Northland Rail
Last Tuesday before the budget I got a call from a reporter from the Herald asking my opinion on the Government’s rail announcements. I told him if he told me what they were, I’d tell him what I thought! He asked my opinion on the Government’s decision to close the North Auckland Line (this isn’t what the Government actually proposed) and my comments appeared in this article: Fears for Northland rail link
By Mathew Dearnaley
Transport campaigners are concerned that mothballing the rail line to Northland would reduce options for diverting freight from Auckland’s congested Auckland waterfront.…
9 Comments What The Kiwirail Announcements Make Clear
Today’s KiwiRail announcements make it clear that the transport arrangements in New Zealand are a mess. The various streams of funding, the lack of comparison of projects of different modes, the competing subsidies and our Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) process, are all contributing to some very poor outcomes.…
Memo To The Government
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The Last Oil Shock: GFC and Resource Inequality
A major spike in the oil price is recessionary not only because of its direct effects on the global economy, but also because it is likely to cause stock markets around the world to crash, further reinforcing the recessionary pressures. This in turn will lead to second order effects, such as the deepening insolvency of many pension funds, which hold the bulk of their investments in stocks and shares… As the crisis deepens, pension payments may be slashed to derisory levels in both money purchase and the supposedly more secure final salary schemes.…
Regenerating Auckland
In late January, the government announced it would be establishing a group to look into housing affordability and the Metropolitan Urban Limits (MULs) in Auckland. The basic argument is that houses cost too much, so allowing sprawl will reduce house prices Auckland wide.…
Transport Blogosphere Roundup
Who’s talking about what in the amazing world of the Transport Blogoshpere? New Green MP Gareth Hughes has hit the ground running and has indicated he will be doing a series of posts on Auckland’s public transport system on Frogblog
On Auckland Trains, AKT, Jon C has reported that motorcyclists will have to pay the same toll as cars to use the Northern Gateway, between this and ACC motorcyclists can’t catch a break
Jarrett from humantransit.org…
Meandering Bus Routes
I’ve often wondered why and how Auckland’s meandering bus routes came to pass, Jarrett from the outstanding humantransit blog states:
Every transit system gradually acquires odd bits of route that really don’t make any objective sense. They may have been added to take care of some noisy complaint, or they may just be obsolete services that have been superseded by something added more recently. …
The Network Effect: An Auckland Example
I’m reading Admin’s copy of Transport For Suburbia by Paul Mees and it is a cracking read full of information and examples about Auckland and the rest of the world. The book makes a few points that it goes into in detail: While density can help make the provision of public transport easier, it is by no means the most important factor.…
Independent Inquiry On Sydney’s PT
For those that follow PT developments across the ditch it has been pretty obvious that the NSW State Government has been less than hopeless at resolving Sydney’s public transport issues, in particular rail system issues, where the State Governments have repeatedly announced major rail projects only to cancel them a year later.…
Integrated Ticketing: The Sooner The Better
One of the things that has been a big disappointment for me is seeing the shape the new Auckland Transport will take. Not only because of its structure and lack of accountability to those paying rates (which will hopefully change in the final form of the third Auckland Bill) but also because we will lose the Auckland Regional Transport Authority which, despite some grumbling from transport advocates, has started to move Auckland in the right direction since it was formed in 2004.…
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