Jan Gehl – Cities for People
Looks like I’ll have to get this book: Product Description For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use—or could use—the spaces where they live and work.…
2 Comments On-time PT stats: too blunt a measurement tool?
Humantransit has a thought-provoking blog post on whether measuring “on time performance” is really the best way to gauge the effectiveness of public transport in providing what its users want and need. Here’s a couple of interesting paragraphs:
I have a great deal of sympathy for transit executives trying to deal with on-time performance, because many of the causes of delay are outside a transit agency’s control.…
How Auckland gets a raw deal
One of my biggest hopes from the changes to Auckland’s local government currently underway is that we will have a stronger voice at the “bargaining table” with central government. I think there’s a reason why central governments have – over the past 150 years or so – avoided creating a strong and unified local government for Auckland, that reason being the risk that Auckland would become too powerful.…
Is congestion pricing feasible for Auckland?
Every time you fill up your car with petrol a fairly significant amount of that cost is petrol tax – although by international standards we actually tax our petrol quite lightly. Petrol tax is something of a road-user charge, as it’s spent on transport activities to make life better for you as a road-user (at the moment it can’t be spent on rail infrastructure even though such projects create significant road-user benefits, but that’s a whole different argument).…
Fund the CBD rail tunnel with parking levies?
The big question mark surrounding what progress we can hope to make on the CBD Rail Tunnel in the next few years is “where is the funding going to come from?” If the project costs around $1.5 billion I have always thought a likely split would be central government funding around a billion (through NZTA and most likely through doing a cheaper and more cost effective Puhoi-Wellsford) and the Auckland region finding the remaining $500 million from local funding sources.…
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.…
Super City: where to now?
As I noted yesterday, the Super City election results are pretty good for public transport advocates like myself. We have a new Mayor who talks great vision when it comes to improving the rail network and seems highly determined to turn that vision into a reality.…
Super Gold Card changes – a fairer future, or the beginning of the end?
The government has today finally got around to announcing changes to the Super Gold card scheme that provides pensioners with free public transport. Here’s the media release:
The Government is putting an extra $9 million towards the SuperGold card public transport scheme as part of a balanced package of measures that will improve efficiency and help ensure the scheme’s long-term viability, Transport Minister Steven Joyce says.…
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.…
Discussion on the Future of PT in Auckland: tmrw evening
Tomorrow evening I will be part of a panel discussion on the future of public transport in Auckland. Some information on the discussion is available here – and outlined below.
The future of public transport in Auckland: How can we redesign Auckland’s transport to best meet the challenges of the future?…
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