Of Experts, Damned Lies, and Pohutukawa
I have just returned from an extremely dispiriting experience. A room full of people including representatives from Local Boards, David Shearer the local MP, and many extremely frustrated members of the public were attempting to discuss the fate of the St Lukes Pohutukawa Six with a bunch of engineers from AT, NZTA, and the private sector.…
142 Comments Predicting Future Transport Demand
We have long criticised the Ministry of Transport as being horribly outdated in their thinking on transport matters. It’s always difficult to know the extent to which the Ministry is just reflecting the government’s political direction or whether they truly believe what they’re saying, but in more recent times there have been a few signs that the Ministry might be getting its act together.…
Help Defend the Flyover Decision
From the Architectural Centre in Wellington:
The NZTA flyover and recent appeal
The NZTA have proposed building a flyover adjacent to New Zealand’s historic Basin Reserve. There are several complex aspects to the issue, but the basic chronology is: The Minister for the Environment established a Board of Inquiry in mid-2013 to decide if a flyover should be built by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) adjacent to the Basin Reserve cricket ground. …
Where is the Heart? Critical Public Space in the City Centre
Ever since the Town Hall was built on that odd triangle between converging streets half way up Queen St Auckland has failed to successfully find an important central location that can be considered its spiritual locus. A civic heart: A public space for those collective experiences; celebrations, protests, that everyone automatically understands is the right and fitting place.…
Freeing us from traffic
Yesterday the Herald ran a fantastic opinion piece from Dr Jamie Hosking who is a senior lecturer and health and transport researcher at the University of Auckland. As he says at the end, it’s “a timely reminder for the Auckland Council as it considers whether to reduce spending on big new roading projects.…
More highways failing to meet projections
An article on Philly.com highlights a number of new or expanded highway projects in the US are vastly failing to meet traffic projections:
Before beginning a $2.5 billion project to widen the New Jersey Turnpike, turnpike officials said the construction was necessary to reduce existing congestion and to cope with future traffic.…
Traffic still at 2007 levels
Gerry Brownlee’s media release yesterday trumpeted up traffic levels in 2013 surpassing those in 2012 – apparently this is a sign of New Zealand’s economic recovery that we’re driving a bit more. Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee says increases in vehicle travel and vehicle registrations reflect New Zealand’s economic recovery and growing population.…
Environmental effects of an Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing
The additional Waitemata Harbour crossing is a crazy project for a variety of reasons. The blog has noted before that the project is both completely unaffordable and totally unnecessary because of the lack of the actual benefits when you look at the detail.…
Gerry’s strange RoNS justification
On Friday transport minister Gerry Brownlee spoke to the Road Transport Forum (RTF) on the government’s key transport priorities. Over the years the RTF have been a generous donor (not just to National) and have certainly received a transport policy very much tailored to their needs.…
Controlling Traffic
Like with public transport patronage, I keep a close eye on what are happening with traffic volumes on the motorways thanks to the monthly data released by the NZTA. The data doesn’t cover the entire motorway network but it does cover a number of key locations on it that can help to give an indication of what’s happening.…
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