Transport Safety Blog New Zealand

  • Telephone Road Level Crossing To Close

    Waka Kotahi, Kiwirail and Waikato District Council have jointly announced the closure of Telephone Road Level Crossing, located at 11.08 km on the East Coast Main Trunk Railway between Ruakura and Eureka, to motor vehicle traffic. As referenced in the preceding post, this crossing has been rated dangerous due to a number of factors, including:…

  • Integrated Safety Assessments For Level Crossings

    To date TSBNZ has spent a fair bit of time looking at level crossing safety. Along the way one of the learnings has been the apparent extent to which the agencies concerned are operating their own systems for managing level crossing safety in isolation from each other and blaming the other for safety problems. The…

  • 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…

  • Crash at Beach Haven Road Traffic Island (Auckland)

    This morning there are news media reports of a crash involving two cars at a pedestrian island in Beach Haven Road, Auckland. The reports appear to place the scene of the crash near 164 Beach Haven Road. Beach Haven Road appears to be a local arterial route serving the suburbs of Beachhaven, Birkdale and Kauri…

  • 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…

  • “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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…