And on that topic: the Uptown area is running a special follow-up promotion that could see you win a special Platinum HOP card (a year\u2019s free travel!) or one of four $150 HOP cards. Entry details and further info about tomorrow\u2019s fun here<\/a>. Never a better reason to check out this cool part of town!<\/p>\n This week\u2019s header image, snapped by Patrick at yesterday morning\u2019s announcement of the CRL launch date, shows from left to right: Councillors Shane Henderson and Andy Baker, Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson, Mayor Wayne Brown shaking hands with Minister of Transport Chris Bishop, Stacey van der Putten (CEO of Auckland Transport), Bevan Assink (Chief Metro officer of KiwiRail), Patrick Brockie (CEO of City Rail Link Ltd), and Martin Kearney from Auckland One Rail.<\/p>\n Greater Auckland\u2019s research and advocacy is powered by hundreds of hours of work each month, and your support helps keep us going! We warmly welcome\u00a0your donations,\u00a0<\/a>and are always open to\u00a0offers of guest posts, practical help, and pro-bono expertise<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wear your heart on your sleeve<\/p>\n Just 38 days till you can proudly wear your Greater Auckland \u201cfab four\u201d station T-shirt<\/a> through one of the new stations! Allow a week for delivery, and as these are print-on-demand (no returns possible), double-check your sizing before ordering.<\/p>\n Plus! Sharing is caring, so also check out\u00a0our Aussie cuzzie Peak Transit, which now has an Aotearoa selection<\/a> of public-transport-themed gear. Options include pins, keyrings, stickers, totes and tees\u00a0 \u2013 including a nifty stylised post-CRL network design. (Special discount code for Greater Auckland readers: GACRLGO)<\/p>\n \u201cChildren have the right to wobble\u201d: a visit from Professor Marco te Br\u00f6mmelstroet<\/p>\n Some fresh eyes on Aotearoa, from visiting professor Marco te Br\u00f6mmelstroet, Chair of Urban Mobility Futures at the University of Amsterdam.<\/p>\n His interview with Jack Tame on Q&A (video below, written version here<\/a>) is full of nuggets of wisdom \u2013 including the point that most people actually want fewer cars and more space for the good things of life, including children\u2019s wellbeing (echoing Connor\u2019s post here<\/a>).<\/p>\n It starts with a story from his first day on his first visit to New Zealand, when an encounter on the road revealed the hidden assumptions about who and what streets are for:<\/p>\n He recalled the issue crystallised on his first day, cycling with his family, when a driver in an SUV pulled up and shouted that his 11-year-old son was a danger.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, why is my son a danger to you while you are driving the 2000kg truck?\u201d he recalled asking her. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Well, he\u2019s wobbling.’\u201d<\/p>\n That answer, he said, exposed a gap in how different countries think about streets.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren who wobble \u2014 that\u2019s sort of the starting point of how we [in the Netherlands] designed our streets, so children are allowed to wobble,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have the right to wobble, and you are bringing in the danger.\u201d<\/p>\n He also mentions the Manifesto for Just Streets <\/a>as a political circuit-breaker for safer street design. Maybe we need a local equivalent?<\/p>\n You can also check out Professor te Br\u00f6mmelstroet\u2019s presentation to the Auckland Conversations audience, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Safer streets for students of all ages<\/p>\n Good coverage by RNZ of efforts by schools to keep students safe on nearby street<\/a>s.<\/p>\n Primary schools say a pilot programme that allows them to close nearby roads during drop off and pick up times is helping to curb dangerous driver\u2019s behaviour.<\/p>\n It has been a growing issue in New Zealand\u2019s biggest city, with Auckland Transport starting Safe School Streets a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n The programme has been testing how to manage safety, cut peak traffic and encourage walking or cycling at 13 schools. \u2026with permission from the council, Waimairi School [in Christchurch] has started closing the road during peak pick up and drop off times.<\/p>\n A teacher kept an eye on the barrier, to make sure residents on the street and emergency services could still get through\u2026.<\/p>\n Waimairi School got the idea from Marlborough Primary School in Auckland\u2019s Glenfield.<\/p>\n It was the first school to introduce restrictions under Waka Kotahi\u2019s Reshaping Streets regulations in March last year.<\/p>\n Principal Michelle Nell said drivers were having regular near misses with students. \u201cIt was chaos, it was parents behaving very badly and not thinking about their own child\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would come into the road and stop wherever they wanted to, open the doors let the kids out in the middle of the road and get really upset because people were blocking them getting out.<\/p>\n \u201cNeighbours were [also] upset about cars blocking the driveways, so they couldn\u2019t get out to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Nell said because parents now must park further away from the school, it had cleared the roads for students trying to walk.<\/p>\n After surveying the community, Auckland Transport found 82 percent of parents and 90 percent of teachers thought safety had improved.<\/p>\n School street signage near Waimairi School, Christchurch. Image: principal Chris Panther, as supplied to RNZ.<\/p>\n Around the motu, communities continue to prefer \u2013 and secure \u2013 safer crossings, like this one on Ilam Road outside the University of Canterbury.<\/a><\/p>\n A new raised pedestrian crossing has now been approved by the Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton Community Board in the hope of making the route safer for University of Canterbury students and Ilam School pupils.<\/p>\n On the road\u2019s western side is Homestead Ln, which houses nearly 2000 students living in halls of residence.<\/p>\n Numbers have grown significantly with the completion of the new Tupu\u0101nuku and Tupu\u0101rangi halls<\/a>, adding more than 700 beds and placing increased pressure on the crossing, which the university has identified as an ongoing safety concern.<\/p>\n And in Wellington this week, primary school children showed up en masse to a Council meeting<\/a> to make sure their low-traffic neighbourhood stayed in place.<\/p>\n A group of primary school students have achieved something in minutes that many adults have attempted for decades \u2013 quick change through council on a contentious issue.<\/p>\n The Year five and six students at Lyall Bay School visited Wellington City Council on Wednesday to deliver their submission on a trial that had made going to and from school safer for them.<\/p>\n A low-traffic area was trialled on Freyberg St, outside the school, making it easier for the children to cross at drop-off and pick-up times. To get all their thoughts across, the children presented to the council in a reporter-and-interviewee style, asking the questions they thought everyone would wonder about why the crossing needed to stay.<\/p>\n Others who weren\u2019t so keen on presenting came along to support their peers with handmade signs.<\/p>\n One of those signs<\/a> reads: \u201cKeep our beautiful faces safe\u201d, and the RNZ story<\/a> comes complete with a video of the presentations, which is well worth watching. The kids are all right.<\/p>\n City Centre on the up-and-up<\/p>\n Fast-track<\/a> approval has been granted for the Te P\u016bmanawa Downtown West development that will rise<\/a> where the Downtown Carpark now stands, between Quay St and Customs St West. As announced by Minister Chris Bishop, the parking building will be replaced by \u201can integrated mixed-use precinct\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cThe rebuild will include a premium 55 level commercial office tower, a 162m mixed-use residential tower, a hotel, retail, food and beverage spaces, publicly accessible civic spaces and an expansive laneway network.\u201d<\/p>\n A render of the proposed Te P\u016bmanawa<\/a> development, a project by Precinct Properties with Ng\u0101ti Wh\u0101tua \u014crakei.<\/p>\n And from Our Auckland, some nice before and after images<\/a> of progress in the city centre, featuring Quay St, Te Komititanga, Victoria St West, and Mercury Lane\u2026<\/p>\n Mercury Lane as transformed by Project K (and as rescued from political shenanigans by Greater Auckland<\/a> and our readers!). Images: Our Auckland<\/p>\n Southern train stations<\/p>\n Last weekend, two of the three new train stations between Papakura and Pukekohe finally opened. 1News has taken a look at the costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two new train stops in southern Auckland have cost around $300 million to build, KiwiRail says, with the wider three-station programme forecast at almost half a billion.<\/p>\n The new train stations are being built to serve growing \u201cgreenfield\u201d housing developments between Papakura and Pukekohe in what\u2019s currently largely farmland.<\/p>\n \u2026..<\/p>\n A KiwiRail spokesperson said the agency had only ever discussed the total cost across all the stations, which had shifted over time as the scope changed \u2014 originally covering just two stations and no access roads.<\/p>\n Individual station costs remained commercially sensitive, the spokesperson said, as the Drury and Paer\u0101t\u0101 contracts were not yet settled and Ng\u0101k\u014droa was still being built.<\/p>\n However, given the late stage of the project, the \u201cforecast cost\u201d for all three stations \u2013 including land purchase \u2013 was about $450 million, according to KiwiRail, with the combined cost of Drury and Paer\u0101t\u0101 \u201ccirca $300 million\u201d.<\/p>\n The Big Infrastructure Debate<\/p>\n Last night Engineering NZ, in partnership with Stuff, hosted a political debate on the future of infrastructure in New Zealand<\/a> \u2013 perhaps the first major debate of the election campaign. On stage were Chris Bishop (National), Simon Court (ACT), Julie Anne Genter (Greens), Shane Jones (NZ First), and Kieran McAnulty (Labour).<\/p>\n The article includes full video, and by all accounts it was quite an agreeable room. Notably, we can\u2019t help agreeing with this from Shane Jones (which chimes with what Connor has been pointing out all along<\/a>):<\/p>\n \u201cI personally don\u2019t see ever another four-lane highway being built in New Zealand in my lifetime. Not because the people I belong to in Tai Tokerau don\u2019t want one, but because the politicians are going to struggle to justify the cost,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n Jones issued a challenge to the engineers in the audience that they needed to work with what we\u2019ve got, not what they want to build.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect a far more innovative, constructive approach as to what we can afford to build, and then that leads us to a deeper debate: Have we reached a point that we should stop building new stuff and spend more time doing repairs and maintenance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And this, from Simon Court, on the next harbour crossing (has he been reading Patrick\u2019s posts<\/a>?):<\/p>\n Court said that before a decision was made to \u201ccommit to something as significant as tunnels or bridges and tens of billions of dollars over decades\u201d, decision-makers should \u201ctake a step back and work out what does what does our international city, Auckland, need in terms of transport and infrastructure investment, and it may well be that that thing drops down to second or third on the priority list\u201d.<\/p>\n And we join Kieran McAnulty in hoping for true ongoing bipartisanship on all things:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026on congestion charging, surely that is something \u2013 now that it\u2019s passed unanimously \u2013 there won\u2019t be political manoeuvring about.\u201d<\/p>\n The answer is always street trees\u2026<\/p>\n Talk about camouflage. From New Jersey<\/a>:<\/p>\n A Middlesex County police department used an officer disguised as a shrub to crack down on distracted driving<\/a> Wednesday, issuing 74 citations.<\/p>\n The Dunellen Police Department conducted a distracted driving enforcement operation on the 100 block of North Washington Avenue, an area with heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic, according to a Facebook post.<\/p>\n The goal was to enforce New Jersey\u2019s handheld cellphone law and increase safety in the community.<\/p>\n Police issued the 74 citations during a six-hour span. \u201cOur \u2018shrub\u2019 was busy,\u201d the department said in the post.<\/p>\n A special branch officer, obviously. Image: Dunellen Police Department<\/p>\n Greater Auckland visits Dunedin!<\/p>\n If you\u2019re in Dunedin next Tuesday, you have two opportunities to catch up with Patrick Reynolds, who\u2019s in town for the launch of his latest pocket-sized urban architecture guidebook with John Walsh, from Massey University Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tuesday 11 August, 5.30pm\u00a0<\/p>\n Milford Galleries, 18 Downing Street<\/p>\n Then, following the launch \u014ctepoti Urbanerds are hosting a get-together <\/a>with Patrick: \u201cRumour has it that Mayor Sophie Barker and MP Rachel Brooking will be joining us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Tuesday 11 August, 7pm \u2013 8.30pm <\/p>\n Vault 21, The Octagon<\/p>\n Videos to watch<\/p>\n A new local podcast series, T\u0101maki Talk, by Myles Thomas has a very special first guest: our very own Connor! Find out what makes this transport nerd tick.<\/p>\n The NZ Herald looks back at the century it took to deliver the City Rail Link.<\/p>\n And KiwiRail has a piece covering the work they\u2019ve done to get the rest of network fixed up.<\/p>\n The New Zealand International Film Festival is a midwinter must<\/a>, not least because for Aucklanders it\u2019s a chance to revel in the fruity Orientalist glories of the Mighty Civic. While you admire the gorgeous flamingo-embroidered curtain, you might find yourself wondering how it\u2019s holding up so well after all these years. Here\u2019s your answer\u2026<\/p>\n An Australian analysis of how Z\u016brich fixed its commuter train problem:<\/p>\n A video on the benefits and downsides of \u2018trackless trams\u2019:<\/p>\n And, talking trash with Mayor Mamdani. He\u2019s so good at this!<\/p>\n Now this is the kind of trash talk we can get behind.We\u2019re containerizing neighborhoods by taking trash off our sidewalks and allowing mid-size buildings to trade in their wheelie bins for a bigger, better, cleaner alternative: Empire Bins.It\u2019s time to put a lid on it, New York.<\/p>\n \u2014 Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@mayor.nyc.gov)<\/a> 2026-07-31T23:16:46.895Z<\/a><\/p>\n That\u2019s us for the week \u2013 feel free to add links and stories in the comments, and have a great weekend!<\/p>\n Share this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August, already? Astonishing! Here\u2019s our weekly roundup of stories from the realms of cities and transport. This Week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-562059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Uptown-Platinum-HOP-card-promo-600x216.png\")
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In their submission to the council, the students made it clear to the council why it was so important to keep the crossing, which they said had made them much more confident to cross the street.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Otepoti-launch-scaled.jpg\")
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