NZ In Tranzit

A bit of earthquake coverage, beyond that of newspapers, which touches the heart. A range of photos by Brian Neller (never met) on his facebook entry captures many of the older parts of the CBD and on the streets in the immediate period afterwards. Regular readers might note a building that appeared behind Charlie Chaplin in my New Year posting has now collapsed completely.  Thanks to to Bruce Springsteen (knowing his reputation he will certainly not begrudge this use) his song "Your Hometown" is used as a very evocative  backing for post earthquake slide show by Blair Granger (also total stranger) . Bruce's haunting tones may help other highly stretched locals and ex-pats shed a welcome tear for our own beautiful but oh so terribly damaged hometown;  tears to relieve that heavy-heavy stress of these black days. (ps Facebook links may not work for all viewers, or work at all - I have never tried this before) On a frie...

As I presume most  NZ in Tranzit  readers will probably know, after riding out a 7.1 richter scale earthquake in September last year with no loss of life, Christchurch was hit yesterday by an extremely violent type of aftershock of 6.3 richter scale. This earthquake has essentially taken out almost every older building in the city - a city renowned for its traditional buildings and English charm, its lovely old world elegance.  It destroyed almost all the older heritage buildings that had survived the original quake. This latest quake occurred in the lunch-hour and the massive widespread collapse of buildings or their facades caught thousands of people at work or out on the streets in their lunch hour. Several modern hgh rise buildings also suffered chronic structural failure. How many people are buried - dead or alive - under rubble remains unknown, though rescue crews have saved several dozen from beneath fallen buildings. To put it mildly this chan...

Beautifully made replica of a former Southland railcar, built on the same type of Ford T chassis and motor as used back in 1925 - now in the  brilliant little railway museum at Pleasant Point in South Canterbury. This has nothing to do with the article and that is not me!! It is now about a year since late February 2010 when I installed the Blogger "Stats" device. This tracks the number of page views for the most read postings, and number of page views in total (by day/week/month/all time) as well as country of that the page viewer is based within, referring sources and main search terms. In the year to 21 February 21st 2011 I have had 14,599 page visits. Visits per month are more or less steadily increasing (but nothing in life is certain!) and I am currently averaging over 250 kiwi reader page views a week.  It is nothing earth shattering by web standards but very pleasing to me personally, allowing that discussing the nitty gritty details of public...

Currently the city council is running a North-West area review consultation . This concerns mainly the land between the airport and the city's current edge, from Styx Mill down to near Russley.  Simultaneously the Council voted last year for the CEO to organise a study of rail options for Christchurch.  I believe that both of these review parties should be getting a professional evaluation done of bringing rail into the city via a western rail corridor, more or less along the lines suggested above. I have no background or deep understanding of rail but the inherent potential of this concept (versus the current minimal Belfast-Addington link which has no real future proofing) seems far too strong not to be examined in greater depth in consultation with Government, KiwiRail and both major political parties. The concept of an upgraded double tracked freight corridor also appears consistent with the current government commitment to developi...

  Old style CTB concession card c1960? Christchurch Transport blog provides a very good background piece about Environment Canterbury's decision to charge for new or replacement Metrocards from April 4th. I more or less agree with all said. From my reading about chip cards used on other public transport systems I have come to believe the fair city of Christchurch, NZ  probably has the best value public transport "loyalty" system in the world. The system works as follows, card can be loaded on the bus or at the central bus exchange on the bus for multiples of $10. It will be soon also be possible to load cards online or at public libraries. The first time in the day it is used it saves 25% on the cash fare and gives UNLIMITED transfers in the next two hours. By comparison a cash fair allows only one transfer within two hours.  If used again after this two hour period has expired it again gives 25% discount and allows UNLIMITED bus trave...

According to the Urban Development strategy Newsletter, December  2010 "Environment Canterbury and Leopard Coachlines moved 'heaven and earth' to ensure the new Selwyn Star services began in November, despite other unscheduled earth movements. The original plan had been to to roll out a fleet of brand new, locally built, Selwyn Star buses at the beginning of November. Instead the bus builder's factory at Rolleston was badly damaged by the Greendale-earthquake so delivery to thirty-two new bright yellow state of the art buses has been delayed until early next year " .... and are now appearing on the road. This one spotted turning from Waterloo Road (the country-quaint fast track to Rolleston) and heading back onto the main road just before Rolleston itself.

Wollongong is not a huge city - at metropop of 284,000 one of the smallest CANZ cities monitored by NZ in Tranzit and even at 80km from Sydney has a considerable rail commuter population ...each day over 8,000 residents use the trains, primarily to Sydney  and there is also a smaller backflow of  commuters in the reverse direction, to Wollongong itself from areas further north. With much of Wollongong strung out along a narrow coastline strip, a bit like the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington, it is an area well suited to rail commuting.  However it news of  the recent success of a new bus service that most impresses this blogster. A couple of years back in March 2009 Wollongong, whose bus service is operated under the overall auspices of the NSW State government, with tendered routes,  introduced a service that appears, in style and concept, to be similar to Christchurch's "The Shuttle" (free inner city se...

Public transport systems don't always get it right. A quick look at a when the wheels fall off!!

Wednesday 2nd February morning 7am I just realised a few minutes ago, reading the paper, that this is my "birthday". It is ironic because I am reading about Cyclone Yasi in this morning's newspaper which shows Yasi in an aerial photo as about one fifth the size of Australia itself!  God help the poor Aussies. As the oceans warm up it was predicted that hurricanes (cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes are all the same thing by a different local name) will increase in number, intensity and reach. And this is exactly what appears to be happening all over the world. Hurricanes need warm oceans to feed their velocity and as the world's oceans get warmer, it seems even just a teeny bit warmer,  this added capacity assists hurricanes to move further north and south of the equator and achieve greater destructive power. A couple of years ago an area in Brazil not previously considered vulnerable to hurricanes got an unwelcome visit. The same potenti...

"I believe had the Garry Moore admin, or the previous Bob Parker admin, been on the ball that most of the more expensive section, to build a cut and cover tunnel under the rail corridor and Southern Motorway, would have logically been met by NZ Transport Agency in the course of widening the Southern Motorway." A simple technology - extending the cycleway tunnel before the embankment for a widened southern motorway is being built while a campervan traverses the older section of motorway.    "To throw away the chance to build a north-south axis busway corridor across the west side of the city before it becomes built out seems contrary to all the fine words about making a more liveable city ..." Noted Some parts of this article were edited in 2018 NZ in Tranzit argues by not planning a simple, adjoining,  bus-only tunnel the city is throwing away yet another chance to create a modern bus system that is truly effective and attractiv...