Zoning reform: Voter turnout and “information problems” (5 of n)
This is the fifth in an open-ended series of posts about the politics and economics of zoning reform. The idea animating the series is that decisions made by local governments, in urban planning and transport planning alike, respond to the local political context.…
38 Comments Sunday reading 2 October 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, we’re starting with an important article that all of our readers who work in the transport planning field should read in full and share with their colleagues. David Levinson (Transportist) writes about “Dogfooding: why transit employees and managers should use transit“:
The term “dogfooding”, derived from “eating your own dog food”, is popular in the tech sector, and implies that a company should use its own products wherever it can.…
Video of the week: How wind turbine blades are transported
Via How Things Work, here’s an interesting video of wind turbine blades being transported through challenging terrain: This is how wind turbine blades are transported in difficult terrain pic.twitter.com/W5wxvxBGDr
— How Things Work (@ThingsWork) September 21, 2016 Pretty remarkable how large the blades are relative to the trucks, and how careful the drivers are on some pretty challenging routes.…
New data on cycling
We’re always on the lookout for interesting new pieces of transport data. Smartphone apps and automated trip counters provide an increasing amount of usable, timely data that can tell us how, where, and (at times) why we’re travelling.
Moreover, transport agencies are increasingly open about publishing their data and opening it up for others to analyse.…
Zoning reform: Who participates in local elections? (4 of n)
This is the fourth installment in an ongoing series on the politics and economics of zoning reform. In the previous post, I took a look at the demographic factors underpinning variations in submission rates on the Auckland Unitary Plan between different parts of the city.…
Should we spend more on infrastructure… or less?
The Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) report, which was released last week, identified the need to spend more money on transport infrastructure in Auckland. ATAP estimates that we need to spend $24 billion on new transport infrastructure over the next decade, around $4 billion of which would not be funded by current transport budgets.…
Sunday reading 18 September 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, we’re starting with two bits of authentic Kiwiana. First, in Stuff Henry Cooke reviews New Zealand’s best and worst town slogans. You’ve got to read the entire article for the full effect, but here were some of my favourite ones: MOST IMPROVED: THE HUTT
Someone once suggested a slogan for the wider Hutt area “Right up my Hutt Valley,” which sounds like a joke the marketing agency pitched by accident.…
People respond to incentives created by zoning
Every wonder why all that sunken retail space? Post-1961 zoning loophole – it doesn't count towards allowed density! pic.twitter.com/LTiVtpPuRC
— Market Urbanism (@MarketUrbanism) April 12, 2016 There are many, many other examples. Auckland’s sausage flats, for instance, were designed to respond to zoning rules.…
Zoning reform: Who submitted on the plan? (3 of n)
This is the third installment in an ongoing series on the politics and economics of zoning reform. Last week’s post took a look at the outcomes from the Unitary Plan process, which included a mix of political decision-making and technical assessment.…
Auckland’s urban growth: a historical perspective
The other week, BNZ economist Tony Alexander made an interesting point about Auckland’s current urban growth (via Interest.co.nz):
The plan set out in Auckland’s proposed Unitary Plan to build 422,000 houses will require a rate of building over 25 years that it previously took 161 years to achieve in the City of Sails, BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander says.…
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