Archive for the ‘Transport’ Category
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
Urbanized, a documentary about the design of cities looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers is being screened by Auckland Transport blog as a fundraiser. And cityhop is a big fan and supporter! Buy a ticket and you might even win a cityhop membership! Book now for 15 August 8 pm Capitol Cinemas, Dominion Road.
Says someone who has seen it, “this movie should be an absolute must see for anyone in local politics. The first comment from anyone in the audience after the premiere was: “I hope our god-damned mayor was here to see this” He should have been – together with his entire city council.”
Says another person, “What really took my breath away was how you can build a transportation system to address the needs of tens of thousands of cyclists or several hundred motorists and watching the mayor of Bogota Columbia explaining his priorities while giving an interview riding a bike in the heart of his city – amazing.”
“Another key element involved how small, close knit communities were destroyed at the dawn of the automotive era to make way for freeways between city cores and suburban sprawls where cars were necessary to travel the great distances between destinations largely because of the huge parking lots required at every place you wanted to go.”
To stay in touch with what the team are doing follow http://urbanizedfilm.com/
Tags: Auckland Transport blog, Cityhop, fewer roads, how to live without a car. cityhop, liveable cities, Urbanized
Posted in Drive less or car share, Environment, Transport | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
The Sustainable Business Network’s (SBN) inaugural Carbon4Good 100 Tonne Challenge has proved to be a resounding success. The 100 Tonne Challenge was designed to make it easy for businesses to get out and celebrate World Environment Day (June 5th) in a meaningful, tangible way. The aim of the event was for teams of SBN members to plant enough trees to eventually offset 100 tonnes of CO2. 667 trees are enough to reach the magic 100 tonne offsetting figure so Mark Roberts, SBN’s Carbon4Good Programme Manager, was delighted with final amount planted.
“We’re stoked that 4,800 trees were planted across four sites in Auckland and Wellington. Some great businesses got behind this initiative and really made it fly. A big round of applause to Fulton Hogan, Microsoft and Vodafone provided a combined 135 staff members the opportunity to get involved. And of course, projects like this wouldn’t be possible without the participation of planting sites so a big thank you to the Kaipatiki Project in Birkdale; Blockhouse Bay Intermediate; Nga Uruora Kapiti Project in Paekakariki; and lastly Trees for Survival” he says. We are also grateful for the help received from Honda, Toyota, Cityhop, and Paradigm Design.
Tags: carbon4good, carbon4good 100 tonne challenge, Cityhop, Mark Roberts, Sustainable Business Network
Posted in Environment, Sustainability, Transport | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
40,000 people drive to work, by themselves, each day, in Auckland leaving behind 1.2 million empty seats! Paul Minett of the Ridesharing Institute, a non for profit aimed at raising awareness of other ways of moving about a congested city, explains ridesharing and the difference it could make to Auckland roads in a press release today.
If a few of these people became a passenger one day in four, 100,000 cars would be taken off our roads. Maybe then we wouldn’t any more roads or bridges? There are other benefits from ridesharing too!
Why wouldn’t we look at some of these low cost options, like ridesharing and carsharing, before we increased GST, rates and other taxes?
Read more http://www.ridesharinginstitute.org/sites/default/files/Ridesharing%20Institute%20News%20Release%202012%2002%2015%20final.pdf
Tags: Auckland Harbour Bridge, Paul Minett, ride sharing, Ridesharing Institute
Posted in Drive less or car share, Sustainability, Transport | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Go Get, Australia’s largest carshare company had a neat story in their latest newsletter.
The City of Sydney is helping to make carsharing even more convenient, by adding bicycle parking rings to some of the sign poles next to carshare pods.
So if you need to cycle to a car that might be a little far to walk – say you want a car to shoot out shopping- you can lock up your bike while you drive out there.
You can then drop your new flatpacks, rugs, scented candles, and ergonomic pillows at home, and then return the car back to its pod, before cycling back home!
We’ve sent the idea to Auckland Council, so hopefully the new onstreet car park signs might have a bike ring! Did you see the brightly painted carshare space! COOL
Tags: Auckland Council, bikes, bikeshare, biking, car share, cars by the hour., Cityhop, Go Get, how to live without a car. cityhop, Sydney City Council
Posted in Drive less or car share, Transport | Comments Off
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
Auckland has fewer cars driving over the Harbour Bridge and this is put down to higher fuel costs and better public transport.
A recent report shows almost 900 fewer cars a week travelled over the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 2011 compared with 2010.
NZTA figures show 1,684,601 cars crossed the bridge in the year to December, 44,545 fewer than in 2010.
Figures provided by New Zealand-owned petrol retailer Gull from local authority levies on petrol sales in the Auckland region showed 19 million fewer litres of petrol were sold in the year to June 2011 - a two per cent drop on the previous year.
And Auckland Transport Authority figures show there were 68,590,762 passenger trips on buses, trains and ferries for the 12 months to October 2011 – an increase of 6,033,457 or a 9.6 per cent rise for the year.
“That’s good news for those who want to make the city more liveable,” says Victoria Carter, co-founder of Cityhop carshare, fewer cars mean less emissions, cleaner air and waterways, and most importantly safer streets for those who walk or bike.
“All the cities in the world that are becoming more liveable are reclaiming their streets and saying the streets have to have fewer cars on them.”
Carsharing makes it much easier for people to deliberately choose not to own a car. Now that Auckland Transport has put cars on street in parts of the city with more to come it really is viable for people to sell their car and use car share when they need wheels.”
Tags: Auckland Council, Auckland Transport, car share, Cityhop, how to live without a car. cityhop, liveable cities, liveable city, Victoria Carter
Posted in Drive less or car share, Environment, Transport | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Cityhop has a number of business partners who provide car parks to it. We and our members can’t thank them enough for recognising carshare works! And we thought more people should know about their forward thinking.
Many of the people who have donated a car park to us also use car share. So who are these thoughtful organisations? Maybe you might like to see if your company is interested in having its own carshare car on site? We are always looking for new locations. Give us a call on 374 5081
First up, Isthmus whose car park is in Sale St. Gavin Lister, a director of Isthmus decided to give up his own private park for car share so he and his team as well as members of the public can carshare instead of owning their own car. Isthmus is a New Zealand-based design practice with an international profile in executing award-winning landscape architecture, urban design and landscape planning.
Massey University was next. Their SHORE and Whariki units which are based at Massey University House at 90 Symonds St house a team of twenty to thirty social science researchers who use car share to move about. We think this university shows that they really are at the leading edge of learning and new ways of doing things!
Wilson Parking have provided our Garret St car park and soon this will be another Wellington location nearby. This is an important park for Cityhop because this and the previous Customs Street car park are open air and very visible. One of the challenges for carshare in New Zealand is that we are usually in car parks. People who use buses trains or walk don’t see us and don’t know there is an alternative to car ownership. So being on-street or in an open air car park and sitting practically on the pavement is important visibility for us. Thank you Wilson Parking.
Last month, Cooper & Co who are responsible for the new attractive developments at Britomart and the rejuvenation of the Britomart area have got behind car share with a car park in their new car park.
And of course, Auckland Transport has recently given cityhop 10 onstreet car park spaces.
Thank you supporters.
Tags: Auckland Transport, Britomart, car share, car share Auckland, cars by the hour., carshare, Cityhop, Cooper & Co;, Isthmus, Massey University, Shore & Whariki, Victoria Carter
Posted in Drive less or car share, Transport, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
Thanks to Auckland Council and Auckland Transport, Cityhop today unveiled three onstreet car park spaces so Auckland City residents can now see how easy it is to live without a car. If you live near Hobson St, College Hill or Williamson Ave in Ponsonby, living without a car just got a whole lot easier. Says Victoria Carter, Co-founder, “we are thrilled to have a partnership with Auckland Transport, we have always believed we are part of a successful public transport mix with trains, buses, ferries, walking and biking. The reality is sometimes you need a car!”
Yes, for just $15 an hour including the FUEL, you can have access to smart eco-friendly wheels. See one of these links below and find out more about why, how and what is car share!
There has been quite a bit of press as a result!
NZ Herald thanks to Mathew Dearnaley
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10771168
Kiwi FM with Glenn Williams, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9GYKeOMjMM&list=UUgbm5in2RkVoXR4GsMSZ81A&feature=plcp&context=C242c2FDOEgsToPDskJk-fepgRc37z4zIkoXujc9
TV 3 http://www.3news.co.nz/New-car-sharing-scheme-hits-the-streets/tabid/423/articleID/235653/Default.aspx#top
Morning Report interviewed Sharon Hunter from Auckland Transport.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2504261/auckland-transport-launches-trial-to-encourage-car-sharing.asx
More to come!
Tags: Auckland car share, car share, cars by the hour., Cityhop, how to live without a car. cityhop, Victoria Carter
Posted in Drive less or car share, Sustainability, Transport | Comments Off
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Here is an amazing clip from CBS on what rushhour looks like in the Netherlands. I only saw one car!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-20074094-10391705.html
Tags: bikes, biking, car share, carbon footprints, drive less, eco-friendly transport, how to live without a car. cityhop, public transport
Posted in Drive less or car share, Transport | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
New York Times has an interesting article on how urban policy in some European cities is to irk drivers!
European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.
One strategy is intentionally making it harder and more costly to park.
It’s been calculated that a person using a car takes up 115 cubic meters (roughly 4,000 cubic feet) of urban space in Zurich while a pedestrian took three. So on the basis that it’s not really fair to everyone else if you take the car it is getting harder and harder to park.
In Copenhagen, at the European Environment Agency, the office building ha more than 150 spaces for bicycles and only one for a car, to accommodate a disabled person.
Carless households have increased from 40 to 45 percent in the last decade, and car owners use their vehicles less.
It does help to have very good public transportation!
Tags: car sharing, cars by the hour., Cityhop, drive less, eco-friendly, environmentally friendly, sustainable practices
Posted in Drive less or car share, Transport | Comments Off
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Think about the time cost benefit of your car suggests Victoria Carter, Cityhop’s co-founder.
Apparently the world’s more than 850 million cars and small trucks are parked for between 20 to 22 hours a day. The average American spends 18% of their income running a car that’s parked stationary 95% of time.
When she tweeted this staggering fact, a cityhoppa commented that the figure is probably worse for kiwis, ie they probably use their cars even less than this.
Interesting, how we apply time and cost studies to business but rarely ourselves. And if we were to truly look at our patterns of use with our car versus the actual cost we might seriously want to change how we move about.
For more on this read carshare guru Robin Chase, Lend your car and save the world!
Tags: car share, carshare, carsharing, Cityhop, how to live without a car. cityhop, Jayride, ridesharing, Victoria Carter
Posted in Drive less or car share, Transport | Comments Off
