Is Parking too Cheap?
There was a great interview of parking expert Julie Anne Genter on National Radio this morning. You can listen to the interview here. While I’m generally quite aware of what Julie talks about, two things particular stood out for me in the interview: That for most non-residential uses in Auckland outside the CBD, the parking requirements will generally require a greater amount of land be dedicated to parking than the actual land-use itself.…
14 Comments Improving Ponsonby Road
Ponsonby Road is, in many respects, a really great and successful street. There’s a huge number of cafes, restaurants and other great shops along it. It generally feels pretty busy and successful and so forth. Even compared to other somewhat similar places like Parnell it feels a bit more lively, a bit less ‘forced’ somehow.…
Urban sprawl – not the way of the future?
I have long argued against urban sprawl as a pattern of development, because of its inevitable car dependency, its poor sustainability and its general soullessness. With the government undertaking a serious overhaul of planning regulations that relate to urban areas – potentially making it easier for our cities to sprawl – I read with interest an article from the USA which argues that our changing demographics and cultural preferences mean that the demand for sprawl is simply unlikely to be there in the future.…
St Lukes – the ultimate planning failure?
On Monday next week the new Auckland Council formally comes into being. The agenda for its first meeting has already been uploaded to the new Council’s website. Let’s hope such timely uploading is a sign of good things to come! Much of what’s included in the agenda for the Council’s first meeting is standard “house-keeping” stuff – although it will be interesting to find out the structure of the different Council committees, including who ends up chairing them.…
Learning from New York
Following on from my post about humanising the CBD, I came across a great video showing the measures that New York City is taking to make that city much more people friendly. It’s well worth a watch: What I found most interesting in the video was the experiences of businesses after the pedestrianisation of parts of Times Square.…
Time to humanise the CBD?
One of the most exciting results in the Super City election was the makeup of the Waitemata Local Board. Those elected were Shale Chambers, Pippa Coom, Jesse Chalmers, Tricia Read, Christopher Dempsey, Rob Thomas and Greg Moyle. To summarise, there are five City Vision board members, one independent (Mr Thomas) and one Citizens & Ratepayers (Mr Moyle).…
The future of urban planning in NZ – good improvements or government takeover?
Yesterday the Ministry for the Environment released a pretty important discussion document – Building Competitive Cities. You can read more about the document here, and it is possible to have your say on it up until December 17th.
The reason I say this document is important is because it will potentially fundamentally change the way we do urban planning in New Zealand.…
A solution to the “density dilemma”?
Following on from posts made last week on both the Humantransit blog and on my blog about the complex relationship between urban density and public transport use – and how sometimes we end up with some rather bizarre relationships between the two – Jarrett at Humantransit has done a post that I really think finally cracks the issue of linking density and public transport use.…
Density and Public Transport
It’s always fun having debates about city densities and public transport. A post by Jarrett Walker at Humantransit.org makes an excellent contribution to the debate – as we seek to answer the age old question of “does density matter when it comes to the viability of public transport?”…
New Parking Buildings?
I’ve noticed a few construction sites as I head around the city that I know are (or look like) new parking building being built. They are: The large parking building being built on Quay Street
A small building at the intersection of Dominion and View Roads
A three or four story building on the site of the University of Auckland’s Medical School across the Auckland Hospital Is any one able to shed a bit of light on these sites?…
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