Gerry Brownlee interviewed about transport issues in Auckland
Campbell Live has been running a lot of stories on Auckland issues recently which has been nice to see and has obviously also provided us with a heap of material to talk about. Last night the entire episode was devoted to transport in Auckland.…
48 Comments Trends in vehicle travel in NZ
Nerd alert; this post is chock-full of graphs. Plus a few “hypotheses”, just to keep things exciting. And a dog, because I like dogs.
For those of you who are new to the data game but want to participate in the nerdy excitement, let me first explain the rules.…
Funding Transport in the Future
For the last 6 months or so, a group of people representing organisations from all corners of society have been looking at the issue of how we will pay for all of the transport projects on the councils massive wish list that is the Auckland Plan.…
Government Misleads on Public Transport Spending In Auckland
A Herald article last month highlighted strong support for more Government spending on public transport improvements in Auckland. It included the following quote:
But a spokesman for Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said that with $890 million budgeted for public transport in Auckland over three years “it would be grossly unfair to suggest the Government hasn’t given this mode of transport the priority it deserves”.…
Funding Aucklands future transport
Despite the rhetoric, one of the biggest disappointments about the Auckland plan was in the area of Transport. Seemingly unwilling to say no to anyone, the Council included in it almost every single transport project ever conceived, effectively creating a massive, and expensive wish list.…
Why aren’t we getting what we want?
Yesterday the NZ Herald picked up on the UMR research poll on transport spending preferences – that Matt did a post on a few days back. Here are some of the key points in the Herald article:
Popular support for spending on public transport has almost doubled over 20 years, according to a poll of 750 New Zealanders.…
A (more detailed and equitable) ode to time-of-use transport pricing
EYE CANDY WARNING: This post contains no pictures.
In a recent post I penned an “ode to demand-based transport pricing”. The main suggestion was that incorporating “time” into our transport pricing would be beneficial because it would help us to allocate our limited transport capacity to people who valued it more highly.…
Should State Highways Be Funded The Same Way As Local Roads?
My post yesterday it reminded me of a question that has rolled around in my head from time to time, should state highways be funded the same way as local roads. There is clearly some logic to the current set up with the NZTA being responsible for state highways which are considered the stragetic roads that connect the country together and councils are responsible for local roads which tends to be how we get around our towns and cities.…
Petrol taxes hiked by 9c a litre over three years
The NZ Herald reports:
The Government will increase petrol tax by three cents a litre each July 1 for the next three years.
Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said road user charges would also be increased by an equivalent amount.
He said the increases were required to deliver the “Roads of National Significance” programme and other roading projects to the timeline set out in the Government’s land transport funding policy.…
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.…
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