Weekly Roundup 7-November-2024
Happy Friday, there's been some significant world events this week but welcome to another round-up of interesting stories about what’s happening in Auckland and other cities. Feel free to add your links in the comments!
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The Week on Greater Auckland
On Monday we announced our expansion to substack!
On Tuesday Matt discussed Auckland's upcoming PT Fare increase.
On Wednesday Matt examined potential PT changes for Whangaparaoa once Penlink opens.
On Thursday we looked back to Patrick's 2018 10 year projection for Auckland to think what has or has not changed.
The Longest Commute
As apart of The Spinoff's Travel Week, Joel MacManus attempts to travel from the bottom to the top of New Zealand without using a car or plane.
My mission is to get from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga as fast as possible using only public transport. Wherever I can, I’ll travel by train. In areas that are too rural or too watery for trains, I’ll take buses and ferries.
Why am I doing this? That’s a great question. Because I like public transport? Because journalism is a wildly profitable industry with money to burn? Some deep-seated desire to inflict punishment upon myself? I’m honestly not sure. I hope to learn something about New Zealand and gain new insight into the country I call home.
When New Zealanders go on their international OE, they almost always choose to get around by train or bus tours. And yet, when we travel around our own country, public transport is usually an afterthought. Decades of underfunding have left our inter-city rail slow, expensive, and infrequent. Flying and driving have become our default.
St Patrick's Square
A few years ago there was a real issue with people illegally parking on St Patrick's Square in the city. They put in place a temporary solution with solution to stop the issue - though the image they shared in their board report showing the success highlighted that people just parked around them.
At the time they claimed that they couldn't enforce parking on a pedestrian mall, which always seemed a cop out, so they planned to turn it into a shared space which would have only made the issue worse.
It seems they've now realised this was wrong and are consulting on making some changes to the current regulations that apply to it.
The proposal affirms that the driving, riding or parking of any motor vehicle (including motorbikes) is prohibited in the pedestrian mall at all times with the following exemptions:
Emergency vehicles.
Select vehicles accessing or parking in front of the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph for weddings or funerals. This allows for vehicles delivering the bridal party or transporting the newlyweds after a wedding and the hearse for a funeral.
Cycles and other wheeled recreational devices.
Vehicles entering the square to park in private car parks that are only accessible via the square. This is for access only and does not allow for the parking on the pedestrian mall. (being the properties located at 43 Wyndham Street, 1 and 2 St Patricks Square, and 39-41, 51-53 and 57 Albert Street)
Vehicles, with prior permission from AT, accessing or parking in the pedestrian mall for the purposes of maintenance, construction, alteration, refurbishment or upgrade of buildings, structures, or public areas, facilities or utilities in or adjoining St Patricks Square.
This is not introducing a new set of rules, rather it will allow AT to better manage the space and clarifies what is permitted in the square.
Consultation is open till 21 November.
Celebrating investment in South Auckland parks
Good things can happen everywhere in Auckland, and celebrate the results of millions of dollars of investment here.
A Pacific community leader is lauding the improvement of parks in South Auckland, saying it makes up for decades of under-investment.
Apulu Reece Autagavaia, who is the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board chair, says the area has long been over-looked by decision-makers.
"That's why recently, the local board has upgraded the Aorere playground and changing sheds, Hillside South playground, Othello playground, Ngati Ōtara playground, clubrooms and netball courts, Pearl Baker playground, and new toilets and changing sheds at Te Puke o Tara playing fields."
Accessibility Fireworks to show travel times
The Accessibility Research Group at the University of Helsinki. has developed this awesome visual showing travel times of different transport modes.
Community fine with 30km/h speed limits, who knew?
Read the comments from this piece about Karori - it turns out communities do love safe streets!
Enter Karori by car and you’ll need to slow down to 30kph twice: once through Marsden Village shops and again when you approach the mall.
But the community doesn’t mind. More than three quarters of residents are happy with the set-up or want the low-speed zones extended, according to the local residents’ association.
The latest drone footage of the Maungawhau Station
Make it make sense - Kiwirail and the bikelane
Grant Shimmin questioning the logic of Kiwirail's bike lane closure decision.
“Improving your safety by making you less safe” is a paradoxical phrase that seems to me to sum up KiwiRail’s plan for a level crossing you probably didn’t know existed until last week.
For nearly a year residents of Heathcote Valley and other suburbs have been able to get all the way downtown via the newly opened Heathcote Expressway, on two wheels, without having to dice with heavy traffic.
[...]
So it was with disbelief and initial confusion that I learned last week the 1.5km section of the Expressway between Truscotts Rd and Scruttons Rd is to be closed, potentially for twice as long as the cycleway has been open, to upgrade safety measures at a level crossing on Scruttons Rd. The confusion stemmed from the fact that the cycleway passes the crossing, but does not cross it.
Climate friendly travel?
Shanti Mathias asks can travel without damaging the climate (the answer is yes).
Most of all, learning how to travel in a low-carbon way requires a shift in mindset about how and why and where we travel. That means seeing travel by bike, bus, train and sail not as a missed opportunity to go far and fast, but as a pleasure on their own terms.
“So many people think they’ve seen New Zealand, but they’ve just driven through it on the big highways,” Kennett says. “There are places you wouldn’t even call a town that are the sort of places everyone will stop and say hello – that’s something to look forward to.” And just in economic terms, people travelling more slowly and requiring lots of energy are “great news for local cafes,” Higham says, who certainly frequented many when he did Tour Aotearoa.
Wellington Tunnels
The government's investigation of a 4km long tunnel through Wellington hit an $8 billion speed bump. As such, they're now looking at two shorter tunnels, with the minister saying:
The option endorsed by the NZTA Board includes a second Mt Victoria Tunnel that will run parallel to the existing tunnel, a duplicate Terrace Tunnel, and upgrades to the Basin Reserve that will reduce travel times and improve reliability for commuters on the North-South bus corridor.
“Commuters in the capital will see a significant benefit in time savings from these upgrades. Those travelling on the number one bus between Island Bay and the Railway Station are forecast to save 9 minutes during morning peak times, while those on the number two bus between Miramar and the CBD will notice a saving of 11 minutes on their journeys,” Mr Brown says.
The project will be consented as a single corridor, with the project delivered in stage
Given construction costs these days this will still be billions and if it does get built, I wonder how long those travel time savings will really last.
And then there's this from the Herald.
Asked whether he was confident spades would be in the ground on a second Mt Victoria tunnel within the Government’s first term as promised, Brown said NZTA was considering opportunities to begin enabling works in 2026.
“The good thing about this option is that a lot of property is already owned by NZTA along this corridor ... there’s a lot of opportunities to get things moving.”
So they'll bowl all of the houses to pretend they've started?
Climate change demonstration blocks traffic in Spain
Some humour in the doom of floods in Spain at the end of last week.
Critics of the demonstration say the event has caused disruptions, inconvenienced motorists and showed a disregard for everyday Spaniards. “It’s selfish. I’m all for action on climate change, but I don’t think this is the way to go about raising awareness to be honest,” one local resident said. “I don’t think the demonstration achieves anything. All it does is inconvenience and annoy people. I think there are better ways to get your point across”.
Have a good weekend.