The Hobson & Nelson streets idea
One of the ideas within the “Transport in Auckland: 2011-2016” plan I helped the Campaign for Better Transport present to the Auckland Council Transport Committee on Monday that seems to have captured the imagination of a lot of people, is the idea to ‘humanise’ Hobson and Nelson streets by turning them from one-way de-facto motorways into normal two-way boulevards.…
40 Comments The argument for lower speed limits
I am of the view that a 50 kph speed limit is too high for local (non-arterial) urban roads. Aucklanders have a nasty habit of generally driving at about 10 kph over the speed limit, so often vehicles are travelling at around 60 kph along local roads that may have kids along them, certainly have a lot of people living along them and in general will be much nicer places with slower traffic.…
The importance of road-width
In my opinion, perhaps the most important factor determining how a particular part of the city will feel are the road widths. The wider the road is, generally the faster people will be encouraged to drive – the opposite is obviously true too.…
Temporary pedestrian spaces
Another great Streetfilms video shows the amazing impact that pedestrianising a street over the summer months in Queens, New York City, can have on the surrounding neighbourhood: While I’m as sick to death with hearing the phrase “…for the rugby world cup” as anyone out there, I think we do have the opportunity with next year’s tournament to try a few things for the first time.…
Copenhagen’s Pedestrian Friendly Streets
I’ve said many times before that we can learn a lot from the way Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, has remade its town centre over the past few decades to be more pedestrian friendly. Here’s a great video from Streetfilms on what Copenhagen has achieved:
As we kick-start our venture into “shared spaces” with Darby, Fort, Elliott and Lorne Streets being turned – at least in part – into exciting shared spaces, my hope is that we can expand on this start, keep up the momentum and make Auckland a truly fantastic city for people, not just cars.…
Improving Ponsonby Road
Ponsonby Road is, in many respects, a really great and successful street. There’s a huge number of cafes, restaurants and other great shops along it. It generally feels pretty busy and successful and so forth. Even compared to other somewhat similar places like Parnell it feels a bit more lively, a bit less ‘forced’ somehow.…
Learning from New York
Following on from my post about humanising the CBD, I came across a great video showing the measures that New York City is taking to make that city much more people friendly. It’s well worth a watch: What I found most interesting in the video was the experiences of businesses after the pedestrianisation of parts of Times Square.…
Time to humanise the CBD?
One of the most exciting results in the Super City election was the makeup of the Waitemata Local Board. Those elected were Shale Chambers, Pippa Coom, Jesse Chalmers, Tricia Read, Christopher Dempsey, Rob Thomas and Greg Moyle. To summarise, there are five City Vision board members, one independent (Mr Thomas) and one Citizens & Ratepayers (Mr Moyle).…
Pedestrian friendliness
This will have to be a quick post as I’m hogging a computer in the SoHo Apple Store at the moment.
We’ve spent the day mainly wandering around parts of New York, including the lovely Greenwich Village and the very trendy SoHo.…
The Plan
I haven’t posted for a while and Josh being a way gives me a chance to get back in the groove. One of the reasons I haven’t posted for a while is because I think our brains work about 10 times as fast as money is available and about 50 times faster than most policiticians brain’s move.…
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