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For those of you that use Twitter we now have an official twitter account for the blog that you can use to keep up to date with the latest posts and information about transport issues, previously Admin had this going through his personal account but with his new job it is more appropriate to separate this out to its own account. You can view it here https://twitter.com/AkTransportBlog Tomorrow I start work as a transport planner for the Council, and so ends my stint as a blogger on this site. As I outlined in more detail in this post and this post, this blog has meant a lot to me over the past few years and it has been truly awesome to see it develop from a personal blog that pretty much nobody read into what the site is today – something that is seemingly quite influential and gets around 2,000 views a day during the week. However, my sadness in ending my involvement with the blog is tempered by my excitement for what I’ll be doing in the new job – and also by my confidence (fully reinforced by this couple of awesome recent posts) that the future of the blog is in good hands. I have updated the “Contact Us” page – with Matt L generally being a first point of call for news related matters and each blogger being contactable for feedback on their posts. I’ve found this to be helpful over the years, and many links sent through via email have inspired countless blog posts. It’s been fun. As there’s been a lot of discussion about population density here I figure this post from good ol’ Cap’nTransit is on the money. Yes this is my view too, you think more density is needed? Well build the transit and the density will follow [all else being equal], foolish to try to wait for some ideal density then meet that demand with infrastructure. Transit supply is causative. Or as the Cap’n says: ‘The population density to support my ass’ Here are two interesting posts on Twitter and Transit. One beautiful the other more for the quants. Both instructive. The second is via Atlantic Cities where there is also this argument for High Speed Rail in the Union’s most populous State, California. Newt of the GOP has been banging on about the US heading back to the moon in some kind of pissing contest with China, but frankly if they can’t even get a train to run from SF to LA and any decent speed I think he’ed better dodge that race. *Note for Geoff: These arguments here for HSR are intended as a metaphor for local arguments for urban transit, not as a literal argument for HSR in NZ. Same things apply, land use transformations, economic return not a financial one etc, but at a vastly different scale. More from the States on gas prices [as they call them] and what to do, and for once this doesn’t involve bombing somewhere else or other wise frackin’ it all up. Closer to home; no round up from me will be complete without at least a passing note on resource supply issues. As we head to the exciting singularity of peak damn near everything it’s good to see some people have their heads up. Here’s an introductory note from across the ditch, what I especially like about this is that it states a view that I also have, namely that it could just be that a world with less freely available oil may well be a lot better in a number of ways; once we’ve made the adjustment. Like London after the peasoup smog and mountains of horse-shit. I’m also guessing less isolation, more localiasation, more human interaction, less alienation. Perhaps more meaningful lives. Perhaps. There’s also this guy, Denis Tegg, I know nothing about him but he has been manfully plugging away on this issue in NZ for a while and here he is bringing an important shelved report to the surface. I say manfully because there is a really creepy silence on this issue and Climate Change in the mainstream media and in government in NZ. It’s like if we don’t mention these problems they’ll just go away. Look away Actoids! Here’s a well reasoned piece on the attractions and limitations of neoliberalism. It’s short too. Relevant how? Transit like our cities need long term planning, by elected bodies. The market is a great tool, but a lousy master, and an even worse god. As I think we’ve just seen. Those interested in the strange ways that change can happen will like this. Why the US Marine Corp may well lead the US into a solar future. Back to transit, and more personally; I have new wheels, yay! and loving it, but won’t be going to these extremes to protect them. No. With only a few days to go of my contribution to this blog, I thought I’d have a look back at some of the statistics of this blog. A few of them can be seen down the left-hand side of this page – as I write we have:
But some statistics can only really be seen behind the scenes, so for your curiosity here are a few:
It has also been interesting to see how visitor numbers to the blog have changed over time, going from under 8000 views in July 2009 to almost 66,000 in August last year – the busiest month so far. This post on Public Address, in particular, seemed to really bring what had previously been a generally ignored blog, into public view. Of course, it is the knowledge that many hundreds of people visit the blog each day, and that many of them take the time to comment and share their thoughts, which has kept me going and keen to post almost every day. I’m sure it’ll take me some time to adjust – but in the meanwhile I am curious about how the various readers of the blog found their way here the first time, which post do they remember (if any) which encouraged them to keep coming back and if there are any particular favourite posts. Because, I’m a curious person too. I was sad to read, back in late December, that Jon C, who runs the AKT blog, is moving to Australia and won’t be able to continue posting on the blog in the future. This blog and AKT have always been quite complementary to each other – predominantly because I don’t have a hope in hell posting as frequently and getting out to take as many photos of developments around the Auckland rail network as Jon managed. Many a transport story was broken on his blog, plus the insight he enabled us to have into upgrade works around the city was second to none. What makes Jon’s decision to shift to Australia and discontinue blogging particularly sad, perhaps, is the fact that my days of being able to continue writing blog posts here are also numbered. In the last couple of weeks before Christmas, the dream transport planning job for me came up , I applied for it, and I was the successful applicant. I start in that role on January 31st. It will involve me definitely working to achieve much of what I’ve discussed on this blog over the past few years, inside the system rather than outside it. As I knew when applying for the role, unfortunately in life you can’t have both. Of course, as someone with pretty much no transport planning experience, I highly doubt I would have been able to get such a job without the blogging work I’ve done here. As I think Jon C has noted in the final few posts on his blog, transport blogging is fun, but is also hard work at times. With a new baby, I have found it more and more difficult to find the time to put together the type of posts that I most like to write. Posts like this and this, which I know got various people at Auckland Transport thinking quite a bit about how they might rework the way the City Rail Link’s cost-benefit analysis should be undertaken. I do feel that I have achieved quite a bit in my blogging time. Perhaps the best illustration of that is to look at what’s in the background behind Len Brown the day he found out he had won the mayoralty: Other things that originally were proposed on this blog, like two-waying Hobson and Nelson Streets, initiating an 020X route and many others, have been incorporated into official plans. Operation Lifesaver, a cheaper alternative to the Puhoi-Wellsford road, was taken up by Labour and the Greens as a way of freeing up funds to build the City Rail Link. I have also generally seen a vast improvement in the quality of our transport debates, compared to a few years ago. Often when a transport issue comes up in the newspaper, I don’t have to write a letter to the editor because there are three or four others saying pretty much what I would have. Personally, I certainly will miss blogging. While it’s hard work, it is also enormously rewarding and at times, fun. I still get a little thrill each time I have an email telling me there’s another comment. I still particularly enjoy commenters who challenge my way of thinking, but avoid simply acting as trolls. I constantly find myself wanting to be challenged on the big question of whether a greater focus on public transport really is the way to go. What would it take to prove me wrong? What would I argue in a debate if I was arguing on the side of a roads-centric policy? How would I refute that argument? It’s important that I’m able to answer that first question, because if I’m not going to change my mind no matter what evidence is produced – then we’re talking ideology rather than an informed opinion. I have tried not to be ideological about this issue. Fortunately, this blog will not cease to be updated from January 31st onwards, as I have a bunch of keen and excellent writers to take up the reins. In a way, I think the blog could benefit from being more of a “group effort” – although knowing how challenging it is to keep writing post after post, I’m certainly keen on growing the number of writers to ease the pressure on those contributing. Guest posts over the next few weeks, and beyond, are therefore most welcome. I think that transport blogs have played a pretty important role in the transport debate over the past few years (heck even Steven Joyce mentioned us in parliament once) – and I hope that trend continues. Well it was an extremely stressful game, and full credit to the French for playing unbelievably well, but: As an aside, despite the huge crowds the transport system seems to have held up well and Auckland Transport finally closed Queen Street to cars this afternoon. Quite a few people I have met up with in person recently have asked how things are going with the little girl we had a few weeks back. Well here she is in a pretty inevitable hat – thanks to Auntie Bernice who did an excellent shop at the London Transport museum when she was there a few weeks ago: Tomorrow evening I’m giving a public talk about public transport in Auckland, organised by a group called Generation Zero. Here are the details from Facebook:
I’m going to discuss quite a few things, firstly looking back at some key moments in Auckland’s transport history then looking forward to changing transport trends in Auckland, plus where we need to go in the next 10-20 years. As well as looking at necessary funding changes to enable a fundamental shift in our transport system, I will also look at ways we need to change our PT system to make it more efficient and effective: that we can significantly improve PT even within our current funding constraints. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions and discussion I hope. Well a pretty amazing and unexpected day today. My fiancee Leila was due to have our baby on July 14th, but it seems that the little thing was a bit impatient and couldn’t wait that long. Cue very hurried labour and a gorgeous little girl born at 12.04pm today. While she’s a bit smaller than average – due to her being five weeks early – she’s in good health. Blogging might be a bit light in the next wee while (although I am off work, so there might potentially be even more posts than usual). Now, just need to think of some names. As will be obvious to all, the blog is finally back online after being deactivated by my hosting company at around 7.30pm last night. Apparently something in the database was causing very long delays and crashing their servers. Through the whole mad process of fixing things up I must say I have been really unimpressed by Blue Host, the hosting company I currently use – so I’m looking for a new location to host the blog. Preferably in New Zealand. Many thanks to Cam Pitches and Lynn Prentice for assisting in helping me in both helping to resolve (and merely understand) the problems, and for setting up backups that I will be using to shift things to another host as soon as possible. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen again and sorry for any inconveniences. |
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