Revealed: 2021 draft Cabinet paper shows Labour’s last minute light rail switch
Over the last year, I’ve been writing a book on the story of light rail in Auckland between 2014-2024. A lot happened – much of it public, and quite a lot not – and the history of the project goes to the heart of our struggle to build things in New Zealand.…
86 Comments Gondola Fever Strikes Queenstown!
This is a guest post by Darren Davis. It originally appeared on his excellent blog, Adventures in Transitland, which we encourage you to check out. It is shared by kind permission. Like the Otago Gold Rush of the 19th Century, its 21st Century counterpart, the gondola rush, has come to town in Queenstown.…
The (illegible) fine print: speed reversals hit train, bus, bike networks
The situation: Auckland Transport is in a lonely race to raise speeds on hundreds of local streets (over 1500, in fact) under the new Speed Rule. This is evidently by choice – other cities are taking a more considered and rational approach.…
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.…
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.…
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.…
Behind the curtain of AT’s Project K switcheroo
On Tuesday this week I watched AT present to the Waitematā Local Board about the Karanga-a-Hape Station precinct integration project (otherwise known as Project K).
The same day, I received information in response to my LGOIMA request for documents about the last-minute decision to drastically change the project in March & April of this year, as well as an early return yesterday of documents regarding resolutions from the Traffic Control Committee.…
Holding out for a Road Safety Hero
This is a guest post by Christina Robertson, who is a member of the Albert-Eden Local Board. The views presented here are her own.
The header image shows an example of a short, dead-end street in the Albert-Eden area that is set to return to 50km/h as a result of AT’s unusually broad reading of the Speed Rule.…
Why it takes a city to save a village, and vice versa
This guest post by Dr Stuart Donovan looks at how strengthening the urban core can turn liabilities into assets. The header image of Rangiwhakaoma is by the author. I recently travelled to the remarkably picturesque coastal settlement known as Rangiwhakaoma (Castlepoint), which translates loosely to “where the sky runs”.…
Auckland Transport doubles down on diluting Project K
Last Wednesday, Greater Auckland sent an open letter to Auckland Transport about last minute U-turns on designs for the area around Karanga-ā-hape CRL station. Our letter was co-signed by over a hundred people including many local residents and businesses, Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick, and organisations such as the City Centre Residents’ Group, Bike Auckland, Campaign for Better Transport, and more.…
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