Press Release: Auckland Transport Agency - Thumbs Up

Chris Darby
North Shore City Councillor
Regional Transport Committee member

25 August 2009

Auckland Transport Agency – Thumbs Up

“The Minister’s move to establish an integrated transport delivery agency recognises the inter-dependency of public transport, freight delivery, private car travel, walking and cycling and neighbourhood accesssibility planning,” says North Shore City Councillor Chris Darby.

“A new entity charged with responding to a strategic direction given by the Auckland Council, but at arms length from political interfernce, is what Auckland needs. Political pet projects muddying transport delivery should be a thing of the past,” he says.

“As long as legislation binds the new entity into undertaking meaningful engagement with local boards and their communitites, it is a vast improvement to the fragmented decision-making we currently endure. Extending jurisdiction to local roads elevates the imporatance of creating walkable neighbourhoods and designing streetscapes for people rather than just roads for cars,” says the Regional Transport Committee member.

“When it takes five years and $90,000 for a community board to put in a bus stop as we’ve witnessed in Browns Bay, you get to see why an integrated agency needs to take control. Steven Joyce’s move gets the thumbs up from me,” says the Shore councillor.

ENDS

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