NZ In Tranzit

NZ, AUCKLAND Transport Auckland's multi-level Newmarket rail station has won an award in the Urban Design category at the prestigious annual New Zealand Institute of Architects awards ceremony. The station which opened in January 2010 cost $85 million to build and is currently used for about 3,500 commuter movements a day. Auckland Transport Chief Executive Dr David Warburton notes that twenty-eight new and upgraded stations have opened in recent years, including major stations at Newmarket and Grafton. [and New Lynn, at $160 million - ed] A further 15 are likely to be upgraded in a $38.9 million project over the next three years. NZ,  RAKAIA   A "repentant criminal" builds a bus shelter for a large group of school kids NZ, AUCKLAND   A new audio information system is being trialled by Auckland Transport on a limited number of trains this week. The system is expected to make a big difference for blind and vision impaired people and has been welcomed by the Royal S...

"BUS EXCHANGE" at Parkside; A welcome emergency response in the weeks after the devastating Feb 22nd earthquake  - three months later Metro's strategy of service cuts, complicated transfers and funny exposed "Bus Exchanges"  is looking distinctly shabby and proving too clumsy in use for many patrons. Utilising the broad area of roading in Deans Avenue (south end- back of Hagley Park) in front of the old stock saleyards would appear to provide a far more effective bus exchange than the present two bit system. It would allow all through routes to be linked back together again , with stops facing in a natural direction. There would no longer need to be the current time-wasting  temporary loops around South Hagley Park. As far as I can figure out all city-suburb routes could be adapted to "seamlessly" run through this common point, with minimum route change. Using Deans Avenue would eliminate the need for two exchange p...

Parkside (Hagley Avenue) Exchange;   Metro giving passengers the runaround!  13 buses were counted in this evening peak  line up - everybody elderly included and all forced to scurry back and forward.  It was like some badly organised school trip... Bealey Avenue; Arriving at 7pm one night I found a cold, pitch black, smelly old bus supposedly a waiting room but obviously inaccessible to many elderly or handicapped, even if they could see where they were going.  After about 20 minutes wait two buses then departed for Papanui simultaneously, at least something was normal. In Christchurch post quake the fire engines get better shelter from the elements than Metro passengers. Street scene on a rainy Saturday, Asian tourist trying to make sense of the timetable for a non-existent bus, in the end a local helps out, Sorry - buses don't run past this stop at this moment. No, I know there is no signage to indicate changed situation. Like the transp...

One of the big and unexpected winners in yesterday's budget is Christchurch's public transport system. Announcing the Budget Bill English said it was imperative in reviving the earthquake battered city that funding be made available to lift the public transport system out of last century and into one that was truly competitive in making Christchurch an attractive cost effective city in which to live, commute to work, and do business in.  Said the Minister, "You don't get that with-out investment in infrastructure, buying extra land for transfer stations,  to widen roads, add separate bus lanes,  or build underpasses to by-pass congestion ." Interviewed after yesterday's budget reading in Parliament English admitted," The amount is not huge compared to the $500 million upgrading rail infrastructure in the Wellington region, or the billion and half dollars spent on Auckland rail, under the previous Government, but times are hard.  This will allow Christ...

Nova Scotia has recently  joined several other Canadian Provinces in passing a law that makes it mandatory for all other road users to slow or if necessary stop - "to yield" - to allow buses to re-enter a main traffic flow lane from bus stops. The law applies only in areas where the speed limit is less than 60kmh , basically urban situations.  A similar policy in New Zealand is called for by the NZ Green Party. Nova Scotia's recent new law follows similar laws introduced during the last decade in other Province's of Canada, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and also in several states in USA. In Denver buses are being fitted with flashing Yield lights high on the rear of buses just to help motorists see exiting buses well in  advance or above other traffic flow. Similar laws have been in force in Holland for some decades but Canada has many smaller cities, more akin to Christchurch in size, and with similar lower density suburban sprawl and similar roading patterns...

Sydenham after the first earthquake in September 2010; local retailers feared bus lanes, ready to go but never implemented, would kill this ailing retail area - could the inset parking bays, easier traffic flow, generous cycle space and bus lanes suggested in this posting be a major aspect of its rebirth? I believe the devastating earthquakes which have led to the destruction and demolition of rows of shops, in several places, offers an unique opportunity widen city streets at certain points. The rough diagram below speaks for itself - in this scenario the Council has purchased the added frontage of empty sites, taken the boundary back about 4 metres, to allow the road to be re-created as five lanes (in a few places this could be six lanes, both sides of a street) with a parking lane and three or four lanes of moving traffic. Although the idea is obvious and will no doubt be suggested by many others, it is the traffic management and potential value to public transport ...

  From the mists of time.....or rather the faded images of a newspaper cutting about 45 years old .  This photo came to light during the preparation for the Christchurch Transport Board staff reunion (and 100th Anniversary of the establishment of the CTB) in 2003 after a call was made for old photos. This photo presumably appeared in one of Christchurch's major papers, but no original clear quality copy was found amongst archival photos of local trams and buses held by either paper.  Various clues in the image suggest it is taken in the latter 1960s.  From  about the 1870s until the early 1990s, Cathedral Square at the centre of the city, was also the hub of the city's public transport network - from horse drawn buses and then steam trams and electric trams, then from 1954 buses. Now the oddly  designed and unsafe narrowed roading through Cathedral Square is merely a through point for a continual line of buses.  The...

 Blogs are a sort of underground equivalent of a newspaper column, a great vehicle for people to sound off their opinions or try to bring together a range of unrelated bits and pieces and hopefully weave an entertaining or informative story from the bits. Doing a blog is a style of writing, immediate but loose and not merely dry reporting  that suits my personality and I enjoy it a great deal. However only a small portion of data from my researched sources gets aired.  I would like to share much more of the world of public transport than the just the topics raised in the two or three opinion pieces I write a week. TRANZWATCH is a new NEWS page, on the permanent pages[see sidebar]  which will be updated fairly constantly, for any person interested in public transport issues to dunk into when they choose,  Reports will be closely linked to the main focus of this blog,  Christchurch NZ and its public transport system, and after that, public transport in oth...

My late grandmother used to have an embossed leather plaque on her wall with the inscribed message "Never put your wishbone where your backbone ought to be". That can be a hard call in the arena of social activism and politics. For anyone. We all have our wishbone - our dreams and ideals, abstract values of the way we think the world should be (prescriptive) - it can take a lot of courage and much harder research and study to come up with an accurate picture of how effective these dreams are when applied in reality, when all factors including upstream needs and downstream effects are added into the equation (descriptive).** And there will always be a margin of perspective (where we stand) as to what is real, in any situation. Even though my wishbone leans towards the "socialistic" - I'd rather pay more taxes and see everybody have equal access to protected wilderness, clean water, sealed streets, educational opportunity, accessible medical care etc etc e...

                                  When cheap oil leaves town...       Photo Wikimedia Commons What is going on? The International Monetary Fund -- a body that states its mission is to "foster global growth and economic stability" has produced a major report which concludes the world has entered an era of oil scarcity, and openly discusses a peak oil scenario in which global GDP doesn't grow, but declines steeply ! So starts a recent posting in Denis Tegg's blog Oil Shock Horror Probe titled IMF Warns of Oil Scarcity And End of "Growth I'll leave this blog's readers to follow these links up for themselves, but the most interesting, awesome and fearsome thing I find (apart from the fact that bodies like the IMF are starting to squeak on this issue) is the relatively low thresh-...

....in particular it seems to me thoughtless to run the 40 Wainoni service only as a 30 minute service given the lack of other services in areas through which this route passes ....... Why Environment Canterbury and Metro are running services in the current clumsy manner is hard to comprehend. But one thing is for certain, the eastside of Christchurch is suffering more than any other area through reduced bus routes and bus services. In fact the eastern arms of five routes are not operating at all at the moment. These are 23 Bromley via Eastgate, 35 Heathcote to Lyttelton via Eastgate, Ferrymead, 51 Aranui via Eastgate, 83 Burwood to New Brighton, and 84 Avondale to New Brighton. No other area of the city is so impacted by service loss. This must be huge extra stress for people, getting to work (especially if their previous workplace has been relocated, out of the closed-off central city area, to locations further west) or in many cases just getting to the doctor or an open super...