Christchurch is a city that polarises people. As a youth shifting here to attend university, I was mocked by my peers for going somewhere they all saw as “flat and boring”, while they were all off to dive headfirst into the legendary North Dunedin ghettoes. Nearly 15 years later and I’m still here – I’ve grown to love this city, as has everyone else I know here.
One thing I don’t love about it is how transport works. Transport is a key part of all of our lives. But through a combination of apathy and ignorance, transport decisions keep getting made that don’t actually help us. We’re repeatedly missing out on opportunities to make things better, both for ourselves and the next generations.
This blog is an attempt to address this collective apathy and ignorance. I want to get regular people talking about transport, hopefully in a constructive, evidence-based way.
I’m going to be regularly posting on how transport in Christchurch works, describing what projects are being planned and built, asking questions about what people think we should be doing differently, and proposing ideas of my own.
A little bit about me – I’m not employed by Council or Government, but I do have a bit of knowledge about how these places operate. I have worked as a transportation engineer for the last 10 years for a range of different consultancies. Most of my time I’ve been based in Christchurch, with short stints in Wellington and Brisbane. My goal is to stay as impartial and independent as I can – everything I write is my own personal views and has nothing to do with my employer. I’m writing primarily as a resident and parent who wants to leave my kids the best possible city I can.
If any of this resonates with you, it would be great to have you along for the ride. Contributions would be welcomed too – the more variety of views we can get on here the better, whether that’s comments, articles, ideas… Get in touch through a comment or the contact page if you have any desire at all to contribute anything.
So that’s my introduction – first official post coming soon!
TALKING TRANSPORT 