An NZ Herald article about Mai Chen’s book on Auckland Council, supports big power, big money, big competition, and economic activities focused on anything but the production of material needs and wants. It ignores the struggling precariat living with housing, income, transport and energy poverty.
Three interrelated articles dealing with how far from Scientific Reality Republican Politicians are, how peak oil may just be around the corner and how deconstructing motorways can improve inner city areas.
Ok, I know this image has a lot of issues. It is a 256 color animated gif. Dithered to hell. Bad colour balance, tilt and even a moving focus point. But it certainly makes its point about what kind of road space we’re paying for to inefficiently fill with cars? Have the idiots at NZTA and in this incompetent National government not read their own statistics? Roads aren’t filling up. Public transport does.
Cunliffe talked of moving from a “from a cost-based to a values-based” strategy. We need a new narrative: valuing all, including children of those on benefits; about long term benefits for all of less inequality & poverty, and more affordable housing & better public transport, & more.
Yesterday was a very good day for the Greens (and the left). Congratulations! It’s hard to predict outcomes for next year’s parliamentary elections based on local elections, especially when the voter turnout is so low. But the left does get a boost from the results. Local councils need to be improved so that are more democratic. [Update: Clow (Labour) for Whau- preliminary result. Waitakere Ranges Board]
National is now ‘officially on board’ with getting the Auckland City Rail Link built. But they won’t start building it until 2020 at the earliest, and there’s no government money actually budgeted for that. Why not start building in 2015, like the Council wants? Maybe because that would mean committing actual funding. It turns out the Nats’ 5-year delay will cost $500m.
Campbell Live last Wednesday focused on transport: funding & Auckland versus the regions; public transport & roads; the revolutionary Congestion Free Network plan. City Vision (supported by Labour & the Green Party – with a major focus on transport) & 2 Future West candidates launch their Auckland council campaigns.
A message from Generation Zero about their campaign for the Congestion Free Network – much cheaper than motorways…
Generation Zero are running petition targeting the Auckland transport system. You can sign it here.
John Key’s u-turn on Auckland City Rail is all smoke, mirrors and sleight of hand stealth of the common good. Phil Twyford and the Auckland Transport Blog are skeptical. Funding? Roads over public transport? Asset sales?
“The Auckland that never was” in my view is the most interesting chapter in Chris Trotter’s “NO LEFT TURN”. It details the Ministry of Works’ post-war plan outlined in a document The Shape of Things to Come that was scrapped by the Sid Holland National party. Now we see history repeating itself. In what Labour accurately describes as a “War on Auckland” Key, Joyce and Brownlie are following in the footsteps of the much unloved Sid Holland.
The draft unitary plan, while not perfect, is a key part of making Auckland the most livable city. The plan is a progressive […]
It’s UN Global Road Safety Week, with a focus on pedestrian safety. NZ statistics for pedestrian injuries and deaths are sobering. Children are especially vulnerable to careless driving practices. In the interests of our people and environment, walking and cycling need to be less dangerous, and more fun.
Today’s NZ Herald editorial on Auckland’s up-coming mayoral election campaign, says Brown has vision, but Minto and Williamson lack it. What sort of vision should the left provide in the up-coming local authority elections around NZ, and in NZ’s parliamentary elections in 2014?
To the Herald the Fourth Estate must be a greenfield development on the outer margins of Auckland: a Dickensian space, hiding the poor from the upper middle-classes. The Herald lacks critical balance & equal weighting for diverse views: it scaremongers about the Akl Unitary Plan & undermines public transport.
The draft Auckland Unitary Plan is massive and complex. The Auckland Transport Blog helps in untangling issues around intensification vs sprawl. The government & some right wing councillors want sprawl & to delay implementation. The Akl Council website has some cool videos visualising the planned developments. And social housing?
The Greens and Labour are planning a joint announcement on their policies on power prices. Both parties want to bring down costs of electricity. The policies of the two parties will also have some differences. How will it mesh with Green Party policies on sustainability?
The Draft Auckland Unitary Plan has much to commend it. It focuses on resource management, responds to the reality of climate change & aims for a more dense but ‘liveable’ city. It has weaknesses, embraces destructive “growth” and raises questions: e.g. about affordable housing & environmental management.
Phil Twyford is the Labour MP for Te Atatu, and Labour’s spokesperson on Housing and Auckland Issues. He is also asking the same questions that many Aucklanders keep asking as they watch a succession of government ministers trying to valiantly advance backwards into Auckland’s past with no obvious purpose.
Nick Smith, of the forked tongue, is challenging Auckland council’s plan for affordable compact housing. It will do nothing for housing affordability, transport, the environment. It is undemocratic, over-rides the council, and will enrich developers.
A wheelchair got caught in the rail tracks, resulting in critical injuries. Pedestrians are low priority, and people with disabilities even lower, making them/us vulnerable: poor pavements, hazardous road crossings, some inaccessible public transport… and more.
Debates on the PM’s statement to the House show that this do-nothing government needs to go. Plenty of good ideas from opposition MPs. An excellent speech by Genter against Joyce’s ‘Roads of Madness’ & for public transport.
The Greens, I’m in for the Future, is a promising initiative. The Greens’ focus on Auckland transport will be a great start. To end the “neoliberal” dominance, it is necessary to apply pressure from below. What can we learn from Canadian anti-“neoliberal” groups like Common Causes & Idle No More? [Updated]
Federated Farmers pushed out a press release the other day calling for NZ to both have more population and to stop spreading urban areas out over farmland. MrSmith has a view on it.
Iain Lees-Galloway has been leading an admirable campaign to keep Palmy North’s Capital Connection.
His latest effort is to have petition (online & offline versions) to present to Parliament at the end of the month. It has to be then, because it’s expected that the government (through NZTA) will cut the service in July or August.
I have and still do deal with quite a lot with systems in my day-job. But this…. I’m aghast at the self-evident stupidity. […]
Labour has just over-shadowed Key’s big smile and wave show today – where he is expected to reannounce spending – with another big policy. Labour will cancel National’s Holiday Highway. With the money saved, they will make the existing road safe, and go 50-50 with the Auckland council to fund the CBD rail-loop and get Auckland moving sustainably.
Nick Smith is looking at issuing a “Government policy statement” to ensure that the Auckland Plan complies with their agenda. They may ban the urban limits that are proposed to keep green, productive land around Auckland and help ensure rates stay low and public transport works in a more liveable city.
McCully is Minister for the RWC. He claimed the government had done “their best” and assured Auckland that the transport systems were ready to go. He was wrong in every respect. In the aftermath of the fiasco McCully now needs to front up and get three things right…
The RWC public transport fiasco was not a good look for our biggest city, and not a great advertisement to the world.
Sometimes the similarities between life and art are uncanny.
A reader sent us in a Steven Joyce lookalike pic (over the jump).
National are not acting in accordance with Auckland’s wishes. Aucklanders want public transport, and its Council wants a quality compact sustainable eco-city – National seem to be aiming to frustrate that. Aucklanders should submit their views to strengthen our voice against the government.
Even considering putting in a new harbor crossing without heavy rail that hooks into our existing public transport rail system is simply ideological stupidity by National. Well it is good to see that Aucklanders recognize the critical requirement for a new harbor crossing – “Rail crossing wins big backing in poll”. The sample is small but quite clear…
Kiwis are voting with their feet, or rather their arses. Patronage of public transport is skyrocketing to the point of overcrowding while state highway use is falling among except for freight. You have to wonder why the government keeps building expensive highways that will be underused when public transport is full to the brim.
Steven Joyce and the NZ Transport Authority seem to be living in the 20th century. You know the time, when there was a strong causation and correlation between rising numbers of people and increased use of roads. But neither appear to have caught up with the 21st century where that isn’t happening. Yearning for the 1960’s in planning transport infrastructure doesn’t help Auckland or the rest of NZ
This post was going to be about Auckland Unleashed which is being released today, but has been somewhat, er, derailed, by the bridge vs tunnel report that’s come out.
