We’re nearly at the end of another year. It’s been a quiet one for me on the blogging front for a few reasons: the nature of my work now makes it a bit trickier, my children are getting older and I tend to spend my evenings hanging out with them, and also it’s just been a bit of a nothing year transport-wise. I’ve put together a few lowlights and highlights from the year below.
Lowlights
- The Government continuing to deny climate change and basic logic, spending enormous sums of money that we don’t have on 1950s style motorway projects that our children will not thank us for.
- I could go on but for your sake I’ll leave the lowlights at that…
Highlights
- The general vibe of the city has been extraordinarily positive, with article after article after article raving about how awesome Christchurch city is in 2025.
- Despite a slow-down in construction nationally and globally, the Christchurch contruction scene is still strong.
- Te Kaha (stadium) and Parakiore (pool) are looking good, with both scheduled to open within the next few months.
- People are increasingly choosing to get around the city on foot, bus and bicycle – more on the numbers next year.
- Possibly related – the number of people that were killed or seriously injured on Christchurch roads was quite low in 2025 – more on that in the new year as well.
- Christchurch upzoning has now become operative. People are now permitted to build higher density residential buildings throughout most of the inner part of the city and along some public transport corridors. This is good news in terms of housing availability and affordability in the most accessible locations.
- A few small transport wins: the Route 7 frequency uplift is an improvement, the Halswell Rd bus lanes are shaping up nicely, the upgrade of several streets surrounding Te Kaha and Parakiore are looking slick, and a few new pedestrian crossings have popped up around town which are nice.
- The emergence of some guerrilla artist who mysteriously installed a washing line in the middle of the footpath one night, then later installed these parody signs throughout the city. It gave me a good chuckle.
- Chris Bishop taking over from Simeon Brown as the Minister of Transport in January. Simeon made an absolute dogs breakfast of things in his short 18-month stint as minister, trying to drag the country back in time to the 1950s. It won’t be easy cleaning up Simeon’s mess, but Bishop seems to be rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in.
- Te Waihanga Infastructure Commission published their first draft of the National Infrastructure Plan. This is an independent assessment of the country’s infrastructure needs. It includes a lot of the transport projects that Simeon Brown refused to fund, which locally includes bus network improvements and mass rapid transit. It’s too late to make any difference to this government, but hopefully this influences the next government’s choice of projects.
- I got this secret santa jigsaw puzzle from my sport-loving Australian workmate.
So it’s not all bad in the world of transport planning. Overall though, 2025 felt like we stepped back in time to 1950. Here’s to a more modern 2026.
TALKING TRANSPORT 