Weekly Roundup 7-August-2026
August, already? Astonishing! Here’s our weekly roundup of stories from the realms of cities and transport. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Connor asked: what will the recently signed PPP for Warkworth to Te Hana cost us?
On Wednesday, Patrick shared a reader’s suggestion for safe cycling around the isthmus, and readers chimed in with a lot of excellent supplementary thoughts, including this phenomenally detailed and thoughtful proposal from Grant for a Mt Wellington Greenpath.…
Comment We have a date! CRL opens 13 September
In exciting news, at last we have the date confirmed for the launch of the City Rail Link:
Sunday 13th September 2026
Whoop whoop! Here’s the Government media release. The official announcement was planned for 9am, and we’ve observed the embargo out of politeness.…
What an exciting thought :)
We love receiving positive comments and emails from the non-cynics out there. Occasionally there’s an idea in the inbox that is both so good and so timely, we leap to share it.
Today’s example is especially relevant and appealing in the current context, with the reckless commitment of future transport funding by the current government to low-value, high risk, duplicate mega-highways in the exurbs.…
What will Warkworth to Te Hana cost us? And other burning questions
Last week, late on Thursday afternoon, Minister of Transport Chris Bishop announced that the government had signed the contract for a Public Private Partnership for Warkworth to Te Hana.
This answers our long-running question: are they seriously going to go ahead with this?…
Weekly Roundup 31-July-2026
Goodness gracious, where did July go? The upside is that as of tomorrow, CRL opening day could well be “next month”. While we wait, enjoy the week’s most intriguing stories from the realms of cities and transport. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Connor reported on Auckland Transport’s estimate that it could take five years to restore safer speeds in Auckland’s neighbourhoods and elsewhere.…
We can have beautiful things!
As anticipation ramps up for the imminent opening of the CRL, the areas around the stations are coming to life.
Larger than life, even! Yesterday morning saw the unveiling of a magnificent 7.2m high bronze sculpture of a tuna kūwharuwharu (longfin eel) at the intersection of Victoria and Queen Streets.…
CRL Visits and Timetables
While we still wait to find out the date the City Rail Link will finally open, Auckland Transport yesterday released the timetables that will be used, and announced public ‘First Look’ events at the stations. First Look Events
AT will be opening up the stations, one weekend at a time, for people to look through.…
Five years to restore safer* speeds in Auckland?
Tomorrow’s meeting of Auckland Council’s Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee (TIDC) has some interesting items. One that particularly stands out for me is in the Auckland Transport update.
And it’s on the Safe Speeds Programme. Aucklanders yearn for a return to evidence-based speeds
A year on from Auckland Transport’s mindbogglingly widespread implementation of Simeon Brown’s 2024 Speed Rule, they report that they have recently been hard at work on – and making some progress on – returning some streets and roads to more safe speeds.…
Weekly Roundup 24-July-2026
It’s Friday again, and here we are with our roundup of the week’s most intriguing stories from the realms of cities and transport. Enjoy! This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a guest post from Pippa Coom about the power of Local Board Plans.…
Western Line Level Crossing Early Challenges and Feedback
A few months ago Auckland Transport finally started talking about the need to replace level crossings on the Western Line – something I think will become glaringly obvious in a few months once the City Rail Link opens, especially when frequencies increase, likely early next year.…
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