NZ In Tranzit

Sunnynook Bus Station on Auckland's Northern busway Its not very often NZ in Tranzit is "hot" with the news, but today - indeed right now - in the United Kingdom another guided busway begins the first day of  public operation. Luton - Dunstable Latest Guided Busway to open This busway in Luton area, north of London, consists of 13 km of mostly segregated busway with 7.4 kilometres of this utilising concrete tracks built along a former railway line corridor to provide a smoother-than-rail guided busway. The route bypasses heavy traffic corridors whilst still servicing key points and is expected to offer patrons a 15 minute bus journey, hugely competitive with the one hour journey by car or longer by conventional bus routes in peak hours over the same distance. The Luton busway is the culmination of 20 years of work and planning by the local council and construction costs over ran £91 million pounds by less than 1%. Here is yesterdays opening ceremony and a Y...

                                                                                                                                    Official free image The small Canadian city of Gatineau - across the river from Ottawa but with a separate administration and public transport system is only weeks away from opening a 17km long segregated busway, built utilising the land of a disused railway line.  Gatineau has an impressive record in transit - among the first cities to introduce bus lanes 43 years ago - and punches way above its weight on various stats - see article below (an edited version of a posting made on this blog in 2010).  Most recently it b...

Hundreds of millions of dollars generated by Canterbury fuel taxes have been used to upgrade public transport in Auckland and Wellington! Meanwhile Christchurch continues to operate buses very much at at a clumsy 1970s level, as above approaching Northlands. New Zealand is about to be swept by the restless tide of city and district council elections -  NZ in Tranzit looks at some of the key public transport issues facing Canterbury councils.  The elephant in the back seat of the bus that can not be ignored in Canterbury,  is the gross deprivation of transport funding that rightly belongs in Canterbury New Zealand Transport Agency is gearing up to start the $550 million extension of Auckland's Northern Busway,  An internal report obtained under the Official Secrets Act by Auckland Transport blog - the details since reprinted in mainstream media -  revealed the Agency feels the first part of the two-stage extension will be "economically justified...