Is the Outer Link fundamentally flawed?
In the past few weeks either myself, or people I know well have had the following experiences with the Outer Link bus: Waiting 50 minutes for a bus between 5.05pm and 5.55pm from the city
Turning up at the Outer Link bus stop and seeing the “real time” sign say the bus is 10 minutes away, ducking quickly into the nearby dairy for something and coming out two minutes later to see the bus driving past
Persistent late buses and bunching of buses
Getting kicked off one bus and onto another at Victoria Park when the bus you’re on is full
Seeing regular driver changes being made in the middle of the evening peak period (once again at Victoria Park, one of the busiest sections of the route)
Did I mention late buses?…
41 Comments QIMBYs needed to pass the 5 minute pint test
Last week Kent and I attended the talk by Hank Dittmar from the Princes Foundation on sustainable cities and design. Many of the things that Hank talked about are things that we discuss on here so they shouldn’t really come as a surprise but it is useful to cover them anyway.…
Dumb Ways to Die
This has been going around the net for a few days now but still worth posting here in case anyone hasn’t seen it. It is a campaign launched by Melbourne Metro to warn of the dangers of trains. This follows another interesting advertising campaign from Australia where Queensland Rail were promoting rail etiquette.…
Comment of the Week
Interest.co.nz picked up on my slight edits to Rodney Hide’s column in the Herald on Sunday. The comments included an absolute pearler from “Boatman”:
The AUCKLAND TRANSPORT BLOG are a bunch of nutters that should be ignored and given no space to air their stupid views at all, which frankly no Kiwi bloke would ever subscribe to anyway.…
Return of the walking city
..The City is never complete, never at rest. Thousands of witting and unwitting acts every day alter its lines in ways that are perceptible only over a certain stretch of time. -Spiro Kostof
I was inspired by Patrick’s recent transit dividend post where he documented the laneways around the Pacific and Matt’s people buy stuff and wanted to look a little closer at the things happening on the street which to me are fascinating and representative of a highly dynamic urban ecosystem.…
New North Road bus changes (or why I hate St Lukes)
Auckland Transport have proposed some changes to New North Road bus services – which is a good thing as the current buses are an absolute mess. Here are the details:
What are the proposed changes?
It is proposed to simplify all services running along New North Road to improve frequency and reliability and to reduce overcrowding.…
Pukekohe Electrification: the case for another station (or three)
I was really excited to see Auckland Transport’s proposal to extend rail electrification from Papakura to Pukekohe. With a whole heap of growth proposed for the southern-most parts of Auckland it seemed pretty insane to cut electrification off at Papakura. Furthermore, if wake up to the reality that running diesel shuttle trains for less than 100 passengers a day between Waitakere and Swanson is absolutely insane, electrification to Pukekohe means that we can completely do away with diesel trains from the Auckland rail network.…
Cities, Huh! What Are They Good For?
Continuing Stu’s look at the value of cities and our ongoing book club I thought is was time to pull out Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of the City again to further unpack the value of the urban world. Ed Glaeser is a professor of Economics at Harvard and this book is the distillation of years of research backed by data, but is also a great read for anyone interested in the direction of society now and the forces that drive these changes across the world.…
Form follows parking
Here’s a fairly random street in Sydney, Australia that looks like it’s a big box retail area with some office parks thrown in. You know, like the kind of thing you find in Auckland in places such as Albany, Wairau Park, Highbrook, Lincoln Road and of course Manukau.…
Aucklanders want the CRL
The City Rail Link is pretty popular among most of the people who read this site but it is also pretty popular amongst the general population too. Yet another survey has been completed showing that the project has strong support. The NZ Herald reports:
A majority of Aucklanders want the Government to make a significant contribution to the $2.86 billion city rail link, a poll has found.…
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