The Political Economy of Car Dependence
Leading Image: Sacrificing pedestrian environments and green infrastructure to sell (electric) cars.
Why do both our major parties plan to spend billions of dollars on new roads and sprawl development of farmland?
Our government is catching up on the backlog of rural road safety issues, is slowly improving rail and public transport, is funding “three waters” infrastructure maintenance and upgrades to assist brownfields housing developments and has introduced internationally-renowned planning changes to enable regeneration of our cities.…
123 Comments From newsflash to carwash: climate coverage in the media
Last weekend’s Mediawatch story by Hayden Donnell – it’s really good, please do make time to read it – zoomed in on a particular paradox of our media at the moment.
Which is: while climate change is the overriding story, anything that makes the tiniest progress towards addressing it – like, say, swapping a handful of parking spaces for bus or bike lanes – is still presented as “controversial”.…
What the model says about decarbonising transport
Good progress on the Auckland Climate Plan: the Auckland Forecasting Centre and Auckland Transport are exploring how to change our transport system to achieve the necessary drop in emissions by 2030.
We had a first glimpse of their thinking at last week’s Business and Climate Change conference in Auckland.…
The East Tamaki Industrial Area
People who work in and visit the East Tamaki Commercial and Industrial Area will soon be able to choose from a vastly better offering of travel options. The first project on the books – all the way to Botany – is the Eastern Busway.…
Low-traffic neighbourhoods: which way for Arthur-Grey?
The current tranche of Innovating Streets tactical urbanism projects are in various stages of progress. It’s pretty cool when they turn up on Google Earth images, as with this project in Nelson South:
The key thing about this year-long Innovating Streets programme is that Waka Kotahi funds projects to the tune of 90%.…
Conserving Aggregate
Road building delayed because governments ‘fail to plan for quarries’
This was the title of a Stuff article last month by Wayne Scott, the chief executive officer of the Aggregate & Quarry Association (AQA). He said:
politicians of all persuasions have paid only lip service to ensuring the rock, stone and sand which form the foundation for all infrastructure can actually be provided…
Transmission Gully’s delays and cost blowouts are the latest example.…
Weekly Roundup 25-July-2025
It’s the last Friday of July/ Hōngongoi, and here’s our roundup of things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Matt reported on AT’s shortlist of potential locations for “time of use” fees, aka congestion charging
For Wednesday, we had a guest post by David Slack on an exhibition of visions for uplifting Devonport
On Thursday, we had a guest post from Wellington-based Kasey McDonnell in praise of bus lanes Also this week, Matt made a guest appearance on The Hoon with Bernard Hickey, to tease out the implications of the plans for congestion-charging.…
Government’s Investment Summit
This week, the Government is hosting a grand event aimed at trying to interest big foreign capital players in financing capital works in New Zealand, particularly its big rural motorway programme. Financing vs funding: a quick explainer
The key word in the sentence above is financing.…
Weekly Roundup 17-February-2023
Kia ora, everyone: it’s been a tough week for the whole country, with the massive devastation and loss of lives, livelihoods, and neighbourhoods caused by Cyclone Gabrielle. Our hearts go out to everyone affected. The Week in Greater Auckland
On Monday Matt wrote about how we need Auckland Transport and Kiwirail to do a better job in managing the reliability of our public transport network.…
Weekly Roundup 8-April-2022
Kia ora koutou kātoa. Our Friday roundups are a bit of a treat lately, as last Friday was a very special day on the calendar, and next Friday will be a public holiday. Enjoy this bumper roundup of urbanist and transport-related links and news!…
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