NZ In Tranzit

Above Redbus vehicle in the frontal livery known locally as "Homer Simpson Underpants" design. I love the new bus queue-jumper turning lane in Montreal Street -  in fact it is a bloody miracle, given the exceedingly dismal level of growth in public transport infrastructure in Christchurch in the last decade.  I doubt whether it is a world-first, but I have yet to  come across a bus system, whereby   a   bus   coming out of a centre lane cuts across the front of other turning traffic!  As can be seen above buses come out of a central road lane, heading north up Montreal Street [a one way street] move ahead of other traffic turning (ie veering) left. It sounds dangerous but shouldn't be, working within a specific sequence of traffic signals. Cars turning left as well rely on an arrow which stays red as long as a bus is moving forward on the straight ahead signal and then peeling off leftwards into Victoria Street. Buses are the only veh...

Commercial heart of New Brighton, on a wet Sunday afternoon in June 2011  - no all weather hub activity here to draw in visitors and customers    Photo NZ in Tranzit An article in the [Christchurch]  "Star"  on  Friday   states that   the City Council is about to publicly reject plans for a water-based amusement park and indoor swimming complex at New Brighton, on or near the foreshore. Local advocates, community board members and long time community activists Tim Sintes and David East proposed that $36 million, half the insurance from the earthquake damaged and demolished QEII Pool, earmarked for aquatic facilities on the east be used as the foundation finance. Council,says the scheme would cost over $100 million but according to Mr Sintes made no attempt to consult with himself, Mr East or project leader Alan Direen. Before they built Eastgate back in the late seventies I remember a bloke from the developers, G.U.S (Grocers United...

One of Christchurch's richest men, Antony Gough, owner of multiple bar and cafe premises on "The Strip" (or the land where they stood before the earthquake) is offering a farcical "about $20,000" for someone to remove Shand's building from the Hereford Street site he owns.  Presumably Gough was aware in buying this site he was purchasing the oldest existing commercial building in the central city and one of the very few from the early 1850s,  in all of Canterbury.  We are a raw new country, human settlement doesn't go back longer than a 1000 years.  Weird eh? Early Maori sites were often transient (for only a few decades at most) and building materials wood, rotted with time.  As a people we are like newborns without a deep culture to stand in. A building built in 1851 is hardly ancient by the standards of ancient Egypt, or even Europe, indeed laughable. But, it is all we have got.  Shand's building is probably the most ...

Xpresso Bus offering direct link worker services, as part of the ACTION bus network in Canberra. Effective public transport is about getting people where they want to go -  in multiple directions - quickly and smoothly.   Photo Wikipedia Commons The building of a light rail route near Australia's Parliament in Canberra has received a big thumbs down from central government agency, Infrastructure Agency. According to a report in The Canberra Times  a report from Infrastructure Australia , the Canberra submission failed to turn up sufficient evidence of traffic congestion or high value use value that would warrant the federal government offering support or funds. The report said that a case for economic viability had not been strongly made "particularly when the government's economic analysis showed buses would deliver a greater cost benefit than light rail" In this case it seems the newspapers do not seem to be able to distinguish buses from bus rapid t...

     A plan to keep buses locked in queues on Riccarton Road, is doing a major disservice to bus users,  including transfer passengers that rely upon predictable times, for decades to come.It  is not great planning and does not suggests a great deal of vision or commitment to building a quality public transport infrastructure for our city. The most  recent proposal, below,  ignores all common sense and will tie hundreds of buses per day to travelling along the most congested section of road in Christchurch for the next ten or twenty years.   Recently the City Council website announced;  Riccarton public transport hub passenger waiting lounge proposed The committee has asked Council staff to assess the proposal for the development of a public transport hub on Riccarton Road (south side of Riccarton Road near Division Street) to facilitate public transport passengers. The nearby bus stops accommodate 2000 passenger daily and an inte...

Chinese built BYD all electric bus (runs on four hub motors) in service in Holland (per Wikimedia Commons) Todays news; ....... a prototype built by Swiss engineering conglomerate ABB – is an articulated, or bendy bus that can carry 135 people and has just one battery pack on the roof that gets “flash-charged” in as little as 15 seconds as passengers get on or off, by a recharging station the size of an overgrown lamppost. -  Europe vies with China in electric bus race -  Financial Times August 2 2013 It is a mistake to see the billions of dollars being poured into Christchurch earthquake recovery as some sort of generous gift. It is appreciated but it is not in anyway charity, not a hand out. The Government is picking up about two thirds the tab for rebuilds of infrastructure such as roads and sewerage. These are normally costs entirely covered from local taxes (rates) and tasks entirely funded by local government. But the sequence of 13,000 earthqu...