Making our cars cleaner
Last month the Government proposed a series of initiatives to help reduce transport emissions by improving the quality of our vehicle fleet. A lot of focus went on what’s called the “Clean Car Discount” where purchasing new dirtier vehicles will become more expensive and new cleaner vehicles cheaper.…
66 Comments Double Decking the Harbour Bridge
Double decker buses are now a common sight on the Harbour Bridge since Auckland Transport started using them for the Northern Express in 2013. If mayoral candidate John Tamihere gets his way it won’t just be the buses that would be double decked but the bridge too.…
Hamilton commuter rail and rapid transit being planned
There was an interesting announcement yesterday from Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Māori Development and Associate Housing Minister Nanaia Mahuta yesterday that there will actually be some inter-regional strategic planning on the Auckland to Hamilton corridor.
First urban growth partnership signed
New Zealand’s first urban growth partnership between the Government, local councils and mana whenua was signed at a meeting of mayors, chairs and ministers in Hampton Downs today.…
What winter cycling slump
It seems someone forgot to tell Aucklanders that it’s meant to be too cold and wet to ride a bike in winter. The latest cycleway numbers have been released by Auckland Transport and they continue to show strong growth with numbers on all routes with more than a year’s worth of data showing a 7.4% increase over July last year.…
Safety-washing?
First there was green-washing, where organisations will spin initiatives or market products as being more environmentally friendly than they are. In the transport space that morphed into PT-washing, where even the tiniest amount of improvement to public transport as part of a mega roading project became promoted as one of the main benefits of the project.…
Should light rail be underground?
With the suggestion that we might finally hear something more about light-rail soon, I thought I’d put down some of the things I’ve been thinking about the project recently in relation to whether it should be built as an underground line.…
Notes on a New Zealand City: Wellington
This is a guest post from reader Robert McLachlan
On the evening of Friday November 26, 1971, viewers of the sole Wellington television channel, then called “Central Television”, could watch the 40-minute film “Notes on a New Zealand City”. Everything about this film is spot on and, especially with the passage of time, extremely moving.…
Uber and Lyft admit they’re making traffic worse
There have been a couple of really interesting articles recently on the impact of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft have.
This CityLab article confirms some long-held suspicions that ‘rides-hailing’ companies like Uber and Lyft are ‘part of the problem’ and helping make congestion worse.…
Is light rail finally making progress?
It has been a long time since we heard anything about the City Centre to Mangere light rail project. Delays to what was meant to be the government’s flagship transport initiative seem to stem from a revelation back in February that a frankly bizarre proposal from the NZ Super Fund was being entertained, which proposed a very different design including tunnelling under Queen Street.…
Puhinui upgrade starts soon
Auckland Transport announced on Friday that the $60 million upgrade of the Puhinui Station into a full bus/train interchange will start at the end of September. The station will eventually be part of a busway from the airport to Botany, making it much easier to access the airport via public transport.…
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