Welcome back to our weekly roundup. We hope you had a good break (if you had one). Here’s a few of the stories that caught our attention over the last few weeks.
This holiday period on Greater Auckland
Since our last roundup we’ve:
- Taken a look back at the key things that happened in 2024
- Covered some of important things due to happen in 2025
The Minister’s view on Auckland
Stuff has an interview with Minister for Auckland and Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown:
“We’ve delivered a lot for Auckland and it’s certainly been our focus as a Government,” Simeon Brown says in an interview with Stuff at his electorate office in Pakuranga.
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He cites getting rid of the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax as something which has saved Aucklanders 11.5 cents a litre every time they refuel their vehicle. However, early last year Wayne Brown said this would leave a $1.2 billion shortfall in transport funding over the next four years.
Cancelling the fuel tax is the exact opposite of delivering for Auckland as it has removed funding for a lot of projects the city needs.
Simeon Brown says the priority for Auckland over the next couple of years will be pushing forward with infrastructure projects.
That includes the second Waitematā Harbour Crossing, the completion of the City Rail Link, the road of national significance from Warkworth to Wellsford, the extension of the Northern Motorway and finishing the Auckland Rail Network rebuild.
“Early next year we’ll be opening Pukekohe to Papakura railway line and electrification,” Simeon Brown said.
“Also, Mill Road to the south, where there’s a lot of infrastructure projects on our agenda.
“My focus is making sure that we’re getting the delivery of that infrastructure to help people get where they need to go quickly and safely, because that’s a real big priority in the city.”
A new (road focused) Harbour Crossing, Warkworth to Wellsford and Mill Rd are all projects that each will cost billions and do little to “help people get where they need to go quickly and safely” – certainly not cost effectively and in many cases will actually make congestion worse.
In a related story from Stuff, the Auckland town of Coatesville has been battling since 2019 to build a safe crossing on its main street.
Coatesville Residents and Ratepayers Association chairperson Jacqui Cantell said a crossing of some sort was needed due to there being a dairy, pony club, cafe, garage, offices, and two childcare centres along the busy stretch of road.
“There are a lot of comings and goings and no safe way for people to cross the road,” Cantell said.
Options included a raised zebra crossing, or a crossing managed by traffic lights on the village’s main road, Coatesville Riverhead Hwy.
Plans were delayed by Covid. Then, in 2023 when the Rodney Local Board settled on a raised crossing, Auckland Transport said the 60km/h limit meant that wasn’t possible. In mid-2024, the board decided traffic lights would be better than nothing.
However! In a paradoxical last-minute twist, it turns out Simeon Brown’s new speed rule (introduced late last year) means AT and the Local Board can now drop the speed limit to 50kmh, which enables them to build the raised crossing they’re after. The only hitch now is funding, as costs have risen in the meantime. Let’s hope AT stays the course and the people of Coatesville get their safe crossing.
Rosedale Busway Station delays
The planned Rosedale Busway Station should have been opened at the same time as the busway extension in May 2022; and several times since then, funding for it has been further delayed. Radio NZ reports that it’s now not meant to be completed till 2027 – and that’s without the local road upgrades Auckland Transport has planned.
An Auckland bus station is likely to finally be finished in 2027 – a decade after its first designs were unveiled.
The Rosedale bus station project’s funding has also been slashed from $69 million to to $42m, meaning local road improvements are not expected until at least a year after it opens.
Construction is now due to start by the end of this year, after a new tender goes out in a few months’ time.
The interchange on the Northern busway alongside State Highway One was expected to carry at least four thousand people a day when it was first announced in 2017.
It had been due to be finished in 2021, but by the following year only a bridge and retaining walls had been built. Auckland Transport (AT) did not respond to questions about what has caused those earlier delays, but said work had been due to start about now, after it took the project over from the NCI alliance in 2023.
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“We are prioritising the construction of the bus station itself by June 2027. To align with the project’s cashflow with the confirmed funding we now have, we plan to tender for a construction partner for the first stage of construction by mid-2025 and aim to start construction in late 2025.
“The remaining project elements like the planned local road improvements with bus lanes and pedestrian and cycling facilities are expected to be delivered in 2028 or later, depending on future funding allocation.”
“Or later” seems like the most likely outcome here.
Learning to ride a bike later in life
The Herald ran a great piece from one of their editors about how she learnt to ride a bike at 39:
By the time you’ve become an adult, there are a few skills you’re expected to have mastered – and bike riding is definitely one of them. But what happens if you haven’t? Is that it? Have you missed your chance? Last year, at the tender age of 39, Vera Alves decided to give up worrying about helmet hair and spend some time developing a skill about 30-something years later than most – and discovered she may have learned it later in life, but definitely not too late.
People love to refer to things they find easy as being “like riding a bike”. For 39 years, every time someone used that expression, I would admit that, to me, it didn’t mean the same thing it meant to them. If something was like riding a bike, that meant it was something I couldn’t do. At almost 40 years old, I’d come to accept the fact I couldn’t ride a bicycle – and I wasn’t even that bothered about it.
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It turns out the whole thing about old dogs and new tricks is truly a load of rubbish because, there I was, riding my way into my 40s. A few weeks later, when I turned 40, I got a fancy pink helmet and took myself on a little solo ride, thinking about all the cool things I could now consider learning as well.
Sure, the road to learning to ride a bike was bumpy and, as I write this, there are still many parts I am yet to master (things like riding past other cyclists without worrying I’m about to crash into them; changing gears; turning left; turning right; and dismounting somewhat elegantly rather than like an octopus on acid). But it was also surprisingly fun and, despite all the pain in awkward places (I now fully understand why real cyclists wear those awful-looking padded shorts), not nearly as difficult as I’d convinced myself it would be.
The country by train
And with a bike-riding metaphor, a lovely story from the UK.
An achievement for a lot of seven-year-olds in 2024 might have been riding a bike without stabilisers or tying their own shoelaces, but for one boy it was visiting every city in England with his dad by train.
Austin, seven, and his father, Ashley, “about 37”, began their quest by visiting Brighton in January and completed it with a trip to Ely three days before Christmas.
They visited all 55 English cities over the course of the year, travelling as far north as Carlisle and as far west as Truro. York, for the father and son from Felixstowe, Suffolk, was a particular favourite.
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They also made friends with other dads and their boys who love trains, and had made plans to meet up with them in York.
Inevitably, the challenge meant father and son spent a lot of time away from home, on trains, but Ashley said he was fortunate: “I’ve got a very patient wife who doesn’t mind.”
New York does (de)congestion pricing
After the governor abruptly put it on hold last year at the last minute, congestion pricing in Manhattan has finally gone live.
Congestion pricing has finally arrived in New York City after decades of delays and challenges, including a failed, last-ditch effort by the State of New Jersey to end a program that will charge most drivers $9 to cross into the heart of Manhattan.
Fees from E-ZPass readers and cameras set up along the new tolling zone from 60th Street to the southern tip of Manhattan — some of the most traffic-saturated roads in the world — are intended to persuade more motorists to take mass transit instead. Officials say the tolls will also raise billions of dollars to finance crucial repairs and improvements to New York City’s aging subway system, buses, and two commuter rail lines.
The toll program, long in the works, was halted by Gov. Kathy Hochul in June before an abrupt reversal cleared the way for it to start just after midnight on Sunday, a time the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it had chosen to allow it to work out any kinks. The first real test will come Monday, with the start of the workweek.
There were no reports of any major problems as the program got underway, but Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the transportation authority, cautioned at a midday news conference that the toll system was complicated, and only a few hours old.
Here’s a good explainer of the history and thinking around congestion pricing in New York City:
Some of the early indications are that it is working just as intended:
The people want a rail crossing for Cook Strait
A majority of New Zealanders of all political stripes want any new Interislander ferries to be built to handle having trains loaded directly onto them and do not want the Government to privatise operations, a new poll reveals.
Pollster Horizon Research provided results exclusively to the Herald, showing 48% of respondents wanted new rail-enabled ferries while 28% preferred ships for road freight and passengers only.
The poll also showed more people wanted the Interislander ferries to be run by state-owned KiwiRail rather than a private operator. Business leaders also preferred leaving KiwiRail to operate the ferries, the poll revealed.
And furthermore, this support comes from across the board:
The poll showed there was multi-partisan support for rail-enabled ferries. Of National voters, 51% wanted them compared to 31% who wanted road-freight only. Of Labour voters, 58% preferred them to 24%.
Of the smaller parties; 54% of New Zealand First voters wanted rail-enabled ferries compared to 16% wanting road-only, 39% of Act voters preferred rail-enabled to 31%, 63% of Te Pāti Māori voters for rail-enabled to 36%, and 77% of Green voters to 20% wanting road-only.
Have a great weekend!
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20% of Green voters wanting road only ferries (ie not rail enabled)
Something not right in poll land, or the Road Freight lobby group in the Green party kicked off. NZFirst is way to the left of the greens on this one.
ps – thanks Minister Simeon for making petrol cheaper for car drivers. (not)
And if you want cheap petrol go to Wellsford , there are 3 gas stations there and the prices are Caltex $2.53 , Mobil $2.63 and Allied $2.46 a litre which is a lot cheaper than Auckland city prices even with the discounts being offered .
I expect it is more of a mindset to build as cheap as possible even it will cost future generations ten-fold.
If Democracy means the people getting to decide which things get done… where did it go to? The current government seems to think democracy means “Vote for me and then I’ll do whatever I want.” Especially if slightly more people than not think it benefits them to do a thing and —— everyone else.
Time of use charging is seen to be a good idea, but the regional fuel tax stop-gap until that is ready was just stopped – not something that was even subject to consultation. Blanket speed limit increases – no full impact statement, or consultation other than a stuffed ballot. No consultation worth speaking of on a GPS that cuts funding for most of what Auckland wants.
And now, buried under the cyclone damage of the Principles of the Treaty Bill, the neoliberal Regulatory Standards Bill has only until 13th January for feedback. https://linktr.ee/regulatorystandardsbill provides a useful source of information on the Bill, its hidden agenda and two first-class submissions by leading academics.
The idea that personal wealth and power confer the right to do whatever you like, without ‘interference’ to protect the wellbeing of others, of common resources or of the environment that we and future generations share, is wrapped up in the Bill in nice-sounding words that do not match the anarchist, self-serving process that it aims to institute. The Bill aims to set up a Tribunal to decide whichever regulations set by government or local authorities can be cancelled by their decision and to define what government should or should not be ‘allowed’ to do.
The Bill is promoted by that 8% mandate that enabled ACT to strong-arm their agenda onto the whole nation.
I would not want to dip into party politics here, if not for the intent of ACT to usurp the will of the people of Auckland to decide how we should all live together in the metropolis by setting arbitrary rules on what rules we may choose to share.
nope. Democracy is vote for the people to represent you.
Ideally they do what they promise, but you are voting for the people, not the projects. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is selling something.
Geoff Palmer suggesting civics be taught in schools would be a good thing.
It’s quite amazing that the bike lanes for Rosedale Rd bus station improvements are being put off (for who knows how long).
Top of the road is Rangitoto College which is the largest school in the country, Pinehurst is in the middle, and Kristin at the end. Add all the surrounding schools (Murrays Bay primary & intermediate etc) and it seems like a real no-brainer. Or a real no-car-brainer anyway.
It’s almost like they want to discourage biking.
Fitting bike lanes to pass through a busy bus interchange lower level does take some work, although the motorway and busway bridges have the space available for it. And the intersections either side on Rosedale Road need to become bike-friendly. A bus- and bike-friendly NLTP would help.
The entire project looks complex and would “take some work”. I don’t know why the bike lanes are being called out.