Rethinking Airport Rail
At the Auckland Transport Board meeting earlier this week, I did a presentation on behalf of the Campaign for Better Transport on airport rail, making the following points in a “one-pager” to the Board.
1. In our view the Jacobs “SMART Indicative Business Case | PDF” report underestimates the potential catchment of heavy rail, we assume because of the arbitrary requirement for a single seat journey to the airport.…
Has Len gone loopy?
A statement you won’t often hear on this blog is “I agree with Cameron Brewer” but you will hear it today. It’s in response to an his statements in this article in the Manukau Courier:
Public transport could get another boost if mayor Len Brown’s light rail loop for Manukau gets the green light.…
Thinking long-term for our rail system
The Auckland Plan (submissions close October 31st) takes a fairly long-term viewpoint of Auckland’s future, looking to 2041 when the population may well be as high as 2.5 million. Here are the projected population numbers for Auckland over the next 30 years, and how they compare with cities throughout the rest of New Zealand: A population of 2-2.5 million in 2041, if the medium or high projections are what turns out to happen, would put us in a situation similar to that of Greater Vancouver (current population 2.2 million).…
The southeast railway line (part 1)
As I mentioned in a post a few days ago on how I think Auckland should integrate transport into its future spatial plan, probably the biggest planning mistake ever made in Auckland’s history is allowing so much development occur east of the Tamaki River: with such poor transport connections.…
Southeast RTN – busway, rail, trolley-bus or light-rail?
When Auckland Transport released details of the latest concepts for a southeast busway: along Ti Rakau Drive between Botany and Pakuranga and eventually extending all the way into Panmure, I hesitated and had a pretty good think about whether this was a step in the right direction.…
AMETI Busway extends to Botany
I have often been very scathing of the AMETI transport project in the past, accusing it of being a roadsfest and barely paying lip-service to improving public transport. Well, either my criticisms are starting to pay off – or I was being a bit harsh on the project all along.…
Auckland’s 2050 Rail System?
I like to play around with ideas for dream future rail systems for Auckland, and oddly enough sometimes my rail visions are embraced by those with some opportunity to make them into a reality. But aside from making for interesting discussion points, having a bit of a think about what we might want our public transport system to look like 20, 30 or even 40 years into the future is important for one simple reason.…
AMETI – improved, but still misses the point
I didn’t get a chance to go to the open day on the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) today, but I have got hold of the information boards that were presented at the open day. So it is possible to see how things have come along a bit since the last design.…
North Shore vs Southeast Rail
Out of the “big three” rail projects that Len Brown promotes as his rail vision, two make pretty obvious sense – the CBD Rail Tunnel and Rail to the Airport. The two projects work in synergy quite nicely actually – both expanding the capacity and the reach of the rail system.…
AMETI: still ignoring the elephant in the room
An NZ Herald article today shines light on some growing worries that the “Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative”, known more commonly as “AMETI” may be a first step to reviving the dreaded “Eastern Motorway” – which Aucklanders resoundingly rejected in the 2004 local government elections.…
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