Notes on a New Zealand City: Wellington
This is a guest post from reader Robert McLachlan
On the evening of Friday November 26, 1971, viewers of the sole Wellington television channel, then called “Central Television”, could watch the 40-minute film “Notes on a New Zealand City”. Everything about this film is spot on and, especially with the passage of time, extremely moving.…
64 Comments Uber and Lyft admit they’re making traffic worse
There have been a couple of really interesting articles recently on the impact of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft have.
This CityLab article confirms some long-held suspicions that ‘rides-hailing’ companies like Uber and Lyft are ‘part of the problem’ and helping make congestion worse.…
Regional Access
This is a post by Paul Callister and Heidi O’Callahan
Imagine a New Zealand where you can… knock off work and escape the city for a long weekend, without having to drive on dangerous roads, bleary-eyed from a week at work…
grow old in your hometown, knowing that even if you become too disabled to drive, heading to the nearest large centre for a doctor’s visit isn’t a transport hassle…
take the overnight train to Wellington for business, so you can stick to your no-flying commitments without it eating into your working week…
travel to regional tournaments safely by public transport (while teammates are still gaining experience as drivers)…
visit grandchildren in other regions travelling on high quality buses equipped with onboard toilets and fast wifi, enjoying vegan and gluten free options at refreshment stops…
have seamless door to door travel between cities and small towns using a mix of trains, buses and electric vehicles, with the help of accessible technology… This is the New Zealand we’ll enjoy if vague calls to “Take Action on the Climate” are heeded.…
Is light rail finally making progress?
It has been a long time since we heard anything about the City Centre to Mangere light rail project. Delays to what was meant to be the government’s flagship transport initiative seem to stem from a revelation back in February that a frankly bizarre proposal from the NZ Super Fund was being entertained, which proposed a very different design including tunnelling under Queen Street.…
Puhinui upgrade starts soon
Auckland Transport announced on Friday that the $60 million upgrade of the Puhinui Station into a full bus/train interchange will start at the end of September. The station will eventually be part of a busway from the airport to Botany, making it much easier to access the airport via public transport.…
Flashback Saturday – Build bridges, not walls: How to make Auckland a more equitable city
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in July 2017.
This piece was originally written for Fightback magazine and published online in March.
As an economist specialising in urban issues, I spend most of my time analysing and debating how transport and housing policy can make society wealthier, healthier, and happier.…
Get on with Queen St
There was an interesting opinion piece on Stuff yesterday from travel journalist Brook Sabin talking about the Queen St and labelling it a disgrace.
The country’s most well-known street should be a celebration of our identity. Imagine if it were lined with trees, artwork, sculptures, pedestrians, and some of our best Kiwi retailers.…
The plans to improve bus reliability
On Monday I wrote about the cost of more frequent of buses as improving frequency is the single biggest thing that will get people to use public transport more. Following better frequencies, the next biggest thing on the list to improve the quality of PT is to have better reliability.…
How (round-trip) Carshare can ‘drive’ change in Cities
This is a guest post by Ben Carter, General Manager of Cityhop
The future of mobility is an internationally hot topic. New Zealand has several ride share, e-scooter, bike share, and car share operators. Twitter and council chambers around the country have all debated the value these modes bring to a city.…
A more people friendly High St coming
High St is a great example of how much the city has changed in a relatively short amount of time. A decade ago, before the shared spaces, before Wynyard, and before Britomart (as we know it today), High St was perhaps our premier urban street in the city.…
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