Thoughts on the “holiday highway”
I have found myself making a number of trips over the past week or so along the stretch of State Highway 1 immediately north of Auckland. Both times I’ve gone north the traffic has been pretty bad, but in rather unexpected ways which have provided me with some quite useful insights.…
67 Comments Don’t Travel North Tomorrow
This is probably going to end up being a fairly annual post but if you need to head north tomorrow, don’t be surprised if a few thousand of your fellow citizens think of doing the same and jam up the roads.…
What does the CCFAS document tell us?
Whoever leaked the draft City Centre Future Access study (CCFAS) is, as Mr Anderson said in a comment the other day, a complete and utter idiot (assuming that it’s someone from Auckland Transport rather than Central Government). After working so hard over the past year to get beyond the differences in opinion between the two parties which plagued last year’s review of the CRL’s original business case, it’s really dumb to spoil this goodwill by jumping the gun.…
What’s Best for Northland?
Pretty much every single time we hear the government talk about the Puhoi to Wellsford road of national significance they say that its crucial to Northland’s economy, even standing up and saying so in parliament here are a few quotes from different exchanges:
Dated 15 August 2012
Phil Twyford: Does it make economic sense to borrow to fund the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway”, which has a benefit-cost ratio that barely breaks even and costs $1.7 billion, when a $400 million upgrade would fix the congestion and safety problems?…
P2W timesavings just don’t stack up
From time to time I like to check on the written questions asked by MPs to ministers, these questions are important as the ministers are required to answer them and the results are stored on record so they can be a great way of finding out information.…
More Puhoi-Wellsford discussion in parliament
Phil Twyford had another go at the Puhoi-Wellsford project in parliament yesterday – interestingly this time with Maurice Williamson answering the questions: You can read the transcript of the exchange here.
I thought the most interesting part was the answer to the last question Mr Twyford asked:
Phil Twyford: Is the Minister aware of a 2008 report prepared by Sinclair Knight Merz consultants—the current consultants working on the Pūhoi to Wellsford project—that said that “the scope for substantial economic growth with the upgrading of SH1 is limited.”,…
Thoughts on “Band-Aid” solutions
There are often two competing arguments when it comes to transport investment: Build the project now, you’re going to need it eventually
Only build what you need when you need to build it This is a really interesting debate, because both sides of the argument have a good point to make.…
Can these RoNS Make a Right?
*An old post for a little holiday reading, especially as Steven Joyce is on Twitter repeating that tendencious line about the $1billion dollar duplicate Holiday Highway being all about making the Northland economy go wild. Enjoy.*
It is interesting that Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee invoked the Auckland Harbour Bridge in a recent interview about the Roads of National Significance.…
Warkworth-Wellsford: in or out?
Yesterday NZTA released a map of their projects and priorities in Auckland, as part of the National Land Transport Programme release of information. The whole map (in case NZTA remove or update it) is shown below: As Cam’s post yesterday noted, there’s something in the way Puhoi-Wellsford is shown that really stood out – showing the Warkworth to Wellsford section of the road as a “possible” Road of National Significance.…
NZTA Fudging the Figures on the NLTP?
The NZTA has announced their three yearly National Land Transport Programme 2012 – 15:
Spending on roads and public transport by central and local government over the next three years will increase by almost 13 per cent with much of the additional cash coming from fuel tax and road user charge hikes, Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee says.…
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