The "empty" transit lane problem

Much of the resistance to transit lanes comes from how they appear to motorists. If you are sitting in stopped traffic and a transit lane is right next to you, the transit lane will look empty most of the time. Now and then a bus will flash past, but if you're sitting still and the bus is going at full speed, you'll mostly be gazing at empty pavement.

Motorists who see that often decide that the bus lane isn't working. Surely, if it were working right, you'd see buses in it most of the time, wouldn't you? Wrong. Fast-moving buses are a quick blur to the stopped motorist. Only a blocked or failing bus lane appears to be full of buses [...]

In most cities, the motorist's perception is so dominant that their confusions can become political imperatives. Wherever transit lanes operate, elected officials get angry letters about how empty they are, as though this implies that they are wasting space. Planning studies for transit lanes sometimes refer to "empty lane syndrome," as though this common fallacy in the motorist's perception is an objective technical problem. It is certainly a political problem, but it's one rooted in ignorance, and only information will combat it.

- Jarrett Walker, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, Washington DC, 2012, p.206-7.

See also:

Blog: How to take a bus, 28 November 2018

Blog: Dale Bracewell's transport solutions, 10 July 2018

Blog: Wellington tramlink, 14 January 2015

Precolonial maritime New Zealand

That record, since December 1642 when Abel Tasman first sighted 'Clyppygen Hoeck', to December 1840, when colonisation began, had the records of 1758 vessels arriving on the [New Zealand] coast.

They came, first to explore, then to exploit, little schooners and brigs out of the infant seaport of Port Jackson, the whaling barques out of the ancient port of London, the full-riggers from the whaling ports of Maine and Massachusetts, from Lisbon, Copenhagen, Le Havre, Bremen and Hobart Town. Sealers and whalers, spar ships and flax traders, sandalwood schooners on their way home from Fiji, ships laden with tortoise shell and coconut oil from Tahiti, and ships of war from Trincomalee and Toulon.

New Zealand, and many of its precolonial seaports, enjoyed a trade by sea that was truly international, and today, as one sails up the harbours of Akaroa, Port Underwood, Hokianga or the Bay of Islands, with only an occasional fisherman or pleasure boat in sight, it is difficult to imagine those waters thronged with barques, brigs and schooners flying the flags of many nations, of whaleboats, in countless numbers, trafficking between ships and from ship to shore.

They came in their hundreds, seeking grog and girls, pork and potatoes, and the natural products the coast had to offer: oil to light the lamps of Europe and America; whalebone to corset their women; sealskins to robe the Manchus of China or to appear on the streets of London as 'beaver hats'; flax to provide canvas, rope and cordage for their ships; and solid kauri spars for masts and yards. Whatever they sought, they came by sea, stayed a while and went on, about their seafaring business. A few were left behind, seamen from America, France, Australia, England, Scotland and Ireland, ship deserters of many nations, living with their Maori wives and laying the foundations of what was to become a multiracial society.

To some perhaps, the most significant maritime activity of these years will be seen as that occurring in 1840, the arrival in Port Nicholson of the chartered ships of the New Zealand Company, carrying between them close on 2000 intending settlers, to be landed haphazardly on the beach at Petone in the rude collection of tents, shacks and whares they proudly called 'Britannia'.

- Rear-Admiral John O'Connell Ross,* New Zealand Maritime History to 1840: People, Ships, Trade & Settlement, Wellington, 2024, p.146-7.

(* Ross was Royal New Zealand Navy Chief of Naval Staff, 1965-69)

See also:
History: The itinerant life of a tramp steamer, 11 December 2021

History: The lifeblood of a young colony, 12 June 2009

History: Tales to tell back on shore, 21 January 2009

The golden age of American long-distance high-speed diesel trains

[In 1935] the Union Pacific train was immediately put into service as The City of Portland between Chicago and Portland, Oregon, and the Milwaukee Road soon launched the Twin Cities Hiawatha, running between the same two cities as the Burlington's Twin Cities Zephyr but powered by new steam locomotives designed to run at 100 mph. Diesel, though, was now the fashion and within a couple of years there were more than a dozen of these new diesel services, trying to outdo each other with the extra facilities and comfort they provided. Pullman joined in the craze by providing streamlined lightweight cars for several of these trains, but it was the decision of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to create an all-Pullman service that resulted in the service which could, justifiably, lay claim to being the most luxurious train in the world, pace the Orient Express. This was the Super Chief, which started running between Chicago and Los Angeles in 1936 in just under forty hours, a timetable that saved a full half-day on its steam predecessor, the Santa Fe's old Chief, a prestigious steam train introduced a decade before. The Super Chief became the train of choice for movie stars and studio moguls for their trips between the coasts and undoubtedly set a new standard of comfort for its passengers: 'Designed within by a group of eminent architects and stylists, its restaurant, observation lounge, bar and wide choice of overnight accommodation - every room richly panelled in wood veneers from the four quarters of the world were very reasonable replicas of the hotel accommodation to which the Hollywood haut monde who frequented it were accustomed.

These new streamliner services invariably offered all the accoutrements of the trains of the previous generation, but with modern extras such as air conditioning and electric razor points. The more spacious offered lounges, cocktail bars and office facilities, and all provided meals that today would earn them a Michelin star or two, elegantly hosted by a dinner-jacketed maître d', as well as offering various sleeping car options. There was, too, a great emphasis on making the trip itself into a pleasure, rather than merely a trial to be endured, with a great emphasis on the smoke-free views afforded by the much larger windows.

The result of this feverish activity was that, for a short period in the late 1930s, the ten fastest regular train services in the world were all American streamliners. It was not so much the speed or the diesel- powered engines that caught the public's imagination, but rather their streamlining. They were, quite literally, beautiful behemoths, a source of pride and modernity in an era of economic struggle and austerity. The size and power of the elegant diesels seemed to epitomize American values, and gave people something to celebrate.

- Christian Wolmar, The Great Railway Revolution: The Epic Story of the American Railroad, London, 2012, p.330-1.

See also:
Blog: The Sunday morning train to Verona, 15 June 2015

Blog: The break of gauge, 14 January 2014 
Blog: Take the 'A' train, 10 October 2009
Blog: You can get to Taumarunui going north or south, 24 May 2009

If Norway can operate a good long-distance railway network, so can New Zealand

There is ample proof that New Zealand's demography and topography do not preclude good passenger rail. It is not uncommon for New Zealanders to return from Europe or East Asia, enthusiastic for the railway technology they encountered there to be introduced here, only to be told that other countries make for unsuitable comparisons. This can be true, but one country is eminently suited to comparison: Norway. It has similar, and indeed more difficult, topography; its population is less than half a million greater than New Zealand's; and its land area, likewise, is only modestly larger (especially when counting only Norway proper, not Svalbard or other possessions). Its largest city, Oslo, has roughly half Auckland's population; second-place Bergen is smaller than Christchurch or Wellington; Stavanger and Trondheim are comparable in size to Hamilton or Tauranga; and no other city has more than 100,000 people.

Norway's railway network is remarkably similar in length to New Zealand's, and also had an investment backlog in the 1980s. Today, Norwegians enjoy regular trains between all the major cities. In early 2020 Oslo had seven departures daily to Stavanger, four to Bergen and four to Trondheim, from where two daily connections ran to Bodø. Many more suburban and regional services exist, and almost none depend on tourism. All this, despite the fact that Norway's only high-speed railway links Oslo with its airport; none of the main intercity trips take under 6.5 hours and Trondheim-Bodø is approximately 10 hours. Inadequate roads or air services cannot explain the superior railway timetable: Norwegian roads are better than New Zealand's and intercity flights are frequent. Like New Zealand, Norway generates much hydroelectric power; unlike New Zealand, however, Norway has electrified many of its railways and is transitioning all non-electrified lines to zero-emission operation with battery trains. If Norway can operate a good long-distance railway network despite great obstacles, so can New Zealand.

- Andre Brett, Can't Get There From Here: NZ Passenger Rail Since 1920, Dunedin, 2021, p.277-8.

See also:
Blog: Norway's greatest resistance hero, 7 September 2013
Blog: The early settlement of Iceland, 16 May 2011
Blog: Norway, 6 August 2008

Mendelssohn's coach journey from Glasgow to Liverpool

We flew away from Glasgow on the top of the mail, ten miles an hour, past steaming meadows and smoking chimneys, to the Cumberland lakes, to Keswick, Kendal, and the prettiest towns and villages. The whole country is like a drawing-room. The rocky walls are papered with bushes, moss, and firs; the trees are carefully wrapped up in ivy; there are no walls or fences, only high hedges, and you see them all the way up flat hill-tops. On all sides carriages full of travellers fly along the roads; the corn stands in sheaves; slopes, hills, precipices, are all covered with thick, warm foliage. Then again our eyes dwelt on the dark-blue English distance - many a noble castle, and so on, until we reached Ambleside. There the sky turned gloomy again, and we had rain and storm. Sitting on the top of the 'stage,' and madly careering along ravines, past lakes, up-hill, down-hill, wrapped in cloaks, and umbrellas up, we could see nothing but railings, heaps of stones or ditches, and but rarely catch glimpses of hills and lakes. Sometimes our umbrellas scraped against the roofs of the houses, and then, wet through, we would come to a second-rate inn, with a high blazing fire, and English conversation about walking, coals, supper, the weather, and Bonaparte. Yesterday our seats on the coach were accidentally separated, so that I hardly spoke to [Mendelssohn's travelling companion Karl] Klingemann, for changing horses was done in about forty seconds. I sat on the box next by the coachman, who asked me whether I flirted much, and made me talk a good deal, and taught me the slang of horsemanship. Klingemann sat next to two old women, with whom he shared his umbrella. Again manufactories, meadows, parks, provincial towns, here a canal, there a railway, then the sea with ships, six full coaches with towering outsiders following each other; in the evening a thick fog, the stage running madly in the darkness. Through the fog we see lamps gleaming all about the horizon; the smoke of manufactories envelops us on all sides; gentlemen on horseback ride past; one coach-horn blows in B flat, another in D, others follow in the distance, and here we are at Liverpool.

- Composer Felix Mendelssohn, letter, 19 August 1829, quoted in James Wilson Hyde, The Royal Mail: its Curiosities & Romance, 1885

Life in the faster lane

An examination of English bishops' and royal itineraries from the 12th to 15th centuries suggests that travellers routinely covered just 20 miles day. They did not try to travel fast unless it was essential for them to do so: when pressed, those wealthy enough to pay for changes of horses could go much faster.

There are only a few instances of people covering more than 70 miles in a day before 1330. One is the news of Edward I's death at about 3pm on 7 July 1307 at Burgh by Sands near the Scottish border, which reached his heir in London on 11 July. This entailed a journey of more than 300 miles at around 75 miles per day.

The maximum speed of news increased in the 14th century. When Edward III sent a messenger on business to Avignon in 1343, his man took 7.5 days to cover the 730-mile route, including the sea crossing: an average of 97 miles per day.

The establishment of news relays by Edward IV and Henry VII hugely increased the speeds at which information could travel. News of the capitulation of Berwick in 1482 (during an English invasion of Scotland) was brought south by a relay of 10 riders at the speed of 170 miles per day.

In the 16th century, the establishment of the postal routes facilitated even faster speeds. So too did the breeding of fast horses and legislation ensuring the better maintenance of the highways. By the 1570s, the post from Berwick was expected to travel to London in 42 hours in summer and 60 hours in winter, implying minimum speeds of 194 and 136 miles per day respectively. By the end of the century, ordinary citizens could pay 2d per mile to ride with the post, often travelling at 10mph - twice as fast as before 1330.

- Ian Mortimer, 'The age of transformation', BBC History, February 2023, p.26

See also:

Blog: The beneficent miracle of the postal service, 27 August 2019

Blog: London mail coach departure points, 24 September 2015

Blog: The great ebbing surging traffic of London, 12 August 2015

Blog: Coach travel from London in 1658 and 1739, 4 October 2013

Blog: Posting the empire as the royal word, 9 January 2013

New Zealand's first airmail flight

New Zealand's first [air]mail flight gained a recommendation from the Postal Department to Cabinet approving an experiment to investigate the practicalities of airmail. The trial was arranged to convey mail [from Auckland] to the town of Dargaville at the northern end of the Kaipara Harbour. The flight commenced from the Man-of-war Steps opposite end of the Albert Street where a crowd of 2000 had assembled at various vantage points. George Bolt was the pilot and Leo Walsh was in charge of the experimental run, being the person who officially received the mail when it was handed over from the launch. The mail comprised 825 letters weighing 22lb and an equal weight of newspapers. On 16 December [1919] the weather was sunny and fine. 

The flight started at 10.15 a.m. then went up the coast to Mangawhai where it would turn west towards Kaiwaka, staying over the Kaipara Harbour and up the Northern Wairoa to its destination at Dargaville at 11.50 a.m. The schools were closed and a great part of Dargaville's population had turned out. The route took the machine over post offices and the appearance of the seaplane was recorded: Hobsonville 10.27 a.m. Mullet Point 10.45, Leigh 10.48, Pakiri 10.55, Mangawhai 11.10, Kaiwaka 11.13, Bickerstaffe 11.20, Pahi 11.34, Hukatere 11.35, Ruawai 11.36, Raupo 11.39, Tokatoka 11.42, Te Kopuru 11.46, and Dargaville 11.50 a.m.

Greeting the aviators in Dargaville was Postmaster-General and local MP, the Hon. Joseph Gordon Coates. After the mails had been delivered aboard the launch sent out by the post office authorities, the two aerial travellers and leading inhabitants of the town were entertained at a luncheon. Responding to the toast of his health, Mr. Coates dwelt upon the possibilities of aerial mail carriage to the Auckland district and to other parts of the Dominion and praised the work done by the New Zealand Flying School in connection with the war. The floatplane's crew were also toasted and then cheered as they departed south down the Northern Wairoa River to Helensville.

- Terry Moyle, The First: The Walsh Brothers & the Aeroplane Days of Edwardian New Zealand, Auckland, 2019, p.139.

See also:

News: 'Mails by seaplane', NZ Herald, 17 December 1919

History: NZ's first regular airmail service begins, 31 January 1921 

History: First official airmail flight to San Francisco, 2 January 1938 

The itinerant life of a tramp steamer

By contrast with liners, tramps were the maids-of-all-work among steamships. They made up two-thirds of the British merchant fleet - and perhaps of all ocean-going steamships. By the end of the [19th] century, the vast proportion of bulk goods that travelled by sea would have crossed the ocean in tramps. Liners ran to a schedule with fixed ports of call. Tramps went wherever they could find a freight contract. A large proportion of British-owned tramps plied in the 'cross-trades', returning but rarely to Britain. Their freights were usually 'rough cargo' of the kind avoided by liners: coal, rails, grain, rice, metal ores. They had to accept the great fluctuations in freight rates as the price of sailing with a holdful of cargo.

The voyage of the Bengal in 1880-81 was not untypical. It sailed from Cardiff in September 1880 for Port Suez at the head of the Red Sea with a holdful of coal. From there it went on to Jeddah (the captain having wisely obtained a chart of the Red Sea), carrying pilgrims for Mecca. There it took on returning hajis bound for Penang and Singapore, where it stopped to refuel. By February 1881 the Bengal was at Yokohama and then Kobe in Japan for a cargo of tea to New York. Rather than sail home round Cape Horn, the captain looked for additional freight, calling first at Shanghai and then at the emigrant ports of Amoy and Hong Kong. There he found a 'cargo' of 'deck-passengers' heading for Singapore, the great migrant destination in South East Asia. By late March the Bengal was at Aden, whence it sailed for Gibraltar via the Suez Canal, and from there to Halifax and New York to deliver its tea. It finally reached London, loaded with American grain, June 1881.

- John Darwin, Unlocking the World: Port Cities and Globalisation in the Age of Steam 1830-1930, London, 2020, p.148-9.

See also:
Blog: And after shipwreck driven upon this shore, 7 October 2015
Blog: Repairing the Kaitaki, 23 June 2013
Blog: The lifeblood of a young colony, 12 June 2009

Testing the Silver Ghost

On the exacting trials the Rolls-Royce 40/50 'Silver Ghost' was subject to in 1907 to prove its automotive excellence:

Stunts that now seem routine were performed for the first time: a penny piece was balanced on its edge on top of the radiator, the engine was revved to full power, and all professed awe as the coin remained upright, imperturbable and undisturbed. Likewise, a brimful wineglass, together with a freshly made martini lapping its meniscus against a frosted rim, were positioned on the radiator's pediment. The driver was instructed to press the accelerator to the floor and let the full thrashing power of the six-cylinder monster do its worst. In the glassware: not a ripple, not a swish, not a spill. The martini was neither shaken nor stirred by the wrath of the engine, and was afterward said to have tasted fine.

- Simon Winchester, Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World, 2018

Testing the elephants' gangway

In days gone by Wirth’s Circus travelled regularly across the Tasman for their New Zealand tours, usually by passenger ship, and one remembers that, as the time for their voyaging approached, there was a general hue and cry to establish the whereabouts of the ‘elephant stage’, a massive gangway especially made for the embarkation and disembarkation of the circus elephants. It was said that the ‘leading hand’ elephant always tested the reliability of the contraption by a couple of resounding thumps of a forefoot before entrusting his weight to it, after which there was no hesitation on the part of his colleagues in following him over the brow.

- Douglas F Gardner, The Union Steam Ship Company Steam Ships, Wellington, 1982, p.33

(Extract of Wirth Brothers advertisement from Wanganui Chronicle, 22 February 1916)

Palmerston North to New Plymouth railcar service

In light of various party policies endorsing the return of regional rail travel to New Zealand to improve public transport, reduce road congestion and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, I decided to look at various routes that could be reopened across the country. The largest, involving regional rapid rail services between the centres of Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua, is a great plan that is already well documented. But what about restoring rail transport to other regions, using the existing rails that have been neglected by passenger services for decades? 

A prime connection that could be rebuilt is the cross-country link from the North Island Main Trunk line at Palmerston North to New Plymouth, via Whanganui. For decades until the Main Trunk opened fully in 1908 this was the second leg of all rail journeys between Wellington and Auckland - passengers would journey from the capital to New Plymouth and then board a steamer for the remainder of the trip to Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour, and then travel the final few miles by train from Onehunga. The Marton to New Plymouth line was started in the 1870s and completed in 1885, but all passenger services ended in 1983.

I'm not pretending to be knowledgeable about rolling stock, but was envisaging self-contained electric railcars like the Japanese BEC819 series to save the expense of electrifying all the existing rail lines. This is of course emerging technology, and if speedy progress is required, perhaps diesel units might be procured, with the proviso that they should be convertible to full electric running.

A reopened service would be designed to replace public coach services and as much private transport as possible, so would need a good spread of stations for maximum population coverage. I've set out distances between stations and a potential schedule for a 0900 service departing Palmerston North for New Plymouth, based on an average speed of 75km/h (the BEC819 has a max speed of 120km/h) and a one-minute dwell time at stations, suggesting an end-to-end journey of three and a half hours. The key would be to establish multiple services per day to build a viable replacement for the now-dominant but environmentally damaging private transport.

Station	Distance	Time
Palmerston North	-	09:00
Milson	2.3	09:03
Bunnythorpe	6.3	09:09
Feilding	8.4	09:17
Halcombe	12.9	09:28
Marton Junction	14.3	09:40
Turakina	17.1	09:55
Whanganui East	24.8	10:16
Waverley Mill	46.7	10:54
Patea Riverside	14.3	11:06
Hawera	28.3	11:30
Normanby	5.0	11:35
Eltham	13.8	11:47
Stratford	9.4	11:56
Midhirst	6.6	12:02
Inglewood	15.8	12:16
Bell Block	18.4	12:32
Fitzroy	4.0	12:36
New Plymouth	2.7	12:39
Total	251.1	3hrs 39mins

See also:

Blog: NZ intercity rail, 19 April 2020
Blog: Public transport comes to Onehunga, 10 February 2015

Blog: Wellington tramlink, 14 January 2015
Blog: Avondale to Onehunga tramlink, 31 October 2010
Blog: A Cook Strait tunnel, 16 April 2008

Cars and trucks and things that go

Below are two screenshots from my current Transport Fever 2 game on a French-themed map. There's one of a late-model tram plying the busy streets of the city of Deurdan, ferrying people between the southern and northern train stations and the aerodrome on the northern outskirts of the city. And the other shows a massive diesel freight train transporting what looks like a small load - planks, perhaps, I can't see closely enough - as it passes through an intermediate freight station loaded up with ore for another train on a separate route to collect.

I've been playing TF2 since January, having been inspired by the walkthrough videos of vlogger Katherine of Sky, who explained the basics with admirable clarity.

It's not a graphically complex game, but the bones are solid. One of the best features of the game is the player's success or failure in shipping essential goods to towns on the map is the main driving force in how quickly those towns develop. And the game evolves the buildings, vehicles and townsfolk's attire as the calendar progresses through the decades, starting out with horse-drawn carriages, cobblestoned streets and hooped dresses, and eventually graduating to modern cities featuring towering skyscrapers and 21st-century light rail. You can influence the direction the city grows in by spending funds on new roads, but without this input the city will grow organically, with a pleasing sense of realism.

One of the things I particularly enjoy about TF2 gameplay is it's quite challenging to make ends meet for the first fifty-odd years of the game from 1850 onwards, during which time the prevailing technology levels mean you have to rely on expensive and puny early steam engines that can barely haul any cargo, and tiny horse-drawn wagons and coaches that are incredibly slow and have limited capacity. It's really hard to make a living in the early years, and it's expensive to build the rail networks that will eventually unlock the full potential of moving goods and people around the map efficiently.

But when you realise that by filling in the gaps between a bunch of separate rail lines, and adding a few signals and double-tracking tweaks, you can fling a cargo from one end of the map to the other and make a huge profit to boot, it's a golden simulation gaming moment. 

I'd best be off: my electric passenger trains are getting old and I'm itching to build a TGV line.

See also:

Blog: The Night Mail, 17 May 2016

Blog: Wellington tramlink, 14 January 2015

Blog: The break of gauge, 14 January 2014

The siege-breaking balloons of Paris

Important to military aviation in Europe was the founding, in 1870, of lighter-than-air detachments within the Prussian Army. Assisted in their creation by Englishman Henry Coxwell, two Luftschiffer (airship) detachments were used immediately for service during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. However, it was the defenders of besieged Paris that history most remembers.

Cut off from outside help by Prussian forces, the Parisians made use of six balloons held within the city to fly out despatches, often under groundfire, the first by Jules Durouf on 23 September 1870 rising over Prussian lines and on to Evreux. Thereafter, a truly remarkable manufacturing programme was started in Paris, using railway stations and other large buildings to assemble additional craft, with gas coming from the Villette works. By 28 January 1871 a total of 66 balloons had left the city, carrying more than one hundred persons, some three million letters and carrier pigeons. Of these, two are thought to have been hit by groundfire from Prussian guns and seven drifted in the wrong direction. The escape of pigeons had been a vital element of the operation, as chemist Barreswil invented microphotography in October 1870 to allow the birds to return to Paris carrying messages, with the first flying from Tours to Paris on 18 November.

- Michael JH Taylor, Aviators: a History in Photographs, London, 2003, p.89-90.

See also:

History: The last grand night ascent at Vauxhall, 30 September 2010

History: Le Bourget Air & Space Museum, 18 March 2011

History: MOTAT 2, 3 April 2013

NZ intercity rail: a conscious break with the past

Today it was reported that the Green Party is promoting investing $9 billion in a major expansion of New Zealand's rail transport capacity to shift the balance of intercity transport from a road-dominated approach towards a mix of road and rail as is commonplace in all the European democracies we conventionally compare ourselves with. This would see electrification of tracks to expand passenger rail networks out from the three main centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next 10 years. It would in effect reconstruct the rail network that connected New Zealand for a century, but was allowed to wither by successive administrations in favour of a strong policy preference for roading projects and prioritising commuting by private vehicle. It would also build a rail network capable of delivering much higher speeds than the present outdated, congested network, which would in turn allow much faster intercity rail journeys.

While in recent years New Zealand has often forgotten how to invest in long-term infrastructure, we only have to look at the Vogel administration of the 1870s that borrowed heavily to build the railway networks that engineered regional growth across the country for the next 75 years. Or the hydro schemes that broke the back of the post-war energy crisis and inadvertently gave us a largely sustainable energy source. While the Green proposal is a big-ticket vision and as with all such things, a Parliamentary majority is required to implement it, it's noteworthy that all three parties of the current Government are pro-rail to a greater or lesser extent. National's transport policy is the only outlier.

And the spending doesn't all come at once: the it would be spread over 10 or even 20 years, which is a realistic goal for implementation given the scale of the projects. It's about making a conscious break from the car- and truck-centred transportation bias of all recent transport policy, and saying there's actually a better way to move people and goods. And that way makes more sense both environmentally and financially. It doesn't change people's right to own and operate personal vehicles; it just says we won't continue to choose the congestion and pollution of the outdated transport planning of the past.

Yes it's a lot of money, but so was the previous Government's Roads of National Significance policy, which delivered decidedly mixed results for its very substantial expenditure and was supported by dubious cost-benefit modelling. This rail proposal is one of the ways we can reshape our infrastructure and economy to move past fossil fuels. It will also help the people who are desperate to stay in their own cars, because it will alleviate congestion. And the end result would be being able to take the train between Auckland and Wellington rather than fly; I know which mode of transport I'd prefer.

See also:

History: The break of gauge, 14 January 2014

History: The old Western Hutt line, 10 October 2013

History: Take the 'A' train, 10 October 2009

Planning Wellington's international airport

Maurice McGreal discusses the tender process in the mid-1960s to ready Wellington's Rongotai airfield for DC-8 jet services:

The Minister of Civil Aviation at this time was the Hon Peter Gordon, who had been a trainee pilot during the last days of the war, and he was eager to settle the long-standing problem of Wellington's international connection, once and for all. The Civil Aviation Planning Unit was put to work identifying possible sites and proposals were put forward by all and sundry. Perhaps one of the most bizarre was that put forward by a Singapore engineering organisation (Tse Corporation) which proposed a runway along the top of the ridge running to the north from Pencarrow Head. A direct connection to the city of Wellington would then be via a bridge spanning the harbour entrance. Another proposal was to flatten Mana Island from end to end and connect it by a causeway to the mainland just south of Porirua Harbour.

The two rational alternatives that were considered for further study were the extension of Rongotai or the creation of a new runway at Paraparaumu...

- Maurice McGreal, A History of Civil Aviation in New Zealand, Auckland, 2003, p.152.

See also:
Blog: SFO timelapse, 17 June 2016
Blog: Tower of power, 1 April 2010
Blog: Shanghai Pudong, 9 February 2009

All aboard flight NZ1 to London

Sad news today with the announcement by Air New Zealand that the Los Angeles to London leg of the famous Auckland to London route will cease in October 2020. The service was first introduced in 1982 using 747s and 38 years is an eternity in the cutthroat world of air travel: in fact it's a seismic change for Air New Zealand and the many thousands of New Zealanders and UK citizens with ties in both countries.

While a new 787 direct service from Auckland to Newark New Jersey (EWR) for New York will get New Zealanders most of the way to the UK, there's a great sense of tradition in being able to travel all the way from Auckland to Heathrow on New Zealand-crewed airliners. The LAX to LHR leg was also special because it afforded marvelous views of Greenland as the aircraft skirts near the polar regions on its way to the UK. And from a cultural perspective, it was always cheering to see a ZK-registered Air New Zealand aircraft banking over the grey London skies on approach to Heathrow, and know that in a pinch you could be back in New Zealand in a little over 24 hours.

The airline sees greater growth potential in the North American market, which ties in quite nicely with the Prime Minister's recent entente cordiale with the Late Show's Stephen Colbert. And as Air New Zealand places greater emphasis on the capabilities of its Dreamliner fleet, long-range direct services like Auckland to Newark become more feasible. It does beg the question, however: can the airline sustain direct services to seven North American cities? Are there sufficient passengers to and from Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Houston, Chicago and New York to make these services viable?

Air New Zealand aircraft at LAX, 18 November 2009

One can speculate why Air New Zealand has finally pulled the plug on its UK presence after nearly four decades. The London to Los Angeles service is clearly well regarded, and the services are usually full, so presumably the seat revenue is insufficiently high to justify the running costs. Perhaps the legendarily high landing costs at Heathrow are up for renegotiation or have been traded to another airline? And perhaps the negative impact on passenger experience of having to transit through the famously unwelcoming LAX has eroded the viability of the service too. Certainly the two-hour dash through a pointless US border check that seems unwilling to acknowledge the existence of transit passengers makes the stopover stressful and tiring, in the midst of an already wearisome double-longhaul journey.

Jetsetting New Zealanders and expats will adjust their travel patterns as they always do, and will take this retreat by Air New Zealand in their stride. Personally, I've not flown all the way to London on Air New Zealand for around five years, chiefly to avoid the grim LAX experience. I also discovered that the return leg from Singapore to Auckland is around 90 minutes shorter than the equivalent leg from LAX to Auckland, which is an eternity when you're trapped in economy class for a full day. But it still seems a great pity that Air New Zealand is abandoning the UK market after such a long history of service, which has started and ended so many tales of intercontinental adventure over the years.

Advice for omnibus passengers, 1836

Omnibus Law

1. Keep your feet off the seats.
2. Do not get into a snug corner yourself and then open the windows to admit a north-wester upon the neck of your neighbour.
3. Have your money ready when you desire to alight.
4. Sit with your limbs straight, and do not let your legs describe an angle of forty-five, thereby occupying the room of two persons.
5. Do not spit on the straw, you are not in a pig-sty but in an omnibus.
6. Behave respectfully to females, and put not an unprotected lass to the blush, because she cannot escape from your brutality.
7. Reserve bickerings and disputes for the open field, the sound of your own voice may be music to your own ears - not so, perhaps, to those of your companions.
8. Refrain from affectation and conceited airs. Remember you are riding a distance for sixpence, which if you made in a hackney coach, would cost you many shillings.

- The Times (1836), quoted in Ivan Sparkes, Stagecoaches & Carriages, Bourne End, Bucks., 1975, p.145-6.

The second-oldest submarine in the world?

John Bisset reports that the town of Middlemarch is raising funds to house a derelict submarine, the Platypus. The article notes:

The 150-year-old submarine is thought to be one of only two of its vintage still in existence. "In the history of submarines it's quite amazing and would certainly be the only one ever built in New Zealand," museum curator Dawn Coburn said.
- Stuff, 3 February 2019

Another way of putting it could be to say that the Platypus might be the second-oldest submarine in the world. There's a Confederate submarine, the H.L. Hunley, which sank in Charleston harbour in 1864 along with its target, the US Navy steam sloop USS Housatonic, after a torpedo-ramming run. The Hunley was salvaged in 2000 and currently awaits refurbishment in South Carolina. The Platypus is a mere 10 years younger.

The ODT reported at length on the Platypus' early testing in Otago Harbour in the summer of 1873:

A few venturous individuals were launched with the craft, and loudly their cheers rang out when she took the water fairly and did not turn turtle, but on the contrary, floated as buoyantly and as upright as a dish. The assemblage on shore also cheered, and so did the crew of the Peninsula, which steamer had been engaged to tow the Platypus to Stuart street jetty, where it is to be finished off, and afterwards submitted to its first trial of submergence.
- Otago Daily Times, 24 December 1873

Things we shouldn't have to discuss: How to take a bus

Implementing Wellington's new bus network certainly hasn't been smooth sailing, and there's plenty of work yet to be done to get things running properly. For one thing, the bus companies need to hire the right amount of drivers, pay them fairly, and put the right number of buses on the routes they contracted to deliver. But we Wellingtonians can also do our bit to help things work in the meantime too.

I travel on the Karori buses occasionally, and like many people I've noticed that there are capacity problems, with buses full up when they travel down Lambton Quay, and passengers are being turned away by drivers, which causes real frustration and isn't sustainable for a modern public transport network. This even happens after peak travel time, with some no.2 buses leaving passengers behind on the Quay even after 7pm on weeknights. Perhaps switching the Northland buses so they start at the station and the Wright's Hill buses to go via the University has inadvertently placed too much pressure on the remaining Karori service. Oh well, we have a history of making duff decisions about public transport (Karori losing its tram service in 1954, for starters)

So for whatever reason there's a capacity shortfall on the Karori route. Unfortunately with the no.2 route having all the tunnels (Karori, Mt Vic and Seatoun), using larger capacity double-decker buses isn't an option. One solution to this is to refit the existing buses with fewer seats and more standing area for passengers. This was derided by the usual skeptics at the time it was announced a few months ago, but as short-term measures go it made sense - you can simply fit more people in standing rather than seated.

There are also a few simple strategies we could each take to help things work more smoothly. Passengers should continuously move down the aisle to allow the maximum number of people aboard. This is hardly a revolutionary concept, I admit, but people don't seem to be aware that others might need to get on the bus they themselves successfully boarded. This includes standing in the rear door well and in the raised rear aisle over the engine; I agree it's not super-convenient but it's better than fellow travellers being stranded. No-one should be sitting on the aisle seats to preserve a spare window seat for their bag - that's simple good manners. And there are things we can do to speed up the service so it runs on time. If you're sufficiently mobile, you should make the move towards the exit before the bus halts, rather than making everyone wait for you to extract yourself and move down the aisle. And passengers should be asked politely to always exit through the rear doors, to allow passengers to board quickly through the front doors.

On this evening's bus ride home a mother with a pram at the Bowen House stop was refused entry by the driver with a curt, 'No room for you'. She must've wondered what she'd done to offend him. Firstly, obviously bus drivers should be polite to all passengers and particularly parents travelling with babies. Everyone should do their level best to make room for them. On the other hand, when things are crowded it's perfectly legitimate to ask people with prams to fold them up before boarding: this is common on buses in England, which are designed with plenty of room to park the prams. We can do this, Wellington!

Reclaiming Wellington from the motorway

I went to an interesting talk after work this evening at the City Gallery by architectural historian Ben Schrader (author of the award-winning The Big Smoke, a history of New Zealand urbanism), on the role of the Wellington urban motorway and its opponents in shaping the design of the central city. The title of the talk was 'Four lanes to the planes: Yeah, right', flipping 2016 mayoral candidate Jo Coughlan's slogan.

Schrader is a strong advocate for urban heritage and people-centred design, as opposed to car-centric. But the history of the motorway blasting its way through Thorndon in the '60s & '70s and Te Aro in the 2000s until its comeuppance from the Save The Basin campaign in 2014 has me wondering if the current ceasefire of the motorway builders will endure. The next time there's a right-wing mayor and/or council and a National government, will they be trying again to concrete over the central city to allow more traffic through? Unless their transport thinking changes, probably.

All the discussion of CBAs (or BCRs, if you prefer) reminded me that the next time a congestion-driven motorway expansion is planned, Wellingtonians should look to San Francisco and other cities that have successfully removed highways to revitalise their inner cities. If you've visited the Embarcadero in San Francisco you'll know what was once a brutally ugly double-decker highway cordoning off the city from its waterfront is now a tourist Mecca teeming with social & economic life. So my question would be, what if we ripped up the Thorndon and Te Aro motorway and replaced it with, y'know, neighbourhoods for people to live in and shops for them to purchase things in? Stranger things have happened.

Civic Square, after the Schrader talk