Public transport, to complement cycling?
Jenny looks at extending public transport to include cyclists
transport
public transport
Too much too far?
As we lead up to Budget 2021, there’s much more shape to the whole direction of this government.
No Right Turn: The transport policy we need
All of these policies will get fossil cars off the roads, reducing emissions.
Will our cities revive?
Our cities are the nation’s lungs; they recycle and accelerate external goods and transform them internally into faster circulation. Auckland and Christchurch have had tens of billions invested in them over successive local and central governments, but has this improved our strength or wealth as a country at all?
Everybody gets a road
National has made two major roading project announcements in the past week. Both announcements recycled announcements that were also made before the last election.
Wellington buses now: how a local authority harmed public transport
Sure to form, Paul Swain along with Regional Council Chair and another former Labour MP Fran Wilde proposed tearing down the trolleybus wire and increasing the city’s carbon emission. This was to then promptly followed by re-tendering all the bus routes having redesigned all the bus network so that bus companies could then compete over routes and undercut each other. At one council meeting in mid-2016 Swain was questioned about the possibility of protecting drivers jobs and employment conditions. After a few questions, he lost patience, slammed in hand on the table and ended the meeting. This was the extent to which Swain and the Greater Wellington Regional Council considered supporting bus drivers during this process.
The light rail delay is good
There is a solid silver lining to the delay in the Auckland light rail to the airport project.
We don’t have time for this shit
the government can’t agree is a euphemism for NZ First blocking climate action.
Covid-19 and climate change
The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?
How to kill the car
What would you do so that instead of wandering endlessly through tilt-slab monstrosities soaked in 80s music and fluorescent lighting, surrounded by oppressed minimum-wage slaves who hate being there and you hating being there worried about your wheeled asset damaged in their carpark instead you get freedom?
Better footpaths and cycleways are a socialist inspired plot?
National MP Simon O’Connor thinks that making under used streets safer for walkers and cyclers is a Socialist inspired plan for world domination.
The end of petrol driven cars
Boris Johnson’s UK Government has announced that by 2035 there will be no more petrol or diesel cars entering the UK fleet. Is it time for the New Zealand government to announce the same thing?
The Government’s $12 billion infrastructure package
The details of the Government’s $12 billion infrastructure announcement have been released.
Labour’s infrastructure spend announcement
Is the Government commitment to the budget responsibility rules weakening? Because at the Labour Party Conference Grant Robertson has indicated that the Government will shortly announce a big capital spend on infrastructure.
Common-wealth Government
Advantage is testing an idea out. What will a common accountability framework for the government look like?
Dunedin’s Hillside Rail Workshop
Good news for Dunedin and the Country as the Government has announced a $20 million upgrade of the Hillside Rail Workshop.
Monorail!
Auckland mayoral candidate Craig Lord has announced a policy that may turn the campaign on its head. Or may not.
Jacindamania
Despite the babies and the engagements, maybe it’s time to ditch the default Jacindamania.
Toll by Stealth
A tunnel is like a wormhole to another dimension. It changes people’s behaviour ever so slightly, ever so briefly, without them realising.
Government plans to disincentivise purchase of gas guzzlers
Julie Anne Genter has released a policy document proposing rebates for the purchase of electric and fuel efficient vehicles funded by a surcharge on gas guzzlers to start the transition of our vehicle fleet to carbon neutrality.
Everything Should Be Made As Uncomfortable As Possible, But No Less Comfortable
When providing a voluntary carbon-offset scheme, make it as simple as possible, but not simpler, and tell people about it.
Simon Wilson thinks Epsom could be offered to Blue-Greens
Simon Wilson has suggested that the only way National may have to establish a Blue Green presence in Parliament is to offer them the seat of Epsom.
How To Get There 13/1/19
Welcome to TS’s Sunday think piece. It’s a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting for your thoughts on the future and How To Get There.
The wonder of e-bikes and e-scooters
The rise of cycleways, e-bikes, and e-scooters is steadily revolutionising commutes around Auckland, especially Central Auckland. Like public transport the economic reasons for commuters are easy to understand. You don’t get ridiculous parking costs or the lousy variable commute times of fat footprint cars jammed up on crowded roads.
National’s brave new world of MOAR ROADS!
National has taken to criticising the Government for not building roads that had no coherent business case and no proposal to build.
Light rail in Auckland
There has been some push back against the Government’s light rail proposal for Dominion Road from some unlikely sources. But they are concentrating on what is best for airport users, not what is best for the city as a whole.
Wellington bus debacle deeply damaging to Govt’s transport policy
Wellington has been the poster city for public transport in Aotearoa, but the debacle of introducing the hated hub system to Wellington’s bus system not only threatens that status but has wide implications for the success of government’s policy of favouring public transport over cars. Intervention is needed.
Remembering Chris Morley
On Friday 27 July 2018, Wellington Tramways Union Vice President Chris Morley passed away after a short battle with Cancer, aged 62. Chris had been […]
Petrol is going up, and up
Not all the current government’s fault, but the arrival of the fuel tax this weekend heralds a number of very sharp rises in what we have to pay in order to run a car.
Doofus of the week May 12, 2018
There was intense competition this week. Paula Bennett with her attack on Jacinda’s Spotify playlist almost won but Northcote candidate Dan Bidois succeeded for managing to talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and only confusing his tongue.
National’s fiscal ineptitude over Auckland transport
National has responded to Labour’s ATAP proposal by refusing to accept there is a problem, drumming up anti Auckland resentment in the rest of the country and claiming they would have done the same thing.
The Big Auckland Transport announcement
Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced the ATAP, the transport programme for Auckland for the next ten years. At $28 billion it is the largest civil infrastructure programme since World War II.
Labour aims to make transport system more sustainable
The Government has released a draft Government Policy Statement on Transport for consultation. A radical shake up of the Transport system is being proposed.
Doofus of the week – March 17, 2018
is awarded this week to Lisa Prager who is convinced that construction of cycleways in Auckland is part of a global conspiracy to take away our rights and whose sledge hammering technique is not optimal.
Better roads rather than fighting to maintain them against trucks.
Truckers don’t own the roadways. We do. If Ken Shirley wants a stricter adherence to user pays, then he should start with his trucking members. In the meantime the best thing we can do for improving the roading network is to get large trucks off of the road – they damage it way too much.
Say goodbye to roads of national significance
National’s roads of national significance programme looks to be no more with an early casualty being the East West Link in Auckland, which per kilometre was destined to be the most expensive transport project the world has ever seen.