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We are delighted to welcome Darren Davis to MRCagney as our Technical Director for Public Transport Planning.
As a leading transport planner in Aotearoa, Darren joins MRC to expand the services we offer to our clients in public transport planning, land use/transport integration and urban strategy.
Hutt City Council were one of the first councils in Aotearoa to remove parking minimums in September 2020. This decision, in combination with upzoning to allow medium density housing, has proven to be extremely successful in supporting more homes to be built with fewer carparks per dwelling.
I recently came across a tweet that said free on-street parking in New York City was equivalent to a subsidy of $500 billion (that billion with a ‘B’).
The Auckland City Centre is changing. My research indicates the average car park per unit ratio in new private residential developments over the past decade is around 0.65. This is lower than the regional average which is slightly above 1 car park per unit as of 2022.
Building new roads creates more space to drive, and results in more people driving. But how much more road creates how much more driving?
Supporting public conversations about reducing transport emissions is important to MRCagney. Simple visualisations of complex transport systems are essential for keeping these conversations centred around evidence.
Today we are excited to introduce our latest visualisation, the Induced Demand Calculator.
Predicting the future isn’t easy. Modelling complex systems isn’t quick. Yet tackling the climate emergency requires decisive action based on an uncertain future. How can we resolve this paradox together?
Transport 2035 was developed by MRCagney and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. It’s a tool to help people understand the range of options we have for slashing transport emissions in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Three things came to mind when I had a go with the tool...
Access to public transport is a complex issue. For many disabled people, the extra effort they must exert to make a journey can mean public transport is not an accessible option. There are lots of little things which can go wrong, and having multiple agencies manage distinct parts of a journey only adds to the complexity.
Big changes are needed in our cities so people can travel in ways that are better for the environment, better for our health, and that enable everybody to move about easily, including people who can't drive or can’t afford a car. Building support for these changes depends on how we talk about them.
Over the last year I’ve been hosting Transportation Group ‘Chair’s Conversations’ to explore why we don’t get better outcomes from transport.
“These are just future slums” is a common response to articles these days regarding medium or high-density housing. While these comments are far from the truth, they often stem from genuine concerns from residents about the change that could occur in their neighborhood.
The past two years have seen a significant shift in central government policy to intervene in land supply for intensification with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) and the Medium Density Residential Standards. While media discussion around these changes has focused on housing affordability, these moves are essential for many other reasons. We should view enabling density as an opportunity to improve our town and cities.
This week I had the pleasure of using Te Huia train service from Tāmaki Makaurau down to Kirikiriroa. Here is my review.
Hamilton East is my favourite suburb in the whole world. No competition. I love the iconic 1940s weatherboard houses, the mature trees, the winding streets, and the huge gardens. My ultimate fantasy is to live in a cottage in Hamilton East with a flock of chickens, where I can walk from my vege garden to Hayes Common for a coffee and bike across the bridge to get to work (this fantasy gets better if the pedestrian bridge ever gets built).
Gender equity initiatives in the transport sector currently focus on the differences in how men and women use the transport system and promote equity between men and women. This isn't radical and it's not going to solve our equity issues. Instead, I ask that we focus on challenging the gender binary in our profession and create a transport system that is genuinely universally accessible.
The idea of a road pricing for Auckland was in the news last week as the select committee reported back on its inquiry into the Congestion Question report. In this post I’ve looked into how the Auckland public transport network might look like if road pricing was implemented and the revenue was used to boost alternatives to driving.
How does the layout of our cities affect access to public open space? Do we have enough parkland to go around?
We should allow three storeys to be built everywhere and by everywhere, I mean everywhere! Your place, your Nan's house, Jacinda’s house, everywhere! Think of any site in urban Tāmaki Makaurau-Auckland and my answer to you will be yes, we should allow at least 3 storeys to be built there.
In the spirit of Eleanor Mohammed’s NZPI 2021 conference address which called on planners to hear different ideas and distinct voices, I write from my perspective as both a Pākehā queer femme and a planner to consider how planners can make public spaces safer for queer communities.
A recent article "Just build a ramp" got me thinking about how we provide for accessibility. The world didn't evolve with ramps and other universal design accommodations in place by default, so we relied on decades of advocacy and incremental enlightenment to develop transportation design codes that provide for inclusion.
Unfortunately for disabled people and our future selves - over half of us will be disabled by age 65 if we are fortunate enough to live that long- the world is not inclusive yet. So how can we accelerate progress?
If you know your neighbourhood like the back of your hand, you know where the pedestrian cut throughs are. You also know which ones feel scary, and which ones you would avoid. Why is this? If a cut through is put in place to improve access, shouldn’t it be inviting, safe, and functional? As our cities change, we have an opportunity to improve the humble cut through, fundamentally changing the role that space plays.
Queer people love the bus. I’m not sure how a love for cramming into the so called ‘loser cruiser’ with 40-odd strangers made it into queer culture, but somehow it did.
How far are you willing to walk to access your nearest public transport stop? How much extra distance are you covering, because the most direct link isn’t there? Maybe this infuriates you every day, or maybe you’ve never considered it. Either way, this small question has huge implications for how many people can access our public transport network.
This post from Nicolas Reid, our Principal Public Transport Planner, was originally posted on LinkedIn.
This article explains the constraints of the Onehunga Branch Line and raises the question of the trade off between higher frequencies but requiring a transfer or lower frequency but a one seat journey to Britomart.
This post from Nicolas Reid, our Principal Public Transport Planner, was originally posted on LinkedIn.
This article covers the history of the Auckland Harbour Bridge and outlines the benefits of the staged expansion.
This post from Nicolas Reid, our Principal Public Transport Planner, was originally posted on LinkedIn.
This article outlines a potential option to add separate walking and cycling paths to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, as an 'minimum standard' interim until a new bridge can be built.
But I thought “queer” was derogatory?!
If you want to begin engaging with queer or LGBTQIA+ communities but are anxious about using the wrong language, this compilation is for you. I’ve included resources which provide you with an introduction to terms you might hear in your engagement and places you can go for in-depth exploration of different identities.
I’ve been working from home now for 6 weeks. Even though I did work at home a little before lock-down, it was by choice and a chance for quiet work than for any other reason. Working from home is one thing but being at home trying to work is something else as I'm sure many of us have discovered.
Last year we celebrated 15 years of MRCagney in New Zealand. As part of that we looked back on some of our favourite and most influential projects.
This set of blogs celebrates our 15th birthday, but in 2018 there was another anniversary close to our heart.
Today for MRCNZ15 Emma Mcinnes writes about Women in Urbanism Aotearoa, and organisation we are proud to support.
MRCagney, the company I work for, is celebrating 15 years in Aotearoa. As part of this, we have been asked to choose some of our favourite MRCagney projects and initiatives. Our cities, communities and families are important to us as a company, and to me personally. I am proud to say Women in Urbanism Aotearoa is one the community initiatives MRCagney has helped to get off the ground.
In our first blog on parking (an issue close to our hearts) Anthony writes about two groundbreaking city-shaping parking projects in Auckland we have worked on.
As we look back on our favourite or most influential projects over the past 15 years #MRCNZ15, Luke Chistensen looks at AMETI and bus rapid transit to East Auckland.
Phil Donovan and Peter Nunns write this week's entry in the MRCNZ15 project- The New Zealand Land Value Model
Today's lookback for our 15th anniversary comes from Lukas Adam, who is writing about the Local Path Design Guide, which we worked on with Resilio Studio and you can check out in full here.
In this weeks article celebrating the 15th anniversary of MRC in New Zealand, Alex Raichev writes about The Affordability map, which you can try for yourself here.
One of my favorite projects that I’ve worked on at MRCagney is Affordability in New Zealand, also known as the Affordability Map, a public education tool illustrating the spatial nature of affordability and how big a role transport plays in it. It combines analysis, visualization, open source software development, and public education, all things I enjoy.
Todays #MRCNZ15 celebration comes from Alex Raichev and Danielle Gatland, who are looking back on three of our projects focussed electric vehicles :
One of the joys of working at MRCagney is the variety of topical projects that come our way. In this post we describe three such projects concerning electric vehicles.
This week as part of our 15th anniversary in New Zealand celebrations, Danielle Gatland looks back at last years Autonomous Vehicles Research Report, now including GIFs.
For this week's #MRCNZ15 we have two exciting entries on the Auckland Cycling Investment Programme. Click here for Karl Bakers in depth look at the business case.
For another perspective on the project, Emma McInnes has summarised the report in GIF’s.
For our 15th anniversary celebrations Karl Baker writes about creating the Auckland Transport Cycling Business Case. Check back on Thursday for another perspective on the project…
Continuing our look back on the New Network, Nic Reid details how we tackled the problem of communicating the many benefits of the revolutionary integrated network to the public.
Our first entry looking back at 15 years of MRCagney in Aotearoa. Jenson introduces a presentation by Anthony Cross, Auckland Transport’s Network Development Manager (Public Transport), looking back on the New Network for Auckland.
It's the 15th anniversary of our Auckland office, so we are having a trip down memory lane. Regional Manager Jenson Varghese explains all in the video below.