in a car/truck — then it’s wrong, regardless of the safety involved.
“this blog has confusing standards when it comes to breaking the law”
That’s quite a serious accusation – are you able to back that up please?
I’ve gone through the several sections of this blog: about, our vision, user guidelines, i.e. the standards, and nowhere can I see any proof of confusing standards to breaking the law. In fact, I can’t see any mention of “breaking the law” anywhere, let alone them being “confusing”.
Now, I’m sure there will be *individual* commentators on this blog who post messages that they shouldn’t have. Feel free to log these with the admin people so they can review them.
If you break the law in a ‘light/low risk’ mode (which coincidentally, are modes that kill fewer / no people)
There, fixed it for you.
Sarge, it is very simple.
– Cyclists should stick to the rules
– In most (not all!) cases, a cyclist breaking rules has less severe consequences for people around them compared to a motorist breaking the same rules.
– Especially in case of running stop signs and red lights, cyclists are often (not always!) able to check the surroundings more thoroughly than drivers AND are usually able to stop faster or divert more easily in case something suddenly pops up.
– You or any pedestrian being hit by a cyclist is not great and the cyclist should have exercised more care.
– You might not be able to post on this blog if you had been hit by a Ford Ranger or similar.
– A speed limit on shared paths might actually be a good idea but enforcement would be really difficult.
– So yes, it makes sense to treat offenses by these two groups differently as they are qualitatively different.
– on short and narrow sections of shared paths, like that bridge in Mission Bay, just stay in the middle of the path and make them wait behind you.
Just out of curiosity what did the defensive driving instructor say about driveways?
This person may have had a lot of experience but it doesn’t appear to have helped them understand the concept of defensive driving.
The main concept of defensive driving is to mitigate risks, this is just replacing one risk with another – replacing running out of room to complete the overtaking manoeuvre with the greater chance of bad consequences if something goes wrong such as loosing control or some farm machinery appearing out of a driveway and not expecting you to be in that lane.
Great question jezza, they did talk a bit about tunnel vision at higher speeds which reduces the likelihood of seeing tractors etc. Being ex RP they talked about the bodies and blood they had to deal with so I trust that they said “the only safe time to speed is when overtaking on the open road”. I guess if they are used to going 140+ responding to emergencies and speeding vehicles they are probably quite relaxed at 100 and their vision isn’t so tunnelled in. Also that farm machinery should be looking to see what’s coming its no different to a car turning out onto a highway you understand the risk although many don’t seem to take responsibility anymore. Unfortunately we just have to deal with our unsafe roads until more of these expressways are built, the majority of people in this country do not accept slowing down to save lives.
Can’t wait to see the politicians tripping over each other to cut the ribbon on the CRL opening.
How did they get 6% on bikes for Auckland? I thought the journey to work for Auckland was around 1%.