Major Cost Blowout for Midtown Bus Solution?
Last year Auckland Transport declared war on the Council over the Victoria Street Linear Park. Just days after being instructed by Council to allow for the future Victoria Street Linear Park, A major part of the City Centre Master Plan and the planned east-west cycling/walking link, AT proposed midtown bus routes that were heavily reliant on Victoria St, thereby preventing the Linear Park.…
39 Comments Western Victoria Quarter Part 2: Cook Street and Motorway Severance
This is a Guest Post by David R, and the second of a series about the need to improve the Western Victoria Quarter. Part 1 can be found here.
Victoria Quarter suffers for the Southern Motorway, and this alignment exists to serve the ego of Mayor John Allum:
This lack of foresight and common sense was compounded by Auckland city fathers led by former Mayor Sir John Allum, chairman of the bridge authority.…
Western Victoria Quarter Part 1: Introduction
This is a Guest Post by David R, and the first of a series about the need to improve the Western Victoria Quarter.
After arriving back from a stint in Vancouver and Amsterdam, my partner and I decided we wanted some outdoor space and another bedroom.…
City Centre doing well
Auckland is currently experiencing rapid and profoundly positive change and nowhere is that more evident than in the city centre. What’s more the speed and scale of the change is only increasing with billions of dollars of mostly private investment about to be pumped in.…
The Aotea Framework
Transforming an entire city centre is no quick and easy task. In 2012 the council adopted the fantastic City Centre Master Plan (CCMP) which laid out the vision for Auckland’s city centre over a 30 year period and identified a huge number of potential projects.…
How Light Rail could transform Queen St
I’ll be looking more into Auckland Transport’s announcement that it’s considering installing Light Rail down some of the central isthmus streets during the week. In the meantime the suggestion that trams could be back on Queen St reminded me of these images.…
On This Day… “Locking in” Vic Park Tunnel’s benefits
Today’s ‘on this day’ post comes from 2012.
The additional southbound lanes over the Victoria Park Viaduct, made possible through the construction of the Victoria Park Tunnel, open to vehicles today. John Roughan’s NZ Herald editorial can barely contain his excitement at this prospect, largely because (he hopes) it will get rid of queue jumpers holding up traffic through St Mary’s Bay.…
1971 Central City proposals
The council’s City Centre Master Plan contains a huge number of great ideas for making the city centre a better place to live work and play but it’s far from the first document looking at the subject. Our friend Darren Davis has recently come across a document from 1971 called Central Area Proposals outlining a number of ideas from the time.…
O’Connell St shared space is wonderful, but
Over the weekend the latest shared space in the city was completed, on O’Connell Street. This joins the growing network of shared spaces with Lorne Street, Elliott St, Darby St, Fort St and the also recently completed Federal Street. I would argue that O’Connell Street is the best one yet.…
Attracting families to the city centre
The 2013 Census results showed very strong population growth in Auckland’s city centre. The four census area units of Auckland Harbourside, Auckland Central West, Auckland Central East and Newton grew from 19,116 usual residents in 2006 to just under 28,000 in the 2013 census.…
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