Philip Laird: Slow train coming

Only a genuine shift to rail will put NZ on track to reduce emissions

Both the Labour government and the opposition National Party have now released major transport polices that put the emphasis on maintaining and expanding roads.

The cost and priority of various projects will clearly be an election issue. But at the heart of the debate lies an inconvenient truth about climate change: encouraging road transport while needing to reduce carbon emissions simply does not add up.

Cam Slater: Can We Have a New Transport Minister Please

I don’t really know why Michael “Napoleon” Wood is the Transport Minister. Everything he announces or does just ends in a complete mess. It isn’t surprising really, because his sole qualification and work experience was in measuring the inside seams of bankers buying cheap suits at Hugh Wright.

Where’s the second harbour crossing? What about the light rail to the airport? Not a single millimetre of track has been built on his watch. Then there is the ‘rapid’ rail to Hamilton, which is neither rapid nor a service and didn’t even get to Auckland, pegging out at Papakura. That result shouldn’t have been at all surprising after the ‘service’ was named after an extinct bird.

Point of Order: Budget 2023 sluice-gates are opened.....

.....$1bn will flow into cyclone recovery

Whoa there. Did Budget Day arrive several days earlier than Point of Order had been led to believe?

Five press statements from the Beehive landed in our email this morning, embargoed for release at 10.30 am.

The PM led the charge, announcing a billion-dollar flood and cyclone recovery package as part of Budget 2023 that covers the basics of rebuilding roads, rail and schools while preparing for future events with a big investment in flood protection measures.

Here’s how the dosh is being distributed.

Frank Newman: Te Huia in jeopardy

Good news…the two runaway carriages have been located and reunited with the Te Huia express which is now back up to full passenger potential of 500 a day. (see >>>)

That's the good news. Not so good news is the concerns being raised that Te Huia may be in "jeopardy".

Stuffed reports, "The Hamilton to Auckland passenger train will be in 'jeopardy' if passenger numbers don’t improve…Waikato Regional Council chairman Russ Rimmington admitted traveller numbers are 'a shocker'."

Frank Newman: Straight Talk - The Green's black hole

The Greens want to spend $9 billion on a "high-spec" intercity commuter rail network between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. See Press release >>>

Phil McDermott: Congestion, Density, and Transit– Have we got the mix all wrong?

The compact city/transit answer to the urban sustainability question

Expensive – and usually loss-making – public transit is enjoying a resurgence in the face of uncertainty over the supply and price of oil, concerns about the proliferation of private vehicles and greenhouse gas emissions, and  questions over the sustainability of our cities.

Phil McDermott: Irresponsible inner city behaviour

The latest in urban design - new public spaces for the dispossessed

In my last blog I raised the question of whether purchasing land for a possible rail link through the city would reduce the attractiveness of the inner city living by laying waste to a corridor cutting through it – shades of the motorway madness of the 1950s and 60s.  I suggested that this will increase the anti-social behaviour after dark that so worries CBD residents and visitors.

So it was interesting to see in the New Zealand Herald today the concern over the use of vacant city sites as places of refuge for people deemed anti-social and particularly as sites for binge drinking.