Ongoing New Year’s Eve debacles symptom of a bigger problem
Despite some very small and (seemingly) reluctant steps by Auckland Transport to close off parts of the city centre to traffic on New Year’s Eve, there was still a dangerous and very messy situation with cars mingling with thousands of revellers as midnight approached: @AklTransport @AklCouncil @AklDesignChamp @DarbyatCouncil Happy New Year all, looking forward to a great 2019.…
88 Comments 2019 – The year ahead
With 2019 now underway, and following my wrap up of 2018 last week, I thought it would be good to look at some of the things we can expect from the year ahead. In no particular order.
City Rail Link
At the end of April the builder of the tunnels and stations is expected to be announced.…
Flashback Wednesday – The Grafton Gully Multiway Boulevard
Over the holiday break we’ll dig into the archives a bit. This post by Matt was originally published in July 2014.
On Wednesday Kent presented a plan to the Waitemata Local Board for dramatically improving one of the worst corridors in the central city – Stanley St and The Strand.…
2018 – A Year in Review
With 2018 drawing to a close, I thought I’d pull together a quick post wrapping up the most important things that happened during the year.
Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and supported us in making Auckland greater.…
Flashback Thursday – The mystery of the Wellsford-Whangarei business case
Over the summer break we’re digging into the archives. This post by Matt was originally published in August 2017 and is particularly relevant to some current debate.
It’s been a crazy few weeks, and the last week especially since the launch of our Regional Rapid Rail, which has been quickly adopted by both Labour and the Greens.…
New Years Eve the perfect time to trial Queen Street pedestrianisation
In late November, the council voted to proceed with investigating a plan that would reshape the city centre to focus on pedestrians rather than cars. One especially exciting development was the addition of the following motions, at the behest of councilors:
c) endorse the use of trials and “tactical urbanism” initiatives in order to test and consult on the initiatives in clause b) ii) and iii) above
d) request staff to trial an “open streets” initiative in the City Centre and work with interested Local Boards to trial it in other centres
We have many ideas about how where these trials could take place and it is great to see a trial of High Street proceeding yesterday, as part of the “Late Night Christmas” street festival, thanks to Heart of the City.…
Downtown Works about to kick off
In just over a week, work will start on transforming Auckland’s Downtown area with a series of projects due to be completed by the America’s Cup in 2021. There’s a lot going on and here are some of the key projects being delivered.…
Road Safety Programme announced
Good news yesterday with the government announcing a huge road safety programme that they expect to prevent 160 deaths and serious injuries a year and all for the cost of about one motorway project. Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter today announced a $1.4 billion, three-year programme to make New Zealand’s highest risk roads safer.The Safe Network Programme will make 870 kilometres of high volume, high-risk State Highways safer by 2021 with improvements like median and side barriers, rumble strips, and shoulder widening.The programme will target an estimated $600 to $700 million of state highway safety improvements and $700 to 800 million of local road safety improvements.…
Downtown Parking price changes
Parking all day in Auckland Transport’s huge Downtown carpark is about to get a lot more expensive with news they’re raising prices from January 21. From January 21 the capped price for parking at the Auckland Transport-owned car park will rise from $24 to $40 a day.The capped rate kicks in for those who park for more than five hours.At the same time its hourly rate will rise from $4 to $4.50.A spokesman for Auckland Transport said the Downtown car parking building was frequently full meaning parking was not available for people who were going into the city centre to do business.“Auckland Transport wants to encourage short-term parking in this building rather than all day parking.” Image from the Herald AT don’t just want to encourage short stay parking, it’s their formal policy, as can be seen here.…
A Pedestrian-Friendly Auckland City Centre is coming
Yesterday the council unanimously voted to adopt the plans update the City Centre Master Plan and help make the city better for residents, workers and visitors.
The biggest change is what has been called Access for Everyone (A4E). This will see Queen St, which has 13 times more pedestrians than cars, and some adjoining streets become pedestrian, bike and public transport only.…
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