Category: City Transport
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What Happened To Christchurch’s Commuter Trains (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this article we took a look at how the local government system in Canterbury and elsewhere has evolved to the present day, and how the management of public transport in the Greater Christchurch area, which was under regional control from the 1890s until 1989, appears to have been briefly held by…
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The rise and fall of NZ First rail advocacy
In the 2014 New Zealand elections, the New Zealand First party sought to steal the limelight on promotion of the railway network. The party announced a “Railways of National Importance” campaign, an obvious counter to the National Party’s Roads of National Significance proposals. Whilst many of the corridors mentioned were existing ones, the policies also…
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What Happened To Christchurch’s Commuter Trains (Part 1)
On 30 April 1976, the last remaining commuter train service in North Canterbury, the Christchurch to Rangiora workers’ train service, closed down. Since that time there have been no commuter train services operated in the Christchurch area. The commuter trains in Canterbury, which at one point included New Zealand’s first electric train passenger network, were…
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Christchurch Public Transport Plan Disappointing, Underwhelming
On Friday 10th March, the government’s Minister of Transport visited Christchurch to announce that $78 million would be invested into a “revamp” of the Christchurch bus network. This revamp consists of adding extra buses and bus priority measures to just five of the city’s existing bus routes. These are named as the No.1 bus from…