2016 Mayoral Hopeful Transport Policies
We’re now less than one month away from having a new mayor and later this week voting papers go out. Our friends at Generation Zero have once again been creating score cards for the mayoral and council candidates and they’ll be released later this week but in the meantime, I’ve taken a quick look through the transport policies of the main contenders and picked out what I think are the key points.…
104 Comments Dear City, I’m in love again
This is a guest post from reader Isabella
I’ve been with Wellington for a while. We’ve had our ups and downs, but it’s over 30 years together. Notwithstanding some flings with other cities, I’ve been faithful to you. But I can’t pretend I’ve not yearned for a few things you don’t have (like decent PT, some real bike infrastructure), and some things you’ll never have (better weather, lots of little tree-lined beaches).…
Zoning reform: Who submitted on the plan? (3 of n)
This is the third installment in an ongoing series on the politics and economics of zoning reform. Last week’s post took a look at the outcomes from the Unitary Plan process, which included a mix of political decision-making and technical assessment.…
Sunday reading 4 September 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. Our lead article: sheep.
A Guardian article by Will Coldwell describes how the Faroe Islands have developed Google SheepView to map their landscape:
Living across 18 tiny sub-polar islands in the north Atlantic, Faroe islanders are used to working in difficult conditions.…
A wheely suitcase in Europe #7: Gijon to Santiago de Compostela.
We left Gijon and drove our rental westward on the A8 highway. Our destination? Santiago de Compostela. Our route? Illustrated below (source). Asturias is a beautiful part of Spain that mixes coastline and mountains to create a potent visual cocktail. Numerous impressive viaducts on the A8 highway provides splendid views on all sides, while a couple of tunnels smooth out the topographical ebb and flow.…
A wheely suitcase in Europe #6: San Sebastian to Gijon
After four nights in San Sebastian, Basque we journeyed further west to Gijon, Asturias. Again we decided to use BlaBlaCar, mainly because the alternative rail and bus journeys were slower and more expensive respectively. The route we took is illustrated below, which as you can see we primarily hugged the coastline.…
Zoning reform: Costs, benefits, and distributional impacts (1 of n)
This is the first part in an open-ended series on the economics and politics of zoning reform. The Unitary Plan decision means that Auckland’s urban planning framework is set for the short to medium term – albeit with inevitable appeals and changes.…
Local governments’ democracy problem
Local governments have a responsibility to represent the interests and desires of their constituents. That idea is written into the oath that elected representatives swear when taking their seats: I, [full name of mayor, councillor or board member], declare that I will faithfully and impartially, and according to the best of my skill and judgment, execute and perform, in the best interests of [name of region, district, city, local or community board], the powers, authorities, and duties vested in or imposed upon me as a member of the [name of local authority] by virtue of the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, or any other Act.…
Sunday reading 31 July 2016
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week is the week that the Independent Hearings Panel released its recommendations on the Auckland Unitary Plan, so we’re going to lead off with a few reactions.
First, Hayden Donnell at the Spinoff had a useful summary of the IHP’s decisions.…
Reeves Rd Flyover decision: The details
A few weeks ago Auckland Transport announced that the Reeves Rd Flyover was back on again. I happened to be looking through some info for the AT board meetings and found that they’ve published the paper that was used to make that decision.…
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