Northern Expressway Boondoggle
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has been soaring high with his hubris of getting on and building motorways, but some uncomfortable realities are starting to creep in.
Back in July he announced that the government was pushing on with a Northland Expressway using an “accelerated delivery strategy”:
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.…
83 Comments Our transport planning system is fundamentally broken
Ever since Wayne Brown became mayor (nearly two years ago now) he’s been wanting to progress an “integrated transport plan” with the government – which sounded a lot like the previous Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) with just a different name.…
Satisfying the Minister’s Speed Obsession
The Minister of Transport’s speed obsession has this week resulted in two new consultations for 110km/h speed limits, one in Auckland and one in Christchurch. There has also been final approval for the Kapiti Expressway to move to 110km/h following an earlier consultation.…
NLTP 2024 released – destroying pipeline of shovel ready local projects
Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Waka Kotahi yesterday released the latest National Land Transport Plan (NLTP) for 2024-27. The NLTP sets out what transport projects will be funded for the next three years, including both central and local government projects.
As expected, given the government’s extremely ideological transport policy, it’s terrible, not just because of what it does fund – focusing much of the country’s transport investment into a handful of roads that carry less traffic than the average Auckland arterial – but also because of what it doesn’t fund: destroying a pipeline of shovel-ready local projects, right at a time when the government claims to care about having an infrastructure pipeline.…
Northwest Busway Next Steps
Auckland has a long history of transport mistakes, and one of the major recent ones (as outlined by Darren Davis here) was to not build a Northwest busway at the same time as rebuilding most of the Northwestern motorway a decade ago.…
Road Policing Reduction
Enforcement is a critical aspect towards achieving and ultimately improving road safety. Yesterday Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government’s new Road Policing Investment Programme. While some parts of it are positive, others are puzzling and ultimately will see a reduction in funding for road policing.…
Congestion Pricing to move forward
Yesterday, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced some progress on congestion pricing and it’s a mix of good, bad and ugly.
The Government will introduce legislation this year to enable time of use schemes to be developed to reduce travel times on our busiest roads and boost economic growth, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.…
Te Ara Tukutuku Concept Plans
The concept plans for Te Ara Tukutuku, the peninsula at the northern end of Wynyard Quarter once known as Tank Farm, are out for consultation and they look fantastic.
Te Ara Tukutuku project is regenerating the northern end of Wynyard Point to create a beautiful new waterfront destination for the people of Tāmaki Makaurau.…
Road deaths are falling – let’s keep doing that
There’s plenty wrong with this government’s approach to road safety, and nowhere is that more exemplified than their push to ignore evidence by imposing blanket speed limits (mostly raises), thus undoing work all around the country by councils and Waka Kotahi to improve road safety.…
Parking up in the RLTP
Last week, the Council endorsed the Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) following it being signed off by the Regional Transport Committee – essentially just the Auckland Transport board with a different hat on – this, despite the RLTP not aligning with the Council’s own climate action plan.…
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