Confessions of a transport hitman – Private super-profits or public sector waste?
NZTA’s spending on consultants has been in the news recently; millions of dollars have apparently been spent on investigation and design for the RONs. Some people, such as Gordon Campbell, have suggested the money is being spent on “consulting oligarchs.”
As a consultant myself I find such discussions very interesting.…
32 Comments Passenger rail in New Zealand: Blending beauty and controversy
Today I accompanied a group of Norwegians on the 830am InterIslander ferry from Wellington. After a short stop Picton for lunch we boarded the Coastal Pacific bound for Christchurch at 1pm.
Without doubt the Coastal Pacific is a superb rail journey.…
AT seeks feedback on proposed parking changes
An earlier ATB post discussed Auckland Transport’s proposed changes to central city parking arrangements.
A central plank in the proposed changes is the removal of time-restrictions. In their place, AT propose to use prices to manage demand. This simply means that prices will go up when demand is high, and vice versa when demand is low; the result will be that parking prices vary across the City Centre in response to demand/supply.…
Why Cameron Brewer is wrong
NB: Upon reflection I have modified my original post in response to critical feedback, which you can read about in the comment thread below. Most of this feedback suggested that the message of the post was obscured by my personal frustration with Cameron Brewer, which I have accepted.…
What value life?
What is the value of human life? This seemingly academic question is more important than most people appreciate, especially in the context of transport funding decisions.
But before we discuss how the value of human life influences transport funding decisions, let’s first justify the economic concept itself. …
Passionate about transport? Love cities? Want a job?
If you answered yes to all three questions posed in the title of this post then you may want to consider working for us.
Pro’s of working for MRCagney: You get paid to read about transport (including certain blogs)
You get paid to talk about transport all-day, every-day
You get paid.…
14 year-old newsflash: Kiwi economy waves good-bye to state highways
In my last post I suggested NZ is at a transport cross-roads: Evidence shows people are driving less and that they have been doing so for some time. Along the way I could not help but poke fun at the NZTA and MoT for resolutely sticking to the line that “traffic volumes are growing”, when they quite clearly are not and have not been for sometime (either in NZ or overseas).…
7 year-old newsflash: Kiwis driving less and loving it; MoT/NZTA curse freedom of choice
Hindsight may show that the transport sector is in the midst of unprecedented change.
NZTA’s latest report on state highway traffic shows that volumes were down 1.2% in 2011. And if you look further back you can see that total vehicle volumes on the state highway network have been static since around 2004. …
And the transport prize goes to …
This is the first of what I hope will be a series of short posts on good/bad transport behaviour. The idea is that by “naming” people/companies that deliver good transport outcomes, and “shaming” those that perform poorly, we can create a semblance of public pressure for businesses to pull up their transport socks.…
Supermarket Boycott – Part II
In last week’s tirade I somewhat rashly called for a boycott of NZ’s two major supermarkets. My primary issue is that they favour drivers over other users. People who drive to the supermarket get free parking and fuel discount vouchers; people who choose other transport modes get diddly squat.…
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