Weekly Roundup 20-December-2024

Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year.

As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on the roads.

This post, like all our work, is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like to support our work, you can join our circle of supporters here, or support us on Substack!

This Week in Greater Auckland

• On Monday we ran a guest post from Tim Adriaansen on not advocating for electric cars.
• On Tuesday Matt covered the government’s announcements on future toll roads.
• On Wednesday Matt looked at what was interesting from the last AT Board Meeting of 2024.
• On Thursday we had another guest post, another book review from George Weeks.

City Rail Link

The CRL team have put together a video of some of their highlights of the year.

Rail Network Shutdown

As a reminder, this year Auckland will have one of its biggest rail shutdowns with no trains running for at least a whole month.

While many Kiwis are looking forward to a well-earned summer break, KiwiRail teams are ramping up in preparation for their busiest Christmas closure period to date.

The Auckland rail network will close from 27 December 2024 to 27 January 2025 (reopening on 28 January), to carry out critical upgrades to prepare for the faster, more frequent train services the City Rail Link will bring. Some areas will be impacted for a slightly longer period until full services run from 3 February 2024.

Over the extended closure period this year, more than 1350 KiwiRail staff and contractors will be working across over 110 sites on the Auckland metro network. This will allow them to make significant progress on key upgrade projects and carry out essential work to raise the standard of the rail network.

There’s more detail about the works being undertaken here.

Study finds cycleways increase property values

While it’s a small bump of $1000, research by University of Christchurch student Caleb Sullivan, under professor Simon Kingham, found that having cycleways near properties increases their value.

They used an internationally recognised hedonic pricing model, which figures out how different features of a house, like its size, location, or amenities, affect its overall price.

Using this model they found cycleways had a small positive effect on house sale prices of about $1000.

Sullivan noted that those in real estate may not recognise the value of cycleways: “We interviewed a few local real estate agents and property developers who noted that cycleways were not something they considered as [much as] other factors, such as on-street parking, took priority,” he said.

The research showed the density of cycleways around houses was becoming a subtle, but important, factor for home buyers who valued active transport options and local connectivity.

“This study reinforces that cycleways are not a detriment to residential property values. Instead, they can be a selling point for some properties,” Kingham said.

Sydney’s bike transformation and challenges

In an interview with Zag Daily, Fiona Campbell explains how she became the City of Sydney’s official Manager of Cycling Strategy, and how Sydney has been trying to bring back the bikes. It’s a fascinating interview with some similar themes as we see here in Auckland.

Zag Daily: What’s the long-term solution to this conflict with Transport for New South Wales?

Fiona: “There are a lot of good people in Transport for New South Wales and some have written good policies and strategies. They now have a movement and place framework, and a road-user space allocation policy which puts private vehicles at the bottom of a hierarchy. So they have taken a step forward.

“The problem is the people who have the power to veto any of our projects don’t sing by the same song sheet. A motorway project which included active transport links had all of those important details removed without the Minister being told, and this has exposed some of the people who aren’t following what the policies say or what the Minister wants. Culture change in an organisation can be difficult and it can take a lot of time, and it’s hard to know whether they’ll be able to make that change or whether we just have to wait for people to retire. There have been positive changes, but it hasn’t resonated through the whole organisation and that’s where the difficulty lies.”

Air pollution impacts mental health, and the toxic chemicals from car tyres

Research from the University of St Andrews, found air pollution impacts not just physical health, but actually leads to increased hospital admissions for mental health.

Previously published research on the health effects of long-term exposure to ambient air pollution has tended to emphasise deaths rather than hospital admissions, and physical, rather than mental, ill health, the researchers said.

The study found that air pollution was linked to increased risks of hospital admission for mental health, as well as physical illness.

Stricter environmental restrictions would benefit millions of people and curb the impact on secondary care, the researchers said.

Dr Mary Abed Al Ahad of the University of St Andrews, who led the study, said policies to tackle air pollution and a shift to renewable energy could help ease the burden on hospitals of people with both physical and mental illnesses in the long term.

“Policies and interventions targeting air pollution emissions such as zero-emission zones or incentives for renewable energy in transportation and energy production sectors could help ease the hospital-care burden in the long term both locally and globally.”

Another interview on RNZ talks about the impact of tire particles

Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated six million tonnes of tyre particles.

Generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, they eventually build up in the soil, in rivers and lakes and even in our food.

But unlike other microplastics, hundreds of toxic chemicals go into making tyres and have been known to cause mass die-offs for fish.

A recent collaborative study Priorities to Inform Research on Tire Particles and Their Chemical Leachates: A Collective Perspective has called for more research into their effects.

Browny’s Pool

This is a great addition to the harbour. Stuff reports

Wayne Brown continues to ride a wave as Mayor of Auckland with the opening of the new Karanga Harbour swimming pool.

In the shadows of the recently repaired Wynyard Crossing Bridge, the new city centre pool opens on Friday, at a cost of $500,000.

Brown took a dip in the pool before it opened, to test it out, and he gave it a thumbs up, believing it will be a popular attraction for Aucklanders and visitors to the city.

The pool will be free to use, open during daylight hours, with lifeguards on duty during peak times and a changing room built nearby.

“Well, I’m delighted, really,” Brown said.

On top o this, the Wynyard Bridge is finally working again (though not without a few hiccups).

All the kind of shells in the Manukau Harbour

And from another of Auckland’s harbours, New Zealand Geographic posted a story this week about one of the most significant sea shell collections in New Zealand, amassed by a South Auckland dairy farmer.

It arrived in a wooden cabinet, each drawer of it a family: Calliostomatinae, Volutidae, Turbinidae. One of every kind of shell to be found in the Manukau Harbour. Sometimes more than one: an ark of molluscs.

The cabinet waited in the circular corridor at the heart of Auckland Museum for more than seven years, in between the marine department’s freezer for fish bits and a shelving unit filled with jars, labels, bags. When collections technician Darryl Jeffries sat down to catalogue its contents, he knew little about it or its maker.

But the cabinet came with a pair of hand-illustrated journals detailing exactly where and when each specimen had been found. As Jeffries read, hints of the collector, Norman Douglas, emerged.

[…]

The shell collection began, improbably, on a hunting trip. Norman and his uncle, Edwin, were deerstalking in the King Country, in the heart of the Waikato, about as far as it’s possible to get from the sea. One day, they were travelling along a river bank when Norman spotted something odd about one of the boulders. It seemed as though a shell was embedded in the rock, had become part of it, imprinted on the stone. Norman dug the boulder out of the bank, and dumped everything out of his pack so he could fit the boulder at the bottom. He carried it all the way out of the bush, kept it until he confirmed: this was a fossil oyster. How had it been made, he wondered, and how had it arrived here, so far from the sea?

State Highway 1’s Mangamuka Gorge

Yesterday SH1 connecting the Far North to the rest of the motu reopened, after two and a half years of closure due to slip repairs which ended up costing over $200 million. The 13km stretch being out of action has disconnected the area, check out this RNZ interview with locals or comments from Far North Mayor Moko Tepania from this article:

It was the Far North’s day so rather fitting that its mayor, Moko Tepania, should phrase it best.

As he stepped forward to speak at the opening ceremony, he said: “I’ve just thought of a really good analogy – is that the word? You know when you hurt your back … your whole body doesn’t function. You can use your arms still, you can use your mouth, you can use your legs, but none of it works properly.

“The Mangamuka Gorge is the backbone of the Far North. So having this taken out, yes we’ve still been able to use our hands, still being able to use our legs, definitely been able to use our mouths, but our district has not functioned.”

And here’s a flyover of the gorge highlight all of the work that’s gone on to repair this road

Study on transport cost in the US

Research out of the US has found that those on low incomes have a highest transport cost burden – with most of that being on motor vehicle costs.

U.S. households spent an average of $13,174 on transportation in 2023, with the largest spending on motor vehicle purchases and related expenses such as insurance, fuel and maintenance. Vehicle ownership is lowest among the lowest-income households, with 30% having no vehicles, but vehicle expenses were the main cause of increased transportation costs among three of the five income groups, the DOT said in a bulletin.

Another explanation of why induced demand exists and needs to be understood

A great piece by David Edmonson explaining (yet again) the existence of induced demand in transport and how traffic congestion cannot be reduced through building another lane.

Why does this keep happening?

Despite 62 years of evidence of its inefficacy, governments still widen roads. Amy Lee, a postgraduate student at UCLA, wrote her 2023 dissertation exploring the politics of highway widening in California. After interviewing state, regional, and local officials, both elected and professional, she found broad disagreements on the science. Many believe widening will reduce congestion; some believe the short-term benefits of congestion relief are worth the cost, or that a package of bikeway and transit improvements alongside widening will have meaningful and positive impacts.

“The phenomenon of induced travel from highway expansion is understood in different ways and still debated in California’s highway policy arena,” Lee writes. While many do believe widening will reduce congestion, “the focus of debate is shifting from the question of ‘if’ toward the question of how much. A battle over forecasting methods and applying the empirical research to specific projects has ensued.”

City to Sea bridge to go finally?

After Wellington City Council voted to demolish the City to Sea Bridge, heated debate has remained. The Spinoff’s Joel MacManus has waded into the sphere to call for its demolition:

Earlier this month, Wellington City Council voted to demolish the City to Sea Bridge and replace it with a ground-level pedestrian crossing on Jervois Quay. A new pedestrian bridge will be considered for funding at a later date. Councillors said demolition was significantly cheaper than strengthening the bridge to meet earthquake standards.

That decision hasn’t slowed the bridge-related discourse, though. Save-the-bridge campaigners are in full swing. A heritage or architecture group will almost certainly file a judicial review against the council, though those don’t often succeed.

On The Spinoff, Jeremy Hansen praised the bridge’s idiosyncratic design and layered bicultural elements. I argued that the bridge was a beloved icon but not worth the cost of fixing. Architect Caro Robertson argued that the bridge is too important to demolish. Last week, in the NZ Herald, Simon Wilson wrote a compelling essay describing the City to Sea Bridge as “our Eiffel Tower, except it’s more important”.

Sorry Simon, but your thesis on art and architecture has only radicalised me further. I used to think the bridge was nice but not worth saving. Now, I actively support its demolition. My reasoning has nothing to do with its artistic or cultural merits; it’s because it’s a bad piece of urban design. Te Ngākau Civic Precinct would be better without the bridge.

Sleeper Trains

Another take on the resurgence of sleeper trains in Europe.

This week on the socials

A pollution map of Paris over a 15 year period.

It’s amazing how pollution has decreased in Paris in 15 years. Anne Hidalgo has filled everything with bike lanes and has not only reduced pollution by 40%, but has been re-elected.

Es alucinante cómo ha bajado la contaminación en París en 15 años. Anne Hidalgo lo ha llenado todo de carriles bici y no sólo ha reducido la contaminación en un 40%, sino que ha sido reelegida.

— Alejandro Cencerrado (@alexbici.bsky.social) 2024-12-18T08:21:25.071Z

A great thread on how Madrid managed to triple in size by building 172km of new metro lines over just 12 years

We’ve still got a few posts planned for the rest of the year, such as wrapping up all of the important stuff that happened in 2024.

Share this