An amusing cartoon
From yesterday’s Dominion Post:…
A curious Herald editorial
I should be jumping for joy today over an editorial in the NZ Herald today that’s highly critical of Steven Joyce. But I’m just not quite sure about what it’s really trying to achieve by telling Joyce to “butt out” of the congestion charging issue.…
Labour finally ask some tough transport questions
I have (rightfully I think) hassled Labour for not paying enough attention to transport in recent times, letting Steven Joyce get away with a lot of the poor transport decisions that he’s making. So it was good to see them put together a few challenging questions today: (Zip past the first minute or so, which is just silly stuff).…
Busting an annoying transport myth
One thing that perpetually annoys me is when Steven Joyce rolls out the “we’re spending $1.6 billion on rail in Auckland so please stop complaining about all the money we’re spending on roads.” We see this line being trotted in in some of the Questions and Answers section to the Government Policy Statement:
It is also important to note that the majority of central government funding for public transport infrastructure is provided outside of the National Land Transport Fund and so not included in the GPS.…
The real reason for the holiday highway?
Reading through the two Herald articles last week that related to the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” really got me wondering why the government is so utterly determined to ram through this road. It’s very unpopular, with only 24.8% of Aucklanders and 19.2% of non-Aucklanders supporting the project, plus the Warkworth to Wellsford section of the road appears to have exceedingly difficult geotechnical issues to resolve.…
Huge problems for the holiday highway
There was an interesting article on the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” in the NZ Herald today – which notes the enormous difficulties NZTA is facing in finding a route that is feasible for the Warkworth-Wellsford section through Dome Valley.
Unstable ground around Dome Valley north of Auckland threatens to rip the wheels off the Government’s “road of national significance” from Puhoi to Wellsford.…
PT funding getting screwed over (again)
The agenda for next week’s Transport Committee meeting is online. Generally it’s a fairly light agenda, with the most interesting things likely to be presentations from Auckland Transport on the rail station upgrade program and on the final version of the Central Flagship Project bus changes.…
Where did the four new RoNS come from?
The draft Government Policy Statement document, that was released for consultation a couple of months back, was a highly perplexing and depressing document. Focusing an even greater amount of money on building new motorways, slashing (already slashed) spending on public transport infrastructure and capping money for new local roads and even the maintenance of existing roads is just plain stupidity – and is completely ignorant of recent transport trends both here in New Zealand and overseas.…
Steven Joyce’s revenge? Big changes proposed to LTMA.
The government has today announced some pretty big changes are being proposed to the Land Transport Management Act (LTMA). This is a pretty vital piece of legislation, forming the legislative framework around which most of the country’s transport plans, policies, rules and guidelines are created.…
Guest Post: The Colossus of Roads
This is another Guest Post from Peter:
This is a good speech by Green Party MP Gareth Hughes, focusing on transport matters for his Budget speech: The Colossus of Roads made me think of putting together a few pictures on Photoshop:…
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