Completing the RTN
As I state in this recent article at The Spinoff I see Auckland as around half way through a roughly 30 year long programme to retro-fit a complete Rapid Transit Network to itself.
Cities are of course never finished, and nor are their transport systems, but at the end of this period Auckland will have something new and powerful in its very structure: A complete city-wide top tier integrated Strategic Transit Network fed and supported by the Frequent Network below it: A complementary mirror to the city’s motorway and arterial road networks.…
93 Comments Scoot Math
Lime have been operating in Auckland since October last year. Six months. I know, is that all? It feels like they’ve been around a lot longer; e-scooters just seem part of the city now. So as they are seeking to renew their licence to operate I asked them if we could run some data.…
Copenhagen: Confirmation of the future sensual city
In August this year Greater Auckland reproduced a chapter I wrote for a book speculating on our future world, The Big Questions, in three posts; here, here, and here. Included was the section below describing the city centre. In bold is a short description of what I imagine the sensual experience of these future streets will be like:
The whole Queen Street valley will be car-free, plied only by emergency and delivery and service vehicles, the latter at set times.…
The advice Auckland has ignored for 50 years but must now heed
Engineer planner Lt Col Sir Colin Buchanan is rightly famous for his 1963 report Traffic in Towns and 1964 book of the same name. The report looks ahead to wall of traffic heading to British streets in the post war period and sets out principles and plans to ameliorate the negative effects as much as possible.…
Ready Aim? Fire: The Auckland Plan’s missing transport targets.
Time is running out to submit on the Auckland Plan and 10 year budget. Please do, if nothing else just go there to support the all important Regional Fuel Tax, without which very little can be achieved.
Matt discussed it earlier here.…
The Change Agency
Auckland Transport is not (just) a transport agency, it is a change agency.
Auckland Transport (AT) is the lead agency of change to our public realm in Auckland. AT has to front increasing amounts of change in both small and large ways, to our streets, to our daily experiences, and is therefore is the main focus for anyone, reasonable or otherwise, who has a view on these changes.…
The Council’s next Budget
Last week Mayor Phil Goff released his proposal for the Council’s next 10 year budget. This budget, known as the Long-term Plan, is updated every three years and is probably the most important thing the Council does every term. There are quite a few interesting parts of the proposal, although it still lacks a lot of detail that I assume will come through in the next few weeks as this initial proposal is turned into a draft Plan that will be consulted upon next year.…
The days of subsidising sprawl are ending
The most recent paper published by Auckland Council’s Chief Economist Unit takes an excellent look into the economics of greenfield development and how to more fairly fund the costs of roads, pipes and other infrastructure that is necessary to enable this development.…
Should Auckland’s boundaries be redrawn? Part 1: the splitters
We’ve had a unified Auckland Council since 2010 – it replaced seven district/ city councils and one regional council, in the largest local government restructure in New Zealand since 1989. With such a major, complicated process, it’s a given that it won’t have been perfect: things that could have been done better, and things that should be revisited now that we’re seven years on.…
Unitary Plan changes were “in scope”
Almost exactly a year ago the future of the Unitary Plan was looking uncertain after a group of rowdy residents, mainly from eastern suburbs who had been whipped into a frenzy by the likes of the NZ Herald and UP opposition groups like Auckland 2040, complained to the council about the plan.…
Processing...