Weekly Roundup 13-June-2025

Another roundup after a week of thunderstorms and sunny days, here’s some stuff that caught our attention this week.

This week on Greater Auckland

• For Monday Matt broke down why diverting buses to Maungawhau is a bad idea.
• On Tuesday we had a guest post by Darren Davis Queenstown’s Gondola fever!
• On Wednesday Connor explored the importance of shaping Auckland, and the positives of a people focused approach
• For Thursday Matt looked at the governments recent housing announcements for Auckland.

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!

How to bike to work in the rain

With all of this wet weather we’ve been having, Radio NZ have taken a look at how some cyclists get around and deal with the rain.

He is in the three percent of urban New Zealanders who are considered “committed” cyclists, meaning a bike is their primary means of transport to work or getting around town. It’s fair to say that some of them might skip the bike when it’s raining or worse – snowing. However, at least some of them are determined to bike to work even when it rains because of health, or environmental conviction, or because they have no other means. And they swear that they can turn up to their place of employment in a perfectly presentable condition.

Patrick Morgan – who lives in Wellington and is not surprisingly a bike advocate – doesn’t love riding in the rain, but he does it anyway.

“It’s mainly the getting out the door that’s a disincentive, but sometimes once you’re out there it’s actually not so bad, and it can be quite enjoyable, splashing through puddles and seeing other people out there in bad weather.

“You kind of give a bit of a head tilt or a nod or a smile when you see someone else on a bike in bad weather.”

Morgan added that weather isn’t the biggest deterrent to more New Zealanders biking and biking more often, but it is limited infrastructures such as bike lanes that would increase safety.

Some facts on cycleways

The Herald’s Simon Wilson tried to put some sense and facts back into the debate about cycleways (again) after some of his colleagues railed against cycleways (again)

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown was on our new streaming service Herald NOW last week. When the interview turned to transport, he was asked one thing: what is he doing about “all the stuff that annoys people, the cycleways” for instance?

But while there are angry voices, are most people really so annoyed?

Brown told viewers: “There are other things that need to be fixed.”

…..

AT doesn’t have a strong record with cycleways. It has failed to meet its own cycleway targets in recent years and the Government’s new transport policy statement makes it difficult for new ones to be built. Only about 1% of the total transport spend in Auckland goes on cycleways, but because of the new policy and AT’s own nervousness, even that measly proportion is about to fall.

And yet, strangely, some members of the Government are keen on expensive cycleways.

Minister for Auckland (and former Transport Minister) Simeon Brown made this clear last month when he turned the first sod in the last part of Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai, the path of land to sea, otherwise known as the Glen Innes to Tāmaki shared path.

He called it a “great community asset” and said it would be “a beautiful place to ride”. He’s not wrong. This last section of the path will be a wide boardwalk over the edge of Hobson Bay, around the pōhutukawa that line the shore.

You can imagine the cost. At least, let’s put it this way: try doubling whatever you imagined.

I asked the minister why he was such a fan of such an expensive cycleway. Brown, remember, is a senior member of a Government that tells us all the time how relentlessly focused they are on cost-cutting. He said with a big grin that it was because it won’t take any space on the road.

And there we have it. The perceived right of drivers to the exclusive use of the roads is more important than the expense.

You’d think Finance Minister Nicola Willis would knock some heads together over that. But apparently not.

A path with no access

This week Te Ahu a Tauranga Manawatū, the new four-lane highway between to replace the Manawatu Gorge opened. Running alongside the highway is a new shared pathway. There’s one major issue with it though.

Cyclists and pedestrians have been provided with a shared pathway running the length of the Manawatū-Tararua Highway opening this week, but it will be three years before there is a safe way to get to it.

Labelled “a great disappointment” and an absence of common sense, people on foot or on bikes will have to use the same old Ashhurst Bridge with a 100kph speed limits as trucks and other vehicles.

The separate access across the Manawatū River had been a condition of the resource consents granted for the Te Ahu a Turanga Manawatū Gorge road replacement.

However, the bridge was found to be incapable of supporting clip-on lanes, and the agency back-pedalled on an early concept plan for a separate bridge when cost estimates came in around $37 million.

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi regional relationships director for the central North Island Linda Stewart told a Horizons Regional Transport Committee meeting on Tuesday a separate bridge would not open until the middle of 2028.

She said the agency was working with the Palmerston North City Council to resolve some consenting issues before developing the bridge design and starting construction in 2026.

Northland Expressway benefits don’t stack up

Speaking of highways, unsurprisingly the economic benefits promoted by those pushing to have it built don’t stack up. Newsroom reports.

A report making the case for a major highway that could consume 10 percent of the Government’s entire infrastructure budget in coming decades may overstate its economic benefits and can’t be easily verified, an independent analyst says.

The NZ Institute of Economic Research says it stands behind its work, which is not intended to be a full cost-benefit analysis of the Northland expressway.

Announcing plans last year to speed up work on the project, which will connect Auckland to Northland via a four-lane highway, the then transport minister Simeon Brown cited the findings of an NZIER report commissioned by the Northland Corporate Group, made up of several self-described “Northland business heavyweights”.

According to the report, the expressway could lead to a $1.2 billion increase in annual GDP by 2050, “unlocking growth” in Northland and making the upper North Island more resilient to extreme weather events.

However, an independent analysis carried out for Parliament’s transport and infrastructure committee by Motu Research affiliate Dr Simon Chapple has questioned some of the conclusions regarding the expressway’s benefits.

“The NZIER report is advocacy research, paid for by people with monetary skin in the game to commercial providers of consultancy services, meaning its conclusions need to be regarded with caution by the public,” Chapple said, with its estimated benefits not readily verifiable.

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The estimated $1.2b increase in annual GDP appeared high, with the Waikato expressway (which connected much larger populations and economies) having estimated annual GDP benefits of $334 million – less than a third of the Northland figure.

NZIER had also failed to apply a time discount rate, used to reflect the value of receiving benefits from a project now rather than in the future. If the standard Treasury discount was applied to the Northland expressway, the annual GDP increase would shrink from $1.2b to $157m, while the cumulative benefits between 2040 and 2060 would reduce from $23.8b to $3.7b.

Rail network shutdowns

A quick reminder that with the Matariki long weekend next week, the rail network will be shut down again for works.

AT have put these calendars for the rest of the year on their website – but if someone from AT reads this, perhaps make it clickable so people can see larger versions more easily.

Perth’s rail network gets bigger again

Perth just opened its third major rail expansion project in less that a year. Last July they extended the Joondalup line by 14.5km to Yanchep, in December they opened a new 21 km line from Baswater to Ellennbrook and this week they opened a 17.5km extension of the Thornlie line to Cockburn.

They’ve got one big rail project to go, completing the upgrade of the Armadale line which sees the removal of 13 level crossings, including many by elevating significant sections of the line, and extending it a further 8km to Byford.

Colombia’s ‘city of eternal spring’ return to nature

Check out this series of photos in The Guardian about the city of Medellín’s efforts to bring back greenery in their environment.

Since 2016, the city has invested in greening the landscape as a way to reduce the urban heat island effect, improve air quality, prevent flooding and restore biodiversity

How the Anglosphere’s Planning Department is YIMBYism’s Main Obstacle

Interesting substack post by Sushil Tailor on the Anglospheres planning issue’s.

The answer was as obvious as it was revealing. Bonnie Crombie had just wanted to be mayor, but it was Mississauga’s planning department that taught her urban planning. The same pattern repeats across the country: politicians defer to the supposed expertise of their planning staff, absorbing what they believe to be institutional wisdom. In reality, they’re inheriting something far different—the crystallized trauma of decades spent trying to appease the unappeasable.

To understand how we arrived at this dysfunction, we need to recognize something unique about the Anglosphere’s approach to development. Unlike most of the world, where zoning rules determine what can be built, countries like Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom subject virtually every new development to public consultation. Community meetings become forums where the loudest voices—invariably those with the most time and the strongest opposition—shape policy.

Why bikes don’t need traffic lights!

Speed limit increases impact holiday routes

Central governments forced speed limit increases have annoyed holiday communities and beach communities.

Councils in Taupō and Thames-Coromandel were against a lot of changes there.

An overview report of the changes and impact of the reversals on road users in the Waikato region was presented to committee members at the meeting.

Mayor Len Salt said they had “heaps” of examples of the speed limits being reversed from 60kph to 100kph in the Hauraki-Thames district, and local holiday communities were “absolutely frustrated and livid”.

While in Hibiscus Coast in North Auckland with the speed limits finally going up, people are very very angry.

In an email to a concerned community member, Auckland Transport (AT) said several residents in Hatfields Beach had also raised concerns about the faster speed limit.

“To be clear, Auckland Transport does not believe the speed limit change to 70km to be either desirable or appropriate, however we were legally required to make this change.”

AT said in the email it might try to lower the speed limit again later this year subject to input from the local board.

Albany councillor John Watson said the speed limit increase was illogical. The change meant motorists were shifting from 70km through Hatfields Beach where there were beachgoers and pedestrians, down to 60km through open farmland and then up to 80km after that. Pūhoi resident Kate Shevland said logic was “all over the place” with the differing speed limits in Hatfields Beach and Waiwera. She has safety concerns about raising the speed limit at Hatfields Beach, which has become “very popular”.

“In the last few years, it has become a lot more pedestrianised, there are a lot more campervans, and there is always at least one food truck there in summer.

“I haven’t spoken to one person who thinks it [the increased speed limit] is a good idea. I just hope logic prevails.”

Given how complicated the government made reducing the reversals and returning to a safer speed, we can only open this happens before someone is added to the Road Toll. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for returning to the safe 30km/h limit around a lot of Auckland’s residential streets as that is not allowed by the new rule.

Finally, Smith & Caughey’s announced that their iconic Queen St store will close six weeks earlier than previously planned after the closing down sale had gone “exceptionally well” and “much better” than expected.

There had been reports of large crowds at the store. So carparking and access, like claimed by some, weren’t the real reason then.

That’s it from us for this week! Take care over the weekend.

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