A Government Minister for Cities
Australian politics are not something I tend to follow however the ousting of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull last week piqued my interest for a couple of reasons. Tony Abbott had taken an extremely ideological position on transport and pushed a transport policy very similar to our governments Roads of National Significance – perhaps even more ideological as our government at least funded or continued some transit projects such as electrification.…
55 Comments Celebrating the 57th electric train
Today Auckland Transport celebrated the arrival of the last electric train – of this first batch. The celebration also included a visit by Prime Minister John Key Auckland Transport has officially marked the arrival of the last of the city’s 57 electric trains with a function at the Wiri Train Depot attended by the Prime Minister.…
Bring on the Cycleways
Yesterday the John Key and Simon Bridges announced the planned cycling investment throughout New Zealand for the next three years and pleasingly it represents a massive increase on anything we’ve seen before. There are two primary reasons for this increase in funding.…
Council/Government battle heating up
It seems the fight between the council and the government is turning into an all-out war. The first front was on housing where Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith threatened to override the council who are refusing to approve three SHA’s in rural Kumeu because of a lack of supporting infrastructure.…
Move to the Waikato?
The Prime Minister has suggested a new solution to housing problems in Auckland
If you can’t afford a house in Auckland the prime minister has some advice for you – head to Waikato.
John Key was in the region yesterday for a less controversial cup of tea at Zealong Tea Estate, before heading up to Pokeno to see what he made of growth in the area.…
Grafton Gully Opening
I made my way to town this morning for the official opening of the Grafton Gully and Beach Rd cycleways. Perhaps because we’re only two weeks out from the election the government pulled out the big guns with John Key turning up to cut the ribbon along with Len Brown and Barb Cuthbert from Cycle Action Auckland.…
Getting on with the CRL
There seems to have been a bit of a “passive aggressive ding dong” going on between Mayor Len Brown and Prime Minister John Key over the City Rail Link in recent months. Back in February, Mayor Brown proposed to “kick start” the CRL by building the first section under the downtown shopping mall and some way up Albert Street.…
Electrification officially turned on
Yesterday the switch was officially flipped on electrification of the Auckland rail network – well at least the on the section into Britomart. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it so am relying on reports in the media and from others who were there.…
Caption Contest: John Key cycling
Prime Minister John Key with Peter Smit, Councillor for Transport, City Councillor of Leidschenveen-Iepenburg, The Hague.
Comments to be funny, not rude.…
Transport’s not a left/right political issue
As I discussed yesterday the debate on big urban issues of housing and transport far too frequently descends into left/right debates and today I’m looking at transport.
One of the reasons this has come up is that we’ve had some interesting conversations on Twitter in the last few days with a couple of Nationals MPs, which apart from highlighting a scary lack of understanding about transport, inevitably touched on the issue about whether the transport policy that we generally advocate on this blog fits into the traditional “left-right” political spectrum.…
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