Auckland Transport – first board papers
Auckland Transport have sent me copies of the board papers presented at their first board meeting, on November 17th. There are five documents I have – which I’ve uploaded so everyone can have a good look through: Board Agenda: this just lists what the AT board considered at their November 17th meeting.…
14 Comments David Hensher on Radio NZ
There was an interesting interview of Australian transport academic David Hensher on National Radio’s “Nine to Noon” programme this morning. It’s well worth a listen. From listening to the interview, I felt that Hensher made three major points: That we need to strongly consider congestion charging to alleviate urban traffic congestion – and now we’re starting to develop the technology to do congestion charging in new ways (through GPS), if we’re smart we can develop quite a fair system (or a system that’s certainly a lot fairer than what we have now.…
Integrated ticketing: what’s going on?
Call me cynical, but if I don’t hear anything about a public transport project for quite some time I start to get suspicious. This generally is for good reason – with examples including the near screw-up of electrification last year and the consistent delays to the Onehunga Line’s opening almost passing under the radar without a ‘peep’ from the powers to be.…
Critiquing motorway economics
I was having a read through a number of submissions on the Waterview Connection project today and came along a very interesting submission by Auckland University Associate Professor of Economics, Rema Vaithianathan, that is worthy of sharing. The useful thing that Rema’s submission does is include an article she wrote for the Road & Transport Research Journal back in September last year on the economics of urban motorways – with the Waterview Connection as a case study.…
Vancouver vs Auckland: the case for openness
I’ve talked a lot about the need for the new Auckland Transport CCO to be open, transparent and accountable about what it does – and how this will be a dramatic change from the highly secretive agency that ARTA was. There were some very positive steps towards this last week, with Auckland Transport announcing at the first meeting of their board that all future meetings will be held in public.…
Auckland Transport – not secret after all?
In the last couple of weeks I have mentioned a few times my concerns that Auckland Transport was going to continue the “ARTA tradition” of operating in secret – with the general public not having a clue what goes on at their various board meetings.…
Toll motorways to pay for rail?
There’s an interesting opinion piece in today’s Herald by Alan Griffith – a former director of finance for the Tauranga City Council – on motorway tolling and the funding of rail projects.
One thing Mr Griffith does very well is outline the argument for why roads should pay for rail – something I have argued repeatedly in recent times:
Why, you ask, should road traffic fund rail development?…
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.…
Why “Auckland Transport” needs to engage with the public
Last week I asked the question of whether the Auckland Transport CCO would become a “secretive agency”, like ARTA has been, or whether it would be publicly open, accountable and transparent. While my concern in that blog post was about the specific question of whether Auckland Transport will publish agendas and minutes from their Board Meetings online (and there’s still no sign that they will), the extent to which Auckland Transport engages with the public – or conversely the extent to which it undertakes most of its work in secret – will be a key factor in whether the agency becomes a success or whether it ends up being a failure.…
No PTMA changes after all?
It had somewhat slipped under my radar, but back in late September transport minister Steven Joyce gave a speech to the Bus and Coach Association which made mention of changes to the operating model for public transport – and in particular made mention of the changes he had proposed to the Public Transport Management Act.…
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