As I've rabbited on before - I believe we should be looking at countries and cities with a similar level of car ownership and distribution of wealth and lifestyles and those where the bulk of the population is living in areas of low density, single unit residential urban sprawl. Cities with similar levels of investment in public transport and comparable patronage. If we want to punch above our weight, really create a world class public transport system, sure draw inspiration from every source but look deeply at cities our size up to twice our size or at most a a million population. Their systems and innovations are going be rooted in circumstances greater than our own but at least within possible achievement, not based on fantastical costs, into the billions, far beyond reach of the Christchurch budget.
Christchurch is a very attractive city and getting more so with each passing year, but for all that its population is fairly small, on any world scale a minnow. To me a big part of creating quality public transport is getting a good match for our size, systems that use limited resources extremely effectively and to the advantage of all residents. Our one-eyed parochial pride sometimes needs a bit more perspective than we get . Mongabay com seems to offer a reasonably credible ranking of the 3000 largest cities by population (as far as anyone can) which reveals that there are 1,381 cities larger than Christchurch. If our metropolitan area (easy commuting distance) population was added in we might jump a few places, but then so might many other cities, including Portland whose city administration area population is listed as 553,000 (making it 966th in size) but whose metropolitan population according to Wikipedia (drawing upon US census data) is 2,159.720. Both Seattle and Vancouver list among the 200 biggest cities in the world. Many of the cities, in every size category, are Chinese, Indian, Russian, South American etc - it would seem to be of little value studying public transport in cities of comparable size to Christchurch in countries where cities are much more dense, or much smaller proportions of people have cars, or the nature of widespread employment and its distribution patterns may change the whole work-commuter ratio. National density is another factor and in countries with relatively small areas but populations ten or twenty times that of New Zealand, clearly national or federal government investment finds it somewhat easier to finance subway, rail and light rail options,and far easier to find the number of people per kilometre of track needed to generate a viable patronage.
While Christchurch has much of the low density urban spawl of similar cities in the USA, funding sources, investment levels and attitudes to public transport appear to be very different. In the USA transit investment and patronage in small public transport, particularly in small cities is consistently well below New Zealand, Canadian and Australian levels, and alas getting worse. Tragically - despite the highest levels of transit patronage since the early 1950s, all over the USA transit operators are having to cut services because the taxation base which helps subsidise services has dropped radically (or been chopped) in response to the current recession [even the attractive FREX service - linked to October posting "Timaru to Christchurch in Three Steps" is now facing extinction]. The best cities to research thoroughly and maintain a watching brief over, I believe, are those in Canada, Australia, and the rest of New Zealand. Though CANZUS has a nice bouncy ring to it,and there are plenty of innovative ideas in the USA, this rabbit is pulling in his ears a bit and sticking his twitchy little nose into CANZ - the natural shared culture and values federation of Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Notwithstanding goodwill sister city relationships with various cities very different from Christchurch in nature or size, in a deeper sense the small cities in CANZ are our real cousins. Arguably Australia and Canada are far wealthier countries, but I think in many ways we share values more closely than with any other countries.
Ranked in greater metropolitan area (GMA), population between 200,000 (half our size) and 800,000 (twice our size), here are the 24 small cities of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I've included passengers per year carried, as at last check in bold, but keeping up with these can be complicated (and contradictory depending on what area is defined) so allow for a bit of movement in these since. Most of these are "stand alone cities" as is indicated by the letters GMA (Greater Metropolitan area - population within easy commuting distance of the hub city). However five in Canda are independently administered cities with their own transit systems, but essentially also part of the greater metropolitan areas of Montreal (Longueil) Ottawa (Gatineau),or Toronto (Markham, Brampton, Mississauga).
Hobart Tasmania 10.0 million (includes Launceston) GMA 203,570
Wollongong New South Wales GMA 274,838
Saskatoon Saskatchewan 7.2 million 233,923
Longueil 229,330 30.1 million near Montreal (17.2% of population commutes to Montreal)
Gatineau Quebec 19.1 million (2008) - near Ottawa 242,000
Markham 261,530 contingent city wth Toronto
Sunshine Coast Queensland (recently consoilidated) GMA 312,908
Windsor Ontario 7 million 323,342 GMA;
Victoria British Columbia 20.5 million GMA; 335,000;
Oshawa Ontario 8.5 million (2008)GMA 330,594
Canberra Australian Capital Territory 16.9 million GMA 342,000
Halifax Nova Scotia 18.1 million GMA 372,679
Christchurch New Zealand 17.1 million (2008) GMA c390,000
St Catharines-Niagara Ontario Not known GMA 390,317
Wellington New Zealand 34.1 million GMA 410,000
Brampton (Peel Region) over 10 million (2006) Ontario 433,806 contingent city to Toronto
Kitchener (Waterloo) Ontario 14.4 million (2008) GMA 451,225
London Ontario 18 million GMA 457,456
Newcastle New South Wales c11 million (approx) GMA 493,466 (Lower Hunter Valley)
Gold Coast Queensland 17 million (2008) 554,000
Mississauga Ontario 29.1 million (Nov 2009) GMA 668,549
Hamilton Ontario 27 million approx only GMA 692,911
Winnipeg Manitoba 41 million GMA 694,668
Quebec City Quebec 38 million (2006) GMA 715,515
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