Sunday reading 2 April 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, we’re starting to get evidence of what will happen as a result of the Roads of National Significance: induced traffic and congestion stuff-ups.
Here’s Damian George (Stuff) reporting on outcomes after the opening of the first sections of the Kapiti Expressway:
The $630 million Kapiti expressway has actually doubled the amount of time it takes to commute into Wellington during the morning rush, some motorists say.…
42 Comments The death of coal?
At TransportBlog, we focus on transport and urban issues. However, other topics pop up occasionally. Energy and electricity have always had a link to transport – oil, one of the world’s most versatile energy sources, is mainly turned into petrol or diesel, but it can also be used to create electricity (NZ did this in a small way until the late ’70s).…
Sunday reading 26 February 2017
Welcome back to Sunday reading. Here is a piece by Joe Cortright describing the importance of storytelling in framing “Visions of a Future City“, Strong Towns.
WHY NARRATIVE MATTERS
In his Presidential Address to the American Economics Association two weeks ago, Nobelist Robert Shiller presented his thoughts on what he called “narrative economics.”…
Sunday reading 27 November 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. The most interesting article I’ve read this week explores the consequences of climate change and sea level rise for coastal property markets. Ian Urbina reports in the NY Times: MIAMI — Real estate agents looking to sell coastal properties usually focus on one thing: how close the home is to the water’s edge.…
Sunday Reading 13 November 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, the US elections are over. So is the US, probably. If there’s one thing that history teaches us, it’s that countries taken over by authoritarian strongmen who are willing to subvert democratic norms and destroy public institutions to maintain power frequently don’t recover from it.…
Sunday reading 6 November 2016
Hi and welcome back to Sunday Reading. Here is a collection of stories I found interesting over the week. Please add your links in the comments below.
UN Habitat III in Quito came to a close a couple weeks ago. Here Michael Kimmelman describes the urban flavour and urgency of the conference that sits in stark contrast to Habitat I which largely focused on conventional environmentalism and improving the rural habitat- “The Kind of Thinking Cities Need“, The New York Times.…
Skypath and East-West; good, bad and ugly
To borrow a sports analogy, yesterday was a bit of a “game of two halves”. There was good, bad and ugly all thrown in from different sources. I thought I’d highlight them both in this post.
The good fantastic
After decades pushing the vision and years of hard work by some amazingly dedicated people, yesterday it was confirmed that Skypath will be granted consent.…
Guest post: A right to reciprocal intensification
This is a guest post from Brendon Harre in Christchurch. It addresses an issue that’s near and dear to Transportblog: How do we better enable positive change in the built environment?
Solving the housing crisis in New Zealand will require many reforms and much effort.…
Why we blog
As delegates were leaving the American Constitutional Convention in 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin: “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”. Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
He meant that, while the delegates had recommended a set of principles for government, it was up to average citizens to make them work in practice.…
Should we spend more on infrastructure… or less?
The Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) report, which was released last week, identified the need to spend more money on transport infrastructure in Auckland. ATAP estimates that we need to spend $24 billion on new transport infrastructure over the next decade, around $4 billion of which would not be funded by current transport budgets.…
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