2025 – A Year in Review
Here we are at the end of 2025, so it’s time for quick wrap-up of the most important things that happened this year for urbanism and transport in our city.
A huge thank you to everyone who has visited the blog, shared our work, and supported us in our mission to make a greater Tāmaki Makaurau.…
16 Comments What’s in the RoNS files?
Earlier this week, Te Waihanga, The Infrastructure Commission, called for more transparency for infrastructure investment.
I thoroughly agree. A lack of transparency, especially in mega projects, has been a hallmark of the transport sector in New Zealand – and not only is it detrimental to the public interest, it also prevents improvements to how we do infrastructure as a country.…
Imagine, a city
This summary of where we’re at was originally presented at a City Vibes event run by The Urban Room on 9th December 2025, and like all our work, is brought to you by the Greater Auckland crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans.…
Cycleways are good for everyone
The following is an op-ed I wrote which ran in The Post on November 20th. On a sunny winter day in June, I attended “Party on the Path”, celebrating the opening of the Point Chevalier to Westmere project. Thousands of people blissfully wheeled and walked the three-kilometre route, enjoying the festivities.…
Minister admits RoNS reality is biting – and hard
“Whatever the problem, build another road” has been a hallmark of policy from the current government. And we’ve long suggested that is simply not affordable or practical – including just a month ago, when the latest costs were released for a bunch of the government’s flagship Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme.…
ATs 2025 Consultation Season
It’s consultation season again at Auckland Transport – where AT pump out a bunch of consultations just before the Christmas period. This gives teams work to do over the summer months and many of these have probably been held up waiting for the election period to be over.…
Road Policing Performance
The Police have been in the news a bit recently and for the wrong reasons. One of those was a few weeks ago where it was revealed that there were issues with breath testing:
More than 100 police officers are under investigation after 30,000 alcohol breath tests were “falsely or erroneously recorded”, RNZ can reveal.…
Manchester: an urban renewal case study
I lived in the UK in the 1980s, so whenever anyone describes the Auckland city centre as “dilapidated” (as the Herald did in an recent editorial), I can’t help chuckling. While we do have very real problems, we have nothing like the complete physical ruin of whole areas and communities on the scale that was so widespread in post-industrial Thatcher’s Britain, especially in the north where the Industrial revolution began, like Manchester below.…
More Thoughts on MOAR RoNS
The absurdly high cost – potentially $50 billion – of the government’s focus on building MOAR RoNS (Roads of National Significance) was highlighted last week, with the release of new costings for six of the 17 projects.
I covered some initial implications in a first post, Reality Bites: RoNS will bankrupt the nation.…
Electric cars aren’t a climate solution
This guest post by Tim Adriaansen, an advocate for accessibility and sustainable transport, originally published on LinkedIn and cross posted here with permission. Electric cars aren’t a climate solution.
So why do they keep popping up as a focus for climate action, everywhere from government advisors to environmental advocacy groups?…
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