“Transport advocate @connorsharp.bsky.social compiled a decade's worth of business case work [in] an attempt to revive the idea of a cheaper form of surface light rail through the Auckland isthmus.” Fair to say, if not for Connor’s efforts, this crucial route likely *wouldn’t even be on the list* 🤯

Legend @connorsharp.bsky.social keeping the OG light rail project alive. www.1news.co.nz/2026/02/28/l...

Unaffiliated individual strikes again: www.1news.co.nz/2026/02/28/l...

Re-sharing this today about Simeon Brown, road safety, and the media, for absolutely no reason: www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2024/07/17/a...

Dawn blessing / opening of the new traffic filtered streets around the new train station. ✨✨

Remember when NZTA, seemingly in fear of Simeon Brown (even though he was no longer Minister of Transport), removed median barriers from a project mid construction. Median barriers they had defended the need for twice in court because of safety benefits. www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/06/30/n...

Voyager 1 is currently more than 24 billion kilometres from Earth and getting 17km farther every second and hilariously it is not as out of touch with New Zealand as our Prime Minister

A recent op-ed for The Post by @connorsharp.bsky.social on the additional Waitematā Harbour crossing, asks: - how is a $20bn option even being seriously entertained? - why is the planning so shrouded in secrecy? - why no progress despite decades of work under many govts? - and who’s accountable?

I found a beehive! 🐝

In our free ‘Hoon’ around the week’s news, Peter Bale, myself, Robert Patman & Cathrine Dyer cover Michael Stiassny’s blast on climate non-policy + Trump’s coercive diplomacy with Iran. Then @seaqub.bsky.social & Scott Caldwell on a U-Turn on housing policy in Auckland & InfraComm's plan. #nzpol

What should I do in Wellington today

Pet peeves for today: Ministers claiming a number they plucked out of the air is not arbitrary while a number based on laws and National Policy Statements they passed is arbitrary; also menu items that claim to be sandwiches but when served are actually burgers.

Who wants more traffic on Queen St? (Almost) nobody! "Let’s be clear: this isn’t about urbanists and advocates vs. hard-nosed business people. Look at how buildings are being marketed in Midtown. The key selling points: access to public transport, and walkability (which equals high foot-traffic)."

Today: Part 2 of our coverage of the weird "trial" that will pour cars back into Queen St overnight. @connorsharp.bsky.social asks who, exactly, got in Auckland Transport's ear and persuaded them to pull a U-ey on the popular vision for our Golden Mile ↩️ 🤨 www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/02/19/m...

A few questions in parliament bringing up City Centre to Māngere light rail (well the scrapped metro version). Interested to know if central govt politicians can stop quibbling, and actually restart progress on a solution given CC2M is in the National Infrastructure Plan.

Auckland Harbour Crossing back in the news today due to the Infrastructure Commissions comments, thought I might share my op-ed from last week: www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

Not to say "we told you so"... but we did, indeed, tell you so: www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/10/21/r... www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/10/29/m... It's clearly time for urgent and robust discussions about value, access, climate, well-being, transport choice & more. We are extremely here for it.

NEW: The Infra Commission just released its official plan, and it's a massive challenge to the Govt and NZ to: - Trim transport spending - Double spending on renewal/maintenance - Spend twice as much on hospitals

Oh hey look, its me, 'unaffiliated individual', with my proposal for City Centre to Māngere Rapid Transit in the National Infrastructure Plan!

It's happening again! At the behest of a tiny few, Auckland Transport has hatched a plan to pour cars back into Queen St. For a 2-year "trial". Starting in March. Yep, BEFORE the CRL stations open and transform the city centre. @connorsharp.bsky.social has the scoop on what, why – and how to help.

Govt: Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell says the country is in a "perpetual cycle of response and recovery", with 25 local states of emergency declared in the past two years. Also Govt: Here’s a list of unfundable fantasy roading projects that we will waste 3 years on

If we can’t afford to have the expertise in our councils to operate critical infrastructure, how can we pay someone else to do it? www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

My latest op-ed on behalf of @greaterauckland.bsky.social in The Post. Big questions on the process for the next Harbour Crossing. Why is so much hidden from the public? What progress is even being made? Why is it like this and is there a better way? Read here: www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

Im so fucking angry at this complete waste of money Literally setting on fire millions of dollars to then burn our planet more 🙃🙃🙃

Fast track panel declines Taranaki seabed mining over risk to marine life

Aucklander here- that thing is ugly and useless, what y’all doing down there? And why haven’t delivered the golden mile yet? Welly used to be our urban trailblazer, not anymore, clearly.

Ah, my Listener column about the government's feckless attitude to climate change is now online. www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener...

It's $36m a year, for goodness sake. The cost to taxpayers in 2023-24 from storm damage *in Tairāwhiti alone* was nearly half a billion. Yet the same govt throws tens of billions at mega-roads because they're very important for the economy. www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

Wayne Brown wearing his rates cap while talking about 'opposition to the central government re-election policy' aka the rates capping policy

This is 100% true when it comes to a lot of things related to infrastructure and transport in NZ (but not all, there are some great staff who deal with OIAs, but soooo much information is withheld or poorly documented) www.nzherald.co.nz/business/off...

💯 It does my head in that climate action isn’t reported as the kind of good news people increasingly yearn to hear. And/or if it *is*, the headlines are like: “Controversial* move** to cost $$***” Meanwhile in the fine print: * widely supported ** robustly evidenced ***way less than NOT doing it

Huge fan of @greaterauckland.bsky.social. It’s always a pleasure to share stuff on their site ❤️

Reason number 10,569 why I catch the bus and why I dig Auckland.

I’m sure this will be entirely positive and not at all bad for climate change while the nation grieves after a climate disaster

Some excited residents gathering along with local board members led by chair Alex Bonham and councillor Richard Hills at Waitematā plaza station reopening. 😍🏙️🙏🎉

Today's post: @nzdodo.bsky.social on getting beyond splashy headlines, so we can channel our attention and ingenuity towards the real story – and meaningful action: www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/01/28/s...

spent the day in minneapolis to report on the huge strike & march for webworm. what an amazing fucking attitude this city has in the face of ICE scum (also: my glasses got foggy and then the fog froze): www.webworm.co/quietcourage/

Working on it!

Auckland at a crossroads...literally. Great North Road, the site of Auckland's most talked-about street redesign, finally has....A CYCLEWAY!!! 🚲 🚴‍♀️ 🧵 @bikeauckland.bsky.social

The flooding in Te Tai Tokerau is a climate change charged weather event. The Government will try to tell you that floods like these shouldn't be politicised. But the thing is, this is political.

Soooo many people cycling in Arrowtown and Queenstown compared to a few years ago!

Great read from @kaseymcdonnell.co.nz @threesixtysix.news on the history of Wellington's tram network: threesixtysix.news/the-tr/

Oh snap.

would honestly prefer it if the anti-upzoning people would just come out and say the sight of a townhouse makes them sick rather than gabbling on nonsensically about the lack of infrastructure in the most infrastructure-dense parts of the city thespinoff.co.nz/politics/19-...

"It's very confusing that this is going on without letting Aucklanders know" says @scootfoundation.bsky.social. "You'd have thought that a government would want to be strongly signalling [re] cost-of-living going into an election—but it seems like they're signalling the opposite with this change."

I missed this part, Auckland Council data was not included because the planned rates rises were TOO LOW and might skew the National Average (the data also didn't include like, 50 other local authorities), so its probably way less than a can of baked beans or whatever

This is really the damning part of this Newsroom story about the rates cap gimmick. They had their performative policy and weren't very interested in being told whether it made sense or not. newsroom.co.nz/2026/01/15/r...

Today's post: "We can have nice things"! 😃 The irrepressible @connorsharp.bsky.social takes an optimistic look at what's been going well for Auckland – and what's coming up in 2026. (This piece ran as an op-ed in @thepost-nz.bsky.social before Christmas) www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/01/14/w...

Great to see @businessdesknz.bsky.social following up today on our OIA about the assumptions behind the current govt’s road-building fantasies. As we wrote just before Christmas, “more RONS” would come at enormous cost. New Zealanders deserve transparency. www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/12/17/w...

Our summertime stories continue, with a happy roundup of recent news about the bike boom across Aotearoa. 🚲🌞😎 Note: it's a biggie! So much great stuff kept rolling in (including just this morning) that we finally had to pump the brakes and hit "publish" 😅 www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2026/01/12/s...