Waterview Connection: construction gathers pace
Last week there was a fairly detailed article in the NZ Herald discussing progress on construction of the Waterview Connection project. Some key things pointed out in the article relate to the fairly substantial progress made on the project in the last few months:
Diggers, drilling rigs and dump trucks from a Fletcher Construction-led alliance of Transport Agency contractors have transformed much of Alan Wood Reserve in Owairaka since January last year into a pitted brown moonscape, alleviated for now only by newly-planted native shrubs on the banks of a realigned section of Oakley Creek, and the first of two football pitches to be re-located behind security fences off Valonia St.…
32 Comments Proof NZTA hates public transport?
I went for a walk around the northern portal of the Victoria Park Tunnel today (in between rain showers) to take a closer look at something which has caught my attention the last couple of times I’ve driven through the area – the incredibly poor provision for buses heading northbound from the city towards the Harbour Bridge.…
What future for driverless cars?
There was a good post and fascinating comments thread on Human Transit recently about driverless cars and what impact they may have on transport planning in the future. Jarrett Walker blogged that he can’t really see driverless cars being as revolutionary as some people think, for a few reasons: Many of the benefits from driverless cars (such as increased capacity of the road system) only arise when there has been a complete changeover from current ‘driven’ cars and it’s difficult to see a pathway towards that eventual outcome.…
Thoughts on the “holiday highway”
I have found myself making a number of trips over the past week or so along the stretch of State Highway 1 immediately north of Auckland. Both times I’ve gone north the traffic has been pretty bad, but in rather unexpected ways which have provided me with some quite useful insights.…
Hopes for 2013
Next year will have a lot of really important milestones for Auckland’s public transport system. Let’s take a look at the biggies: The first electric trains are scheduled to arrive in the second half of 2013, although they’re not likely to be put into revenue service until early 2014.…
Who will run against Len Brown?
Matt is putting together a fairly comprehensive post which reviews the big transport stories of 2012, so I won’t go there for now. Instead I’m looking forward to what might be the big issues of 2013 and obviously a really big event will be the next Auckland Council elections, which take place in October/November next year.…
Cycling and Traffic Lights
I had the option of having a nice quiet end to the year on this blog, shying away from controversial posts and stimulating passionate discussion. I’ve decided not to take it by confronting a perennial issue that’s bound to get the juices flowing: “should cyclists obey traffic lights?”…
Wellington City says “no” to Basin Reserve flyover
This had to happen eventually, in fact I’m surprised it took this long:
After a long night of discussions, the Wellington City Council has voted in favour of exploring alternative options to the proposed Basin Reserve flyover.
The decision came the same day Auckland architect Richard Reid announced he has drafted a solution to the traffic congestion, without needing the $90 million dollar flyover proposed by the New Zealand Transport Agency.…
Petrol taxes hiked by 9c a litre over three years
The NZ Herald reports:
The Government will increase petrol tax by three cents a litre each July 1 for the next three years.
Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said road user charges would also be increased by an equivalent amount.
He said the increases were required to deliver the “Roads of National Significance” programme and other roading projects to the timeline set out in the Government’s land transport funding policy.…
It’s a bus capacity problem
One part of the City Centre Future Access Study that is particularly interesting to look through is Appendix C – the deficiency analysis. This effectively highlights in more detail what ‘the problem’ is in terms of future access to central Auckland.…
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