What’s rotten about transport – the politics or the profession?
Over the last week or two we’ve highlighted that there’s something really rotten going on about transport planning and policy in New Zealand. Here are the highlights: NZTA deliberately fudge the numbers in a report looking at justifying a $5 billion transport project, by far the most expensive transport project ever proposed in New Zealand.…
49 Comments Kapiti Expressway’s BCR is actually 0.2!
A great scoop by Campbell Live tonight showing that the cost-benefit ratio of the Mackays to Peka Peka part of the Kapiti Expressway – a key section of the Wellington Northern Corridor RoNS project – has been recalculated recently as being 0.2.…
The madness of parking minimums
One of the most important directions in the Auckland Plan, in my opinion, was the strong emphasis on shifting away from the current way we manage parking regulation. This may sound like a pretty mundane issue, but if you read on, you will discover the complete and utter madness of the way parking is managed at the moment – and how ensuring that the Auckland Plan’s direction comes to fruition in the Unitary Plan is going to be one of the most important transport issues that this blog will focus on in relation to the Council’s new planning rulebook.…
Peaking
I’m not going to repeat the excellent Guest Post review of the book Human Transit – other than to note from what I’ve read of the book so far I agree with pretty much everything in the review. It is a very good book.…
Edge City: not the future after all?
My Amazon book purchases with Christmas money have all arrived in the past few days, leaving me with an exciting – but somewhat daunting – reading list over the next few weeks: When Oil Peaked by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson
Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl
Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives by Jarrett Walker
Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities by Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph
Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau Typically, I’ve started somewhat madly by reading through the first few pages of each book.…
Taking a fresh look at planning regulation
For a long time it seemed to me that most of our urban problems here in Auckland, as well as overseas, had arisen through a lack of planning. At first glance, it seems as though the urban sprawl and automobile dependency we suffer from has been the result of insufficient planning rules and regulations – which have been unable to stop developers from building stuff that we don’t like.…
Taking a second look at North Shore Rail
Nick’s post a few days back on looking at a Vancouver Skytrain type solution for providing the North Shore with a long-term rapid transit system (as well as other areas, but I think North Shore is the one which makes the most sense initially) inspired a lot of discussion.…
Parking and hamburgers
An exceptionally kind blog reader bought me “The High Cost of Free Parking” byDonald Shoup recently. This is a book that I’ve flicked through on a number of occasions in the past, but I’m incredibly grateful of the opportunity to read through it properly, particularly at a time when it seems that Auckland Council is fundamentally reassessing the way it handles parking policy.…
What is the alternative to building the CBD Rail Tunnel?
As I’m sure most readers would have recognised from my most recent posts on the CBD Rail Tunnel review, the thing that frustrates me most about the work done by the Ministry of Transport is their blatant ignorance of the big question: “what is the alternative to the project?”…
When might we need North Shore Rail?
Hidden among the vast number of ‘roads-mad’ documents that form the review of options for a future harbour crossing is one document that provides us with more of an insight into North Shore rail that we’ve probably ever seen before. In this post I will look at the issue of when might we need to introduce a North Shore railway line, while in a future post I will consider the matter of what form that rail link might take (ie.…
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