Postcard from Portland
Portland has something of a reputation as an urbanists poster child and my first impression is that it is indeed doing things right. Portland’s renaissance stems back ultimately to a local government amalgamation in the early 90s that led to a compact city master plan for the region that could actually be put into place (well the bits within Oregon state at least).…
12 Comments Postcard from Seattle
On first impressions Seattle is a lively and interesting place, but perhaps a little, er, grungy. It’s a hilly city with a downtown built across a reclaimed tidal beach and nearby cliffs which have overtime been regarded into some very steep streets.…
Postcard from Vancouver
This is the first of what will hopefully be a series of picture heavy postcards from great transit cities. City number one is Vancouver, something of a poster child for how to retrofit transit, walking and cycling to a young new world city.…
Auckland will have the best transit system in Australasia
Warning, this post contains no pictures, no maps, no links, no data and no evidence. It is 100% personal, editorial opinion. If you make it to the end I expect a strongly worded comment in return, whatever your views.
There I said it.…
Another look at intercity rail
Not long ago Patrick outlined a proposal for gradually extending the proposed Pukekohe to Papakura shuttle train into the Waikato, to eventually end up with a Hamilton to Auckland service. That is a great idea.
The simple reality is that big and useful transport projects almost always start small and get expanded piece by piece.…
High St Crossing Fixed
You might remember a post from a while ago where Kent outlined a slightly silly situation at the top of High St. He noted pedestrians wanting to walk along Victoria St were forced to wait out a full cycle of the lights to cross with the Barnes Dance… even when traffic was behind a red signal and pedestrians could safely cross regardless.…
Photo of the Day: Lorne St
A quick shot of Lorne St in front of the library. It appears Brobdingnagian gardeners have dropped by with some seriously big pot plants. I love them!
About the only criticism I every heard about the shared space in Lorne St was the lack of greenery.…
Khartoum Place upgrade in full swing
The Khartoum place upgrade is well under way and shaping up to be an even greater set of urban spaces for our rapidly developing city.
First up, down on the Lorne St side we can see the new owner of the old new gallery building has changed its format in response to the opening of the new old gallery (ahem). …
No more buses in the City Centre? Is light rail an answer?
An idea that crops up quite often is whether we can get rid of all the buses in the city centre. This idea is normally backed up with the suggestion that buses are dirty, smelly, noise loathesome things that have no place in a civilised city.…
Reflections on Constellation Station
I’ve been a user of the busway on and off since it opened, and recently I’ve been passing through Constellation station on a daily basis. This post is just a collection of my thoughts on how the station stacks up in my mind, particularly with regard to access to and from the station itself.…
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