Talk:Transport in Auckland

Contents box

Can't seem to be able to get that contents box to appear, listing the subheadings. What do I have to do? I'm feeling like a noob! MadMaxDog 06:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

I don't really see the point of anything in the trivia section. Of course the speed limit would be 100km/h as this is similar to speed limits internationally? Also exits from the fast-lane side of the motorway are quite common overseas so I don't really see why to make such a big deal of the old 'right-lane exit' from Nelson St. Jarbury 05:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Bear with little expat me - some of those things are a little strange to us. It's just trivia in a small section. MadMaxDog 08:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Motorways... (Urban Sprawl)

Hi, good article. I just think you need to careful about attributing the 'urban sprawl' on the northern periphery of Auckland to the northern motorway (SH1). While this may be a factor, it certainly isn't the only or even the primary reason. Auckland is 'sprawling' in all directions, with the example of the eastern suburbs around Howick in recent years, which aren't served by any motorway.

Christchurch is also sprawling in all directions, and has no real interconnected motorway system like Auckland.

Motorways make it more convenient to commute longer distances, and and should be simply seen as what they are, a multilane road with a limited access function. It is the vehicles on the roads that create environmental issues, not the motorway itself. Motorways per se do not create sprawl, poor town planning does.

rodin5

I disagree, Rodin5. Human beings do not (on average) commute much longer than 1 hour per day (each way), that's been shown (haven't got a reference, or I might add it in somewhere). Therefore, if you provide good (built standard) roads with enough capacity (motorway), people suddenly have the ability to move further away from what they see as the negative sides of the city where they work. Case in point: coworker of mine just moved to Whangaparapa. He sure would not have moved to one of the little villages west of the Waitakere Ranges, even though they are closer...

"It is the vehicles on the roads"

Who need the roads to be of any use.

"Motorways per se do not create sprawl, poor town planning does."

Town planning is not the begin-all and end-all. Town planning, for various reasons, often only FOLLOWS what people want and what they have already done. Town planners may talk nice words, but in the end, the politicians, the developers, and the people decide. And most WANT to sprawl. Because it is okay if *I* have a house in nature, it is only *You* who is causing all the traffic and hacking down trees for your house ;-) MadMaxDog 08:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah Mad Max, but you miss my point. Again, you simply can't attribute urban sprawl primarily to motorways, roads, or the use of private cars.

You make the point that people 'WANT' to sprawl - and I am saying that this will happen - motorway, or not. The city of London has undergone extensive sprawl over the last 150 years, and much of that has clustered around rail lines and stations. This city was sprawling long before the first motorway was built in the UK. This is well documented, and I will provide references if required.

Your comments (rant?) about town planning need to be qualified. You have said it in a nutshell, poor town planning, (and this includes political pressure as you say) is the issue. A motorway, or some other mechanism of easier access only exacerbates this - it is not the primary cause. People do want to sprawl, and the kiwi 'quarter acre' dream is far from dead for many.

I deleted the sentence a couple of days ago that stated that Auckland has more motorways that most cities of it's size. This is simply untrue. As an example Finland, with a similar population and geographic size, has ten times the length of motorway than New Zealand does. It has strict planning regulations and a far better public tranport. It also has an average yearly road toll approximately two thirds of New Zealand's. Again, I will produce statistics if required.

Mad Max, I gain the impression from your article that you are unhappy about the level of use of vehicles in Auckland and the lack of available public transport. This is fine opinion, and I am inclined to agree with you. My main issue, and hence why I have engaged in a discussion on this, something which I don't generally do, is that I consider some of your article to be biased, with a reliance upon emotive and unverified statements. You may not like cars, or sprawl, or unfettered market capitalism per se but these are only your opinions, and I am saying that some of your arguments are somewhat simplistic and misleading. A wikipedia article is supposed to be as factual as possible. If you want to expound your opinions may I suggest that you keep to the forum side of things.

Rodin5 - I'll just go over a few points of yours here again. I hope you don't find this format aggravating, maybe its just the engineer in my, I like to tick off things and go over things point by point.

"This city was sprawling long before the first motorway was built in the UK. This is well documented, and I will provide references if required."

I welcome any such references! Also, I'll point to those parts about Auckland's growth (main Auckland article I believe) that talk about how the growth of Auckland was supported by such things as the first tramways built here. Also, whether it is motorways or 'just roads', the effect is similar.

"You make the point that people 'WANT' to sprawl - and I am saying that this will happen - motorway, or not."

It will not happen were no roads are.

"Your comments (rant?) about town planning need to be qualified."

Not really, because it WAS a bit of a rant. And not in the article.

"A motorway, or some other mechanism of easier access only exacerbates this - it is not the primary cause."

I'll agree that it is a 'chicken or the egg' question.

"I deleted the sentence a couple of days ago that stated that Auckland has more motorways that most cities of it's size. This is simply untrue."

That one was in there from before I started editing. I probably should have checked that some time earlier, but that's fine. You deleted it, I do not object to you doing so. It doesn't feel like Auckland has a really above-average level of motorways, you are perfectly right (and likely right on the facts too - like to add some refs? Not about Finland as such, but maybe comparing Auckland's level of motorway (or even better, sealed road) with other cities?).

""Mad Max, I gain the impression from your article that you are unhappy about the level of use of vehicles in Auckland and the lack of available public transport."

True. And even worse, I would profit from change, because that would mean more work for me (actually we have tons of work either way, but I'd like some of it more). So I certainly have an agenda in WHAT I write about.

Not, I hope, in how true my writing is. Which gets me to my point - if you feel these articles are slanted, please add your parts. While most of the edits here are mine, I am not (I hope) reflexively deleting stuff that I don't like. I recently did a lot of reverts - but those were mostly about people deleting referenced statements.

"and I am saying that some of your arguments are somewhat simplistic and misleading."

Now, that does hurt a bit. Go ahead, show me where my arguments are simplistic (not counting my rants here on the discussion page). Feel free to tone down what you see as bias, or add your views to balance the article. I am not promising to leave it alone, but I will certainly try to have an open mind. MadMaxDog 05:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Cheers for that Mad Max. I'll add some stuff in the next while, and get some references. I thought rather than just jump in and edit, it would be better to discuss it with you first outside the article to see where you were coming from. I'm a transport planner and would profit from any changes as well, so I'm not completely unbiased either:) I do see a place for motorways though, along with a strong public tranport system. This view is primarily for the safety benefits that a limited access roading system brings, NOT to relieve congestion - (and the Northern Motorway extensions have made the Great North Road a lot safer for cyclists commuting to work every day on it - like me :)

Yes, sprawl will not generally happen where there are no roads - but without roads... do you have a society?

That's it from me. Thanks for the responses.

Rodin5

Urban Density

As I noted in the Auckland page it's not entirely accurate to say that Auckland has a 'very low' urban density. As I said Auckland actually has a higher urban density than any large Australian city except Sydney, and higher than any large Canadian city except Toronto. And it is much higher than most comparable US city. It is only lower in comparison to some European cities (and even then the difference is not that dramatic). See http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf for data. I edited one paragraph to reflect this, but it might be a little clunky.

In this light I'm not entirely happy with the second paragraph which seems to be suggesting poor public transport in Auckland is primarily a factor of density. When in fact many cities in Australia and Canada have lower densities and much better public transport. For instance Brisbane has less than half the density than Auckland, but an extensive train and bus service. That is not to say that density is not an issue in Auckland, but I think its inaccurate to present it the primary barrier to good public transport in light of this. Perhaps someone can edit the second paragraph to reflect this. Sunflower 06:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Have attempted a rephrase of some parts to reflect your comments better. MadMaxDog 08:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Explanation for the revert and rebuild

I just reverted a large number of expansive good-faith edits. Then I put most of them back in. Why? I hope I did not act too much from a "This is MY baby!" reasoning (though the psychological drive behind editing for half an hour certainly included that) but there were a number of changes, especially moving of text sections into incorrect places, that I disagreed with strongly (and I hope the edit summaries will explain why). I tried to change those back in normal edit steps, but was getting confused and frustrated. So instead I reverted all changes to my last own version, and then step by step re-added all sensible edits, or did not, where I saw reason to differ. Regards to all involved, and I hope I have produced a good compromise, MadMaxDog 08:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC) "Nonetheless, some preparations for a possible link have been made, with some of the newer Albert Street edfices (like the ASB building) actually possessing unused underground railway stations, in case the link is ever built.[citation needed]"

Underground loop

This is simply incorrect, someone is oviously confusing the rapid transit project proposal from the 70's with the current Albert St proposal. The building that currently features the ASB Bank retail branch *Queen St* (not the ASB tower head office on Albert street) was designed with a basement level that could be converted to the main entrance plaza to a station that was proposed to be built underneath Queen St. As this station was never built this level is simply used as basement storage. Until recently no underground railway or stations was ever proposed for Albert St, the were all proposed for Queen St until the opening of Britomart station right at the foot of Queen St made this to sharp a curve for trains to negotiate. Certainly the claim that there are "unused underground railway stations" anywhere in central Auckland is unfortunately false.

Public transport in Auckland

This article is getting a bit long, and will soon need to be split. I propose that the public transport information be edited in line with Public transport in New Zealand. --Lholden 06:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem with splitting it off - though I do not see in what way PtiNZ is going to be a guideline in formatting? Please keep similar to here. Also, we will of course need a short summary in here as PtiA would not be a parallel article, but a sub-article.

Hey, I remember myself splitting off THIS article from Auckland. Its come a long way in that year or so...MadMaxDog 07:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

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Apparently taken care of now? Ingolfson (talk) 06:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Auckland Transport Title

I think it is about time to add an article on the Auckland Transport council controlled organisation. It is going to be a significant group for the city (its budget will make up more than 50% of the whole of Auckland Council's) so I think it deserves the article title "Auckland Transport". The only issue is that this title is used as an auto-redirect to the Transport in Auckland article. Are there any objections to moving the redirect/disambiguation into a hatnote? The alternative is using "Auckland Transport (CCO)" but I think most readers will expect the simpler title once the new council and groups take over. Mister Blume (talk) 08:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)