How can a local cycleway take longer than the CRL?
In early 2016, Auckland Transport kicked off consultation for a network of connected bike routes linking the Inner West neighbourhoods to each other and to the wider network.
By August 2016, they had settled on this plan for the local network:
The routes in pink had funding available for construction by the end of 2018, thanks to the Urban Cycleways Programme, kicked off under John Key’s National Government and then-Minister of Transport Simon Bridges.…
24 Comments Who decided Auckland’s volcanic viewshafts?
A couple of months ago, I went to the Auckland Library Heritage Collections in the City Centre, to read the original reports that led to the creation of Auckland’s volcanic viewshafts. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, these are slices of our urban environment where development is prohibited beyond a certain height (or at all), in order to protect certain views of the city’s dozens of iconic maunga.…
Transport borrowing will come back to bite
Today, Treasury is releasing the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (or PREFU) ahead of the election. So I figured it was worth looking at a significant recent change to the way transport expenditure works – a change that has gone relatively under-reported.…
City Rail Link: credit where due
This post was originally published as an op-ed in The Post on 11 September 2026, just before the City Rail Link opened. The header image shows Len Brown, first Mayor of the SuperCity and “godfather” of the CRL addressing a Greater Auckland gathering on opening day. …
Warkworth to Te Hana deal to cost us over $9,000,000,000?
A few weeks ago, I asked what Warkworth to Te Hana (WW2TH) will actually cost us. A fair question, given the government’s rush to sign a Public Private Partnership (PPP) for this new four-lane expressway ahead of the election, without releasing the numbers of what it will really cost.…
A response from the Minister on the Harbour Crossing reset
After the Government’s announcement of a revised approach to planning the next Waitematā Harbour Crossing, we had thoughts – and quite a few questions.
The Minister has provided answers, which we share below. While a lot of it this remains promising, we also have a lot of remaining concerns, and quite a few follow-up questions as well.…
A new approach to the next Waitematā Harbour Crossing?
Yesterday, Minister of Transport Chris Bishop and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced changes to the development of the next Waitematā Harbour Crossing.
They’ve announced that the project is being taken away from the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) – whose board endorsed a tunnel earlier this year after completing an investment case – and will be moved into the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions, and Transport (MCERT) under a Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), in order to prepare a Detailed Business Case.…
The opportunity cost of expressway obsessions
A version of this piece appeared as an op-ed in The Sunday Star-Times on 2 August 2026, and in The Post online. It has been lightly updated to reflect events. (See also last Monday’s post: What will Warkworth to Te Hana cost us?…
What will Warkworth to Te Hana cost us? And other burning questions
Last week, late on Thursday afternoon, Minister of Transport Chris Bishop announced that the government had signed the contract for a Public Private Partnership for Warkworth to Te Hana.
This answers our long-running question: are they seriously going to go ahead with this?…
Five years to restore safer* speeds in Auckland?
Tomorrow’s meeting of Auckland Council’s Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee (TIDC) has some interesting items. One that particularly stands out for me is in the Auckland Transport update.
And it’s on the Safe Speeds Programme. Aucklanders yearn for a return to evidence-based speeds
A year on from Auckland Transport’s mindbogglingly widespread implementation of Simeon Brown’s 2024 Speed Rule, they report that they have recently been hard at work on – and making some progress on – returning some streets and roads to more safe speeds.…
Processing...