Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, February 10th, 2024 - 6 comments
This week we have seen National confirm it will cancel the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax and this will cause the cancellation or suspension of many projects designed to address congestion. And it has been confirmed that axing the clean car discount has seen sales of electric vehicles plummet. And that electric vehicles will shortly pay more to use the road than petrol vehicles.
Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, January 17th, 2024 - 71 comments
At a time when we need cool heads and leaders who understand the enormity of the problem that is climate change and the consequences of getting our response right we are getting this retrograde culture war from people who should know better.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, August 8th, 2023 - 16 comments
Nation building projects always take multiple terms, and the risk of Labour losing puts at risk some of the largest and most important we’ve seen in generations.
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, July 31st, 2023 - 51 comments
National’s latest policy announcement shows that it has an unmistakable fetish for tar seal.
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 am, June 6th, 2023 - 53 comments
How does regional rail fit into the biggest story on the planet?
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, June 5th, 2023 - 51 comments
Regional rail is a perpetual makework gig servicing the wrong economy and just needs to stop.
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, March 14th, 2023 - 45 comments
Chris Hipkins continues with his shock and awe campaign and has torched a number of policies that National and Act were using to foment unrest.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, October 20th, 2022 - 50 comments
Wayne Brown (or is that Matthew Hooton) has over the past few days released a series of letters that are astonishing in their audacity. His latest on transport proposes business as usual at a time when dramatic change is required.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, August 16th, 2022 - 9 comments
“Along with public ownership and better wages and conditions for people working on public transport, if we can get the Government to focus nearly all transport investments on making it easier for people to walk, bike, or hop on a bus, train, or ferry we can create a world-class transport system that works for everyone. The best way to do that is to get more Green MPs into Parliament,” – Julie Anne Genter.
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 7th, 2022 - 213 comments
Right now Labour is preparing the ground for its run at 2023’s election with new policy. New policy must be wildly popular. What could make Labour popular enough to them back leading a third term in government?
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, May 15th, 2022 - 9 comments
The Auckland mayoralty campaign promises to be a fascinating contest between a right winger promising to spend $1.5 million on the campaign and wants to turn sprinklers on the homeless and Efeso Collins who promises to run an inclusive respectful campaign.
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, April 22nd, 2022 - 17 comments
It’s 2032, and we’re looking back at a decade of oil, climate and economic crisis, and how one city found a way through.
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, April 13th, 2022 - 93 comments
What would our society, communities and lives look like in New Zealand if we weren’t so reliant on fossil fuels?
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 13th, 2022 - 66 comments
Yesterday Chris Luxon showed the sensitivity and sophistication of someone who owns seven properties and at one stage had 6.1 million Air New Zealand shares by stating that he believed that at least some public transport services should not be supported and that public transport needs to stand on its own feet.
Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, April 6th, 2022 - 15 comments
You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.
Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, February 23rd, 2022 - 66 comments
Efeso Collins has announced his first Mayoral campaign policy and it is a biggie, free public transport for Auckland.
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, February 13th, 2022 - 34 comments
Where will the votes come from to get Labour a third term?
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, January 31st, 2022 - 30 comments
The light rail route and mode decision this week shows something new. It’s in the nature of the state itself.
Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, December 14th, 2021 - 21 comments
For the hundreds of thousands of Aucklanders who have decided to holiday at a town near you, just be careful: they may never leave.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, November 3rd, 2021 - 22 comments
With in-person shopping about to re-start in Auckland next week, this is the best moment we will have to reinvent Auckland: one customer at a time.
Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, October 29th, 2021 - 23 comments
Construction of light rail in Auckland, proposed 50 years ago by former Mayor Dove Myer Robinson, is now a step close with the release of working group recommendations for options of a light rail line running between the city centre and the Airport.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, June 28th, 2021 - 26 comments
Waikato Regional Council (WRC) has approved a transport plan which assigns just 3% of its 10-year budget to walking and cycling, and only 5% to public transport. This must inevitably increase overall transport emission pollution in the region. In my opinion the law requires the plan to reduce transport emissions to achieve consistency with central government transport policy. If emissions will rise under the plan this makes the plan unlawful and places WRC at significant risk of a successful legal challenge.
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, June 17th, 2021 - 51 comments
Jenny looks at extending public transport to include cyclists
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 23rd, 2021 - 97 comments
As we lead up to Budget 2021, there’s much more shape to the whole direction of this government.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, September 30th, 2020 - 40 comments
All of these policies will get fossil cars off the roads, reducing emissions.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 5th, 2020 - 43 comments
Our cities are the nation’s lungs; they recycle and accelerate external goods and transform them internally into faster circulation. Auckland and Christchurch have had tens of billions invested in them over successive local and central governments, but has this improved our strength or wealth as a country at all?
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 10th, 2020 - 13 comments
National has made two major roading project announcements in the past week. Both announcements recycled announcements that were also made before the last election.
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, July 6th, 2020 - 15 comments
Sure to form, Paul Swain along with Regional Council Chair and another former Labour MP Fran Wilde proposed tearing down the trolleybus wire and increasing the city’s carbon emission. This was to then promptly followed by re-tendering all the bus routes having redesigned all the bus network so that bus companies could then compete over routes and undercut each other. At one council meeting in mid-2016 Swain was questioned about the possibility of protecting drivers jobs and employment conditions. After a few questions, he lost patience, slammed in hand on the table and ended the meeting. This was the extent to which Swain and the Greater Wellington Regional Council considered supporting bus drivers during this process.
Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, June 25th, 2020 - 16 comments
There is a solid silver lining to the delay in the Auckland light rail to the airport project.
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, June 24th, 2020 - 52 comments
the government can’t agree is a euphemism for NZ First blocking climate action.
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 3rd, 2020 - 55 comments
The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?
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