Investing in Public Transport is a Chicken or Egg debate
In New Zealand, the provision of public transport seems to have really gotten into a chicken or egg debate. This is especially so with the current government who are very reluctant to spend any money on improving public transport using the argument that because most people drive, then we should invest in roads.…
34 Comments 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.…
Submit on the LTMA Amendment Bill
There have been a few posts on this blog over the past year or so on the Land Transport Management Act Amendment Bill. Looking through the “LTMA tag” I come across the following: Steven Joyce’s revenge? Big changes proposed to LTMA
Should NZTA be allowed to borrow for the RoNS?…
Thinking about fares – Some perspectives on zones, products, and concessions
As many of you will know, Auckland Transport (AT) recently released the draft Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP). One of the more interesting parts of the plan relates to fare systems, which proposes to establish several geographic zones that more or less radiate out from the city centre, as well as some changes to ticket products.…
Transport – It’s the Economy, Stupid
I came across a well crafted piece about the Government’s transport policies on Scoop, by Dr Glen Koorey (presumably the same person who comments here occasionally as “Glen K”) a senior lecturer in transportation at the University of Canterbury’s College of Engineering.…
Measuring ‘transport benefit’ better
In transport planning there’s a lot of talk about ‘cost-benefit analyses’, leading to a “BCR” (benefit cost ratio) for a particular project. Projects with a BCR of greater than 1.0 deliver more benefits than the money expended upon them (and any disbenefits the project generates) and are therefore worth considering spending money upon.…
How the regions fare from the NLTP, the Ws have it
Thinking about the NLTP announcements and Rudmans article yesterday I wondered, which regions are really doing well out of the funding announcements and which ones aren’t doing so well. It appears that if the name of your region starts with a W then you will be doing much better off.…
Rudman rightly slams the NLTP
Brian Rudman was in fine form in yesterday’s NZ Herald, highlighting that behind all the fancy words of the National Land Transport Programme, both Auckland and public transport get a pretty raw deal:
In Auckland’s case, of the $3.37 billion Mr Brownlee plans to invest, $816 million comes from Auckland Council.…
Vancouver facing some tough decisions
The excellent “Price Tags” blognotes something that came through pretty loud and clear when I was in Vancouver over the last couple of weeks and researching a bit into their transport situation (although I was mostly focusing on land-use initiatives, you can never quite separate the two) – there’s no money left in traditional funding sources to keep improving the system, should they hold back for a while (especially as a few roading projects seem to have snuck in recently) or does Vancouver need to find different ways of sourcing funds for important further improvements to its transport network?…
Smart Transport for New Zealand
Generation Zero have released a nifty little video about improving the way in which we spend our transport budget so we are building for the future, not the past: They are also promoting a petition, calling for a significant rebalancing of the transport budget.…
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