Greater Auckland’s 2017 financial statements
It is perhaps a testament to our success and exposure that people so often ask “who funds Greater Auckland?”. Our supporters wonder how we manage to be so prolific and high profile, while our detractors allege we must be in the pocket of government or big business.…
31 Comments Dec-17 AT Board Meeting
The last Auckland Transport board meeting of the year is today. It also happens to be outgoing CEO David Warburton’s last one too with his replacement, Shane Ellison, starting on Monday next week. Here’s what I found interesting in the papers.…
Sunday reading 24 September 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading.
Best thing I’ve read this week wasn’t an article – I’ve just finished re-reading Replenishing the Earth, James Belich’s epic history of the ‘settler west’ in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other places.…
More on Kiwi Rail De-electrification
*This is a guest post by Roger Blakeley, Bob Norman, Alex Gray and Keith Flinders.
Dr Roger Blakeley, former Secretary for the Environment; Bob Norman, former Commissioner of Works; Alex Gray, professional civil engineer and Senior Project Manager; Keith Flinders, Electrical Services Consultant
KIWIRAIL’S NIMT DECISION EXPOSED IN LEAKED DOCUMENTS
Roger Blakeley, Bob Norman, Alex Gray and Keith Flinders
Leaked documents show that KiwiRail’s decision in December 2016, to replace electric locomotives on the electrified section of the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) with diesel locomotives, was based on flawed logic and justified by misleading information.…
Would smaller councils approve more housing?
Will Auckland Council amalgamation be good for housing supply in the long run?
In the short term, amalgamation will probably have a positive effect, because it enabled a comprehensive rewrite of the city’s urban planning rulebook to increase the amount of homes that are allowed to be built in Auckland.…
Sunday reading 13 August 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading.
This week, I’d like to start out with two stories of self-inflicted screwups (by other people).
Self-inflicted screwup number one is Australia’s broadband rollout. As Jennifer Hewett sets out in the Australian Financial Review, it’s gone much worse than ours:
In September 2009, the Key government in New Zealand announced it would invest in an all-fibre, ultra-fast broadband network.…
Sunday reading 4 June 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. It is a black week: The erratic man-child in charge of the US government has announced that the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which commits signatories to set and periodically review voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.…
Sunday reading 21 May 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. I’m writing this on a quite nice Friday evening in Wellington, after spending two days talking to lots of people.
The best thing I’ve read this week is an article by Emma Espiner in Newsroom: “Embrace foreign students – we may need them one day“.…
Kiwirail de-electrification decision questioned
Late last year, Kiwirail announced they would stop running electric trains through the Central North Island in favour of just using diesel trains, a decision that seems absurd.
On Friday, OneNews reported on leaked documents suggesting the analysis that lead to that decision was deeply flawed.…
Sunday reading 14 May 2017
Hi and welcome back to Sunday Reading. Here’s a bunch of links we’ve compiled over the week. Please add your links in the comments section.
Separated cycleways are safer according to new research by Ralph Buehler and John Pucher. The results are unsurprising but fill a research gap in countries lagging behind in the development of quality cycleway networks.…
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