And because we currently have the party of the provinces in power (led by two nominal Aucklanders; Key & Joyce, actually a Hawaiian wannabe tax exile and a semi-rural life style blocker and small town boy) the true nature of the city is ignored and in fact attacked by the governing party and it’s cowering apparatchiks. And this wilful ignorance of the needs of a third of he population is all the more possible because the institutions of state are domiciled in a charming little fishing village at the other end of the North Island.

The Super City is, in fact, a challenge to this state of affairs. As we shall see as time and demographics unfold.

* Wellington has some specific transport challenges of its own, both the region getting into the CBD and (separately) the city getting into the CBD. Far more so than Christchurch, which has the same population and has had the same-sized CBD.

* The high net use rates for PT in the region have a lot to do with a very large share of the region’s jobs being in the CBD – far higher than in Auckland. As a result, the rate of bus use for Wellington city proper (~100 trips/person/year) is far higher than for the Auckland isthmus (currently around 55 trips/person/year).

* It’s changing now, but for most of the post-war period Auckland was hampered by a Balkanised local council structure which basically had the peripheral councils in the region, and even more the separate Isthmus “rotten boroughs”, pulling against the centre. Hence the dispersal of jobs out of the downtown, which is fatal for public transport demand.

* In its time, the Regional Council did not work all that well, and for the same factors of “balkanised” politics. This was not really an issue in Wellington.

* The other thing that I found frustrating when I worked as a budgets officer for Transit, was that despite all the rhetoric from local councillors about wanting public transport, when it came to them fronting up with their own money, there was a near-total lack of action. OK, things are changing now, but at the time the gap between rhetoric and actions was significant.

“it’s now much, much harder to cross anywhere other than a sanctified crossing” That was the idea. The previous pedestrian/vehicle mix was very dangerous (particularly between engineering and science). From a safety perspective I think the addition of a crossing outside engineering and planting to gently encourage pedestrians to use it is a good idea. Ive seen the aftermath of some nasty incidents on that road prior to the upgrade. I don’t think its the best place for a pedestrian utopia, Perhaps High or Queen street?