Posts by andrea quin
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I suspect the difference in population density probably has something to do with the lack of public transport in Auckland
You suspect wrongly... There are both more and less dense cities than Auckland which have better and worse public transport. To some extent, better transport creates greater density around itself as people want to be near the transport hubs. There was a long discussion on this recently akl transport blog
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Labour had passed legislation and everything. National canned it when they came in, at least in part because they're terrified of what might happen if Auckland got the power
So true. At least they saved us from a potentially fatal 10c increase in petrol prices though, right? Oh.
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Also remember that there was a pretty good mechanism -- regional fuel taxes -- proposed to pay for local transport infrastructure projects. Wouldn't have put too many pensioners out of their sports fields warmed by sewage networks... Especially since pensioners get heavily subsidised public transport.
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spending $xbillions on a useless rail loop to nowhere means sacrificing some of these things
Good, focused infrastructure spending should generate wealth not suck money out of the economy. And that is exactly the reason why the national govt could be expected to provide some of the money, because it would be good for the economy as a whole.
And again, it is not "$x billions", it is about $1.5 billion. Less than the proposed Puhoi-Wellsford highway that has a cost-benefit ratio of less than 1 (not good infrastructure spending...)
or take a train to Britomart.
I thought your whole argument was that these stations could be getting off points for the CBD and thereby alleviate the congestion to Britomart. Instead you seem to be saying that simply by passing through these stations (maybe even hopping off for a look around?) on the way to Britomart will clear the bottleneck there. Hmmm.
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incorporating a modal change into a public transport solution is going to add friction
Mode switching should become much easier with the advent of integrated ticketing (still 2-3 years off) but even then, the idea of good CBD transport being "take them somewhere near the CBD and let them make their own way in" is a bit ridiculous.
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Mt Eden and Grafton stations which can potentially be used to service the CBD
How exactly do these stations that are not in the CBD service the CBD? Nice brisk walk never hurt anyone, eh?
The projected cost for the tunnel is about $1.5 billion, not multiple billions. And the magic of a tunnel is that it is a tunnel so uses only small amounts of that very expensive real estate. (By the way, you'd expect to see that real estate become a lot more expensive if there were good quality transit systems running near it).
The latest report on the CBD tunnel is due soon and we should see some cost-benefit estimates there. I'd be very surprised if even the conservative estimates didn't show it being a very good investment. Taking into account wider economic benefits (intensification around stations, revitalization of the CBD, congestion relief achieved by moving commuters moving from road to rail etc) it should do extremely well.
The North Shore has just got an excellent busway that is fast and has plenty of spare capacity. Sure, I'd like to see rail there one day, but I don't think it is a high priority right now.
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the major impediment to uptake of public transport is most likely to be public attitudes to sharing a ride.
I'd say the rapid uptake in use of the Northern Busway shows that people are perfectly happy to share a ride if there is a decent ride to share. Provide fast, frequent and easy to use public transport and the punters will happily come. To ascribe irrationality to large swathes of the traveling public is, well, irrational.
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Angus is wrong. The CBD loop would add a lot of extra capacity to the Auckland rial system by removing the bottleneck at Britomart. This single project would essentially double the capacity of the system, allowing extra trains to run on the existing lines and making them considerably more attractive to the people near them. There is bags of information about this over at the excellent Auckland transport blog of Josh Arbury.
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may it stay off and may the other states quickly have to remove their equivalent laws.
A few interesting bits of research suggest that although this law may not stay off the books in the medium term, it won't be too long until opposition to gay marriage in the States effectively dies off.
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Afghanistan had the lowest life expectancy in the world during this period
If it weren't for the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Afghanistan would still have the lowest life expectancy in the world. Looking at the colour-map of life-expectancy, it's plain that Afghanistan is the odd one out in the region.
the withdrawal will be negotiated
I'd agree with that and when I say the US and others should be out asap, I realise it is not going to be tomorrow. But this ongoing talk of victory or even avoiding civil war with any certainty strikes me as hubris.
But I personally can't just shrug off the moral implications of, in particular, the fate of Afghanistan's women.
I'm not sure that anyone is asking that you do that. But is ongoing war in Afghanistan the best place and manner to be committing resources? I'd say no it's not.