Selling Tolling Rights

The idea that our existing transport taxes will fully cover the cost of maintaining and expanding our transport system has long been false. Governments of all stripes have pumped billions of additional spending in to fund major transport projects like motorway extensions.…
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What really needs fixing at Auckland Transport?

This guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a Strategic Transport Advisor and advocate for accessibility and sustainable transport Auckland Transport is about to experience its next big shakeup, with items recently presented to the AT board and the Governing Body of Auckland Council covering how strategy and policy functions will start to move back to Council prior to any legislative changes.…
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NZTA’s self-contradictory changes to SH16 Brigham Creek to Waimauku

A couple of months ago, NZTA reversed its plans to install a median wire barrier on SH16 for stage 1 of the SH16 Brigham Creek to Waimauku project. The project, which officially aims “to improve safety”, was – and still is – midway through construction, and the decision to delete the median barriers from the design appeared to have no real justification.…
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June-25 AT Board Meeting

Today the AT board meets again, and I’ve taken a look through the papers to find the most interesting items. For those wanting to attend or watch online: Auckland Transport, 20 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland (Meeting Room 1.04) Microsoft Teams link for the Board meeting on 24 June 2025 Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 455 861 336 967 Passcode: fa3rG6p6 Closed Agenda AT has been pushing a lot of items into the open agenda, but there are quite a few decisions up for approval in the closed session of the board meeting today.…
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As AT races to raise speed limits, strange cracks appear

Last week was Road Safety Week, which Auckland Transport marked by sharing a happy little video about safety at the school gate, while quietly beginning the reversal of safe speeds on 1500+ streets, mostly around schools. Strange times. There was no media release about the speed reversals, but perhaps strangest of all was the missed opportunity to celebrate the last-minute rescue of (parts of) two neighbourhoods from speed reversals.…
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AT directors at risk from speed reversals?

Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the City Centre Advisory Panel With Auckland Transport racing towards risky speed increases at the behest of the previous Minister of Transport’s Speed Rule, all eyes are on the consequences. These include an increase in risk for everyone on Auckland’s transport network, and a legal risk for those implementing the changes.…
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Pop the Hood: Are Speed Limit Reversals Taking Us in the Wrong Direction?

This is a guest post by Vinetta Plummer, Policy and Government Lead for Healthy Families Waitākere, West Auckland mum of two, community advocate, and school board member. Written for Road Safety Week 2025, the post reflects on the government’s reversal of safer speed limits through a local, lived lens and explores how these changes undermine years of community-informed planning, raise serious equity concerns, and signal a broader pattern of rolling back evidence-based policy in favour of short-term economics.…
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