Category: Local Governance
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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…
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Reversal Needed of 1989 Local Government Reforms [3]
Well this series has wandered all over the place, and this definitely will be the last part. Today’s local government issue of note is of course the 3 Waters proposals. 3 Waters is one of those things you think councils should regard as their core business, but the real problem with it is the value…
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“Greater Christchurch Partnership” Is A Sham For Public Transport
In 2017, the Labour Party campaigned for the general election on a platform of offering to spend $100 million on public transport in the city, which included the investigation of commuter rail. The lofty and noble ideas have since become bogged down in local government politics as Christchurch City Council has simply rehashed its long…
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Reversal Needed of 1989 Local Government Reforms [2]
[This is an unplanned second part continuing on the theme of local government, particularly its relevance to transport service provision. In the first article a general examination of the impacts of the 1989 reforms was taken. This article is more about general shortcomings of local government outside of any particular timeframe.] It’s worth taking a…
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Reversal Needed of 1989 Local Government Reforms [1]
[This topic has relevance to other content produced at TSBNZ, most notably a forthcoming series of posts about how to improve public transport in Greater Christchurch, and indirectly in the case of regional transport management in regions such as Gisborne District, referred to directly in this post] In 1989, the Labour government enacted a sweeping…
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Cycleways Great, Driver Behaviour Not
In Christchurch and in other regions, with the government funding for cycleways in recent years, we have seen attention given to the safety of cyclists on the roads, which here is particularly with the separated cycle lanes that have controversially been built in a number of areas. Whilst these cycle lanes improve the safety for…
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Gisborne Railway Proposals Continue In Dead End Direction
The Napier Gisborne Line is a 212 km railway which is a part of the Palmerston North Gisborne Line. The webpage from Engineering NZ records that “This line was a major feat of engineering, built through very difficult terrain and generally weak tertiary geological conditions”. It is these “generally weak tertiary geological conditions” that are…
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Central Christchurch Transport Safety In Question [1]
This is the first of three parts taking an indepth look at the lack of focus on transport safety in Christchurch, more particularly the centre of the city, and how this has been influenced over the past decade more especially. Christchurch is in the position unlike other cities recently of having had its local council’s…
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Roundabout Design Safety Issues In Halswell Junction Road, Christchurch
A newspaper report in Christchurch highlights possible design issues in Halswell Junction Road. The video clip supplied shows that the incident in question took place at the roundabout at the intersection of Halswell Junction Road and Alvaston Drive / Hamill Drive. This was originally a T intersection as seen in this 2011 aerial view. Google…