Chief Science Advisor for Transport?
One of the impressions I have of many of the government ministries is that they act on “you say jump, I ask how high” kind of arrangement. We seem to see this particularly strongly in the Ministry of Transport where staff appear to have gone to almost extraordinary lengths in the past to paint projects like the City Rail Link in a bad light while giving uneconomic RoNS projects a free pass, all of which is strongly in line with the positions taken by government ministers.…
11 Comments Why stop at just a second CBD?
Last week mayoral candidate John Palino reaffirmed his position that we should turn Manukau into a second CBD. I have actually looked at some of the issues in the past but will look at a few different points this time.
Auckland mayoral candidate John Palino is promising to build a smart, green new city – possibly at Manukau – as an alternative to “sprawling intensification” proposed by Mayor Len Brown.…
The future route for the extension to the Northern Busway
One of the key public transport projects on the books – and in our Congestion Free Network – is an extension of the Northern Busway to the north. Thanks to an Official Information Act request by reader Hamish O we now have a whole lot more information about the project.…
There’s U Turns and then there’s handbrakes
This week we saw the government do a massive U-Turn on its support for the City Rail Link and then a few days later agree to a bucket full of roading projects. While we can debate the merits of these projects, crucially the three main projects – The CRL, AMETI and the East-West Link and an Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing – are the three at the top of the priority list in the Auckland Plan.…
Why is the Herald being so one sided over the Unitary Plan?
One of the things that prompted me to write a post explaining why I want intensification in my neighbourhood was due to the seemingly one sided debate coming out of our major newspaper. It seemed almost every single article that discusses the Unitary Plan had a negative slant to it and I can only recall seeing one story even slightly balanced.…
Movement and Place – Taking a historical perspective
“Movement and place”: A simple concept that underpins many of the debates on this blog.
For those who have not heard of the “movement and place” concept before, let me briefly re-cap. “Movement” describes how cities need to accommodate flows of people and products.…
Transport Spending: what’s the point?
As a country we spend a lot of money on transport, at three levels: central government, local government and personally. In the 2012 budget, around $3.8 billion of expenditure on transport by central government was proposed. Further to that, transport is generally the biggest item of expenditure for local government – the Auckland Council spends over half its money (more than half your rates bill) on transport each year.…
Powering public transport in New Zealand
I recently authored a report for EECA titled “Powering public transport in New Zealand.” In this report we considered a range of emerging public transport technologies and whether they might be suited to small to medium sized cities in New Zealand.…
“It’s the economy stupid” – Taking New Zealand’s Cities Seriously
Most people who read this blog do so because they are interested in transport. But sometimes I do wonder if we lose sight of the fact that transport is (usually) a means to an end, rather than an end in itself (putting aside purely recreational travel).…
Changing the ground rules
We have been pretty critical of many of the business cases for the roads of nation significance that have been produced because like as has been seen in Australia with their PPPs, many use incredibly over inflated traffic projections and even with those some still don’t make economic sense.…
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