Why does Auckland hate pedestrians?
If there’s one thing that really annoys me about Auckland’s city centre it is how there are so many occasions when pedestrians get unnecessarily treated like rubbish. In the heart of New Zealand’s biggest city, with extremely high pedestrian flows and decreasing car numbers we still dedicate an enormous amount of space to cars.…
49 Comments Should we pedestrianise High Street?
In theory, I really like High Street in downtown Auckland. It has a great collection of shops (even though most of them sell products far too expensive for me to ever consider wandering into them), it has character with the collection of buildings, it is a bustling pedestrian environment and it always feels nice and vibrant.…
Stop blaming pedestrians for getting killed
There was a rather weird initiative yesterday morning as I wandered from my bus to work around the corner of Queen Street and Victoria Street – a mariachi band playing in time with pedestrians crossing the road and encouraging people to “check before they step”.…
Traffic calming
I’m a huge fan of the video series being put together on Streetfilms at the moment – about “moving beyond automobiles”. One recent video looks at traffic calming techniques – innovative ways of slowing down vehicles to make the road safer for pedestrians: I really like narrow streets, as I have outlined in previous posts.…
Restoring Horotiu Stream
I remember a few years ago when the Queen Street upgrade project was under construction, someone suggested that they should flood the street so you can ride a boat up there – for a real Auckland experience. It was obviously a joke, though the idea of restoring the Horotiu Stream – which used to follow the course that Queen Street now takes between Myers Park and the waterfront – did intrigue me to an extent.…
Good progress on humanising Nelson & Hobson streets
Sometimes it is interesting to see which ideas you have end up ‘taking on a life of their own’ and gaining popularity surprisingly quickly. Similarly, sometimes it is surprising how ideas you thought were really good don’t seem to end up anywhere.…
What kind of city centre do we want?
The “Future Vision Committee” of the Auckland Council today looked at a draft of the “International City Centre Master Plan“. The Master Plan has some exciting ideas about shaping Auckland’s city centre to be a much more attractive location for people to live, work and play.…
Slowing down traffic on Parnell Rise
Waitemata Local Board’s March meeting took place on Tuesday this week. One of the matters considered was a “notice of motion” by board member Christopher Dempsey (who sometimes comments on this blog) relating to measures to improve the safety of Parnell Rise by slowing down traffic.…
Why Rudman’s wrong about Queen St
I generally agree with what Herald columnist Brian Rudman says about transport and urban matters as they relate to Auckland. He’s a thoughtful columnist who’s not afraid to share his opinions, but at the same time generally makes sure what he says is backed up well.…
Pedestrianising Queen Street
The NZ Herald (on the front page of the print version too!) has an article today on a few of the things that I mentioned in a blog post last week the new Auckland Council was thinking about when it comes to improving Auckland’s CBD.…
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